Page 89 of Heidi Lucy Loses Her Mind

“Yes,” I say as my head thuds down on the table in front of me. “Ouch.” I lift it immediately, wincing as I rub my forehead.

It’s been twenty-four hours since I watched the security tapes, and my humiliation has not died down one bit. Eric, Gemma, and I are seated in the café, and I’m glad the day is over; I couldn’t bring myself to tell Soren what the security footage showed, so I was weird and awkward while he was here earlier.

“Don’t worry,” Gemma says in a soothing voice, her hand rubbing gentle circles over my upper back. “When I was in eighth grade, I burned myself with my straightening iron on accident and told everyone it was a hickey.”

Both Eric and I snort.

“Or one time I tripped over my dog,” she goes on. “He wasn’t even running around or anything; I just wasn’t paying attention.”

“Stop talking, Gem,” Eric says, grinning. “You’re not doing yourself any favors.”

“I’m telling her so she doesn’t feel like she’s the only one who’s had embarrassing falls,” she says, sticking her tongue out at my brother. She tucks her dark hair behind her ear and then looks back to me.

“Isn’t eighth grade a little young to have a hickey, though?” Eric goes on before she can speak again. His voice is musing, his eyes full of laughter. “You would have been…what, thirteen? Fourteen?”

“Something like that,” she says dismissively. “I’ve always been beautiful, and the boys have always noticed.” She sniffs as she smooths her hands over her hair. “But like I said—it wasn’t really a hickey.”

“Mm-hmm,” Eric says, and his eyes are sharper on her now, like he’s thinking about giving this no-longer-in-eight-grade version of Gemma a hickey.

“Anyway,” she says, waving her hand, “the point is, we’ve all done embarrassing things.”

“Yes,” Eric drawls, “but none of us have done anything quite as embarrassing as losing our memories after tripping over a Roomba—ouch!”

Gemma has just walloped Eric on the back of the head, and although it wasn’t a proper beating, it wasn’t a little love pat, either.

“You deserved that,” I say, narrowing my eyes at him. “I feel dumb enough already.”

“Fine,” he says as he rubs the back of his head. “In all seriousness—Gemma’s right. Don’t worry about it. We all do stupid stuff—”

“Hang on, hang on,” Gemma says, fumbling with her phone. “I want to record that. Here. Say it again—”

“Shut up,” Eric mutters, but he can’t quite hide his smile.

I sigh, smiling slightly too. Then I stand up. “All right,” I say. “Be gone, gentle maidens.”

“Gentle—what?” Eric says, while Gemma cackles.

“Jojo said it today,” she says, wiping tears of laughter out of her eyes. “Out of nowhere. He just squawkedgentle maidenstwice and then went quiet again.”

Eric shakes his head. “That bird is a weirdo. He’s going to kill you in your sleep one of these days, mark my words.”

The joke falls just this side of flat, and Eric can tell; he rubs the back of his neck in an uncharacteristic display of discomfort before giving a forced chuckle.

“That…wasn’t great,” he says after a second. “Sorry.”

And then, as though we’re all reliving the same thing, all three of us turn our eyes to the table next to where we’re seated—the table that has since been replaced but looks exactly the same as the one Carmina died at.

Gemma sighs, a sad sound, before standing up and looking back at me. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” I say around the inexplicable lump in my throat. I can’t seem to get the image of her tablecloth-covered body out of my head, light blue and strangely lumpy. “I’m fine.”

My best friend nods and sighs again. “All right,” she says. “I’m heading out. You should go home too,” she says to Eric, patting his shoulder. “You start really early, don’t you?”

“Yeah,” he says, looking bad-tempered. “At four. For all those early birds who do day trips and stuff and need outdoor equipment.”

“That’s what I thought,” Gemma says, cringing. “That sounds horrible. Go home and go to bed.”

“You could come with me,” he murmurs, and she rolls her eyes even as a faint flush rises in her cheeks.

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