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Of course he hasn’t.

His fi ngers trace a spot on the fl oor over and over. As I climb

into the tree house, I see it’s the board where Mina carved her name,

entwined with mine.

“The funeral’s on Friday,” he says.

“I know.”

“My mom . . .” He stops, swallowing hard. His gray eyes—so much

42

F A R F R O M Y O U

like hers that it hurts to look into them, like she’s here, but not—shine

with unshed tears. “I had to go to the funeral home by myself. Mom

just couldn’t deal. So I sat there and listened to that guy talk about

music and fl owers and if the casket should be lined in velvet or satin.

All I could think about is how Mina’s scared of the dark, and how

messed up it is that I’m letting them put her in the ground.” He lets out

a tight laugh that’s painful against my ears. “Isn’t that the stupidest

thing you’ve ever heard?”

“No.” I grab his hand, holding tight when he tries to pull away.

“
No
, it’s not stupid. Remember that Snoopy night-light she had?”

“You broke it with a soccer ball.” He almost smiles at the memory.

“And you covered for me. She didn’t speak to you for a week, but

you never told.”

“Yeah, well, someone had to look out for you.” He stares out the

roughly framed window, anywhere but at me. “I keep trying to picture

it. How it happened. What it was like. If it was fast. If she was in pain.”

He faces me now, an open book of raw emotion, wanting me to bleed

all over the pages with him. “Was she?”

“Trev, don’t. Please.” My voice cracks. I want to get out of here. I

can’t think about it. I try to tug away, but now it’s him who’s holding

onto me.

“I hate you.” It’s almost casual, the way he says it. But the look

in his eyes—it turns his words into a tangle of lie and truth, bearing

down on me, so familiar. “I hate that you were the one who survived.

I hate that I was relieved when I heard you were okay. I just . . .
hate

you.”

The bones of my fi ngers grind underneath the pressure of his

hand.

“I hate everything” is all I can say back.

T E S S S H A R P E

43

He kisses me. Pulls me forward with a sudden jerk of movement

that I’m not prepared for. It’s jarring; our teeth clack together, noses

bump, the angle is all wrong. This is not the way it’s supposed to be.

This is the only way it could ever happen.

I get his shirt off with little diffi

culty, but mine is more trouble,

tangling around my neck as he gets distracted by my bared skin. His

hands gentle, soft en to the point of reverence, moving over skin and

bone and scars, tracing the curve of me.

I let myself be touched. Kissed. Undressed and eased back onto the

wooden fl oor scarred with the remnants of our childhood.

I let myself feel it. Allow his skin to sink into mine.

I let myself because this is exactly what I need: this terrible idea,

this beautiful, messy distraction.

And if somewhere in the middle both of our faces are wet with

tears, it doesn’t matter so much. We’re doing this for all the wrong

reasons, anyway.

Later, I stare at his face in the moonlight and wonder if he can

tell that I kissed him like I already know the shape of his lips. Like

I’ve mapped them in my mind, in another life. Learned them from

another person who shared his eyes and nose and mouth, but who is

never coming back.

9

NOW (JUNE)

For a long, frozen moment, Trev and I stare at each other.

I’m caught in his gaze, hungry for the slightest glimpse of

her, even if it’s just similar features in a familiar face.

They always looked so much alike. It wasn’t just their

high cheekbones and straight noses, the way their gray

eyes tilted up at the edges. It was in the way they smiled

when they were trying not to, lopsided. The way they both

fi ddled with their brown curls when they were anxious,

how they couldn’t stop chewing their nails for anything.

Trev is all I have left of her, a handful of echoing char-

acteristics buried underneath what makes him Trev: the

honesty and goodness and the way he doesn’t hide things

(not like her, not like me).

Mina had loved him so much. They’d been inseparable

since their dad died, and when I came along, Trev had

stepped aside to make room, though my seven-year-old,

only-child self didn’t understand that. Just like I didn’t

understand things like daddies dying and the tears Mina

would sometimes shed out of nowhere.

When we were little, whenever she cried, I’d give her the

purple crayon out of my box so she’d have two, and it made

T E S S S H A R P E

45

her smile through the tears, so I kept doing it. I stole purple

crayons from everyone’s crayon boxes until she had a whole

collection.

And now Trev stares at me with her eyes like he wants

to devour me. His hair’s long, veering into mop territory,

and his jaw’s prickled with stubble instead of smooth. I’ve

never seen him this scruffy. I can feel the hard edges of

calluses on his palm where he’s holding my arm. Rope cal-

luses, from handling the sails. I wonder if that’s where he’s

been spending all his time—on his boat, trying to sail away

from it all.

He lets go of me and the feelings battle inside: relief and

disappointment wrapped up in a neat, bloodstained bow.

