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I look down at my chest, the push-up bra jamming my cleavage almost to my chin. She follows my gaze.

“I’m telling you, Claire. It doesn’t matter. What you were wearing. What you look like. Nothing. Watch the nature channel. Predators go for the easy prey.”

I think of Branley, gorgeous and soaked in beer, but surrounded by admirers. Then there was me, drunk and sulking, wandering around and practically begging for attention. Easy prey, indeed.

“She actually helped, you know,” Alex says.

“Who?”

“The blond girl, Branley. She was the one who got you up off the floor. She buttoned your shirt back up, and made sure Sara had your phone when we carried you out to the car.”

“Oh,” I say.

“I know you want to hate her,” Alex says. “But I don’t think she deserves it.”

“Wait till she bangs your boyfriend,” I mutter.

“Judging by both their behavior, I’m pretty sure she already has,” Alex says. “But he wasn’t my boyfriend before, so it doesn’t matter.”

“What exactly did I miss? Is he your boyfriend now?” I ask.

“I don’t know,” Alex says, the same mild puzzlement that her mother wore earlier now crossing her face. “How do you establish that?”

“You ask, plainly,” I say, ready to take my turn as coach. “And with Jack Fisher, you need to be clear that monogamy is part of the deal. He gets around, and I swear if he hurts you, it’ll be my turn to kick some ass.” I shake a fist in her face to make my point.

“Your thumb goes on the outside,” she says.

26. JACK

My dad was right.

Skin makes a sound when it tears, one that burrows down into your subconscious and makes a home in the gray matter of your brain. It won’t slip away easily and can’t be replaced. Instead it takes precedence over everything else, so that the sound of Mom stripping the plastic off slices of cheese as she packs my lunch for work has me cocking my head, thinking, No . . . that’s not quite it.

I’ve spent twenty-four hours simultaneously trying to forget the sound of Ray Parsons’s ear coming away from his head and comparing everything else I hear to it. I’ve done that about as much as I’ve tapped my finger against my phone, debating about whether or not I’m going to call Alex. Every time I tap on her profile the pic of her and Peekay pops up and I suddenly have no problem remembering exactly what skin tearing sounds like, and how Ray’s voice came out awkwardly, words bubbling through blood.

“Penny for your thoughts,” Mom says as she puts my lunch in the fridge, ready for me to grab in the morning when I head out. It’s like I’m five. I don’t know if I love it or hate it.

“You’d be overpaying,” I say, an old joke that stopped being funny a long time ago. Mom could fake laugh and rub my arm casually, walk away feeling like she’s got a great relationship with her son. But she’s not like that.

“Girl problems?” It’s a question, but there’s more of a statement in it than anything. She pulls out a barstool on the other side of the counter and rests her chin on her fist.

“Don’t wanna talk about it,” I say, which is only half true.

“Okay,” she says brightly. “We can just stare at each other, then.”

“Mom . . . ,” I say, the inflection so much different than it was ten years ago. All the annoyance of my life is buried in that syllable, just like it used to be the one word that could fix everything.

“Jack,” she interrupts me. “I’m not stupid.”

“I know.”

“No, Jack, you don’t. I am not stupid and I was a teenager once too, right here in this same town. I know what alcohol smells like. I know what pot smells like. I’ve smelled them both on you, and I can’t even keep track of how many different girls’ perfumes—”

“Mom . . .”

“Oh, shut it. You’re lucky I said perfume.”

I shut it.