Between by Jessica Warman Read Free Book Online Page B

feeling the tension I witnessed between the two of them—in our whole family, really—was nothing new. As difficult as the memory was to witness, though, it made me want to be with my mother even more.
    Everybody’s parents fight , I think again. My dad and Nicole fight sometimes. It’s not like my parents’ marriage was a disaster. Sure, I can remember the rumors clearly, even though I wish I couldn’t, but I know they aren’t true. No matter what anybody else might think.
    “Would you pull yourself together?” Alex asks.
    “Shut up.”
    He raises an eyebrow but he doesn’t say anything. Instead, he turns his attention to the scene unfolding inside the boat. Together we watch.
    A couple of my friends—Mera and Topher—are openly smoking cigarettes, their fingers shaking, silent tears running down their cheeks. Everyone is white, shocked into paleness, their summer tans nowhere in sight.
    Without a word, my stepmom, Nicole, goes first to Mera, then to Topher, taking both of their cigarettes. She drops one of them into an empty beer bottle and keeps the other one for herself. Nicole quit smoking a few years ago, when my dad had his heart attack. I guess she figures now is as good a time as any to start up again.
    Once everybody is sitting down, Joe Wright takes a seat in the captain’s chair. He’s holding a tiny spiral notepad and a pen. It seems like an impossibly small tool for solving the mystery of how I ended up dead. There’s another cop standing beside him, also holding a notepad. His name tag reads SHANE EVANS.
    Joe Wright clears his throat. “Okay, kids.” He takes a deep breath and rubs an invisible spot on his forehead, like this whole situation is giving him a headache. “Let’s start at the beginning, all right? Tell me what happened.”
    Nobody says anything for a good long minute.
    “I know you kids were partying here. It was her birthday, right?”
    “Liz.” Richie stares at the hardwood floor of the boat. “Her name is Liz.”
    “And you are? That’s a good place to begin, actually—let’s get all your names, and you can tell me what you remember from last night. One by one.”
    “It’s fascinating,” Alex whispers, as though they might hear us.
    “What is?” I can’t stop looking at my dad and Nicole. They are both trembling, probably from shock. I would do anything to put my arms around them right now, to really feel them, and to have them realize my touch.
    “I’ve never seen the cool kids in such disarray. Your friends don’t even have on makeup. They don’t look so hot without it. Don’t you think?”
    I scowl at him. “When would they have had time to put on makeup? Do you think they’re really that shallow?”
    “It wouldn’t surprise me.” He squints. “Especially Josie and Mera. You three were the most superficial people I’d ever met. You know what my friends and I used to call girls like you? Girls who had everything handed to them on a silver platter, who only cared about how they looked and who was dating the most popular guy?”
    “What?”
    His grin grows wider. “We called you bitches. You girls were straight-up bitches.”
    The comment stings. Coolly, I say, “Funny, I thought it might be a trick question. I assumed you didn’t have any friends.” Right away, I’m sorry for saying it. I almost want to apologize, but the silence dangles between us, so palpably uncomfortable, so thick with other emotions, that I don’t know what I’d say.
    “I had friends,” Alex says. “You just didn’t know them.”
    “Who were your friends, Alex?”
    “I worked with them. At the Mystic Market.” He pauses. “They were older. Mostly college kids. But they were nice. They liked me. They were different from you and your group. They understood that there was life beyond high school, that there were other things that mattered besides what brand of purse you carried or who you were dating.”
    I shrug. “But high school was life. It was all we knew. So