I step out of the doorway into the sunlight, and he backs

away like I’m poisonous.

He sticks his hands in the pockets of his shorts, rocks

on his heels. Trev is strong and tall in that way you don’t

really notice unless he needs to use it. It makes you feel

safe, lulled into this sense that nothing bad will happen

with him around.

“I didn’t know you were home,” Trev says.

“I just got back.”

“You didn’t come to her funeral.” He tries to make it

gentle, not like an accusation, but it hangs between us

like one.

“I’m sorry.”

“I’m not the person you need to apologize to,” Trev says,

and waits a beat. “Have you . . . have you gone to see her?”

I shake my head.

46

F A R F R O M Y O U

I can’t go out to Mina’s grave. The idea of her in the

ground, sealed forever in the dark when she had been

all light and sound and spark, horrifi es me. When I force

myself to think about it, I think she would’ve liked to dis-

appear in fl ames, the brilliance and warmth all around her.

But she’s in the ground. It’s so wrong, but I can’t change it.

“You should go see her,” Trev says. “Make your peace.

She deserves that from you.”

He thinks that talking to a slab of stone will make a dif-

ference. That it’ll change something. Trev has faith in things

like that, just like Mina had.

I don’t.

The belief in his face makes me wish I could tell him yes,

of course I’ll go. I want to be able to do that. Once upon a

time I loved him almost as much as I loved her.

But Trev has never come fi rst. He’s always been second,

and I can’t change that now or then or ever.

“You think it’s my fault, too.”

Trev focuses on the kids playing on the jungle gym a

few yards away, unable to meet my eyes. “I think you made

some big mistakes,” he says, tip-toeing around words like

they’re land mines. “And Mina paid for them.”

It hurts more than I expect to hear him confi rm it. Noth-

ing like the shallow cuts my parents have left in me. This

is a blow to a heart that was never quite his, and I almost

crumble beneath his disappointment.

“I hope you’re clean.” He backs away from me like he

doesn’t even want to share airspace. “I hope you stay clean.

That’s what she’d want for you.”

T E S S S H A R P E

47

He’s almost down the walk when I ask; I can’t help

myself. “Do you still hate me?”

He turns, and even from this far away, I can see the sad-

ness written on his face. “That’s the problem, Soph. I never

could.”

10

THREE AND A HALF YEARS AGO (FOURTEEN YEARS OLD)

The morphine has worn off . The pain is all over, a sharp edge that

relentlessly carves through me.

“Push,” I say between cracked lips. I move my hand, the unbroken

one, trying to fi nd the button for the morphine drip.

“Here.” Warm fi ngers close over mine, placing the pump in my

palm. I push the button and wait.

Slowly, the pain retreats. For now.

“Your dad went to get coff ee,” Trev says. He’s in a chair next to my

bed, his hand still covering mine. “Want me to fi nd him?”

I shake my head. “You’re here.” The morphine makes my brain

fuzzy. Sometimes I say stupid stuff , I forget things, but I’m almost

positive he hasn’t visited before.

“I’m here,” he says.

“Mina?” I breathe.

“She’s at school. I got out early. Wanted to see you.”

“You okay?” I ask. There’s a fading bruise on his temple. He’s sit-

ting in a weird position, his leg straightened out like it’s in a cast. But I

can’t prop myself up enough to see how bad he’s hurt. Mina has a cast

on her arm, I remember suddenly. The nurses and my mom had to

force her to leave last night, she hadn’t wanted to go.

“I’m fi ne.” He strokes my fi ngers. They’re pretty much the only

T E S S S H A R P E

49

part of me that isn’t bruised or broken or stitched together.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “Sophie, I’m so sorry.”

He buries his face in the sheets next to me, and I don’t have the

strength to lift my hand to touch him.

“S’okay,” I tell him. My eyes droop as the morphine kicks in fur-

ther. “Not your fault.”

Later, they’ll tell me that it
was
his fault. That he ran a stop sign

and we got T-boned by an SUV going twenty above the speed limit.

The doctors will explain that I fl at-lined on the operating table for

almost two minutes before they got my heart started again. That my

right leg was crushed and I now have titanium rods screwed into what

little bone remains. That I’ll have to spend almost a year walking with

a cane. That I’ll have months of physical therapy, handfuls of pills I

have to take. That I’ll have a permanent limp, and my back will cause

me problems for the rest of my life.

Later, I’ll fi nally have enough and cross that line. I’ll crush up

four pills and snort them with a straw, fl oating away in the temporary

numbness.

But right now, I don’t know about what’s ahead for us, him and

me and Mina. So I try to comfort him. I fi ght against the numbness

instead of drowning myself in it. And he says my name, over and over,

begging for the forgiveness I’ve already given.