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fought hard to keep from sobbing.
    It’ll be okay
, she tried to console herself, despite the knot in the pit of her stomach. She had dealt with her father’s suicide without falling apart, hadn’t she? That kind of loss was the worst. Death was final. That photograph of Mark and the girl with the rose tattoo might not even be real. But as hard as she tried to convince herself that Steve had set Mark up, thatthe whole thing was bogus, her chest ached like she’d been slammed in the ribs with a two-by-four.
    Because if it
was
real, it meant that Mark had betrayed her. Lied to her. And, at the moment, she wasn’t sure which was worse.
    They could talk when the shock had worn off and she’d had the chance to calm down. At the moment, she was desperate to crawl into bed, bury her face in the pillow, and cry her eyes out.
    The yellow facade of Amelia House loomed ahead, a bright spot in the gloom. Katie ran up the steps and inside, shutting the door loudly behind her.
    The noise brought Estelle Gabbert flying out of her room. She pushed up the sleeves of her tailored shirt, penny loafers slapping the floor as she hurried into the foyer. “Please, don’t slam … Oh!” The housemother stopped dead in her tracks when she saw a rain-drenched Katie dripping onto the doormat.
    “Good heavens, Katie! You’re soaked to the skin! Stay right where you are, you poor thing,” she said, and disappeared into her room only to emerge seconds after with a fluffy pink towel.
    Before Katie could protest, the housemother descended on her, wiping the rain off her face and rubbing her hair with the towel before draping it over Katie’s shoulders.
    “Thanks,” Katie said, holding on to her book bag as she headed for the stairs. The last thing she wanted was to make small talk. All she wanted was to curl up and hide until she’d cried herself out.
    “Hold on a minute. Something came for you this morning. I apologize for the condition it’s in,” Mrs. Gabbert said, “but it’s about as wet as you are. It was left on the back stoop. I didn’t even know it was there till I took out the trash.”
    “I’ve got a package?” Katie grabbed the banister and turned around. She hardly ever got boxes, except on rare occasions when her mom mailed her chocolate chip cookies.
    “I think it was hand-delivered, though I’m not sure why it wasn’t brought to the front. I looked around but didn’t see anyone. Just the grounds crew across the way planting roses,” the housemother was saying, when the front door banged open and Tessa appeared, slamming it behind her.
    Mrs. Gabbert winced. “Can’t anyone ever do anything quietly?” she muttered.
    “Sorry,” Tessa said, stomping wet shoes on the mat. She looked even more like a drowned rat than Katie. She pushed away the pink towel Katie offered her. “Let’s go upstairs right now and talk about how you’re going to totally humiliate Mark Summers when you publicly dump his ass.”
    “No,” Katie told her, surprised how calm her voice sounded when her insides felt like Jell-O. “Mrs. G. has a package for me, and I’d like to see what it is.”
    “Yes, the package! I set it on the drainboard to dry.” The housemom headed for the kitchen. “I’ll go get it.”
    Katie sank down onto the bench beneath the stairwell, sliding her soggy book bag from her shoulder to the floor.
    Tessa squeezed the rain out of her hair. “You look like crap,” she said. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
    “What do you think?”
    “I think you need to get over him fast.” Tessa snatched the pink towel from Katie to dry off her face. “Mark might have everyone around here convinced that he’s God, but he’s the opposite. He’s a dog, just like Steve Getty said.”
    “Way to kick me when I’m down,” Katie murmured.
    “Sometimes the truth hurts.”
    Katie glanced at her hands. After her dad died, she bit her nails down to the quick. When she’d gotten to Whitney, she started seeing the school