And then I slid over him. Above him. His ribs moved under my hands, now. His waist was between my legs. I was breathing hard and feeling reckless. Noah watched me, and if I didn’t know him as well as I did, I wouldn’t have known that there was anything unusual about this. But I did know him, and still though he was, there was something different about the way he looked at me now.

I placed my hands on his chest. His heart beat faster. His control was slipping.

Chase.

I leaned closer, my hands moving lower down his stomach, my back arched above him. I kissed his throat. I heard a sharp intake of breath.

I smiled against his skin, moved my lips along his jaw, his throat, marveling at the point where the rough became smooth. My hands wandered slowly to his waist and he slid my dress up, his fingers hot on my bare skin, making me breathless. Making me ache. I pressed into him harder, my body bent, bowstring-tight over his. His mouth was just millimeters from mine.

“Fuck,” he murmured against my lips. The feel, the word, sent a hot little shock through my spine. It skittered through my veins, danced through every nerve.

And then I brushed his lips with mine.

I knew Noah worshipped Charlie Parker and that his toothbrush was green. That he wouldn’t bother to button his shirts correctly but always made his bed. That when he slept he curled into himself and that his eyes were the color of the clouds before it rained, and I knew he had no problem eating meat but would subtly leave the room if animals started to kill one another on the Discovery Channel. I knew one hundred little things about Noah Shaw but when he kissed me I couldn’t remember my own name.

I was starved for him, for this. I was a creature of need—soaked in feeling and breathless. There was a pull, furious and fierce, and part of me was frightened by it but another part, low and deep and dark, breathed yes.

Noah whispered my name like a prayer, and I was free.

I moved his jacket off of his shoulders. Gone. Unfastened the buttons on his shirt in seconds, loosened the tie at his neck. His skin was on fire under hands that traveled the slender muscle and bone beneath them of their own volition. Over his abdomen, his chest. Over two slim lines of silver that rested against his throat—

Colors burst in my mind. Green and red and blue. Trees and blood and sky. The sand and ocean vanished; they were replaced by jungle and clouds. There was a voice, warm and familiar but it was far away.

Mara.

The word filled my lungs with a rush of air and I breathed in sandalwood and salt. Then there was strong pressure on my hips, shifting me away. Down. Gray eyes pinned me to the earth and the sky changed again above them; the blue chased by black, the clouds chased by stars. Noah was above me, his breathing quick, his pupils blown. He looked down at me.

Differently.

My thoughts were hazy, and it was difficult to speak. “What?” I managed to say.

Noah’s eyes were lidded, and there was a storm beneath them. “You—” he began, then stopped. “I felt—”

“What?” I asked again, louder this time.

“I believe you,” he finally said.

Heat rose beneath my skin as I understood what he meant. “Did I hurt you?” I asked in a rush. “Are you okay?”

A slight smile turned up his mouth. “I’m still here.”

“What happened?”

He considered his words. “You sounded different,” Noah said slowly. “I was listening for a change and I heard it but didn’t know what it meant; I’ve never heard you like that before. I said your name but you didn’t respond. So we stopped.”

I didn’t know what it meant either and I didn’t care. “Did I hurt you?” I asked again; that was what I cared about. That was what I needed to know.

Noah helped me up and we rose from the sand together. His words and eyes were soft. “I’m still here.” He laced his fingers through mine. “Let’s go home.”

Noah led me along the water, looking forward, not at me. I studied him closely, still unsure if he was all right.

When I arrived on the beach, Noah was flawless. Now his tie was loose, his cuffs were undone, sand and sea had ruined his five-thousand-dollar suit, and his hair had been ravaged by my hands. His gray sapphire eyes were blazing and his velvet lips were swollen from mine.

This was the boy I loved. A little bit messy. A little bit ruined. A beautiful disaster.

Just like me.

46

IT FELT LIKE THE WEIGHT OF MY WORLD DISSOLVED with that kiss.

It wasn’t feather-light, like the others. It was wild and dark. It was incredible.

