“This is Ms. Shaw from the registrar up here at CU Boulder. One of your classes”—papers swished in the background—“Psych 325: Early Childhood Trauma, has been cancelled. Was there another class you’d care to put in its place?”

“Cancelled?”

“Yes, miss.”

Josh turned, his eyes softening, and took a step toward me. Riley crossed his arms and leaned forward onto the island.

It wasn’t a choice between them. I would never make a choice this big on a guy . . . right? But Gus needed me, April was floundering, and Mom wasn’t functioning. What the hell was I supposed to do?

You do what you can. Grams was right. I could only do what was in my power, and everything else I had to let slip. But this? This was in my power. “No, thank you.”

“You wouldn’t like to add another class?”

Past versus future, but with the options in front of me, I couldn’t tell which was which. Both were familiar, both were a sort of home, but there was only one place I was needed. I met Riley’s sullen gaze. “No, ma’am, I won’t be returning to Boulder. My father died over break, and I’m needed at home. Could you withdraw me from all classes? I’ll be transferring here to CU Springs.”

Riley’s face lost all its color, and he shook his head quickly. His mouth opened and shut like a fish caught out of water.

“I’m sorry to hear about your father, and to lose you, December,” the clerk said with sympathy.

I looked up at the slow smile that spread across Josh’s face and said, “Thank you.” I hung up, knowing she was right: when it came to the people at Boulder, Riley and Kayla, it was their loss.

I just wasn’t sure it was Josh’s gain.

Chapter Eight

“The dorms were full,” I explained to April as she helped lug in the last of my boxes from the car. She’d jumped at the chance to see my new apartment. “Besides, Sam’s roommate flunked out last semester, so it’s pretty perfect.” It had only taken a week, but I’d moved from Boulder, enrolled at UCCS, and managed to avoid Riley . . . and Josh.

I didn’t even want to think about either of them right now. I couldn’t be the girl who switched colleges over a guy. Unless you included Dad, then I guess I really was that girl.

“Does this mean I can crash here on weekends?” She flung herself onto my bare bed.

I chucked my pillow at her. “Only if Mom okays it. I’m not your hideout.” It was nice to have a moment where I could be her sister and not her mother.

She picked up a picture of our family, the one from that last afternoon at the Breckenridge cabin, from the top of an open box. “If she ever recovers from her lobotomy.” She absently stroked her thumb over Mom’s smiling face in the family photo. It was the last one we’d taken before Dad deployed. That made it our last one, period.

“She’ll come around,” I promised what I had no right to.

“Right. She doesn’t even realize you’ve transferred schools.” She rolled her eyes and changed the subject. “How did Kayla take you moving out?”

Ouch. I didn’t expect that to hurt, but it did. “I went while she was still in Breckenridge and moved my stuff out. It’s not like she didn’t know the reason.”

“Riley’s an asshat.” I didn’t argue with her language. She eyed the mini-fridge and TV I’d pulled out of our shared dorm room. “Did you leave Kayla anything?”

A wicked smile flashed across my face. “Every picture I had of Riley and me, with a note that said, ‘He’s all yours. Smooches!’”

“Badass!”

She crossed her feet, revealing another pair of new shoes, and I couldn’t hold my tongue. “April, I paid off that credit card bill, but you have to give me the card, and Mom has to know. What you’re doing is illegal, and wrong, and hurtful—”

“Jesus, stop lecturing me.” She pulled the card out of her back pocket and tossed it onto my desk as she hopped off the bed. “Bathroom?”

I stepped into the living room and pointed the way.

The apartment was perfect. Located on the north side of town, it was close to campus, but not too far to get home when I was needed. I’d wanted to live at home for the semester, after all, that was why I’d left Boulder, but Grams would hear nothing of it.

“You’re moving forward,” she’d told me. “Not stepping back.”

I picked up a picture of Sam and me on graduation day. We were both so happy, her with a megawatt grin and the keys to a new car, me with a sappy smile and Riley’s class ring on a chain around my neck. If this was moving forward, why did it come attached to so much past?

The door slammed, and Sam waltzed in with an afternoon fix. Her killer body wasn’t hidden under the bright miniskirt and sparkly Uggs.

She juggled three mall-sized shopping bags and as many Pikes Perk take-out coffee cups, balancing the cups under her chin while she opened her bedroom door. The bags hit the ground, and she danced into the living room. “This is going to be great!” she said with way more enthusiasm than I was feeling as she passed me my coffee.

“Everything is moved in. I just need to unpack.”

“Did you register for classes?” She sank onto the microfiber couch.

“Yup, funny what they’ll wiggle you in for with a dead-dad card.” It had been torturous to explain to the registrar without breaking down, but I’d made it. “A lot of the good ones are gone, but I got into the American History class I need.”