“I thought that might happen. My path split a few times. I made guesses. I didn’t find anything.” She touched Marley’s journal poking out of my shorts. “You did, though. I knew you would.”

My disposition became a collapsible chair, folding inside itself. “It’s not really much,” I lied, having no way to back it up. I’d been so surprised by Teeny and Bigs—so caught up in trying to confront Ms. DeVeau—that I’d forgotten to hide the journal. Everyone would expect to have a chance to read it. Ruby would know that I’d lied to her. The failures to come made me so weak my knees buckled.

Ruby placed her hands on my shoulders to steady me. “Come on. Emery has a first aid kit at her stand. We need to clean you up.” She said her name as if we spoke it often. As if life post-Marley had always been Ruby, Ollie, and Emery, yet another group of -ee girls, arms interwoven, skipping through Cadence Park.

I took a step back, leaving Ruby’s arms reaching for nothing. “What about Aidy and Nick?” I asked. “What about Harrison? It’s them we should we worried about.”

Ruby pulled her hands in and buried them under her backpack straps. “Aidy called me from Nick’s phone before you got here. She thinks they found what Marley was talking about in Harrison’s letter. They’re bringing it back with them.”

No. No. No.

“Aidy has your number memorized?” I asked.

“Of course,” she said with a breeziness that tried to blow the follow-up questions away. Of course she does, Olivia. You never know when she’ll have to call me, wherever she is, with whatever phone is closest. You Stanton girls never seem to have your cell phones on you.

“Harrison’s down there all alone. We both fell. He might be more hurt than I am,” I said, trying again to scare her off. Couldn’t she see by now that everyone and everything that got close to me eventually broke? It was only a matter of time before her number was up.

“Then I’ll go in again and look for him. You shouldn’t. Your face is already bruising. And your legs are bleeding too.”

I looked down. There were little pebbles embedded into my kneecaps. Blood traced their edges. My clothing, already ragged, now looked post-apocalyptic. “Oh,” was all I managed to say.

“Come on,” Ruby said. “It’s okay.”