And Noah was still here.

I wore the goofiest grin on the ride back to the marina; I couldn’t stop smiling and didn’t want to. After both of us had changed into our normal clothes and I returned his mother’s necklace so that it would stay safe, what we decided was this:

I was right. Something changed in me when we kissed.

But Noah was also right. I didn’t hurt him the way I was sure I would.

I didn’t know if it was because he was listening for something this time, for that change, maybe, or if it was because I really couldn’t hurt him, just like he said. I was thrilled that he was okay, obviously. Deliriously so. But it shook my confidence in my memory a little—I couldn’t help but wonder if maybe, after all this, I had dreamed or imagined or hallucinated that first kiss in his bed. I told Noah as much, but he took my hands and looked into my eyes and told me to trust myself, and to trust my instincts, too. I tried to coax more out of him but then he kissed me again.

I could spend the rest of my life kissing him, I think.

I was buoyant the rest of the weekend. We had answered one question out of a thousand, but it was a happy answer. I wanted to believe that after everything I’d been through, I deserved it.

Noah seemed different, too. He told me he brokered a deal to buy the security tapes from the carnival people to resolve one way or another whether Roslyn Ferretti was bribed, and if so, by whom. He also wanted to fly to Providence and try to find out more than his investigator, to see if he could learn more about Jude himself. I was happy to let him go. Nothing had happened since John started watching the house, and I didn’t need to be attached to Noah every second. The fake fortune-teller’s words mattered less to me now that I knew I couldn’t hurt him, and so I in turn cared less about them. I didn’t feel afraid.

I felt free.

Noah’s hands lingered on my waist when he kissed me good-bye on Sunday night, and I smiled at the two charms that now hung around his neck. I loved that he was wearing mine for me.

My good mood was obvious to everyone, including my parents, apparently.

“We’re really proud of you, Mara,” my father said on the drive to Horizons on Monday morning. “Your mom and I were talking about the retreat this week and we decided that if you don’t want to go, you don’t have to.”

The Horizons retreat; part of the evaluation I was signed up for—to see if I would be better suited to the residential program than the outpatient one. I’d forgotten all about it, but I guess now it didn’t matter because I didn’t have to go.

I was shocked but thrilled by this development. “What brought this on?”

Dad shook his head. “We never wanted you to live somewhere else. We love having you home, kid. We just want you healthy and safe.”

A worthy goal. I had no protest.

The thing about happiness, though, is that it never lasts.

When I walked into Horizons I was handed a worksheet, which turned out to be a test. A sociopath test, if the questions were any indication. It was obvious which answer you were supposed to provide when prompted to choose—those tests always are—so I answered benignly, growing slightly uncomfortable about the fact that most of my real answers were not particularly nice.

Do you lie or manipulate others when it suits your needs or to get what you want?

A) Sometimes

B) Rarely

C) Often

D) Never

Often. “Rarely,” I circled.

Do you feel that the rules of society don’t apply to you, and will you violate them to accomplish your goals?

Sometimes. “Never,” I chose.

Do you easily talk your way out of trouble without guilt?

Often. “Rarely.”

Have you killed animals in the past?

Sometimes, I was loath to admit. “Never,” I chose.

And on it went, but I tried not to let it sour my mood. When I sat down for Group, I was able to maintain my golden bubble for a little while longer, even though everyone’s tiny miseries kept pressing up against it. I clenched my mouth against the snark and made sure my inner monologue stayed inner; I didn’t want anything to derail my Get Out of Inpatient Treatment Free pass.

Jamie looked like he was having as hard a time with all the sharing today as I was after one of Adam’s standard narcissistic diatribes, so when we broke for snack time I edged over.

“I hate that guy,” I said, grabbing a cookie.

“Yeah,” was all I got out of him, quite uncharacteristically. He filled a glass with water and sipped it very slowly.

I sat on the couch beside him. “Who died?” I asked.

