4.

She stumbles down the three steps leading into the night. Gray stone slabs guide her to the street. She nearly bumps into the yellow Camaro. She looks ahead. It’s one streetlight after another, then up a hill. Branches slap against her face. Her elbows smash into something hard. She spits dirt and tries to get her bearings. Above her, there are trees and stars. She tries to push herself up but gives up just as quickly, as everything starts spinning around her. She curls tighter, hoping this bad trip will pass. Tomorrow will be better.

A lie. Tears fill her eyes. Wind rustles angrily through the branches. Nothing will ever be better. She curls up, pulling her knees to her chest. Everything spins. She just sits there, lost in a haze, with no sense of the world turning around her. Eventually, an echo cuts through her thoughts. Her own voice, talking to someone on the phone. Vincent… She’d called him. Or was it him who had called? Doesn’t matter.

Slowly, Amber lifts her head and turns. The windows of the complex glow on the hill above her. On all fours, she drags herself forward. Dirt wedges beneath her nails and scrapes her knees. Her legs know the way. She has to climb the hill. Finally, she stands before the massive concrete block. Only a few windows remain lit.

The world is asleep, and she’s crawling through the dirt, chasing memories. She wipes away her tears. She shouldn’t be here.

The apartment complex’s dumpsters are surrounded by a brick wall, right below the low balconies of the first-floor apartments. That’s why they were cheaper, Erin had once told her. Sometimes, when the wind blew the wrong way, the smell wasn’t great. But it was also convenient; you could just toss the trash down from the balcony.

She finds her footing on the rough wall and hauls herself up. Reaching, she grabs hold of the balcony railing and clumsily drops to the other side. A dull pain shoots through her forearms and knees. Just inches from her face sits Mickey’s food bowl. Amber straightens up, satisfied. There we go.

The glass door in her face puts an abrupt stop to her enthusiasm. She fumbles for the handle. Amber can’t remember anyone ever bothering to lock this door. But Melissa lives alone now. She leans her shoulder hard against the door. It gives way and slams against the wall.

Amber stumbles into the living room. A familiar smell lingers in the air. Searching for the light switch, she bumps into a side table and another cat bowl. She freezes mid-step, one hand already at the switch. Don’t turn on the light! Better no one sees the drunk girl stumbling through the apartment as though she’s breaking in.

Amber feels her way to the door on the left. Erin’s room. She slips inside and presses her shoulder blades against the door until it clicks shut.

She tries to catch her breath as she peers into the darkness. Erin’s room is the color of lemon sorbet. The air smells like saltwater and a hint of coconut. Amber’s fingers rest on the light switch, waiting. She doesn’t want this moment to end.

“Erin?” Her voice flickers like the last light of a dying candle.

No answer. Of course not. Amber flips the light on and is alone in the room again. Books are stacked on the desk. A thin summer dress hangs over the chair. Reef flip-flops sit in a corner on the floor. Amber can make out grains of sand clinging to the foam soles. Erin’s backpack is next to them. The closet door is open; the bedspread is pulled back.

Shouldn’t a dead girl’s room look different? Amber wonders. Tidier, somehow? Because Erin is going to walk back in at any moment and curl up in her bed again. This thought tugs at Amber’s heart like an anchor sinking into a bottomless void. She looks down at the bottle in her hand, not knowing how it got there. She sets the vodka on Erin’s desk with disgust. Her shirt is soaked with the sticky stuff. Amber sinks onto the bed. She’s only been here twice, yet it’s always felt like home to her. Her hands brush the soft blanket, gently pushing it aside, as if Erin’s bare feet might still be hidden beneath it. There’s nothing she wants more than to crawl under that blanket, close her eyes, and wait. Wait until the door opens and Erin walks back in. Her soft skin, her smile, her flat stomach rising and falling with each breath. Amber wants it all back. She wants to relive that first kiss—the careful touches and everything that followed. Stay here forever, that’s what she wants.

Erin’s scent still lingers in the air, like an invisible imprint. Judging by the state of the room, no one seemed to have been inside since Erin jumped to her death eight weeks ago. Somewhere, a door unlocks. Amber jolts upright, already halfway to her feet when the bedroom door bursts open.

“Fuck! Amber, what are you doing here?” Melissa stands in the doorway, her cheeks flushed, her face tightening into an angry mask. “What did you do to the balcony door?”

