I was grateful for two things the next morning. My parents weren’t up yet when I left for school, and I didn’t have to take the bus to school. Last night, I had talked Mom into letting me borrow her car with a story about a bunch of us kicking off our senior year with an after-school celebration at The Candy Shop. It was a local diner type restaurant run by a woman named Candy. Since Mom always wanted me to be a part of the social scene, it had been easy to convince her that I needed the car.
I had wavered over wearing the bridesmaid dress to school, but watching Mason say his last line in the video he had sent to my phone was intimidating enough to make me cautious about disobeying him. It was like he had been speaking directly to me with the words he had chosen from the book. I be
