Erica was dead. She had been caught by the riptide and was dead. Wasn’t she?
Erica’s body had never been found, but there had been an official proclamation. Brynna couldn’t forget—her mother picked her up from school, had taken Brynna’s hand and squeezed it against her cheek.
“They’re declaring Erica dead, honey.”
“Did they find…?”
“No.” A slight pause. “They’ve called off the search. It’s been four days. There is no way…” Her mother’s voice dropped off before she said it: there was no way that Erica could still be alive.
“Bryn?”
Brynna looked up, terrified. Her mother was standing in the doorway, one arm pressed protectively across her chest, her other hand slapped over her half-open mouth. Evan stood in front of her, his eyes impossibly wide, the little emerald H at his right eye ludicrously out of place.
“Brynna!” Her mother rushed in front of Evan and kneeled down, throwing her arms around her. “What’s wrong?”
Stunned, Brynna looked down at the tablet she was still clutching. It was covered in smeared tears and fingerprints, but the screen was black.
“I got a—” She looked up at Evan, who hadn’t moved from his space in the doorway. “Look.” She swiped the screen back to life, and it flashed on for a tenth of a second before the CONNECT TO POWER icon started flashing.
“No,” Brynna gasped, shaking her head. “It was just here. And I just took my iPad out of the charger.”
Her mother let her hand fall and scooched a few inches away from Brynna. She whispered, “Are you being cyberbullied, hon?”
Brynna’s eyebrows went up. “No.” She dragged a palm over her cheeks and sniffed. “Sorry, it was nothing.”
Brynna’s heart pounded against her rib cage, but her cheeks burned with embarrassment as she looked up at Evan. His eyes were still on her, but there was no expression on his face.
“I’m sorry,” Brynna said to the carpet. “It was just—”
What? Something inside Brynna screamed. It was just what? Me going crazy? Me seeing things? Me getting a message from the dead?
Evan didn’t know about Erica. He didn’t know about Brynna. And now, sitting in her new room with her new friend and on the precipice of a new life, she desperately didn’t want him to know.
She focused on Evan and forced a laugh that was supposed to sound nonchalant but came out tinny and weirdly high. “Sorry.”
He shrugged, his expression going back to classic Evan: unaffected. “No big. We all have our moments.”
Brynna cleared her throat, her eyes cutting toward her mother. “Um, Evan and I have to get ready for the game.”
Evan and Brynna watched Brynna’s mother cross the room, toss a concerned look over her shoulder, and close the door only halfway. Brynna got up to nudge it shut, but her mother held firm, her hard brown eyes zeroing in.
“This door doesn’t close. You’ve got a boy in your room and,” her eyes went to Bryn’s tear-stained face, “well, you know.”
Brynna crossed her arms in front of her chest. “So,” she hissed, “now every time I cry or get upset, I’m drinking or smoking again?”
Her mother glanced over Brynna’s shoulder at Evan, who was obliviously flipping channels on the TV.
“I’m your mother, Brynna Marie. I’m supposed to worry.”
A little niggling of guilt wormed its way into Brynna. She remembered the way her mother sat on the psychologist’s couch, repeatedly smoothing the imaginary wrinkles in her skirt while Brynna sat icily silent, her father helpless in between, during the ten hours of state-mandated family therapy that Brynna—caught drinking and driving in her mother’s car—had gotten nearly a year after Erica’s accident.
“Sorry, Mom,” she said on a sigh. “I’m past that.”
Her mother’s eyes flashed with something like hope.
“I promise,” Brynna said. “Can we just get ready now?”
She watched her mother leave and turned back to Evan, pasting on the coolest, most nonchalant smile she could muster.
“So, are you excited about the game?”
Evan blinked at her. “No, but football games are a required social construct for supposedly well-adjusted teens. And speaking of well-adjusted…” His eyes cut to the discarded tablet on the floor.
Brynna swallowed hard, the weight of wanting to talk to someone—and wanting just another day of not being “that girl”—pressing against her.
“Boyfriend trouble?” Evan said before Brynna could even respond. “Jealous? Stalker? That’s sick and romantic.”
Brynna turned to the mirror and tugged on the end of the green-and-white Hawthorne High bow. “Yeah,” she said carefully, “something like that.”
Evan scooted closer to her, his dark eyes glittering. He pointed an index finger two inches from Brynna’s nose and waved it. “I like you, Brynna Chase. You’re dark. Mysterious. You’ve got secrets.”