Sarina answered the door when Celeste knocked. It was a shock and with the anxiety built up inside her, Celeste didn’t feel ready to be facing Sarina so abruptly.

“Oh… Um… Hi,” Celeste fumbled.

“Hi,” Sarina said.

It wasn’t a friendly greeting. Sarina wasn’t smiling. She was stiff and tense in the doorway.

“I need to talk to you. If that’s okay?” Celeste said, fidgeting with her mittens. “Can I…?”

“Sure,” Sarina said. “Come in.”

The house was overly quiet when Celeste stepped inside. Both of Sarina’s parents must have been out or working. Same with Travis. There weren’t any cars parked out front, save for Celeste’s.

Celeste took off her boots and the rest of her winter gear at the door and followed Sarina to her room. It was hard for her to swallow, her throat dry and tight. Celeste was horrible at conversations like these…

She was caught off-guard when she found Sarina’s room in a complete disarray.

“I was in the middle of cleaning up,” Sarina explained, shoving a large garbage bag off to the side. “My room’s a fucking disaster. Half this shit needs to go in the trash. It’s garbage.”

Sarina had already stripped her bed bare of the sheets. They were probably in the wash. Regardless, that’s where Sarina sat, raising a leg to kick a box off her vanity’s chair. It was full of makeup, which scattered all over the floor. Sarina didn’t seem to care.

“Sit wherever,” Sarina said. “Or don’t. I don’t give a fuck.”

“Um…” Celeste said, not knowing where to start. She didn’t feel comfortable sitting just yet. “I… Remember our talk from yesterday?”

“Yeah, I remember our talk,” Sarina said. “What about it?”

“Um… Did you…? I heard that you went to the hospital…”

“Of course you did. Everyone in this town runs their mouths. What did they say?”

“Monique called Danny,” Celeste said in a small voice. “She said you told her that you went and yelled at Rion. And she said people were talking and…they said you went to hospital and beat him up.”

“I didn’t fucking beat him up!” Sarina said. “Oh my god! This whole fucking town is retarded! I can’t even!”

She thumped a fist down on her bed in anger and Celeste flinched.

“This situation is fucked,” Sarina continued. “You seriously think I would do that, Celeste? Have you seen Rion? He’s so fucking pathetic. You think I’d beat him up when he’s already a fucking mess? Come on!”

“I don’t know what to think,” Celeste said, closing her eyes for a moment. She felt emotional, like she might cry. She hated confrontations like these, hated being yelled at. “I never would have thought… I never would have thought that things would be the way they are. I can’t believe that Rion would ever…that he would…electrocute Amber…”

To Celeste’s surprise, Sarina let out a derisive snort. “You can’t? Why not? It makes perfect fucking sense.”

“What?” Celeste said, opening her eyes. “No. No, it doesn’t. Rion’s not like that at all.”

“Of course he is,” Sarina said, grimacing, her expression bitter. “He’d do anything for Noa. He jumped right into broken glass for him. Makes sense that he’d commit literal murder or whatever the fuck just to make Noa feel better.”

Celeste stood there blinking, not understanding.

“What?” she said.

“What do you mean, ‘what’?” Sarina said. “Rion would do anything for Noa. Putting Amber in that bathtub? That was obviously the reason. It’s so fucked up. Rion is so fucked.”

Celeste was struggling to understand what Sarina was saying.

Rion electrocuted Amber for Noa? What? Why? That didn’t make any sense.

“Rion said… Rion said he was trying to fix things,” Celeste said. “Obviously, he was… He wasn’t okay. He wasn’t thinking straight. He…”

“Yeah, and who do you think he was trying to fix things for?” Sarina said. “Why do you look so confused? All Rion everthinks about is Noa. That dick spent the last six years getting pushed around by me and my friends. And why? Because he had to protect Noa. He couldn’t admit that Noa had wrecked his bracelet. Who fucking does that? It’d be so easy to tell the truth. But Rion? No. He doesn’t give a shit. And when Noa picks up a piece of glass? Rion’s gotta dive in there and tear it from his hands. Doesn’t matter that he might get hurt. He just doesn’t care – not about himself. Noa’s the only thing that fucking matters in his tiny pea brain.”

And when Sarina explained it like that, it began to make sense to Celeste. It was horrible, terrible, but…

But…

“Noa… Are you saying that Noa hurt Amber?” Celeste said.

“I don’t fucking know!” Sarina said. “Noa doesn’t hurt anyone. Noa’s really kind and gentle. But if Rion thought Noa did something wrong, or if he… I don’t know! Whatever did happen, Rion did something fucked up to protect Noa. Because that’s just who he is. It’s probably something dumb and doesn’t make any sense. The guy needs fucking therapy.”

Celeste swallowed hard, trying to process everything Sarina was saying. Because she was making sense.

She tried to think back ever farther, to when they were kids. Were Noa and Rion like that even back then.

“Didn’t Noa… When they were kids… Didn’t Noa break one of his games? Accidentally?” Celeste said. “And then he got upset and when Mr. and Mrs. Murphy asked…”

“Rion said it was his fault. I remember,” Sarina said. “Rion said it was an accident and that he was sorry. He tried to take it right in the teeth. But we were there. We’d seen the whole thing and I called him a liar.”

Celeste began to think of other times, of other examples, and then she began to wonder how much they didn’t know. How many times had Rion covered for Noa? How many times had he taken the blame when none of the rest of them knew.

But then… What really happened to Amber? Was this another one of Rion’s lies?

But Rion knew what happened to her. Rion knew that Amber was in the bath with the blow dryer. He knew that she’d fallen and hit her head. And Peter said that was information his parents and the police knew. How could Rion know so much…

Had he only seen Amber in the bathtub? Had he made it up because…because…

Why?

No, that didn’t make sense either. And Rion seemed so sincere when he told them what he’d done. If Rion did it, then…

Sarina was right. It didn’t make sense. Even if Rion said he’d done it to fix things, what was he fixing? No one could fix anything like that. He’d just made everything so much worse…

But then… Did that mean Noa had done something?

Celeste didn’t want to think about it. She hated the thought. She hated everything about what might have happened to Amber. She couldn’t imagine Noa doing something to hurt Amber because he loved her so much. And she loved him. Why…

Noa always had a lot of problems. He came from an abusive family…

No. Celeste couldn’t go there. She couldn’t think about it.

“I can guarantee that this whole thing has to do with Noa,” Sarina continued when Celeste was silent. “Because Rion does everything for Noa. It’s the only thing that makes sense.”

“I… I think we need to talk to the others,” Celeste said. “I think…I think we need to talk about this. Together.”