But Bane…he was a different story. Today I’d woken up feeling different than yesterday. Maybe I’d had time to digest everything that had happened, but I felt slightly possessive of Bane, and that was worrisome.

He made me feel normal, and that was more than I could say about most people I came across. My curiosity toward him bothered me, too. But talking to Mayra about him, or about my mom hitting on him, made me feel…weird. For one thing, Mayra was a longtime friend of Darren’s family. I couldn’t trust her not to pay it forward. Ethics codes be damned. I pressed my fingertips to the cold window glass.

“There’s a chunk of memory missing from my brain,” I gritted out. It was during the year Pam and Darren had gotten married, shortly after Dad had died. Everything had happened so fast and all at once. Mayra said it was a natural reaction. So much had happened to me in such a short time, I’d created an abyss in my memory to cope with all the changes.

“We don’t remember every single day of our lives.” I watched Mayra play with one of the many necklaces on her chest through the reflection of the window. “And that’s a good thing, Jesse.”

The clock next to Mayra’s couch chimed with glee—not the subtlest signal our session was over, I’d once pointed out, and Mayra even agreed, but never changed it—and that was our cue. We gave each other respectful nods.

“By the way, I got a job.” I dropped the bomb a second before we were done.

“Jesse!” Mayra smiled from her couch, and as always, it didn’t reach her eyes. “That’s wonderful! I want to hear all about it next week.”

Now it was my turn to grin. I sometimes did that. Dropped important stuff at the end of my meetings with Mayra just to see her shutting me down and kicking me out. It reminded me she wasn’t a friend. She was a paid ally, the worst thing a person could have, and call me paranoid, but reminding myself that she was Team Benjamins and not Team Jesse helped.

“Yeah.” I grabbed my backpack and slung it over my shoulder, one foot already on the threshold. I zipped my hoodie all the way up before I got out to face the world. “Can hardly wait.”

I once read that people often mistake infatuation with love, and that the best way to distinguish between the two is to look at the time it took you from the moment you met the person to the moment you realized you couldn’t let them go, even if you tried.

Falling in love is when you lose yourself slowly, piece by piece.

Infatuation is when you lose yourself all at once.

Love is like ivy. It wraps around you, chokes every part of you quietly. It is not patient, or kind, or gentle. It is needy, cunning, and suffocating.

When I made my way to Café Diem, I genuinely thought I was doing Bane a favor by warning him about Pam. But that’s because the ivy was only tickling my feet at that point, not yet gripping my ankles and rooting me to the ground. Bane and Pam were scheduled to meet there, and an overwhelming notion of loathing toward my own mother filled my chest. I had one friend. She’d had at least four lovers. Not only had she slept with Nolan while I was dating Emery at the beginning of my senior year—a fact Nolan enjoyed sharing with me the night when he took me against my will—but there had been others, too.

Her married plastic surgeon.

Her young personal trainer.

She even had a dating app called NoToNosy where she’d met other married men. I didn’t get why Darren turned a blind eye to all the bullshit she threw in his face. He owed her nothing. A different man would have kicked us to the curb long ago.

I parked at the promenade and strode with purpose, hyperaware of the stares and looks. Walking in the middle of summer wearing a hoodie was odd. Being known as the girl who was into orgies and suicide? Even odder. One guy in particular made my steps falter. He wore a gray beanie, a white tank with the word “FREE” scribbled on it, and flowery board shorts. He didn’t look much older than me, leaning against a Mercedes, loitering in the way cool SoCal young people did. Like time was of no significance and youth was eternal. I thought he was going to talk to me. Luckily, it was just my overworked imagination and thriving paranoia. He smiled, gesturing with his hand to say hi. I ignored him, my pulse hammering against my eyelids. I descended the stairs leading to the café that was right on the beach, below the promenade. I couldn’t breeze in, knowing Pam and Bane would notice me. So I stayed outside, lurking by the chained bikes, until I spotted them from the glass windows, sitting in the same corner Bane and I had sat in when he’d made me that smoothie. My heart rebelled inside my chest. I felt cheated by both of them, when in truth, neither of them had promised me loyalty.