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Ronnie only had one friend down here.”
    â€œOh crap. I didn’t mean to...” I banged the heel of my hand against my forehead. I guess it was kind of a corny, melodramatic gesture, but it felt sort of good. I did it again, harder. “I didn’t give him your address.”
    â€œYeah. That’ll take him about thirty seconds online.” She shrugged, palms turned up in a what-can-you-do kind of gesture. “He’s on his way. He’ll be on the first flight he can catch.”

Chapter Twelve
    I hugged Zach so tight, he began to squirm. “What should we do?”
    Joelle sighed. “Nothing. Wait, I guess.” She picked a pair of flannel pants off the floor and pulled them on.
    â€œIs Max an okay guy? I mean, was he abusive or anything like that?”
    She gave me a puzzled look. “God, no. The guy was patient to a fault, you know? He stuck with her through all kinds of crap. I kept telling Ronnie, ‘Don’t screw this up.’” She shrugged. “Not that I’m saying it was all her fault that they split up. But...” “She has a drinking problem,” I said flatly.
    Joelle bit her bottom lip. “I tried to tell you, but I didn’t want to sound like I was bad-mouthing her, you know?”
    â€œYeah, I know.” What was it about Ronnie that made us all want to protect her? It wasn’t just that she was beautiful, or smart, or funny. There was something about her—a vulnerability, I guess. Maybe I was being sexist, but underneath the attitude and the independence, she seemed sort of fragile. “You said you guys go way back.”
    â€œWe’ve been best friends since junior high. We played softball together. We were both total tomboys, if you can believe that.”
    â€œSeriously?” Back when Ronnie used to babysit me, she had long hair and wore tight T-shirts, tall leather boots and thick black eyeliner.
    Joelle laughed. “We were twelve. It didn’t last long.” She stopped laughing abruptly and sat down on the arm of my chair. “How well did you know her?”
    â€œNot at all, really.” I looked down at Zach, who was unusually quiet. His eyes were half-closed. I lowered my voice, hoping he might drift off to sleep. “I was a kid, she was a teenager. Different worlds. She was nice to me. Took an interest in my projects, acted out Star Wars scenes with my action figures. I thought she was amazing, but I didn’t know anything about her life.”
    â€œHer parents were alcoholics,” Joelle said bluntly. “Both of them. Her dad put away a couple of martinis and a bottle of wine every night. His liver must be shot by now, but he had some big job and made tons of money. I don’t think people outside the family even knew he had a problem.”
    â€œAnd her mom?”
    â€œShe drank like Ronnie does. Nothing at all for weeks, then she’d binge.” Joelle shook her head. “Ronnie never talked about it, but I remember going over to her place after school one day. Her mom was completely out of it, stumbling around the house and shouting at Ronnie, trying to hit her, calling her really foul names. We were fourteen, I guess. It was awful.”
    â€œIt sounds like it.” Lately, I’d been giving my parents a hard time about their daily happy hour, but my objections seemed kind of petty now. Sure, it was annoying that they thought a daily drink was fine while Koli’s smoking pot was apparently the end of the world—but to be fair, I’d never seen either of them have more than two drinks. I’d never seen them drunk.
    â€œYeah. My mom said Ronnie could stay with us anytime. Ronnie was mad that I had told, but after that she did stay with us a lot.” Joelle shrugged. “Then when we were sixteen, Ronnie’s dad got transferred and they moved to Seattle. I think things with her family went downhill after that.”
    â€œDidn’t sound