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“Not very well—I found the thumb drive under the

fl oorboards.”

“We should go through it again, then,” Kyle says.

“I can’t really do that,” I say, taking a breath.

“Why not?” Kyle asks.

“Trev,” Rachel answers, when it becomes apparent that

I won’t.

“Oh, yeah,” Kyle says, and he has the grace to look guilty.

“He’s really pissed at you. I’ll go talk to him. I’ll explain

everything. Tell him I lied, that it wasn’t your fault you

guys were at the Point. Don’t worry. Trev’s totally whipped

over you—he’ll forgive you.”

I fi rmly ignore the last thing because I hate thinking

about it, and instead I look up at Kyle. “If you told Trev the

truth, he’d kick your ass.”

176

F A R F R O M Y O U

“I can take care of myself,” Kyle mutters.

“It’s not a good idea,” I say hastily, more for Trev’s sake

than Kyle’s.

“But—”

“Drop it, Kyle,” I say. “Rachel, what else have you got?”

“Not much. I’ll make copies of all this for you both.

You guys knew her, the way she worked and thought; you

might be able to see something I didn’t.”

“We can meet again in a few days,” Kyle suggests. “Com-

pare notes?”

“Sounds good,” Rachel says, looking at me for my

consent.

I nod. “Yeah. Sounds good.”

38

FOUR AND A HALF MONTHS AGO (SEVENTEEN YEARS OLD)

“We’re gonna be late,” Mina says.

I zip up my boots and pull my jeans down over them. “We’ve got

twenty minutes. Chill.”

She collapses on my bed, scattering throw pillows everywhere.

She’s wearing a hot pink dress that’s so short, her mom would throw

a fi t if she saw it—which, of course, is why Mina changed into it at my

house. There are little beads on the three-quarter-length sleeves, and

they keep catching the light, like she’s twinkling.

She props herself up on her elbow, her hair spilling over her shoul-

der, a dark mass of brown curls against the pink. “Are you sure you

want to wear those jeans? You should wear the black skinny ones.

Tuck them into your boots.”

“I can barely breathe in the skinny ones.”

“But you look so good in them.”

I size her up, suspicious of her sudden interest in my clothes. “Is

there something about tonight you’re not telling me?” I ask. There’s

nothing Mina loves more than a surprise. “Why do I need to be dressed

up? You’re not planning a welcome-home party, are you? Mina, I hate

that sort of thing.”

“Which is why I stopped myself,” Mina says. “It’s just burgers with

Kyle and Trev. I already told you.”

178

F A R F R O M Y O U

I shoot her a look. “Okay, but I think you’re acting weird.”

“And I think you should change.”

“Not going to happen.”

“At least put on some lip gloss.”

“What’s with you?” I ask as I pull my sweater on. “It’s just Trev and

your boyfriend.” Every time I call Kyle her boyfriend, it gets easier. I’ve

been practicing it in front of the mirror.

“You’re so pretty.” Mina gets up from the bed to paw through

my jewelry box. “And you spend half of your life dressing so
boring

because you think it’ll make people notice you less.”

“Maybe I don’t want people to notice me.”

“That’s my whole point.” Mina holds a pair of silver hoops up to

her ear in front of the mirror, turning her head back and forth before

discarding them. “You want to hide. It’s unfair to yourself.”

“I’m not the one who wants to hide, Mina,” I say, and she fumbles

and drops the necklace she’s picked up.

“I’m going downstairs,” she says fl atly. “We should leave soon.”

Trev and Kyle are already sitting in a booth when we get there. Angry

Burger is busy, packed with college students home for the weekend,

a big group shooting pool in the corner, Corona bottles stuff ed with

lime wedges clutched in their free hands. They haven’t updated the

music on the jukebox in forever; it’s always twangy, old-school coun-

try, heavy on the banjo.

Mina slides into the spot next to Kyle while Trev gets up from the

chipped oak booth.

I’ve been home from Oregon for a week. This is the fi rst time I’ve

seen him, and I’m surprised at how happy I am. Trev is simple. Easy.

Exactly what I need tonight, aft er days of Mina’s doublespeak and

guarded glances.

T E S S S H A R P E

179

He hugs me, and it’s comforting, like Trev always is.

“Good to see you, Soph,” he says, and I can feel the rumble in his

chest where it’s pressed against mine.

“How’s school?” I ask him as we sit down. I’m determined to focus

on Trev instead of Kyle and the way he’s got his arm slung across the

back of Mina’s chair like he owns it. Owns her.

“Busy,” Trev says.

“Trev’s been building a boat,” Mina puts in.

“Another one?” I ask.

He’d rebuilt a trashed catboat aft er the accident, and sometimes

I’d go to the dock to keep him company. It was the only time, still

fresh from the crash, that I could be around him and not feel assaulted

by the weight of his guilt. His focus, for once, had been on fi xing some-

thing other than me.

It took him months, repairing the smashed hull and broken spars.

When he’d fi nally fi nished, he took us out, just him and me and Mina

for her maiden voyage. I’d watched him brush his fi ngers over his boat

like he was touching a holy thing and I’d understood him in a way

I never had before. Realized that he and I were cemented together,

almost as much as Mina and I.

