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“I was going to tell you. About Kala. Before you met her. I promise.” Her sentences come out in stilted chunks. “I just...I kept trying, but—but that’s when everything went wrong last time. I didn’t want it to get like that again.”

“Becca.” My arms twitch with how bad they want to reach for her when I see a pain deeper than any part of her I’ve witnessed before darken her face. “Did you really think I would let it get like that? Do you really not know me well enough?”

Everything Jane said back in the kitchen is still a blur, but there are parts I can pick out about what before must have been like: the suspicion, the jealousy, the stolen photos getting thrown in the faces of the whole team.

Even now, I can’t imagine doing anything like that. Even with a million reasons to be angry, I can’t see myself airing out the situation in front of the entire team and publicly dragging Becca’s name through the mud.

It’s really not my style, and it hurts to know she could be so afraid of that happening she’d keep this from me even after what we’ve shared.

“I was just—I couldn’t—I—” Her hands clutch at the air like she’s trying to pluck the right words from the atmosphere, but she just keeps stammering. Her voice gets more and more breathless. I start to worry she’s going to do something extreme like tip over and pass out on the porch, but then a creak from inside the house makes us both peer into the entryway behind her.

“Becca?” a voice calls.

More creaking follows. Someone is coming down the stairs.

“Becca, is everything okay?”

A dark-haired girl wearing jeans and a yellow sweater steps into the entryway and comes to stand next to Becca. She glances between the two of us, and if our stock-still body language and the thick, choking tension in the air weren’t enough to clue her in that something’s up, the fact that neither of us bothers to speak must.

“Um, hey.” She lifts her hand in a wave but drops it back to her side after a second. “You must be Hope? I’m Kala.”

I guessed who she was as soon as I heard her voice. Something in my gut just knew.

“Hey,” I bite out.

The tension takes over again. Kala opens and closes her mouth a few times.

“Um, should I go back upstairs? Is this a bad time?”

It’s a very bad time for Kala to be here at all. This morning when I asked Becca about her Thanksgiving plans, she wasn’t sure what she was doing. She didn’t mention Kala. I’m trying to cling to the belief that there’s a reasonable explanation for all of this, but my capacity for the benefit of the doubt is getting smaller by the second.

I need Becca to talk to me, but all she does is stare with that same wide-eyed horror.

“You guys are having Thanksgiving dinner together?” I’m trying so hard to keep my voice even I sort of sound like I’m possessed.

“Just takeout.” Kala says when Becca remains silent. “There was a big deal on Chinese. We have a shit ton of food.”

She laughs, but neither of us joins in.

“Okay, I think I’m gonna head back up.” She tries and fails to catch Becca’s eye before looking back at me. “It was nice to meet you, Hope.”

I jerk my chin down in a single, sharp nod. The stairs fire off a series of creaks when she leaves.

“Becca, I am really trying here,” I say as soon as she’s gone, “but you’re going to have to give me something. Is it...is it true that your ex caught you and Kala together, and you refused to explain it?”

She opens her mouth, but no sound comes out.

“Is that true?” I ask again. I’m fighting not to sound shrill.

“Yes,” she finally rasps, “but I...It wasn’t...It’s not like that.”

We both wince at the cliché.

“So what’s it like?”

She keeps staring at me, her hands fluttering in the air, grabbing at words that won’t come. That’s when I start to accept it: I’m not going to get what I need from her. I’ve been asking and asking, but she can’t find it and give it to me.

That’s what really makes me crumble.