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some more.”
    My mouth dropped open. “I can’t believe I didn’t know about this.” I’d known Lindsay’s dad had a temper, but this was something much worse. How could I not have suspected? After all, it was Tundra, and secrets didn’t stay secrets for long.
    “No one did. No one except my family and Spencer. He’d seen my dad yelling at me, and I thought I’d die of embarrassment.” Her face changed, reddened, as if she were reliving that long-ago day. “Dad sped away from the school that day before Spencer could say anything. I wanted to hide in a hole somewhere and never come out. But when Spencer got to the bookstore, he saw Dad’s truck outside the Walrus.” She stopped, swallowed hard. “He brought me a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.”
    My heart broke all over again, for what Lindsay had gone through and because neither of us would know the warmth of Spencer’s kind heart again.
    “He stayed and talked to me for a while. It may have been only a few moments, but it felt like more. After that, we talked a lot. I think I might have exploded otherwise.”
    I tried to ignore the hurt that she had never confided in me. She’d kept secrets from me when I’d confessed all to her. The moment I’d realized I liked Spencer as more than a friend, I’d shared it with Linds.
    I hesitated, almost didn’t ask the question running through my mind. But I wanted to feel closer to Lindsay—and to help her—if I could. “Why does your mom stay married to him?”
    “That’s what they call a dysfunctional relationship. He smacks her around; she makes up excuses for why he did it.”
    I should have been shocked by the revelation that Dimitri beat Anja, but I wasn’t. It seemed like something he’d do. And Anja didn’t come into town unless she had to, especially not when Dimitri was home from whatever temporary job he’d found somewhere away from Tundra. She stayed close to their small house, fishing, harvesting berries, and doing what she could to supplement the family’s food supplies and meager income. Through necessity, Linds and her brothers had become pretty self-sufficient early on.
    I wanted to hug Lindsay, to apologize again, but I sensed that wasn’t what she needed. Already, I could tell she was withdrawing. She didn’t like pity.
    She pushed away from the wall and wiped her eyes. “I have to go. I’ll call you later.”
    “Okay.”
    I didn’t move as she walked toward the door. I didn’t believe everything was totally healed between us, but at least she’d confided in me. She’d revealed more in the past ten minutes than she had in all the time since the second grade, when we’d become friends. I thought of that day, when she’d punched Drew Chernov in the nose for pushing me around on the playground. She’d been there for me the way Spencer had been there for her. Now it was my turn.
    “Linds.”
    She turned halfway back toward me. “Yeah?”
    “Thank you for trusting me.” I wanted to say more, to tell her that she could confide anything in me, but I held back the words. She knew.
    She nodded and went out the door. I waited a few moments before following. I watched her walk away, carrying too heavy a burden for someone her age. She was right. Everything was going to hell.
    And I was ready for it to stop.
    “Oh, I love Katherine Heigl’s dress,” Lindsay said as the actress arrived at the Oscars.
    The fitted, red, one-shoulder Escada evoked old Hollywood. “That classic look fits her. What do you think, Spencer?” I asked, torturing him more with our girliness.
    His answer? A loud, faux snore.
    I hit him with a pillow from the end of the couch. He responded by grabbing me around the waist and tickling me until I screamed for mercy. When I finally freed myself, for a moment our faces were too close for me to keep the secret of how I loved him.

CHAPTER 9
     
    Fate had decided to use me as a chew toy. Not only were Lindsay and I on new, tentative ground, but I couldn’t