I met Sofia at the little café two blocks from campus. It was the same place we’d gone to a hundred times before everything turned upside down. Back then we’d sit here for hours complaining about how broke we always were.
Now I slid into the booth across from her wearing a high-neck sweater (to hide the worst of the hickeys) and new jeans that actually fit, and I felt like I was wearing someone else’s skin.
Sofia looked up from her phone the second I sat. Her eyes went straight to my neck, then narrowed.
“You’re hiding something,” she said immediately.
I forced a laugh. “Hello to you too.”
“Don’t ‘hello’ me.” She leaned forward, elbows on the table. “Pull that collar down.”
“No.”
“Elena.”
I sighed and glanced around the café, nobody was paying attention. I tugged the neck of the s
