“Sure,” Kimber agreed, but I could tell my closing the conversational door in her face hurt her feelings. She forced a smile. “I feel an attack of the munchies coming on.”

She hopped to her feet, and without thinking about it, I reached out and grabbed her arm to stop her from fleeing the room. After the way she’d just opened her heart to me, it would be completely bitchy of me to shut her out. I was going to have to bite the bullet and talk about my least favorite subject in the world.

“Sit down,” I told her, giving her arm a little yank. “I’m sorry. It’s just…”

I let go of her arm, and Kimber sank back down onto the bed. “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to,” she said gently. “You’ve known me for less than twenty-four hours. I shouldn’t expect you to treat me like your BFF.”

“It’s okay—it’s been an intense twenty-four hours.”

She laughed faintly. “That it has.”

I blew out a deep breath. My heart was pounding almost as hard as when I’d been hiding in the closet, and my shoulder muscles were so tight they hurt. But I knew I was overreacting. Kimber might look like the bitchy, popular cheerleader-type who could sneer at me if she knew about my mom, but she didn’t act like it. Besides, it wasn’t like there was a school full of other kids she could spread the story to.

Bracing myself for shock, or pity, or disgust, I forced my shameful secret out through gritted teeth. “My mom’s an alcoholic.” There. I’d said it. Out loud.

Kimber just sat there, waiting for me to continue. “And?” she prompted, when I didn’t say anything else.

I stared at her. “Does there have to be more?”

She blinked. “Well, no. I guess not. It’s just that you gave it so much build-up I thought it was going to be some horrible, dark secret, like she had a boyfriend who abused you or something.”

Of all the reactions I’d been expecting, this wasn’t one of them. “So you don’t think my mom being a drunk is a big deal?”

She shrugged. “Sure, it’s a big deal to you—you had to live with her. It’s just … I don’t know. It’s not a stop-the-presses, red-alert, danger-Will-Robinson kind of thing.”

“Danger Will Robinson?”

“You know, Lost in Space.”

I made a zooming-over-my-head motion.

Kimber made a mock-horror face. “It’s a classic! But anyway, the point is, in the grand scheme of shocking news, an alcoholic mom just isn’t that high up there.”

It’s funny, but I’d been worried that she’d look down on me when she knew—and I was glad she didn’t. But it was such an anticlimax compared to what I’d been expecting that I swear I was almost disappointed. I mean, here I’d gone and told her this terrible secret, the one I’d never told anyone in my life … and she was all like, “Yawn.”

“The kids at my last school thought it was pretty shocking,” I protested. “They made my life a living hell when they found out.”

She waved that off. “Yeah, but they were kids.”

“Uh, newsflash: we’re kids.”

“But we’re not normal kids,” she said, and the words hit me like a kick in the gut. “I’m a sixteen-year-old college sophomore who lives on her own, and you’re a Faeriewalker. Normal doesn’t apply to us.”

The truth of her words was hard to deny, although I’d been denying it for a very long time. I’d always tried to be as normal as possible under the circumstances, and I’d always known I’dfallen short. I just hadn’t wanted to admit it.

“Hey, at least we can be not normal together now,” Kimber said, and I couldn’t help smiling.

“Who needs normal?” I responded. “Normal’s boring.”

And, at least for that moment, I actually meant it.

Kimber and I both leapt to our feet when we heard the distinctive sound of the front door opening and closing, then of footsteps coming from the direction of the kitchen.

“It’s just me,” Ethan called before we had a chance to get too worried.

He appeared in the bedroom doorway a moment later, a cocky grin on his face. My heart did a little ka-thump at the sight of him.

“You look terribly proud of yourself,” Kimber said, using the sour tone I’d once thought was the only one she had.

His grin broadened. “I am rather brilliant, if I do say so myself.”

“Which you do on a regular basis.”

He was undaunted by the ribbing. “After I saw Grace this afternoon, I knew someone would be keeping a close eye on the two of us,” he said.

“Wow, brilliant deduction.”

Ethan made a mock pouty-face. “You’re ruining the story.” I could tell by the look on her face how heartbroken Kimber was about that, but she resisted the urge to come out with another quip.

“I figured being constantly watched would rather cramp our style. So I managed to ditch my tail, and then came straight here.” He looked at Kimber expectantly, but she shook her head.

“I’m not in the mood to play your straight man.”

He turned the same expectant look on me, and my heart did another one of those ka-thumps. I couldn’t not give him what he wanted, not when he was looking at me like that.

“How did you ditch your tail?” I asked, and hoped I didn’t sound breathless.