She laughed and kindly allowed me to change the subject without calling me out on it. Callie was one of the few people who could read me like a book, and she must have sensed I was freaking out.

“Yeah, I saw him.” She sighed. “It didn’t go so good, not at first, but we’re solid now.”

“How solid?” I asked cautiously.

Callie and Grease’s relationship had gone through more ups and downs than any I had ever heard of. Up until the night before, they hadn’t even talked in almost a year—a decision Callie had made while she was dealing with an assload of survivor’s guilt and PTSD.

“Pack-your-shit-because-we’re-moving-to-Oregon solid,” she answered giddily.

“No fucking way.”

“Yep. We want to move all of us up here this week.” She spoke quickly as if worried I’d interrupt. “But before you freak, I want to tell you that if you changed your mind about moving or you don’t want to go that soon, I won’t be mad. I won’t. I really want you with us, Farrah, and I hope that you’ll come. We just don’t want to waste any more time, you know?”

I sat in silence, weighing my options before speaking. I could drop everything and move with my family to Oregon, or I could refuse to go and be stuck in an empty apartment in a town where no one cared about me. I’d be alone and lonely. It was an easy decision to make.

“Well, I’ll have to check my schedule . . . but I’m pretty sure I’m not busy next week,” I told her flatly, pulling the phone away from my ear as she whooped.

“Okay, yes! We’re leaving here in just a little bit so we can be home before Will goes to bed tonight. Asa is dying to see him, and we’re just . . . we’re ready to be a family. All in one place, finally.” She sniffled, but the tone of her voice was pure joy. “So, I’ll see you tonight!”

“Okay, sis. Drive careful.”

“Nah, I thought I’d drive recklessly this time,” she replied dryly, then her voice turned soft. “Love you.”

“Back atcha, toots.”

I hopped into the shower, already planning our move in my head. There was so much to do and so little time to do it. We needed to get boxes and tape, and we could probably use garbage bags for laundry and—shit! My laundry needed to be done before we started packing or I’d be screwed.

The news couldn’t have come at a better time; it gave me a reason to think of something other than what the hell I was doing with Cody. My mind wandered as I soaped up and rinsed off, and for a while I completely forgot the man in my bedroom.

I was planning on wearing a vintage sundress circa 1970, so I took my time parting my hair in a severe middle part before putting hot rollers in it while I listened to music from the seventies. For some reason, I found that it relaxed me to listen to the era of the day’s music while putting on my makeup and styling my hair. I hated looking in the mirror before I showered, or any time that I wasn’t actually getting ready. It was a trigger for me, something I’d learned to recognize in the hours I’d spent in therapy. I didn’t like seeing the barefaced girl with scars on her body and hollow cheeks—it reminded me too much of the day I’d walked to Callie’s with a broken arm and oozing cigar burns—so I covered her up.

My wardrobe since high school had consisted of vintage clothing I found in thrift stores. The chain stores never had what I needed, but if I could find an old, musty, broken-down store in the middle of a dying strip mall, I usually hit gold. Some days, I was a fifties housewife with a demure little dress whose hemline floated just below my knees, and looked as if it were only missing a frilly apron. Other days, I was into nineties grunge and would wear a flannel shirt, jeans, and work boots, my hair in a messy bun. I also had skinny jeans and bell-bottoms, flat-soled Vans and platform sandals. I never stayed in a particular decade, choosing instead to dress according to my mood.

My clothes were my armor. They gave me confidence, a way to keep my head high when I wanted nothing more than to hide. I’d realized when I was young that if I didn’t try to dress like everyone else—if I made my own style, attractive but completely different from the other girls—I would never look as if I were trying to fit in. It set me apart in a way that was my choice, the only way I could assert control in the life I’d been given.

After Echo was murdered, I’d even gone so far as to cover my body in piercings: septum, eyebrow, lip, belly button, nipples; I had piercings everywhere. I’d liked the way they made me look different—unapproachable—until suddenly I’d woken up sober for once and realized I looked exactly the same as every other emo teenager in my neighborhood. After that, I’d taken all of them out except for the one in my eyebrow. I still liked that one.

Thankfully, things had changed drastically in the last couple of years and I was able to make my own choices for the first time in my life. They weren’t always the right ones, but they were mine. I’d grown up and left behind the girl who wanted to crawl inside herself and hide—my tormentors no longer had any hold on me—but I still loved the idea of being someone different from one day to the next.

I had all the my half-empty shampoo and lotion bottles lined up on the counter, letting my rollers set while I chose which bottles to keep and which to throw in the trash, when Cody scared the crap out of me by knocking on the door.

“Baby, you’ve been in there for like an hour,” he called through the door. “I need to take a shower or I’m going to smell like sex when we head to Gram’s!” He then jiggled the locked handle.