“You should see the line of girls at the docks every weekend,” Mina

says, snickering. “They loll around frying in the sun and watch him—

it’s ridiculous. If he took his shirt off , I think they’d have a collective

fi t. Disgusting.” She fl icks water at Trev, sticking her tongue out.

Trev rolls his eyes while Kyle laughs. “Right on, man.”

“Brat,” Trev says to Mina.

“You should go out there, Soph. Scare ’em off .” Mina nudges me

with her foot underneath the table, and all the easy energy, the com-

forting familiarity of Mina and Trev’s teasing, dissipates in a second.

I can’t stop the way I go white, can’t stop Trev noticing my

180

F A R F R O M Y O U

reaction. I wonder if he sees the way she looks at me, how every shred

of her attention is on me, the bitterness in her smile, desperate and so

damned scared. Can he even understand what she’s doing to me—to

all of us?

And because she’s Mina, she just
won’t stop
.

“Kyle and I need a couple to double-date with. It’s perfect. Wouldn’t

that be fun, baby?”

“Sure,” Kyle says.

I can feel Trev’s eyes on me, but I can’t rip my gaze away from her

as I say, “I’ll be right back.”

Not a ripple on her face. She keeps looking at me like that until I’m

half-ready to launch myself across the table at her.

“Good idea. We should freshen up.” She slings her purse over her

shoulder and throws a smile at Kyle. It’s her Fine, Just Fine smile. Kyle

can’t tell she’s bullshitting, but I can—and so can Trev, who frowns as

he tries to fi gure out why I’m so upset, why she’s so triumphant.

She saunters across the restaurant toward the ladies’ room like she

doesn’t have a care in the world. Like she didn’t just try to set me up

with her brother, like she isn’t screwing with me (and with him) in the

worst possible way.

Mina likes to play with fi re.

But I’m the one who gets burned.

39

NOW (JUNE)

Kyle and I are silent on the drive back to my house.

When I park in my driveway and reach for the door han-

dle, he doesn’t get out. He stares at the dashboard, hands in

his lap. For a long, uncomfortable moment, all I want to do

is leave him there. But then he starts talking.

“I told her I loved her,” he says. “A week before she . . . I

told her I loved her and she started crying. I thought she . . .

It was stupid. I’m stupid. I thought I knew her. But I didn’t.”

He looks at me, those puppy-dog eyes so miserable, it hurts

even though I’m still mad at him. “How does that even

work, Sophie? To love someone so fucking much and not

even really know her?”

I don’t know how to answer that. I’d loved her. The real

her. The half-version she’d shown to the world and the

scared parts that ran from me as much as they reached for

me. Every part, every dimension, every version of her, I

knew and loved.

I think about when we were younger. Even back in mid-

dle school, Kyle was on the outskirts, watching, entranced

as I was with her. Waiting, and fi nally getting, only to be

crushed.

182

F A R F R O M Y O U

I understand why he hates me. It’s the exact reason I

hated him those months before. He took her away from me.

And then she got taken away from both of us. Neither of us

won in a game he didn’t even know he was playing.

Because of that kinship, I can put aside my anger. I can

be kind. She would’ve wanted that.

“Mina trusted you. She told you. That means something.

It means everything.”

He stares at me like he’s seeing me for the fi rst time. The

misery is still sharp in his eyes, but there’s something else

now, too, a kind of searching look that makes me want to

run. “You know how everyone has, like, a dream? For their

life, I mean?”

I nod.

“Mina was mine.”

I reach out—I can’t help it—and squeeze his shoulder.

“Mine too.”

After Kyle leaves, I go inside and up to my room to down-

load the fi les Rachel gave me.

Mina’s time line is a thing of beauty compared to the

makeshift one stuck to the underside of my mattress—it’s

years long, with a detailed suspect list and precise notes on

each person involved.

I don’t think I’d ever talked to Jackie Dennings. My

freshman year had been overshadowed by the crash, but

even if it hadn’t, our paths probably wouldn’t have crossed.

She’d been a junior and Class President,and popular, so

she existed in this corner of the freshman’s mind, a pretty

T E S S S H A R P E

183

blonde girl that you knew of, more of an idea than a person.

And then one day, that pretty blonde girl’s on a Missing

poster, and they’re plastered everywhere. The Dennings

family had even put up billboards on the highway, but no

tips ever led anywhere.

According to Mina’s notes, Jackie was a good student

and star athlete, a loving sister and daughter. She’d even

been headed to Stanford on a full soccer scholarship. The

only ripple in her good-girl image was the boyfriend.

When Jackie disappeared, Matt Clarke had been the

number one suspect. A history of drug abuse, a few cita-

tions for public intoxication and bar fi ghts, plus a shaky alibi

from another known drug user didn’t help him any, but the

police search of his truck and house had turned up nothing.

My cursor hovers over the link that’ll open the audio fi le

of Mina’s interview with Matt. I need to click it. I have to

listen to it.

But I can’t bring myself to click. Sitting here alone in my

room, her voice would be like hot metal against skin, burn-

ing through the layers until there’s nothing left to brand.