Her voice breaks. It’s been horrible since Nic died. Bella’s been pestered by journalists and surrounded at school by people pretending to be all sympathetic but really just desperate for the gory details. She spent days shut away in her room after they found Nic’s body, refusing to go out with Caitlin, even avoiding Jack and Sean and Max and Lena.

“I’m sorry,” I say, going over and squeezing her hand. “You’ve had such a crap time. And Jack is a total…shit.”

She gives me a wobbly smile. “At least I’ve still got you, though, baby sis.”

“Always.”

She sighs. “I know you didn’t like her. I don’t blame you—she was a total cow to you. But she was my friend and I can’t get past how she died. I can’t…I knew she was seeing someone and I knew she was using me as an alibi when she met him. I thought it was Jack and it pissed me off because I liked him as well. So I can’t get past the knowledge that while she was being murdered, while she was lying dead in the woods, I was sulking. I was jealous because she was seeing the boy I liked.”

“Come on, big sis, you and Nic were arguing all the time. And you always liked the same boys. She didn’t tell you she was pretending she was with you when she went missing, did she? You couldn’t have done anything to prevent what happened.”

“Doesn’t stop me from thinking it, though. And I miss her. I keep catching myself going to text her to rant about the whole Julia and Dad thing, and then I remember.”

I chew on my lip. I should have tried harder to get Bella to talk to me about all of this, but she shut herself away and refused to open her door when I knocked. She never comes down to eat the dinners Julia cooks, she’s cold with Dad, downright rude to Julia, and snappy with me. But I should have tried harder. Maybe it would have been easier if Julia weren’t here, if it was just me and Bella and Dad.

“I wish…” My voice trails off.

“You wish what?”

“I wish Julia hadn’t come here,” I say, giving up on my essay. I shove my books back in my bag and lie back on the bed. “We were fine before, weren’t we? The three of us? I wish they’d never moved into the bloody village.” I feel a twinge of guilt as I say it. Julia’s impossible to hate, she’s so bloody sunny all the time. And her being here has made Dad really happy. But…