“I was going to flunk out if he didn’t help me,” she continued. “He, like the unbearably perfect boyfriend he is, couldn’t let me learn from my own mistakes. I don’t know how you don’t know about it. The dean launched an investigation into Harrison and me.” She seethed with contempt. “You know what the real problem is? It’s not that I don’t love him anymore. It’s that I love him too much. There’s never any room to breathe between us.” She waved the topic off, batting her tears away like an unwanted fly. “I got expelled. Harrison was suspended for two quarters. Would’ve been expulsion too, but the dean showed some last-minute mercy when we went in and explained everything. Doesn’t matter, though. Harrison probably can’t go back. His mom can’t afford it without his scholarships. And if I don’t keep it together with Mom and Dad, I can’t leave here either. I’ll be another forever Cadence kid, married to my childhood sweetheart, living in the shithole haunted house next door, my admission letter some buried treasure my kids will find in the attic and toss aside while looking for something more interesting.” She answered my rigid body language by saying, “So yeah, only you should go to camp. You’re the only one of us with problems.” She picked the phone up to dial. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

Normal Ollie would’ve kept prodding anyway, but the regret kept flooding in, reaching higher and higher. The only fight inside me was for survival.

“Hey,” Aidy said into the house phone’s receiver. “You guys can head over now. Our parents just left. When they’re done with dinner, Olivia and I will have to go back to our house until they go to bed, but I think the earlier we start this, the better.” She sounded clinical: a doctor giving her prescription. “Great. See you then.” She hung up the phone and looked at me. “You’re ready, right? I’m assuming, by all the…” She waved fingers at my face like I’d worked some wizardry on myself.

All there was to do was brace myself for what was to come. Hope—oh, pathetic hope—that whatever I was made of was strong enough to withstand it all. Every time I made a plan, I got thrown another wrench.

“Mm-hmm,” I said. I retrieved the bag I packed earlier in the day.

Aidy turned on the TV. I hit a few more light switches. We did this so when we needed to rush back to our house, it looked lived in, in the recklessly negligent teenage way.

We left. We’d never used the Marley way to go anywhere but Marley’s. The effort that went into the later parts of the path were what made it worthwhile. Aidy and I tried to remain dignified as we dusted ourselves clean, but bitterness punctuated our movements. There was no sense of accomplishment in crawling like dogs into our neighboring yard.