Whitney had learned early to pick her battles with Amelia. She didn’t want to risk losing her for good.

21

MILLIE KEPT A lot of secrets from me.

When I started finding out about them, cracks began to form in what I thought was a solidly built friendship.

The first was the truth about Mitch.

He was one of the guys who lived in the apartment below Millie’s. The one we often partied with. In the beginning, I didn’t notice Mitch very much. I mean, he was always there. Dark hair. Dark eyes. Black clothes. A shadow in the corner.

But he was quiet, mostly keeping to himself.

Sometimes I’d catch him watching us—Millie and me—and I would get a funny feeling in my gut. An uneasiness I didn’t quite understand. I thought it was just because he was older—in his early twenties—which seemed old to me at seventeen. And I knew he was the one supplying Millie with her weed. Not only that, but I’d seen other drugs and paraphernalia in his apartment. Pills. Needles. Small glass pipes. That alone made him seem dangerous. At least, enough for me to keep my distance.

I’d like to say that Millie came clean—confessed the truth to me—but that’s not how it went down.

I found out the truth on a Sunday afternoon. It was an insanely hot spring day. As we sat on the floor in Mitch’s apartment, we kept joking that we were getting baked by the sun and the joint. It was just the four of us—me, Millie, Mitch and his roommate, Greg.

The AC blasted, causing my damp skin to break out in goose bumps. Heavy metal shrieked from the speakers, sharp guitars and pounding drums. Leaning my back against the couch, I stared up at the ceiling, enjoying the spacy, mellow sensation that took over. Millie nudged me, asking if I could hand her a cigarette from the pack on the coffee table in front of me. I went to grab one out, but the pack was empty.

Greg threw her one from his pack, then said he’d go up to the liquor store and get more. Millie piped up then, suggesting I go with him. When I caught the encouraging smile on her face, I thought maybe she was playing matchmaker. I’d confessed to her once that I thought Greg was cute. Even though he and Mitch were the same age, he didn’t scare me the way Mitch did.

So I went.

We rode in his beat-up Buick. It didn’t have air-conditioning, and the passenger window wouldn’t roll down all the way. I was so sweaty that my bare thighs stuck to the seat. Luckily, the liquor store was only down the street.