“It’s fitting for it to be raining,” Brooke said.

She sat on the sofa drowning in an enormous black sweater left behind by her older brother Mark when he went out of state to college. Her hair still fell in sleek curls, and her knees were neatly tucked under the sweater so only her calves and matching socks poked out. Her eyes were puffy from crying half the night, but she’d still found the energy to remove her makeup and apply a full skincare routine before going to bed and upon waking up. Brooke mourned like an Instagram model.

The weather had taken a note from her book, but it’d missed the part where it was supposed to be miserable, but in an aesthetic sort of way. Instead, it just went from zero to a hundred, the wind tossing rain-drenched leaves against the window in a howl, rain slamming against the parched ground and overflowing from drains that weren’t designed for this weather, and plummeting the thermometer down far lower than any self-respecting California day should ever be, even in February.

“I’d say you have climate change to thank for it,” I said, working a comb through my matted waves.

Brooke cuddled herself into an even tighter ball. “It’s convenient.”

“Well that’s the first nice thing I’ve ever heard said about climate change.”

“Yes, well, everyone deserves to hear something positive about themselves every now and then. Even climate change.”

“And now you’re talking nonsense.”

She shrugged one shoulder. “Whatever, who even cares?”

I dropped my comb and crawled onto my knees to sit in front of her. I gently poked her calf with one finger. “You okay there, bud?”

She let out a breath in a gush of air. “It’s not that she sabotaged me. I mean, it is, but it’s not just that. I deserved to be council leader. I earned it. And she kept what she did from me. What does that say about her?”

We’d been back and forth over this all night, starting the moment Brooke’s mom said good night (we’d stayed relatively silent as she drove us home: Brooke didn’t want her to know all the details just yet). Hashing and rehashing and badmouthing Ray and rationalizing her behavior and deciding that no, it was definitely unforgivable. There was nothing I could say that hadn’t already been said. And with every rehash, my stomach twisted more and more.

I hoped my cheeks weren’t as red as they felt.

Ray wanted to tell Brooke, I reminded myself. A fact I’d conveniently forgotten in the heat of things last night.

Right, but would she have set things straight at school? I thought back. The letter said nothing about that.

Well, anyway. It was done now, either way. Even though I hadn’t really expected Brooke to break up with Ray over it. Or … had I hoped?