CHAPTER 13
ELSIE
The drive back to the Jackson family home is more quiet than the drive out to the party.
With Kayla asleep in the backseat of her red Volkswagen Beetle, Brett and I have no choice but to sit by each other. With him behind the wheel and me on the passenger side, each mile passed is more tense than the previous.
Minutes pass by and neither of us speaks. I watch us slowly roll into Kayla and Brett's swanky subdivision, the white, Tudor-style home with black shutters that belongs to the Jackson family coming into view.
I turn to Brett, who's got one fist locked onto the wheel, his jaw set, and is gazing out the front windshield without blinking.
I'm not sure which one of us is trying to get a word out last. I decide it won't be me.
"So," I ask into the silence, "is the
