“Are you sick too, Becca?” she asked.

“No.” Becca answered through the door. Whitney heard Amelia retch again. “But I didn’t have the salad.”

Whitney nodded. Yeah, it was the produce that usually did it. “Do you need some Pepto Bismol? I think we’ve got some.”

“We have it,” Becca answered.

“Okay.”

“It’s all right, Mom,” Amelia said. “Go back to bed.”

“Are you sure I can’t bring you something?” Whitney leaned her head against the door, the coolness of the wood seeping into the warmth of her cheek. She imagined Amelia hunched over the toilet, Becca comforting her. It should’ve been Whitney. It had always been Whitney. “A cool washcloth? Some water?” What if she was getting dehydrated? “Or I could run to the store. Get some coconut water or Gatorade. You need some electrolytes.”

The toilet flushed. “Oh, my God, Mom.” Amelia groaned. The faucet turned on. “I’m fine. Just ate something bad. Go back to bed.”

“Uh-huh,” she said now, anxious to finally find out the truth. Even when she’d pressed Amelia about it days afterward, she had maintained her food poisoning story.

“Well, earlier that day we’d run into some boys who lived in your apartment complex. Apparently, Amelia had talked to one of them before. Mike, I think. Or Michael? I don’t know. Something with an M, I think. Or maybe an N? I honestly have no idea. I was too busy texting Alec all night. We had kinda had a fight and he—”

“Becca,” Whitney urged, knowing how easily Becca went off on tangents.

“Right. Sorry. Anyway, they invited us to hang out later in the night. So, after you went to bed, we went and met them down by that little park area. You know, where the slide and jungle gym are? They had alcohol. Beer. A bottle of rum, and some kind of sweet stuff. It was actually really nasty. I only had a couple of sips, but Amelia straight downed it. Anyway, that’s why she was throwing up and stuff. And, afterward, Amelia kept seeing that guy. Michael, I’m pretty sure is his name. Anyway, he’s the guy in the picture with her.”

“Do you happen to know what apartment number he lives in?”

“Um...no. I never went into an apartment.”

Whitney stared at the picture of Amelia on a bench with Michael—or whatever his name was.

“The older guy that Amelia was texting with—his name wasn’t Jay, was it?” she asked.

“I mean, maybe?” It came out like a question. “I feel like maybe it was two letters, though. JT, maybe.”

Jay Thomas.

A shiver worked its way up Whitney’s spine.

“Okay, thanks,” Whitney said.