“I started feeling better, and I wanted to help. That poor lady.” Now I’m practically prying my nails from their beds.
Asher’s face falls. He knows we’re lying, and he’s hurt. Guilt sloshes in my stomach.
“Well, I hope you two had fun doing whatever it was you were really doing,” says Asher dryly. My cheeks warm. “Because they buried Melody today, and you missed her service.”
I’m dizzy. All that digging and walking and lying. “We’re just going to put these shovels away.” I motion to the garage.
Asher reaches for Gideon’s shovel. “I’ll help with that. You can go home, Gideon,” he says, yanking the handle from his grip.
“Asher,” Gideon says, “hold on a second.”
“Go home, Gideon.”
“Wait a minute.”
Asher ignores him, turning to me. His brows furrow and he points at the front door. “You know Mom and Dad are in there, right? They may have already walked into your room to check on you. If you come with me right now, I can help you sneak back in there. But if it’s too late, you’re on your own, Cass. I can’t explain to Mom and Dad why you missed Melody’s funeral to be with your boyfriend.”
I shake my head, hoping I shut my bedroom door after changing clothes. “Keep your voice down.” I can’t leave things with my brother this way. I lob Gideon a helpless look. Before he can stop me, I blurt, “Asher, there’s something you should know.”
Asher’s impatient expression doesn’t wilt.
I glance behind me at the street and drop my voice. “The real reason we weren’t at the funeral is because we were trying to find Melody’s necklace. Brandon has it.” Asher frowns, but I keep talking. “He told me he hated her. And then a couple days ago, I saw him with her necklace.”
“Is this about Laura Gellman? Cass, I told you—”
“I’m not making this up! Gideon believes me, don’t you?” I turn to see Gideon’s gaze lower to the pavement, his teeth clamped onto his bottom lip. He renders a curt nod.
“I see,” Asher says, lugging the shovels to the garage. He walks off, leaving Gideon standing with his dirt-encrusted hands in his pockets, and me with my fists balled.
This ends today. Right now, I’m going to sneak back into bed and finish pretending to be sick. But the first chance I get, I’m confronting Brandon. I’m done with everyone believing that guy over me. “I’d better go inside,” I mumble to Gideon. “See you later.”
“Cass,” Gideon says, but he doesn’t attempt to follow me.
* * *
Once I’ve settled under the covers, a book I have no attention span to read in hand, there’s a knock on my door. “Come in,” I call, expecting my mom.
But it’s Asher. “How are you feeling?”
I roll my eyes and pull the covers up higher. “You don’t need to come in here and tell me not to blab about Brandon. I promise I won’t say a word”—I cough and mutter—“until after I find that necklace.”
“I wasn’t going to mention Brandon. Maybe it was too soon to stick the two of you together.” He shrugs. “You did seem to be getting along well. There were sparks and everything.”
“Gross.”
“So it’s back to Gideon, then.”
My teeth clamp. “Did you tell Gideon he shouldn’t date me?” A startled expression crosses Asher’s face. “Don’t deny it. I saw how you made him feel terrible just now. You must’ve said something to him.”
Asher steps closer to the bed. “Cass, it’s not like that. I was just upset that you two ditched the funeral.”
“You made him promise not to date me.”
“Not exactly,” he says, cheeks flushing.
My head tips forward.
“I was worried. Your freshman year, after Brandon…”
“Went to the dark side,” I offer.
“Yeah. I started hanging out with you and Gideon, and everything was great. Then he told me how he felt about you, and”—he shrugs—“I just told him to be careful.”
“You what?” Heat courses through me, half rage at Asher, half a warm thrill hearing Gideon’s feelings confirmed.
“You’d been through so much with the fire, and things were good between you two. Between all of us. I didn’t want it to fall apart. You could’ve gotten your heart broken and lost your best friend at the same time. It would’ve been too much.”
“I hate you, Asher.” And I hate Gideon for telling Asher about us. But then my brother’s fingers graze the scars on his left wrist, and my anger fizzles.
“Because you know I’m right.”
I press my lips flat. Asher may have wrecked my chances with Gideon before, but a sliver of hope grows now, pushing my spirits skyward. Maybe Gideon still feels this way.
Asher starts wandering the room. He twists the crank on the little music box he gave me for Christmas one year. “You Are My Sunshine” plays while he flips open a book from the shelf and returns it. I wonder, as he fingers the edge of one rugged, white hardcover, if he remembers the hours spent on this floor, reading Fox in Socks. I lean back against the headboard, listening to the music swirl around the room, until a chanting breaks out over the notes: “When beetles battle beetles in a puddle paddle battle and the beetle battle puddle is a puddle in a bottle…”
I crack a smile. “‘They call this a tweetle beetle bottle puddle paddle battle muddle.’ That was my favorite part.”
“It is the most enthralling scene, no one can argue that. Though I’m pretty sure I can quote the entire book, thanks to you.” He moves on down the line, giving the rocking horse a nudge. When he gets to the porcelain doll, he stops and turns to me. “Edna’s chipped,” he says with a note of hurt. He picks up the doll and examines the tiny hand that cracked during an earthquake. “Do you want me to fix it?”
“No, Asher, it’s fine.”
“It would be a simple fix.”
It gnaws at me that I didn’t take better care of Edna. The doll was a gift from Asher to replace the one the playhouse fire consumed. Asher named her after the neighbor down the street who used to complain about her sciatica on a daily basis. As much as I wanted to love that doll, she only reminded me of Sara and the mistake I’ll never outlive. She’s been sitting here beside all the presents I’ve outgrown on the shelf, right next to a framed photo of Sara and me. The photo rubs at a raw spot in my heart, but I won’t take it down. Forcing myself to look at it is the least I can do for her. “Sure, Asher, that’d be nice.” I never remember to stay mad at him for long.