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me.”
    “Thief,” he said.
    “Cheapskate.”
    “Red. Chevy. Impala. Go.”
    He pointed, and I laughed. We were oddball friends.
    I liked to imagine he needed me as much as I need him.
    As soon as I rounded the first corner of cars and was out of sight, I stripped down to a tank top and hung my long-sleeve shirt off the busted mirror of an old S-10 pickup. I stood there for a moment, exposed, staring at the sky as if it were a show.
    “Good morning, sky,” I whispered.
    I swear I heard God say, “Bring on the vitamin D.”
    Okay, it wasn’t God, but I liked the idea that the sky was listening. Trent and Gray used to say Bring on the vitamin D whenI’d warn them about not wearing enough sunscreen. They’d both worked for Relax Rentals, the company that managed chairs and umbrellas for the high-rise condos on the beach. Gray was probably there today. In a different reality, the one without the wreck, I’d be there helping him drill umbrella holes in the sand or carrying chairs. In this reality, I was in the salvage yard, wishing it was already evening so I could see Max.
    But still, I thought about Gray as I walked. How he looked both good and bad the other night at the beach. Fit. Too fit. He needed to lay off the protein and weights until his neck matched his head again.
    But what did I know? I wore long sleeves and hung out in a salvage yard. There were certainly worse obsessions than excessive fitness. I guess it all came down to this: even on the days I hated Gray Garrison, I wanted him to be okay.
    And he didn’t look okay.
    I wished I could do something about that, but absolution dangled in front of me like a carrot on a ten-foot pole.
    I stopped thinking about Gray and found the Impala. Using some tire grease, I wrote the location on my arm and headed in the direction I’d been going all morning.
    Trent’s Toyota Yaris.

CHAPTER EIGHT
    No matter how often I visited the Yaris, the first glance sent my stomach to my throat.
    The metal beast was quiet and picked over, twisted and sad. The front-end damage was so severe there was never much to salvage. Someone had since purchased the backseat, a rear taillight, and the two rear tires. The first time I came to Metal Pete’s, he walked me through the yard, offering a warning that it wouldn’t be easy to see the car. I wasn’t the first survivor to arrive on his doorstep searching for closure.
    In an average week, I spent four or five hours lounging in my makeshift tire seat as if it were a raft and this row of cars my lazy river. I was here more than that, playing Karate Kid to Metal Pete’s Mr. Miyagi, except without the karate. He ran me here, there, and everywhere, pretending it was the price ofsitting time at Metal Pete’s Fine Salvage Yard.
    I greeted the crushed roof with a sympathetic pat, as if I owed it or someone an apology, and said, “Hello, Yaris.”
    The Yaris didn’t answer.
    It had been very vocal on June 29 and silent ever since.
    I still told it the truth. “Max is home. I might bring him for a visit.”
    Seeing the Yaris the first time was as excruciating as Metal Pete had promised, but now, there was no way to look at the twisted heap without thinking, How did anyone walk away from that? The Yaris reminded me that Max and I were miracles. Considering that the hood and the front seat were practically one, I hated my scars a tiny bit less.
    Coupled with that miracle was guilt, and I searched for an answer to Why Trent? Why not me? in every twist of the metal, every tiny rusted flake, every shattered piece of windshield.
    When I told Fletcher about my visits to Metal Pete’s, he explained survivor’s guilt to me and said it was normal. Then he’d asked, “Sadie, do you have a time machine?”
    “No.”
    “So there’s nothing you can do to change what happened at Willit Hill?”
    “No,” I’d said, feeling the trap in his question.
    “Then, somehow, you have to accept that you’re still here, and that maybe, just maybe,