Vincent is next to her. They both stare at Amber, and for a moment, she feels like her parents just caught her masturbating. Vincent leans in and whispers something into Melissa’s ear. And whatever he said, it calms her, like a spooked horse soothed by its rider’s voice.

“Yeah, you’d better fix it,” Melissa mutters, disappearing into the kitchen.

“Don’t say anything,” Amber murmurs to Vincent. She could kick herself. Tomorrow is going to be embarrassing. She meets Vincent’s gaze. As always, he’s impeccably dressed. As if he were headed for an art gallery or a rooftop gala, not a high school girl’s birthday party. Amber sighs.

Vincent steps closer. Despite his slight frame, he never looks intimidated—not even at a beach party surrounded by drunk varsity jocks. Sometimes, after several failed attempts to rattle him, those same guys end up patting him on the shoulder by the end of the night, arguing over who gets to buy him a beer. That’s the kind of guy Vincent is. Blond, slightly curly hair. Round glasses. The sharp features of a military commander. Amber can picture him on the world’s stages as King Arthur—or some interchangeable Disney prince. No, that’s too harsh. Prince? Yes. Interchangeable? Absolutely not. Along with Hannah and Yul, Vincent is one of the only bright spots in her life. It is strange. When they met nearly five months ago, she never would’ve expected to get along with the silver-tongued golden boy.

Outside the room, soft downtempo beats hum in the background. The music is a problem. If someone calls the cops, all three of them are going to have all kinds of trouble.

“So, how’d you get up to the balcony?” Vincent asks.

“Just like this.” Amber demonstrates, stretching her arms upward as if she’s pulling herself up an invisible railing. She sighs, suddenly feeling tired. “I had to see it again.” She looks at the bed, dusted with fine grit. She jerks upright and stares at her hands. They look like she’s been digging a grave. Amber tugs at the blanket, trying to brush away the dirt, only making it worse. Then she notices Vincent beside her. He sits down and pats the bed next to him. Amber follows his lead. She feels heavy, like it would only take a second to fall asleep. She wants that. Close her eyes, forget this nightmare happened. Forget she’s here, ruining Erin’s room.

A moment of silence passes.

“I’ve never told you about my father,” Vincent says, his tone serious. His gaze drifts to the floor.

Amber watches him. His brow furrows for a moment, his jaw working like he wants to say so much but doesn’t know where to start. She knows that feeling.

“The pain doesn’t go away,” he says at last. “Everything else fades; the pain stays. You can fight it, but that only makes it worse. Let it into your heart and keep it there. It’s what will remind you of Erin.”

Amber feels her skin draw tight. She wipes away tears. “What a shitty birthday.”

They fall silent. Melissa’s downtempo beats keep seeping through the door. Amber strains to look into the future. How will she feel tomorrow, in a week? She gets to her feet as the horizon in her mind’s eye keeps darkening.

Vincent rises too. “Shall we go?” he asks diplomatically. “I baked you a cake.”

“Really?” Amber replies, surprised. Her thoughts feel like they’re caught in syrup, slow and heavy.

“We’ll put it in the fridge,” Vincent says.

“Are you taking me home?”

“Even on foot, if that’s what you need.”

“Please, no. I need to sleep.”

Vincent nods. “Tomorrow’s a big day for you.”

Amber freezes and digs through her memory. “Oh no,” she mutters. She’d planned to visit her mom. An unannounced visit.

“You forgot?” Vincent asks.

“More like I pushed it out of my mind,” Amber replies. “Are you sure you want to deal with that?” she asks, closing her eyes and rubbing her temples. “The drive’s two and a half hours.”

“Maybe by bus. By car, it’ll be faster.”

“My mom won’t be thrilled to see me. My birthday won’t change that.”

“I’m just the driver,” Vincent says, trying a smile. It works.

“Okay,” Amber says. “Take me home.” Staying here would only unravel her further, and none of it would help. She reaches past Vincent to pick up the vodka bottle. Leaving it in Erin’s room feels wrong.

Something on the desk catches her eye. She pushes past Vincent to lift the little plastic pirate from the table. Its head is comically oversized, with a gapped smile. She studies it for a long moment.

“What is it?” Vincent asks.

“A key charm,” Amber replies, feeling distant.

