He repeated the process with my other eyelid. When he finished, his arms gathered me up and brought me against him as he pressed his lips to my forehead. “There, now you look like my Serena again.”

I looked into his eyes, tears filling behind my lids. My teeth sank into my bottom lip to keep it from shaking. How could he know who his Serena really was, when I didn’t even know her?

“Hey, hey,” he said, wiping the tears away just as he’d done with my eye makeup. “No tears. Not about me.”

He pulled me against him, bringing his lips to mine in a way that wrapped me with everything warm in the world. I’d hoped his fingers could replace Kori’s, that his tongue would fill the void inside of me. That for five-point-five seconds I could forget. Forget that Kori was gone. Forget that my mom was never around and my father had never existed. Forget that I was lusting a little bit for my dead best friend’s secret boyfriend. Forget about Kori’s list and all the things I couldn’t do for her.

It didn’t make me forget anything.

I found Marci in the new bathroom next to Dick Click’s classroom. Her white tennis shoes jerked up to the toilet seat just as I came through the door.

“It’s just me.”

She sniffed. “Serena?”

“Yeah.”

Her feet dropped back down and she opened the door. Her eyes looked swollen and pink around the rims. “You’re not going to light up in here, are you? It’s bad for the baby.”

“Naw. I’ll be all right,” I said, even though I was having a total nic-fit. “You know, not eating is bad for the baby too.”

She nodded, leaned her weight against the wall. Sniffed again. “I eat at home.”

“Here, I brought this for you.” I fished out the blueberry muffin. “Sorry, it’s a little squished.”

“Oh, you’re amazing!” She ripped the cellophane off and bit into it. A few minutes later, between mouthfuls, she said, “I’m going to tell them. Soon. I told my parents.”

“Yeah? How’d that go?”

“Pretty good. Actually, your mom helped me out with that.”

“Really? You talked with her?” She must’ve called Colorado Cares during the non-husband-stealin’ hours. “She didn’t suggest you tell them it was fate, did she?”

“No, she just said to be straight with them and they’ll listen.”

I nodded, but since my mother wasn’t bothering to listen to me, I wasn’t so sure she should be advising people about it.

“I have a feeling telling Chelsea and the squad will be a little more complicated than that.”