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push it farther and farther.
    My heart starts to jackhammer. What is she doing on the floor? What is she doing on the floor?
    Her waist.
    “Mom!” The door hits the counter as I shove it open.
    “Mom!” My legs collapse from under me and I hit the floor.
    She’s not moving. Not talking. I’m afraid to see if she’s breathing.
    No, no, no. “Mom? Please! Please, wake up.” The words break apart as I speak them. My tears fall on her as I pull her head to my lap. Holding her, I struggle to get my cell out of my pocket. My fingers shake as I dial 911, my free hand running through her hair like she does with me.
    The woman who answers hardly gets out any words before I yell, “Help. Please. Help me!”
    “Brynn?” Diana snaps me out of the memory. One look at her tells me she’s frustrated. “We’re going to go. Think about what I said, okay?” She stands and then so does Ellie.
    “Do you want us to pick you up tomorrow?” Ellie asks.
    “No,” I manage to say, tracing the headboard again. “I’ll meet you there.”
    “What time?” Diana asks.
    “Umm…seven?” I feel like I’m on autopilot, saying what I’m supposed to and not feeling any of it.
    “Okay, we’ll see you then.”
    “Love ya,” they both say.
    “Love you, too…”
    I can’t make myself go to the party. I can’t make myself answer the phone. And when I go back to school, it’s a struggle just to hang out with my friends.
    The worst part is I know they’re right. Mom wouldn’t want this for me, even if I did sit in my pottery room being angry at her while she was dying.
    I wish I could be as good as she was.

Chapter Seven
    September
    Now
    My parents met at a high school dance. Mom used to tell me about it all the time, how Dad didn’t go to her school but he’d been at the dance with someone else, and the second their eyes locked from across the room, she knew he was someone special.
    She told me how he’d asked her to dance. How he’d called her his beautiful lady in Italian. She said when his arms wrapped around her, she felt dizzy, and in that moment, she knew she loved him.
    Ever since the first time I heard that story, two things were true about me. First, I was a total romantic. I wanted a love like Mom and Dad’s. I wanted to be someone’s beautiful, maybe even fall in love just like they had.
    Second, I’ve always looked forward to school. Don’t ask me how I brought those two things together—maybe since it was a school dance or because I wanted to believe I’d find my true love at a young age. Or maybe it was because the first time I thought I fell in love, it was at school, in the seventh grade. But whatever the reason, I loved school. Thrived in it.
    Now, the thought makes me sick to my stomach.
    I can’t stop staring in the mirror of my armoire, looking for some sort of sign that I’ve changed in the last few months. That spending the summer without my friends, alternating between the house and my pottery room, working to create something that just won’t come to me, is enough punishment. That watching my dad try to talk to me, when he can hardly look me in the eyes, is enough of a prison. That knowing I once had life inside me—even if only for a little while—only to have it stolen, is enough torture.
    I’ve paid for Jason’s sins and mine, and now I’m not the same Brynn anymore.
    I can’t find those signs I’m looking for.
    Nothing tells me this nightmare is over. That when I show up at school today, Ellie and Diana will hug me. Tell me they’re sorry for not believing in me and that they want to be best friends again. That Ian will tell me I didn’t deserve what Jason did to me, and that even though we have a past together, he wants to be friends, too.
    We can’t go back and I know that. I don’t even want to, because I will never trust another boy with my heart or my body again, but I want back as many parts of my “before” life as I can have. Selfish, maybe, but true.
    “Knock,