“But will he?” It was a little troubling. Because the fact was, I did like Barrett. Very much. And I missed him a lot. Sometimes all I wanted in the world was to sit and talk and . . . I don’t know, kiss a little (okay, a lot).

But I couldn’t stop myself from thinking that the time wasn’t right yet. There were still too many things I had to figure out.

It was one thing to be best friends with Agatha—that had fallen into place as if we’d been made for each other. But taking things to the next level with Barrett? No matter how much I wanted to spend time with him, it was . . . complicated.

“He will wait,” she said firmly. “He told me specifically to tell you to take your time.”

I flopped back on my pillow and hugged Blue Bunny. How much time would it take? How long until I walked through the day feeling like a halfway normal person again, and not That Orphan Who Almost Got Murdered by That Homicidal Rich Lady?

“I don’t know,” I said to the ceiling. “There’s a lot to figure out. And it’s so hard.”

“You don’t have to figure it out right now,” she said, lying next to me so that our shoulders touched. Her voice was wistful, sad. “We don’t have to figure anything out.”

She intertwined our fingers so we were holding hands. We did this a lot. Sometimes I felt more like we were sisters than just friends. I felt like something connected us under our skin, inside our brains.

Like maybe Laura’s cruelty had taught us how to see the parts of ourselves—and of each other—that no one else could see. And we might always be hurting, we might always be damaged, but we were more than that, too. We were the parts of us who had saved ourselves. Who’d had enough. Who’d chosen to live.

I knew it was as hard for Agatha as it was for me. I knew she had nightmares, too.

But when I woke up in a panic, she was there to remind me I was safe. And I did the same for her.

Agatha took a deep, searching breath. Her hand squeezed mine, and I could tell we had come to that quiet part of the day when the hurt was closest to the surface. But we had each other. We weren’t alone.

And that made all the difference.

“Aren’t we lucky, Margot?” she asked quietly. “Do you ever think about it—how lucky we are?”

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