There was a thin film of sweat on his forehead, which he wiped with the back of his sleeve. “Anna Greenly.”

“Wait—Croydian Anna?”

“The very same.”

I stared at him for a beat, waiting for the punch line. Then realized there was none.

“Seriously?” I asked quietly.

“Careened off an overpass. Drunk.”

“I’m . . .” But I didn’t know what I was. I had no idea what to say. You say you’re sorry when someone loses a person they love. Not a person they hate.

“Yeah,” Jamie said, though I hadn’t said anything. He did not look well.

“You okay?” I asked softly.

He shrugged. “I have a stomach thing. Don’t get close.”

“Well, now you’ve spoiled everything,” I said casually, working hard to fake it. “I was planning to seduce you in the broom closet.” I pointed. “Right there.”

A joyless smile appeared on Jamie’s lips. “We are far too screwed-up for a goddamned love triangle.”

That’s my Jamie.

After a minute of silence, he said, “You know how every now and then there’s a news story about kids being bullied into suicide?”

I did.

“Someone always says, ‘Kids are mean.’ ‘Kids will be kids.’ Which implies that the kid bullies will grow out of it someday.” The muscles in his jaw tightened. His stare was unfocused and far away. “I don’t think they do. I think kid bullies turn into adult bullies and it pisses me off that I’m expected to feel sad because one of them is gone. Anna was like . . . like a social terrorist,” he said, staring at the floor. “Aiden too.” His nostrils flared. “I was in that cesspool of douchebaggery with them for seven years and there was a lot—whatever. Let’s just say beating the shit out of me and having me unjustly expelled from school wasn’t the worst of it.” A wave of something passed over his face but he said nothing else.

I tried to catch his eye. “Misery’s no fun if you keep it to yourself.”

“Ain’t that the truth,” he said, but didn’t look up. “My parents asked if I wanted to go somewhere else for ninth grade but”—he waved his hand—“you know it doesn’t matter. There’s always one or two or five of them and I was short and a nerd and a minority in every major way and that’s more than enough reason to be picked on.” He exhaled through his nose. “But you know what their real problem with me was? I never wanted to be one of them. That’s what bothers bullies the most.”

Jamie stared at the near empty glass in his fist, gripping it tightly. “Of course, you can’t say any of this out loud, or people will clutch their pearls and call you a monster.”

I thought of my less-than-honest answers on this morning’s assignment and nudged my friend with my shoulder. “Not me. I took the sociopath test this morning. I only got three out of ten non-sociopath results.”

“That’s plenty.” Jamie flashed a weak half-smile, deepening his dimple, then went on. “I’m sure she had a redeeming quality or two and her family and sycophantic friends will miss her dearly. And if she were sitting here now talking about me, I’d probably feature in her narrative as a Moor out to steal all da white ladies.” He shrugged a shoulder. “I just can’t muster up the energy to feel shitty. I don’t really want to. She wouldn’t want my pity, even if she had it. You know?”

“I do,” I said, because I did.

He looked at the wall in front of us, at a ridiculous motivational poster with an eagle skimming the water, triumphantly clutching a fish in its talons. “A little dark for dear little Jamie?”

“No,” I said.

“No?”

“Your love of Ebola tipped me off,” I explained. “And you’re not so little, either.”

He inclined his head slightly, with a smile to match. Then he stood. “I am going to go throw up now. Enjoy your cookie.”

Jamie left but I just sat there, feeling vaguely nauseated myself.

His words unlocked something inside of me and images of corpses bobbed up in my mind.

Morales. Would I have killed her for failing me if I knew what I was doing? No. But was I sad that she was dead?

The brutal, honest answer was no. I was sorry that I might’ve killed her, but I barely thought about her at all.

And Mabel’s owner. If he was alive, she wouldn’t be. Or she’d be suffering still, with gaping wounds in her neck infested by maggots as her body consumed itself, as she died slowly in the miserable heat. But because he was dead? She was spoiled and fat and happy and loved. Her life was worth more than his.