This Adventure Ends by Emma Mills

Author:Emma Mills
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co. (BYR)

twenty-eight

Frank Sanger Presents is in a big house in Opal on Friday night, right off the main circle by Laney’s school. It was always one of my favorites growing up—peach-colored with white trim, a wraparound porch on the first and second floors, and a lovely little tower jutting up above the trees. Apparently Luke Nelson’s family owns it: “He’s a dear old friend,” Frank says as he greets us in the foyer. I would be surprised to meet someone at one of these things who isn’t a dear old friend of Frank Sanger’s.

It’s the usual routine: dancing and gossip and drinks, Frank sweeping around like a society matron in Regency times, making sure everyone is well taken care of.

Vera is here, much to my surprise. She missed school again on Thursday but showed up today, fresh-faced and smiling like nothing out of the ordinary had happened. It made me think of a description in Sand on Our Beach—how maybe grief was like a chronic illness, something that could hide dormant in your system but activate at any time.

We’re sitting out on the second-floor balcony, talking about nothing much, when Vera gets a text. She reads it, rolls her eyes, and stands.

“What?”

“Aubrey says Gabe just got punched in the face.”

“What? Why?”

“I’m guessing someone was being disrespected. Come on, let’s go find him.”

We split up: Vera takes the first floor, and I head outside. Gabe isn’t in the back (though the Nelsons have a lovely inground pool), so I take the footpath around to the front.

And then I see him, standing a little ways away, under one of the green-domed streetlights that casts a perfect round circle of light onto the ground.

His back is to me when I approach.

“I said I’m fine,” he says, not turning around.

“Are you sure?” I reply, and he looks back, surprised, just for a second before facing forward again. A second is all I need. “’Cause you look pretty wrecked.”

“I thought you were Aubrey,” he says, muffled and a bit nasal, like he has a cold. “She said she was going to get ice. Or … a towel, or something.”

“Hopefully both,” I say, and cross in front of him. The bottom half of his face is hidden behind his hands, one holding his nose shut and the other shielding it. Blood is running pretty freely down both. I wrap my fingers around one of his wrists, trying to guide his hand away, but he doesn’t let me—just slips out of my grasp and steps to the side.

“It’s fine,” he says.

“Was it Mason?”

I think he might not answer, but when I look over at him, his expression—the top half of it, anyway—is wry. “No. I hate to break it to you, but there’s more than one douchelord at this school.”

“And you’re responsible for them all?” I say, but then shake my head. “No, wait—you’re just responsible for everybody else, right?”

He shrugs.

“No but really, what’s worth getting punched in the face for?”

“I would do anything for my friends,” he says.

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