Chapter 20

And somehow, I knew I could do it. Yes, I could soothe Davinder if only I could have a minute with him alone. I’d know what to do. What to say.

But I just stood there helpless.

“You know, he used to be a swimmer,” Elsie said. “Dayton says Davinder could have made the Olympics.”

“What?” My eyes were on Dayton and Davinder’s dark silhouettes. They were at the end of the street. Dayton was doing all of the talking.

“Just before the provincials, he was at a pool party…and he fell off the board. Broke his neck. Davinder might have been drunk that night. Can you believe that? He spent half a year in some kind of neck apparatus.”

“Jesus,” I whispered. “That’s a nightmare.”

“And then there was Paris and—”

“What exactly happened in Paris anyway?”

“Big mystery. No one knows. He didn’t tell you that night you guys went out?”

“No, I told you, we barely talked,” I lied again.