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glanced down and saw
the bruises. These weren’t just a few “Oops I ran into the coffee table” sort
of bruises either. These spread across her behind like a Canadian sunrise, all
oranges and blues and purples.
    I couldn’t help the gasp that escaped my
throat.
    Casey looked back at me, wide-eyed,
horrified. “Get off me!”
    “What happened?” I whispered. I couldn’t
take my eyes off the damage. Then I saw a tell-tale bruise on her hip as she
turned, her sweats pulling down further as she tried to get away—a large
handprint, definitely four fingerprints, like grip marks. A man’s hand. “Oh my
god, it was Lance, wasn’t it?”
    I felt Casey’s whole body collapse beneath
me, boneless, face buried in her arms. I climbed to the side, stretching out
beside her on the bed, speechless. And furious. I’d been resentful of Lance and
the Casey-time he’d stolen from me all summer, but while my friend had grown
more and more distant, I’d never suspected anything like this .
    “I’m going to kill that bastard,” I said
through clenched teeth, reaching out to stroke her fine, blonde hair.
    “April,” Casey warned, turning her
tear-streaked face to look at me.
    “Don’t ‘April’ me!” I scoffed. “He deserves
to be drawn and quartered!”
    “I know.” Her voice was barely a whisper,
her eyes welling up with tears.
    I leaned in close and pressed my forehead
to hers like we used to, hiding under the covers with a flashlight to read
Goosebumps books late into the night, making our blanket-tent warm with our
breath.
    “That black eye you got last month wasn’t
from softball, was it?” I tucked a bit of blonde fluff behind her ear. There
was still a ghost of it around her eye socket.
    She shook her head, miserable. “He stopped
leaving marks where people could see…”
    I blinked, feeling my hand clenching into a
fist at the thought of him hurting her. “You can’t see him anymore.”
    “I’m not.” She sniffed, wiping at an errant
tear. “This was… the last. Even his mother says he has ‘anger management
issues.’ Besides, I’m going away to school.”
    “This is an ‘anger management’ issue like
Charlie Sheen has a drug problem!” I should have known. Casey had only been
with two other boys, and only one of them had done anything sexual with her.
Lance was her first real relationship. I was kicking myself for not seeing the
signs. “Did you tell him you’re breaking up with him?”
    “I was afraid,” she whispered, her eyes
spilling over with tears. “I’m afraid.”
    I put my arms around her, felt her
trembling, and tried to keep the rage in my chest from bursting out and chasing
Lance Dawson down like an animal. I tried not to dwell on what I wanted to do
to him—and how protracted and satisfying such torture might be. I couldn’t
believe I’d been jealous, that all this time I’d been dwelling on how I felt, missing out on time with my best friend, when I should have been paying
attention to her, noticing the signs—the freaking obvious signs!
    “I’m so sorry.” I shook my head against
hers, closing my eyes and feeling them sting with my own tears.
    “It’s not your fault.”
    “He picked you instead of me,” I reminded
her—reminded us both.
    “I know.” She winced. “I was so damned proud
of that.”
    I remembered. She’d been so excited when he’d
asked her out, when he chose her. Casey was dainty and really quite
pretty, but she wasn’t overtly so. She was a sort of behind-her-glasses pretty,
under her baggy sweats and sweatshirts.
    But that day she’d borrowed one of my
bikinis and her glasses had been tucked into her beach bag, and Lance, a tall,
tanned lifeguard with aviator sunglasses that hid his eyes, had seemed
particularly focused on her shyness, the way she cast her gaze down and smiled
at the sand, her cheeks pinking up when he talked to her.
    Now I knew why.
    “He picked you for a reason.” The words
burned my throat. I didn’t want to