Free Secrets by Melinda Metz - Fingerprints - 4

when I was with her, she was always doing stuff to make me happy. Little presents.
    That girlie, you know…” Marcus took another swig of beer or tried to. Anthony figured out his cup was empty before Marcus did.
    “But Rae. Rae’s… Rae. The other guys don’t get that. They’re like, ‘You’re whipped, Salkow. Just shut up already.
    You can have any girl you want.’ They just don’t get it.” Marcus leaned toward Anthony, so close, they were almost touching noses. “But you get it, don’t you?”
    Anthony moved back a step. “Yeah. Want to go back inside? Get a refill?”
    Marcus leaned back against the tree trunk and slowly slid down it until he was sitting on the grass. “I want her back so bad. But I don’t deserve her.”
    Anthony scanned the yard again. There had to besomebody here who could get him out of this friggin’
    confessional. But no.
    “I hurt her, man. I really hurt her.” Marcus grabbed Anthony by the knee, and Anthony squatted next to him, torn between pitying the guy and wanting to pulp him. “I hurt her.” His voice came out all quivery.
    Crap, Anthony thought, any second now he ’s going to be bawling.
    Little spurts of guilt kept going through Rae as she looked at Mandy’s tear-stained face. You can’t give up now, she told herself. She placed her hand lightly against the door- / Gwa. ^a/›ies / n ot h i n g ever works/ stay home sick again /
    –not trying to hold it open, just trying to get Mandy to reconsider. “I know it’s hard,” Rae said quickly. “My mom died practically right after I was born, and it’s still hard for me to talk about it. A year-a year, that must feel like nothing.”
    Mandy pulled in a deep, shuddering breath and wiped the tears off her face with her sleeve. “Sometimes,” she admitted. “And sometimes it seems so long ago that I can’t even really remember her face all the way, or, you know, how her voice sounded.”
    Keep her talking, a calm, cold part of Raeinstructed. But she didn’t want to coax Mandy toward going deeper into the pain. It wasn’t right.
    “You have pictures, though, right?” Yana jumped in. “And probably even videos.”
    “Yeah, but it’s not the same,” Mandy answered.
    “Of course it’s not the same,” Rae said, shooting Yana an abort-the-mission look. There had to be some other place to get the information she needed.
    “My sister practically has this shrine in her room,” Mandy confided, opening the door a little wider, although not wide enough to be an invitation to step inside. “Pictures and clothes and perfume. It’s kind of sick. I just-I couldn’t even sleep with all that stuff around me. Em-that’s my sister-keeps saying if I don’t pick some stuff out of what’s left, she’s taking it all.”
    “You should have a couple of things,” Rae told her. “You don’t have to have them out. You don’t even have to look at them-don’t ever if you don’t want to. But someday you might get the urge, and if you do, there should be a box in a closet somewhere waiting for you. I have one.”
    Rae pictured the cardboard box of her mother’s things that her dad had in his closet. Five years ago she would have wanted to burn the stuff if she’d had the chance. Forget five. Even a year ago. But now… now Rae was starting to understand a little about hermother. And although what her mother had done horrified Rae, she had to accept that learning everything about her mother was essential to staying alive herself.
    “Maybe you’re right,” Mandy said.
    Rae had gotten so deep in her own thoughts that for a moment she had no idea what Mandy was talking about.
    “She’s definitely right,” Yana answered. “If you want, we could help you.”
    You’re pushing her too hard, Rae thought. But to her surprise, Mandy swung the door open wide. “Actually, yeah, that would be good,” Mandy told them as Rae and Yana came inside. “I don’t want to do it alone, but my sister or my dad…”
    “Yeah, I