Page 38 of All These Beautiful Strangers

I remembered that picture even now, almost six years later. Grace was sitting on some front porch steps in a pair of cutoffs and sneakers. It was summertime in the photo and Grace had a half-eaten ice-cream cone in one hand; the rest was smeared all over her nose, her chin, and she was leaning forward, mouth open in laughter. I remembered picking up the frame once, wondering what had made her laugh like that.

“It was this candid shot of you with this ice-cream cone, but there was more ice cream on your face than in the cone,” I said.

“Isn’t that how you’re supposed to do it?”

I wanted to ask her about the picture—about who had taken it and what she had been laughing at at the time—but when I looked up, I saw Teddy standing behind her.

“May I cut in?” he asked.

Grace looked up at me with those wide-set doe eyes.

“Yes,” Grace said. “Of course.”

I realized I was still holding her even though we had stopped dancing, my hand on the small of her back, my other hand clasping her palm. Reluctantly, I let her go.

I meandered over to the nearest waiter holding a tray of wineglasses and took one, turning my back to the dance floor. I didn’t want to watch them together.

Margot found me there.

“So, anything to worry about?” Margot asked.

“What?”

“Teddy and the total Virgin Mary with him?” Margot asked.

“Oh,” I said. “No. Just some stupid game he’s playing.”

“Hm,” Margot said. “Typical.”

“It’s the strangest thing, though,” I said.

“What is?”

“The girl—Grace. She used to date Jake Griffin.”

My gaze flickered to Margot and then away. I wanted to gauge her reaction.

“Who?” Margot asked. There wasn’t a hint of recognition in her eyes. She didn’t remember at all.

It was strange that a name that had haunted me for the past six years had such little effect on Margot. There were times when we were lying next to each other at night in the dark, and I’d want to speak that name into the void. I wanted to know if she was thinking about it, too. If it haunted her like it haunted me. If I wasn’t alone.

I thought I knew what Margot would say if I told her about the times I couldn’t drown out that whiny little voice in the back of my mind, and now, looking at her unaffected reaction to Jake’s name, I knew that I was right.

You let it get to you again, she would say disapprovingly.

How can you not let it get to you? I would ask. Because she knew. She had been there that night. How can you not feel the smallest bit of guilt?

Because I have nothing to gain from that, she would say.

And she’d be right.

It was weak of me to feel guilt or remorse. It was weak of me to think of it at all.

“You remember, Jake Griffin from Knollwood Prep,” I said finally, with a shrug that I hoped would appear indifferent. “The boy who killed himself.”

“Oh, Jake,” Margot said finally. “Small world, I guess.”

“Yeah,” I said, because she was right.