“The eyes,” Kurt said. “M’s stare is more intense.”

“True,” Jo-Jo conceded. “But I had another method. When Marisa is nervous, she curls her hair around her finger.”

I ran a hand over my short hair, then caught myself. Maybe nerves explained why I’d been craving a cigarette all night. But I’d tossed that nervous habit along with the booze.

Jo-Jo brushed a lock of hair back from her eyes. “When this rain lets up, we’ll sneak into the alley and have a smoke.”

“First the party,” Brit said.

I’d known Jo-Jo for more than seventeen years. There’d been a time when we’d been almost as close as I’d been to Clare. My sister and I had shared everything with Jo-Jo until we turned sixteen and learned she liked to gossip.

To Jo-Jo’s credit, she’d sensed I hadn’t told the full story of that New Year’s Eve night, but surprisingly she’d never outed me—even after the cops charged her parents with serving minors. After Clare, Jo-Jo’s family moved away, and I found myself on one side of a canyon and the rest of the world on the other. Without Clare and Jo-Jo, my partners in crime, I was lost. I should’ve embraced the real help Brit and Dad forced on me, but I didn’t feel like I deserved to be saved. The booze helped me worry less about being lonely.

And when I finally sobered up, I realized that I’d never really known any of my friends or family. They were all strangers to me now.

4 BRIT

4

BRIT

Friday, March 11, 2022

9:00 p.m.

The group gathered around the table chatted fairly easily, and the sky above had finally stopped dumping water. I’d been back and forth about having the party for days, worrying about the weather, the guests who were having trouble making time for the party, and of course Marisa. In the end, I’d asked David to attend as my backup (he’d agreed immediately—love him), strong-armed a guest or two, and decided we’d beat the weather. No Jack, but maybe that was for the best tonight.

All the trouble seemed to be worth it. Even Marisa was pretending to have a good time. She wasn’t, of course. She was never really happy, never really had been, but she’d been more subdued since the car accident.

I still had nightmares about the late-night call from the police, the rush to the emergency room, and the endless waiting for the surgeon to tell me whether my sole surviving family member would live.