She stops the car, pulling up the parking brake, and I look out the window to an urgent care center on the other side of the parking lot. Light spills from the wall of windows onto the snowy cement; a handful of people sit huddled in chairs inside.

“Come on,” she says, opening her door.

“No. Pass me my bag.” I nod at my backpack she threw in the back seat. Slowly Amy pulls it out and dumps it in my lap. I thread my good arm through the straps. “I’m going in alone. Please don’t follow me.”

“Hollywood,” she says, like she’s tired, weary of my bad attitude. Like I haven’t spent this whole time trying to get her to listen to me. For once.

“You don’t get to call me that anymore,” I say, rage shaking my voice. “You don’t get to pretend to care about me or this expensive hand of mine. You gave up on us. You didn’t listen, when the only thing I asked you to do,” I hiss. “Was fucking listen. So hear this: Don’t follow me into that building. Don’t talk to me at work unless it’s about work. And don’t. Do not. Ever. Again. Make a decision for me.”

I push open the door and start to climb out.

“Hollyw—Sophie,” she stops herself.

I look over my shoulder.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. You get what you wanted, Amy. I’m going to take the job.”

I slam the door shut and walk. The cold keeps my wits about me; the blood seems to have slowed to a leak. I don’t look back, not when I hear a car door open and close again. Not when the engine starts and certainly not when it drives away.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Amy

She shows up the next day. And the next. She’s almost useless with her stitches and her hand wrapped in a huge bandage. But she shows up and tells everyone what to do. She ignores me unless she has to speak to me, and then she says as few words as possible.

Every time I look at her, all I can see is the hurt in her eyes when she said I gave up. How much it hurt to hear, because it was true. I gave up on her and this restaurant when I told her to leave, after I’d promised I’d fight.

There was no doggie bag of food waiting for me on the counter when I left after service tonight and I punished myself with a stop at a fast-food drive-through instead. The smell of the deep-fried saturated fats permeates the fibers of my car upholstery but I sit and eat it anyway, looking at Mom’s house and waiting for tears. But they don’t come. I’m a well, run dry. Instead I’m filled with fire. The angry kind. The kind that needs to be let out in a good old-fashioned yelling match.

Throwing my leftover fries back into the greasy bag, I start my car and drive across town. I haven’t been to my father’s house since I was a teenager. I expected it to look different, or to at least feel different, as I approach the front door. But it doesn’t, and I don’t feel different, either. I’ll always be the scared kid I was when we last stayed over here, before Wes and I decided together that we wouldn’t go back. Mom never made us choose, she would never. But it didn’t feel right when she was sick and heartbroken to give our time to someone who seemed so indifferent.