Was it after I died? Or was it before? What is it that’s waking you up every night? What do you need to remember?

THEN

Chapter 36

Chapter 36

August 2008

It’s four days before the wedding and we’re trying on the bridesmaid’s dresses. I no longer have dirt under my nails. Bella is trying to do up the zipper on my dress. I’ve been sneaking downstairs at night and eating, unable to sleep until Bella gets in from wherever she’s been sneaking off to. She’s struggling to pull the zipper and I’m hot from humiliation, a scenario playing in my mind of having to go downstairs and tell Dad and Julia that I no longer fit into the dress.

There’s a tug and a whoop and the zipper is pulled up. It’s so tight I can barely breathe but it’s on.

“You look gorgeous,” Bella says as she steps next to me, but I turn away from the mirror. Her dress, two sizes smaller than mine, is loose around her waist. I frown. Julia already had to have it taken in on the last fitting and now it’s too big on her again. But the mint green goes beautifully with her blond hair and, even too skinny and pale, she looks like a princess. The jealousy is like hot needles pricking my skin. All I can imagine is Max, Sean, Jack—all of them—watching Bella walk up the aisle behind Julia. Then I picture them looking from her to me. My wicked imagination even puts Greg in the picture, watching from the entrance of the hall.

I want to take off the dress and take off my sixteen-year-old skin, peel off all the misery and aching want.

Bella’s face grows somber. Does she feel it too? Despite her beauty and the fact that everyone wants her, does she feel any of that misery? Of course she does.

“Tess, did Dad say anything to you about—?”

A car door slams and Bella spins around, her lace skirts swirling, her question forgotten, a smile growing on her face that chases away the sadness that was there only a few seconds before. “They’re here.”