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Just for a second, I feel a rief so intense it hollows me out: I want my family back I want my Dara back

I quickly swap out my T-shirt for the official unifor, and return to the office, where Mr Wilcox is waiting forood"

He wraps an arm around my shoulder and pilots h the park, past fake shipwrecks and more plastic palm trees, plus rides with names like Splish ’n’ Splash or the Plank I see a few other e leaves fro out instructions to one another, and I have the weird sense of walking backstage just before a play and seeing all the actors in half h in the sky and calling out to another girl, roughlyall red "Tenneson! Over here! Tenneson! New ging toward us, and Wilcox fires out another explanation: "Tenneson’s irl, of course! This is her fourth su you need, you ask her Anything she can’t answer, you don’t need to know!" With another laugh he releases irl looksblack hair, worn in multiple braids, and a tattoo of a snail just below her left ear She looks like so and she has the bright eyes of sos Her front teeth overlap a little, which makes me like her

"Hey," she says "Welcome to FanLand"

"I’ve heard that a few hundred ti’s a littleenthusiastic about the new recruits About everything, actually I’m Alice"

"Nicole," I say We shake hands, even though she can’t be estures for ht toward the Cove, the "dry" half of the park, where all the big rides, plus the game booths and food vendors, are "Most people call es, an almost imperceptible switch, as if a curtain has come down behind her eyes "You’re--you’re Dara’s sister"

I nod She turns away,sour "I’m sorry about the accident," she blurts out at last

My whole body goes hot, like it always does when sos up the accident, as if I’ve just walked into a roo about me "You heard, huh?"

To Alice’s credit, she looks sorry to have oes to So Parker’s nalitch in ht of Parker innot to think about him for months And nobody calls hi Parker and Little Parker for as long as I can remember Even his mom calls her sons the Parkers

John Parker er

"Since John Parker what?" I prompt

She doesn’t answer, and doesn’t have to, because at thatan open toolbox and fiddling with soe of the Banana Boat, a ride that, true to its naiant airborne banana with multicolored sides

Maybe he hears his name or senses it or maybe it’s just coincidence, but at that moment he looks up and sees me I lift a hand to wave but freeze when I see his expression--horrified, practically, as if I’host or a monster

Then I realize: he probably bla "put you on creith Parker thisI have a shit ton of work to do for the anniversary party He can show you the ropes, no proble"

Now Parker and I are separated by no more than ten feet Finally he ducks under the steel support bea it to quickly wipe his face He seerown another two inches since I last saw hi here?" he says With his shirt off I can see the half-moon shape on his shoulder blade, a shters freshman year while they were drunk on Southern Comfort I was supposed to do it, too, but chickened out at the last second

Stupidly I tug at ," I say "My ot to your"And I’uess so" My whole body feels itchy Sweat moves between my breasts, down to my waistband For years, Parker wasbad B horrorays to n films and disabled the subtitles so we could make up the plots ourselves We texted in pre-calc ere bored, until Parker got busted and had his phone taken away for a week We hopped his older brother’s scooter and piled on: me, Parker, and Dara, and had to abandon it and run for the woods when a cop spotted us

Then, last Deceed Dara had just broken up with her latest boyfriend, Josh or Jake or Mark or Mike--I could never keep theht, they cycled in and out of her life so fast And suddenly she would crashshort-shorts and a tissue-thin shirt that showed the black lacy cups of her bra Or I would see the cold, her ar Or I would walk into the roouilty look, while she kept a long, tan leg draped across his lap