Olivia looked up at me, her eyes huge and imploring, bright even in the dark. ‘You seriously don’t get it. You don’t get that I would do anything for you. And I ask you to do one thing for me and you, you just can’t, and I get that you love her or whatever and she helps you and makes you feel something and OK, that’s fine, but it’s this one thing. One thing. I need you to say sorry, June, but my best friend of, like, eleven years, needs me for literally three hours of my existence –’

‘June needs me too,’ I said.

Olivia shook her head. ‘She doesn’t.’

‘How would you know? You don’t know anything about her.’

‘Neither do you.’

My cheeks went red hot, but I wasn’t embarrassed; I was angry. ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘June’s on another level. It’s obvious. And –’ she rolled her eyes – ‘you’ve been riding your bike again. She dumped you.’

‘That’s not what happened –’

‘Holy crap. You’re totally delusional! About everything! You are actually delusional about everything.’

‘Are you done?’

‘I get it. I get that you went through something awful and you’re still really struggling – like, obviously, you’re still really struggling. But you’re still going around like – like someone killed him. You still think that.’

My stomach dropped. ‘What?’

Olivia took a step towards me. ‘No one killed your dad. It was an accident, Sydney. It was an accident. People die in car accidents all the freaking time. It’s, like, in the top ten leading causes of death. I know at the beginning, I was maybe, like, not telling you that up front, or maybe I was playing along, but now I realize that was probably the worst thing I could have done because maybe I was enabling you, or something …’

The corners of my vision went black and splotchy. ‘So you were just making fun of me, right? From the beginning.’

‘God, I wasn’t making fun of you, but –’

‘But you saw everything. The messages, you – you threw the book in the fire. You know someone broke in. I told you everything.’

‘Yeah, all right, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but you’re not exactly the most liked individual in the junior class. It’s just some persistent asshole messing with you. And I can see how you would think this is all some huge conspiracy against you, because, let’s face it, you’re not thinking straight –’

‘But you were telling people about the messages. Heath –’

‘I didn’t tell anyone.’

‘You’re lying.’

‘Great. OK. Call me a liar. Perfect.’