“All right.” Vincent looks at her, patient.

“Earlier this year. Erin and I were at this beach party,” Amber continues. “I was about to leave, had my longboard with me. Erin didn’t want me riding home alone.” Amber rolls the pirate between her fingers. “You get one of these at Pirate Ink,” she says.

“What’s that? Pirate Ink?”

“A tattoo shop. Down on Bayside Drive, next to the Mexican place.”

“I still don’t get it,” Vincent admits.

“We passed the shop,” Amber goes on. “The evening was perfect, and I was… well, not entirely myself.” She offers a faint smile. “I wanted to show Erin how I felt.” She glances at Vincent, studying his reaction. He meets her gaze, his attention unwavering.

“I know it sounds crazy,” Amber continues. “But at the time, it felt right.” She pulls up her shirt and tugs her shorts down slightly. “Here. It hurt, but I didn’t care. Erin watched from a safe distance, skeptical and a little amused. I guess I wanted to show her from the start how crazy I can be.” Amber pauses, trying to bring order to the storm in her head. “It didn’t scare her off. I think that was the moment I realized we were together for real.”

Vincent glances briefly at the tattoo on Amber’s hip bone. The two interlocked hearts are barely larger than a thumbnail.

“One in blue, one in green,” Amber says. “Matching our eye colors.”

She holds the little pirate up to the light, hoping for some hidden message. Then she shakes her head. “I don’t understand. Why didn’t she tell me about this?”

“What didn’t she tell you?” Vincent wants to know.

Amber fixes him with an intense look. “They only give you the charm if you get tattooed there.” Driven by a sudden urge, she starts searching the desk, pushing books and folders aside. She yanks open the desk drawers, one after the other.

“Hey, stop it,” Vincent says, reaching for her. “Look at me.” His fingers find her shoulder, gentle. It’s enough to ground her.

“She was there,” Amber says in a rush. “She got a tattoo.” Her breath catches. The room tilts—then steadies again.

“Okay. Slow down.” Vincent lifts his hands a fraction. “Let’s say she did. So what? What does it mean? What are you looking for?”

Amber forces herself to focus on Vincent. The drunken haze starts to thin, leaving behind a pounding headache.

What is she looking for? Vincent is right. What is she even doing? Amber looks at her hands and frowns, only now realizing she’s holding something. A picture frame that must have been tucked away in the bottom drawer. Erin smiles at her, holding the Sony camera she had painstakingly saved up for. Encased in its underwater housing, it looks enormous. Next to her, Amber sees herself—nearly a head shorter than Erin—with both arms wrapped around Erin’s waist, beaming as if this were the best day of her life. Being with Erin made every day the best day.

They were just about to head into the water and take photos for Erin’s blog. The waves were perfect. Erin had been well on her way to becoming a first-class sports photographer. To Amber, she already was. But Erin always insisted she needed that piece of paper to prove she’d completed her degree. And thankfully so. Erin’s ambition was what brought her to study in Aliso Viejo. Otherwise, they never would have met.

“Our last photo,” Amber says, her throat dry and aching.

Questions swirl in her mind as she stares at the picture. Why is it in a drawer and not on the desk? Okay, she doesn’t keep a picture of Erin on her desk either, but finding it here, in the bottom drawer, still hurts. Maybe she’s reading too much into it. It’s just a photo, after all. Maybe Erin simply wanted to keep their relationship private for now.

“Listen,” Vincent says. “I know how hard this is for you. Believe me, I do. But jumping to conclusions…” He looks at her intently. “You have to admit, rummaging through Erin’s desk…” He sighs, shaking his head, his eyes a quiet plea.

He’s right. She broke in here, went through Erin’s things. She had disrupted the order Erin had left behind. Her body stiffens. Her heart feels like it’s freezing, collapsing inward, tearing a hole in her chest. A hole that grows bigger and bigger by the second. A cold pressure tightens behind her ribs. She has to brace herself against the desk. Erin is gone. Her fingers close around the charm, turning it over like there’s something she’s missed. But Erin didn’t leave a note—she just jumped. And the charm doesn’t change a thing. She puts the picture back in the drawer.

Amber picks the last specks of dirt off the blanket. Everything has to be exactly as she found it. Vincent helps without a word, smoothing the final creases from the bedspread. Then they head for his car.