I couldn’t carry on after that because everyone yelled and jumped up and ran to me and started asking a million questions. (I felt bad for Dimitri and Christina, but they kind of liked the drama of it. I could tell.)

No one could believe it.

I explained to my parents and Pappou how I hated seeing my mom and Aunt Soph fighting, and I thought that if there was no necklace, it would all blow over and we’d go back to how we were before.

“I’m so sorry,” I said, waiting for the biggest telling-off ever, and a punishment that lasted until I was eighty-two years old. If I was lucky.

But for some weird reason, my mom and Aunt Soph started laughing. I was trying to figure out why when Kat and Nicos came over.

“Siiick one, sis,” Nicos said and gave me a high five.

“Oh my God! I can’t believe it!” Kat shrieked. “Who’d have thought my goodie-goodie little sister would lie and steal and—”

“Yeah, all right, Kat,” I muttered.

“Look, you tried to stop them from arguing. You did what you thought was right. I have massive respect for that, even though you messed up on a truly epic scale. Honestly, Lex. When you got up on that stage and told the whole wedding you took the necklace, you know what I thought?”

I shook my head. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.

“I thought, I’m her.”

And Eleni, in her wheelchair beside me, laughed her head off.

Kat always hated us playing that game.

Two days after the wedding, we went to Pappou’s house and sat around the table.

Again.

I felt like an important business person having meetings all the time, but I also felt like a criminal being interviewed again and again by the police.

My family was there, and Eleni’s was, too. Uncle Dimitri and Christina were on their honeymoon by then, but some of my parents’ cousins from Cyprus were still around, and there were one or two of those old, wrinkly family friends who always ask, “Do you know who I am?” with a big smile, and you nod because you don’t want to be rude, but you actually have no clue.

It was the first time our two families had been at Pappou’s house together since the argument about the necklace. Eleni was allowed out of hospital again, but just for the day. Uncle C pushed her wheelchair toward me and she took my hand.

“Thanks for the aquarium,” I said. “And the clown fish. I love them. And thanks for telling Kyria Maria about the window.”

Eleni shook her head. “That wasn’t me. It was Anastasia.”

“What?”

“She phoned Kyria Maria herself to tell her what happened. She doesn’t expect you to be her friend or anything, but she told me to tell you she’s sorry she didn’t stick up for you. Demi’s mom paid for the window.”

I squinted at Eleni. “Are you telling the truth? Because I honestly can’t tell.”

“Yeah,” Eleni chuckled. “Anastasia knows she wasn’t very nice to you. She said she was angry about moving and leaving her friends behind, and seeing the two of us together made her want to be mean. I told her off and said that’s not the best way to make new friends. She is really nice, though, Lex. Honest.”

I thought about that for a minute. “If she’s sorry, she needs to say it to me,” I said. “But I guess I need to say it to her as well. It’s hard being separated from your friends. I didn’t think about that before, but I totally get it now.”

“OK, everybody!” Pappou yelled. (He pronounces it ev-irry-buddy.) “Please be quiet.”

Everyone stopped talking. Kind of. Our families were pretty chatty since we’d started hanging out again—we had six months of stuff to catch up on, after all.

Pappou sat down, put his hand into a black velvet bag, and took out a small green box. Then he lifted the lid and the room became quiet as he pulled out the wedding necklace.