Free Making Trouble by Emme Rollins Page B

I saw him put on a happy face, teasing Sarah, the birthday girl, laughing at her response, but I knew him better than anyone. It was just an act. Tyler moving out had been a blow, but Sarah moving out was going to be devastating. Maybe it was because Tyler was his bandmate—he saw Tyler, sometimes, more than he saw me. But once Sarah had moved out, there would be no regular contact, no more casual TV nights, no more late night swims in the cool air around the infinity pool.
    “Twenty-one!” Tyler came up behind Sarah, lifting her into his arms and swinging her around , her long, dark hair following like a thick, black ribbon.
    In light of Sarah’s drug of choice, there was no alcohol at this twenty-one-year-old’s party. Daisy had put out bottles of sparkling grape juice and of course soda, but even Rob had forgone his usual glass of wine tonight. There was no sense tempting her on a day most twenty-one year olds spent celebrating by drinking until they puked.
    Instead, there was plenty o f food, a house full of people and a band playing out on the patio—Rob had gotten Indigo Girls to agree to come by and play later, Sarah’s all-time favorite girl group, although she didn’t know it yet. The infinity pool that ran around the entire length of the house was full of bodies and cars lined our long, lighted driveway. Rob had hired valets to park them on the perfectly landscaped lawn.
    I would bet that Sarah didn’t know half the people there, although her friends from school, a close-knit group of girls who still had another year before they graduated, unlike our ambitious, overachieving little Sarah, seemed star struck by the spectacle. I didn’t blame them. I’d met only one of them before. Anne was a tall, gangly sort of girl with a ton of piercings and tattoos who liked to clomp around the house in motorcycle boots. She was the only one who seemed nonchalant about the whole thing, sitting in one of the patio chairs with a Coke in her hand, watching Sarah’s interaction with Tyler and Rob.
    I was too far away to hear what they were talking about from my perch up on the balcony, but they were all laughing. I wasn’t too far away to see the look in Rob’s eyes though. There was a sadness there I wished I could take away, but there was nothing I could do about it. Sarah had made up her mind, had finally announced not only her intention to move out, but her plan, already in place. She and Anne had rented an apartment and would be roommates, splitting an exorbitant L.A. rent for a tiny three-bedroom place.
    “Sabrina?”
    I turned at the sound of my name, smiling at Celeste standing at my bedroom door, her hand poised to knock. I waved her into the room and she joined me out on the balcony, leaning against the railing and looking down at the party below.
    “He wants her to stay,” I told Celeste, although it wasn’t anything she didn’t already know. Rob had enlisted everyone, from Celeste to Jesse to Daisy to me, in his attempt to persuade Sarah from moving out.
    “She won’t.” Celeste shook her head. “Not now.”
    “Not now?” I glanced at her, raising my eyebrows.
    “Oh.” Celeste shrugged. “I just mean, you know, now that she’s graduated. She’s got to go live her own life.”
    “That’s what I keep telling him.” I nodded. “He acts like he’s losing a child.”
    “No, he knows what that feels like.” Celeste reached over and pulled the neckline of my dress aside to reveal a tiny inked handprint over my bullet hole scar. “And so do you. Does it still hurt?”
    “The tattoo?” I glanced down at her little hand, where it would have rested if she’d been nursing. Instead I had a twisted scar, a dark memory, and nothing else. “It’s healing. But you never get over losing a child.”
    Thinking of Esther still made my chest instantly tighten. I missed her so much, some days I could almost feel her still inside me, alive, kicking my navel. I could remember the weight of her, the way