“Nice car,” I told him, trying to distract myself from the fact that I was skipping school to follow up a hunch I couldn’t even articulate.

“Why, thank you,” Asher replied. “It’s Emilia’s. Mine met with an unfortunate accident involving a toaster and a squirrel.”

I didn’t really know where to start. “You stole your sister’s car?”

“Is it still stealing if she loaned it to me once and I made a copy of her keys?” The question was clearly meant to be rhetorical.

“Yes,” I told him. “Definitely still stealing.”

“And so begins a life of crime,” Asher said with a morose shake of his head.

“Your sister is going to kill you,” I told him. Skipping school. Stealing her car.

Asher waved away my words, unconcerned. “If Emilia was predisposed to fratricide, I wouldn’t have made it past kindergarten,” he said. “I am, however, somewhat concerned that she might kill you.”

When we arrived at Vivvie’s house half an hour later, I got out of the car, then hesitated. I hadn’t thought this far ahead. What was I doing here? I had no plan. I wasn’t even entirely certain why I’d come.

It’s probably nothing. Vivvie’s probably fine.

I didn’t believe that, and I didn’t know why. I made my way to the front porch. Asher followed. No one answered the first time I rang the bell. Or the second. But the third time, the door opened a crack.

“Tess?” Vivvie’s voice was hoarse. Like she’d been yelling, or crying—or, I told myself, trying to be rational, like she has strep throat and that is why she hasn’t been at school.

“Can I come in?” I asked.

Vivvie looked past me and registered Asher’s presence.

“I was worried about you,” I told her. She didn’t reply. “Tell me I shouldn’t be.”

Vivvie summoned her voice. “You shouldn’t be.”

Liar. The door was open wider now. She looked like she hadn’t slept since the last time I’d seen her.

“I’m going to stretch my legs a bit and let you two ladies talk.” Asher set off on a stroll around the neighborhood, leaving Vivvie and me alone.

“Can I come in?” I asked.

Vivvie shook her head, but she also stepped back, allowing me entry. I crossed the threshold into the foyer. For a few seconds, Vivvie looked at everything but me: the floor, the ceiling, the walls. Eventually, her gaze found its way to mine. The oversized sweatshirt she was wearing slipped off one shoulder. The skin underneath was darker near her collarbone. Bruised.

She tracked my gaze to the bruise and froze.

“Did your father do that?” I asked softly.

Vivvie jerked her sweatshirt back up. She shook her head—more than once. “He’s not like that.” She still had a hold on her sweatshirt, like she couldn’t coax her hand into letting go. “It was an accident.” Now she was nodding, as if she could will that into being true.

“Okay,” I said. But we both knew that it wasn’t okay. She wasn’t okay.

“My dad and I had a fight. After the wake.” Vivvie’s grip on her sweatshirt tightened. Her free arm wrapped itself around her torso in a fierce self-hug. “The kind of fight where you yell,” she clarified. “Not the kind where you . . .”

Not the kind where the bigger person hits the small one, I filled in, unable to keep from thinking about that bruise.

“We were just yelling,” Vivvie reiterated fiercely. “That’s how we fight. He yells. I cry. He gets flustered because I’m crying.”

This was Vivvie talking about what a fight with her father was like. Not the fight she’d had with him after the wake.

“This time was different,” I said. I kept my voice low and stayed away from questions. Questions required answers. I was stating facts.

Vivvie slowly unwound her hand from her shirt. “This time was different,” she echoed, her voice barely more than a whisper. “He grabbed me. He didn’t mean to.” She paused. “I know what that sounds like, Tess. I do. But it’s been just the two of us for years, and he’s never . . .”

We were still standing in the foyer. The house was immaculate: everything in its place.

“You weren’t in school today.” I stuck to statements—nonthreatening ones—as best I could. “You weren’t in school most of last week, either.”

“I’m not hiding any more bruises,” Vivvie said quickly. She could see how this looked. “Last week, my dad and I weren’t even—we weren’t fighting. I just told him I was sick, and he let me stay home.”

She’d told him she was sick. But she wasn’t.

“You have to come back to school eventually,” I said gently. What I didn’t say was: Who or what are you avoiding?

What I didn’t say was: What were you and your father fighting about?

“I’ll come back to school tomorrow,” Vivvie told me. “I swear.” I could feel the nervous energy rolling off her. She was starting to panic about what she’d told me—even though she hadn’t said much at all.

“I need some air,” I told her. We both knew that I wasn’t the one who needed it. “You want to go for a walk?”

After a long moment, her head bobbed in something I took as a nod. She slipped on a pair of shoes, and we started walking: out the front door, down the sidewalk, around her neighborhood. Neither of us said a word. I could feel Vivvie trying to reel it in. Trying to be strong. This was a girl who didn’t want to bother classmates she’d known her entire life by asking to sit at their tables for lunch. No matter how badly she needed my help, she wouldn’t ask for it.

She couldn’t.

Matching the rhythm of my steps to hers, I willed my presence to do the talking for me. You are not a bother. You are not alone.

One block. Two. Eventually, Vivvie’s arms wrapped their way around her torso again.

“Are you okay?” I asked her. I met her eyes. “I know that’s your line. I was just trying it out.”

She managed a small smile. We fell quiet. In that silence, she must have reached a tipping point, because she was the one who spoke next.

“Have you ever known something you desperately wished you didn’t know?” Vivvie’s voice was rough in her throat, like she almost couldn’t choke out the words. We kept walking, slow and steady, as I processed the question.