But I want him to be. I want someone to be responsible. Because…because I stopped listening to her. I didn’t know any of this was going on because we stopped talking. When I close my eyes, Bella is in front of me and she’s crying, standing there in her tank top, jeans half-undone, barefoot. She tried to talk to me and I didn’t listen. She was going into the woods alone or not alone. She was walking to Dean House and visiting Greg, who I thought was my friend, and, instead of listening to my sister, instead of trying to get her to talk, I recoiled and pushed her away. This admission pulls all the rage out of me and I sag, so tired all of a sudden, tired enough to sink onto the bed that smells of Jack, tired enough to sleep. But I’m close. I sense it. Close to remembering.

My mind skitters away from the nagging memories in panic. I don’t need to remember this now. I need to confront Jack, I need to make him admit what he did, make it all his fault, none of mine for not listening. I could have talked to her about Greg and Dean House, but I never knew about Jack, so I couldn’t have helped her there, it can’t have been my fault if it was Jack’s.

“I thought it was him,” I whisper—confess. The first time I’ve spoken these thoughts out loud. Thoughts I’ve buried for ten years along with the argument we had about it. “I thought it was your father who hurt her and I knew about him, but I never said anything. She told me they were friends,” I say. “I reacted like a child, like we were five and she’d stolen my best friend. We argued about it.” My breath catches and I pause.

“I didn’t understand it. I didn’t understand her anymore. I was angry with her for messing everything up—she had it all. She was so bloody beautiful and popular and brilliant. She could have done everything. Then she dropped all her friends and started hanging out with Jack and you and Lena, who wanted nothing more than to get drunk or high, and she fucked up her exams. No one knows that. We got her test results after she died and she failed them all. She was never going to college, even if she’d lived. She was never going to be a teacher, or a photographer, or anything. I was so…so angry with her.” I take another trembling breath. “I didn’t know about Jack and the drugs. I didn’t know about Max.”

I open my mouth to say something else, but there’s a sound from Julia’s room and we both freeze. Sean pulls on his jeans and walks across the landing, me following.