“Hold on a minute. Are you saying that we should break up? Look, you can trust me! I just don’t know if I trust the people you’re with, and—”

“Oh, that’s rich.” I curled the magazine into a tube and smacked my hand with it. “You, who sold our pictures. Did they pay a lot? Are you good on beer money for the year? The decade?”

“Are you listening to yourself?” he said, right as I barreled on with, “Is it covering your tuition?”

“Now hold on a minute.” His neck had turned dark. “What are you trying to say?”

“That you’d make a lot of money selling a picture to a tabloid and you’d feel guilty enough to start bringing up some other guy like I’m cheating on you to cover it up! Which I’m not!” A flash pierced my mind: Lucy’s cupid’s bow coming toward me. Her blurry green eyes.

“Fine. Whatever. You’re not messing around. Okay.”

There was a long pause where we didn’t look at each other.

I said, “Fine.” Another long silence.

Finally, he said, in a softer voice, “I swear I didn’t sell them.” His voice carried a hint of irritation. “If you were so worried, why didn’t you develop the film yourself and give me only the approved ones?”

“Of course. This is all my fault.” I let my head drop to my knees and hugged my legs, trying to calm my shivering body. Alex put a warm hand on my back and rubbed it back and forth. I fought to gain control of my breath again. Penny nuzzled her wet nose into my hair and licked my forehead. Something inside of me broke again, and a laugh fizzled out of my mouth. “This is all so stupid.”

It wasn’t just the argument. It was everything: the house, the car, the dog, the album, the photo, the security cameras, the bodyguards, the tour, the workouts, the eating, the not-eating, the loudness that was so loud, the quiet that was too quiet, the cardboard box I was still sitting on, the boy sitting next to me on the kitchen floor.

“It is. It was stupid. I’m sorry.”

“Sorry you sold it?”

He stopped rubbing my back. “That’s not what I meant.”

I didn’t say anything else.

“I know it’s been tough,” he said slowly, “and I’m sorry I didn’t know the rules about getting prints developed. And I know you get this way sometimes so I’m going to just let it go . . .”

“Aren’t you a big person.” My voice was caustic, muffled in my knees.

“Cass, you’re a little . . . emotional. I don’t mean it in a bad way. But I have to ask . . . have you been seeing a doctor? Maybe talked to Dr. Brant since you left Houston? I just feel like you could use medication or something . . .”

My head snapped up. “You’re telling me to get medicated?” Penny slunk away as our voices rose, tail in between her legs. “Oh great, and now you’ve scared the dog!”

“You scared her,” Alex fumed, also standing. “Anyway, okay, I’m sorry I brought up the medication thing. But maybe you should. Talk to someone, I mean.”

A laugh bubbled out of my chest. “Talk to who? I can’t wait to see them on JMC dishing about me.”

He threw his hands in the air. “Okay, never mind! But just remember, Cass, not everyone is around to sell you out. You have to trust somebody sometime. And if not me, who else do you have?”

22.

Sunday

Merry

When I dragged myself out of bed on Sunday morning and started down to the kitchen, I could hear the digital murmur of voices on a television whispering through the hallway air. I paused in front of Sunny’s closed bedroom door to listen. She must have fallen asleep watching a show and let it go on all night. I made my way downstairs.

Raul was cutting a fresh loaf of bread, still steaming from being pulled from the oven. When he saw me, his face broke open with a grin. “You always have perfect timing,” he said. “It’s as if you know that the food is ready.” He dabbed a pat of butter on a piece and placed it on a plate in front of me. I bit into it, the melted butter smearing on my top lip and the hot bread burning the roof of my mouth. “Mmm. Heaven.”

“Will Soleil be down soon, you think?” he asked.

“Her? On a Sunday? It’s more likely she’ll be eating this bread at noon.”

“I heard her rummaging around in the den last night,” he said, sawing a slice off for himself. “Then knocking around in her room early this morning. I think she’s been up.”

“How strange.” I chewed another bite. “What does a lady have to do for some strawberry jam?”

“Who says you’re a lady?” He winked and leaned over for a kiss. It would be cheesy for anyone else to say it, but from Raul it was beautiful. He worked long and erratic hours and still baked for me.

“Don’t distract me with your dreamboat ways.” I hopped up from the chair, popping the last bite into my mouth and speaking around it. “I’ll grab Sunny so she can get this bread before it cools down. Cut me another piece, will you? And don’t skimp on my jam!” I took the stairs two at a time, in an inexplicably good mood.

When I knocked on Soleil’s door, the TV sounds muted. “Sunny?” I spoke through the wood. “Fresh bread! Want some?”

There was some muttering.

“I didn’t hear that. Can I come in?”

I swung open the door, expecting to see my fourteen-year-old in her hideous pizza pajamas, lying sideways in her bed watching sitcom reruns. Instead, she was on the floor, surrounded by photo albums open to various pages and had turned the TV screen off.

“What’s all this?” I asked. They were my old albums. I wondered if maybe she was digging up past photos of herself to share on social media. Kids these days are always looking for ways to feel nostalgic, even though they haven’t lived long enough to earn the right.

“Nothing,” she muttered.

“Raul made fresh bread. Come downstairs and have some,” I offered.

“Yeah, okay.” She made no effort to move.

I turned on my heel to leave, but one of the albums caught my eye. It was small and green, a fat book that had a cellophane sleeve for one print on each side. “I haven’t looked at this in a while,” I said, returning to the inner part of the room and perching on her bed. The book looked the same as before, when I had it in my hands. “I should’ve started going through these right after I found out.” Flipping the page, there was a shot of Cassidy, chewing gum. A photo of a billboard with our album cover on it. The Gloss girls in Times Square.

I thumbed backward a little, seeing yellowed pictures I’d clipped from tabloids, of Grant and me. It had been silly to cut them out, let alone save them, but nineteen-year-olds can still harbor childish tendencies. I smiled at them and kept flipping back. I knew that I wouldn’t see what I didn’t want to see in the album, that there were no traces left of him there, and that I had protected myself from the past very well. But the thought never left my mind; it was just diminished, shrunken in a tiny corner, and when I remembered that I wouldn’t have to remember, it sprang up again. I slapped the album closed.