Misty shook her head. “I just feel it sometimes. Like there's someone watching me.” She smiled sadly. “I know it sounds ridiculous, but I'm not crazy. I know it's her.”
“Do you want to show me where that feeling is strongest?” I forced myself not to sound too eager. “Maybe I can take a look?”
Leanne smirked. “Miss Pathetic here suddenly has special spooky powers.”
Forget choking. I hoped that cookie dough was chock-full of salmonella.
“It's called a near-death experience. You should try it sometime,” I said sweetly. “Maybe without the 'near.'”
Leanne gaped at me.
I turned to Misty. “So?” I asked briskly.
She nodded, wide-eyed. “Uh, sure.”
I stepped out of the way and let her lead me back into the hall and up the stairs. I couldn't help noticing the changed photos on the stairwell wall. I was no longer in any of them.
Not that that was entirely shocking. Kevin, who was about ten years younger than Misty's mom, was obsessed with documenting his new family, which had included Misty and me at one time. He had a bunch of these artsy, wrought-iron picture frames/art pieces all the way up the wall. He changed the photos out about every month, swapping in the latest family images.
This particular selection appeared to be about summer activities. The twins, Owen and Ian, with their older brother, Colin, all in matching water wings. Colin attempting to drink from the hose but mostly spraying his face. Misty and her mom sitting together on the porch swing, talking to each other, their faces serious and their dusty toes dragging across the boards. And some kind of picnic with all of them… and Chris, my ex and Misty's current boyfriend.
There were a few pictures of Chris, some with him in the background, as I would have been once, and others focused on him.
In the one closest to me, he had Colin on his shoulders and a twin (don't ask me which was which, I'd never mastered that) wrapped around each ankle. He was pretending to struggle to move forward, but I could tell that beneath the faked strain on his face, he was having fun. His eyes were crinkling up at the edges like he was fighting not to laugh. And behind him, Misty was out of focus, but I could still see her grinning.
They were happy. Kevin was a good photographer, catching the truth in a moment like that.
“So you and Chris Zebrowski, huh?” I asked, and immediately wished I could pull the words back.
She glanced warily over her shoulder at me, pausing on a step.
“I don't know what you've heard, but it wasn't like that,” she said.
“Yeah, that's what you said. So what was it like?”
I could see her weighing the moment, deciding whether she should have to answer me or not. After all, who was I to her? “He sees me,” she said. “And I see him.”
I frowned.
But Misty wasn't done yet. “Alona… Alona was like this giant storm, you know?” Her voice was distant, like she was seeing something other than the stairway. “You got swept along with her, and after a while you weren't really sure where you were or who you were except as it related to her. I wasn't Misty. I was Alona Dare's best friend. Chris was Alona Dare's boyfriend.” She shook her head. “Know what I mean?”
Not exactly.
“But Chris and me, we found each other, and it's real.” Her voice rang with fierceness, and her gaze met mine without hesitation, as if she was daring me to challenge her words. “We see each other for who we are, not as accessories to somebody else.”
In that second, I felt a wave of envy so strong it nearly knocked me backward down the stairs. Not because it was Chris, but to have someone know me like that… I wanted that with a craving I felt in my borrowed bones.
She started up the steps again.
I followed, taking each stair one at a time with my hand on the railing, and wrestled with the mix of emotions churning in me. I'd had Chris in my life, but he'd never looked one-tenth as content as he did in those photos. It hurt, seeing proof that it wasn't him but me who was flawed.
My eyes stung with tears. Every instinct told me to blame the two of them — Misty and Chris. They had been greedy, selfish, and cruel. They'd done this to me. But how can you deny something when the proof is right in front of you? The truth was, they'd done this regardless of me. I was a nonentity, which somehow hurt more than if it had been a deliberate strike against me.
She reached the top of the stairs and turned to wait for me.
“So why aren't you wearing his ring?” I asked in a voice that was probably harsher than it should have been. I wasn't sure if I wanted to know, but I couldn't stop myself from asking, either.
“I didn't say yes yet,” she said, looking at her bare left hand as if making sure the ring hadn't somehow appeared there suddenly. “I'm eighteen. We're going to different schools.” She gave a little shrug.
On the top step now, I waited, sensing,
