THIRTY-FIVE

“Cate!” I call again when I get outside. To my left, I catch a flash of her jeans and the olive-green hoodie she’s wearing. She’s sprinting down the sidewalk at top speed. Her legs move like racing pinwheels, and I run as fast as I can. My heart’s pounding and my fingers are tingling, but my hands still work.

For now.

Cate doglegs it down a narrow alley that leads to the parking lot behind the store. Barely breaking stride, she reaches down and snags a loose brick out of a sagging planter box. As she passes behind my Jeep, she rears back and heaves the brick through the back window.

The glass shatters. The alarm begins to blare.

“What the hell are you doing?” I screech. I fumble for my keys. I want to turn the alarm off before the cops get called. Hell, in this neighborhood, they’ll probably get called anyway.

Cate stops dead. She stands there, staring at the broken window, like she can’t believe what she did, either. In the hand that didn’t throw the brick, she’s got this pink bag, she’s holding on to some stupid shiny pink bag.

I run right up to her. “Hey!”

She spins to face me.

I gasp.

Her face. Even after all this time and all this heartache, Cate’s face is the same as it always was—beautiful and clear and sculpted in all the right ways. She’s black hair and high cheekbones. She’s green, green eyes and red, red lips.

She’s just so miserable.

“Cate,” I say, and I already know it’s going to happen.

I just know it.

“You set me up!” she screams.

My hands go.

The keys fall to the ground.

I try to breathe. I try to keep breathing.

“That’s my car!” I choke-squeak. “You threw a brick into my car!”

“I know!”

“How did you know it was mine? How could you know that? Have you been watching me?”

Cate’s nostrils flare but she says nothing. Nothing from Cate means yes. It means guilt. And I’m gut-rot sick of her guilt.

“Look what you did!” I holler, and I’m talking about my hands and my Jeep and everything. “I did not set you up!”

Cate balls her fists and screams. It’s an awful sound. Full of pain and insanity.

My knees shake. My sister is a force I can’t control. “Look, I want to know what’s going on. I read those emails you sent to Angie. You keep talking about me. Like I did something wrong!”

She claws at her throat. She leaves red lines in her own flesh. “You’re trying to hurt me, Jamie. You always hurt me. That’s what’s wrong.”

“How am I hurting you? I ran into Scooter by accident. All I want are those pictures. Please. I have a right to see them!”

Cate’s face goes pale. For an instant, I think she’s going to turn and bolt again. Flee my life in her hit-and-run way. But she doesn’t. She takes a deliberate step toward me.

Then another.

“What did you say?” she asks.

“N-nothing.”

“You think you have a right to everything, don’t you? You always have.”

A right to what? God. I take a step back.

My head is swimming.

My heart feels like it’s slowing down.

“I don’t feel so good,” I say.

“No way,” she growls. “We’re not doing this bullshit. You need to listen to me. For once.”

I don’t know what bullshit she’s talking about. I don’t care, either. Colored dots burst before my eyes.

“Cate, I can’t, I can’t breathe.”

My sister grabs for my dead hands and yanks me toward her. “Stop it, you little coward. Do you hear me? Don’t you dare—”

Everything goes black.