“Fine, it’s like I got to listen in through the phone and hear everything they ever said about me and it hurts as much as anything because I didn’t even get to see things start to fall apart before it happened. With my parents, my foster dads, the Wards team, the summer camp, the other Wards team, the school group, the girl I’d talk to before and after class in math, my old teams online, my music teacher, my parents the second time, Houndstooth, and even Ashley, there was warning.”

Hearing Ashley’s name come up as part of that was a gut punch. I wanted to say something but the heaviness of that gut punch made it hard, and Kenzie was on a roll of sorts.

“I loved them with everything I had and at least I got to see where things were going and pull back maybe five or ten percent of that everything. With Chris and with Chicken and Syndicate and Decadent, I didn’t get the warning.”

“They said a lot of those things when you weren’t there and then when you were there, they thoroughly enjoyed your company. I don’t think it paints a good picture, Kenz. We hear and register the bad more than we hear and register the good.”

“Chris said I don’t, though. Chris said I could meet Hitler and get along with him because he loved dogs, and I’d chatter at him about dogs and wave at him through the window while he turned on the gas. Chris said I don’t see the bad enough, so maybe it’s the opposite and I didn’t even pay enough attention.”

“Or it could be that you’re growing up, Kenzie,” Tristan said. “You’re meeting people like the Heartbroken, your tastes are maturing, you’re getting a questionable education—”

“Standard education, I think,” Kenzie said. “Just… very all at once.”

“Maybe. You’re dealing with loyalty-inducing Goddesses and mind controllers, bad guys and crazy clusters, you’re dealing with a lot, and maybe you’re getting a better understanding of good and bad.”

“I think the you we first met might have gotten along with Hitler, Kenzie,” Sveta said. “But the you of today is less innocent and wouldn’t. The you of today called out Chris. And that’s a little bit sad and a huge relief at the same time.”

Kenzie shrugged.

“What would Ashley say in this moment?” I asked.

The smile that touched Kenzie’s face for a moment could have been the fleeting happiness of her thinking of her friend, the smile falling away when she remembered. Instead, it suggested the opposite, like I’d stuck her with something sharp, and the pain was fleeting.

Odd, because I could feel like it was the worst of both.