Why can’t my mom see that the way she feels about my dad is the exact way I feel about her? You didn’t love me like I asked of you. Still I love you back. But it doesn’t seem to be enough. Nothing is ever enough.

Harrison was wrong. Those words in the tunnel weren’t about us. They were about Marley’s parents. My eyelids grew heavy with angry tears. I pushed the pages into the band of my shorts and stood, Marley’s journal like a weapon I brandished for show. Aidy had tainted my thoughts. I couldn’t help but filter every word of the journal through what Aidy had said. She made Marley seem sad to me. And hurt. Lost. Confused. Ignored.

I hated Aidy for that. So much. More than I could handle.

In my anger I stalked off, headed toward Arbor Street. Under my breath, I rehearsed different phrases. What happened with you and Marley? What did you do to her? Why couldn’t you love her like she asked? The incessant practicing made my tongue melt the words into unrecognizable blobs. I started running to chase off self-doubt. My speed built to a pace that required all of my focus. I ran until my words no longer had sound at all.

The blood that dripped onto my knuckles was still wet, leaving red stamps on the cream-colored lacquer of her front door. “Ms. DeVeau!” I called out. I pressed my ear to the wood to hear something. Anything. I imagined Ms. DeVeau manifesting in her living room, teleported from wherever she was by the sheer urgency with which I continued knocking.

“Karen!” I tried, testing out her first name. Willing myself to be the kind of person she had to answer. “Karen, it’s Olivia Stanton. I need to talk to you!”

“Olivia!” a voice called out from behind me.

Terror froze me in place. The sharpness in tone, coated in confidence, sprinkled with the faintest traces of affection. It was Teeny.

“Olivia, I know you can hear me!” she yelled. “Get over here! You’ve got people blowing up my phone asking me to look for you.”

I turned around.

“Didn’t I tell you she’d be over this way?” Teeny asked Bigs as she waved me down. She was in the passenger seat of their shared car, an impeccably maintained silver Honda Civic they’d been gifted with two years ago, right around their sixteenth birthday. I knew about it from Aidy. In fact, I got almost all of my Campbell twins information from her.

“Yes, I see you,” Teeny said. “You see me. Please come over here.” Teeny gasped as I got closer. “What did you do to your face?” I opened the back door. “Hold on a second.” She tossed a magazine into the back seat. “Rip this up and sit on it. You’re filthy.”