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When 17-year-old Arbor Hayes' best friend turns up alive after a mysterious six-month disappearance, she must piece together the fragments of her story to make sense of what happened. But as clues e...
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A pit of confusion opens in my chest. Of all the things I expected Jordan to say, asking about a mobile app wasn't one of them.
"Prism?" I say, trying to recall if I've ever heard of it. "I don't think so."
She pushes aside her tray and shifts in bed, grimacing until she finds a comfortable position. "I'm not surprised. You don't seem like the type who'd be into it." Her gaze falls to her lap. "I'm sorry. That came out wrong."
I lean back in my chair, the pit of confusion growing. "It's okay. I don't even know what you're talking about."
Jordan reaches for the cell next to her tray. Using her good hand, She pulls up the app, then turns it around to face me.
The screen has a series of cracks but I can just make out a whimsical white font and the word prism sitting in the center of the screen with a tie-dye pattern of pastel colors is behind it. Only prism isn't spelled the way you'd think. The letters are lower case with the exception of a capital z which takes the place of the s.
priZm.
When my eyes reconnect with hers, I shake my head.
"Sorry the screen's a mess. I'm lucky it survived the accident." Jordan sets the phone face down on her lap. "priZm is an app where you can meet likeminded people with ... alternative lifestyles."
"Alternative lifestyles?" And then it dawns on me. "Oh. Like a dating app for ..." I let the sentence fall off, not wanting to say the wrong thing.
She nods. "For people who consider themselves something other than heterosexual."
A cluster of questions fill my head. I wrap my arms around my middle and try to piece together what she's saying. "I don't understand what this has to do with anything?"
Jordan's teeth pull at her bottom lip, ripping open the painful-looking split. Dots of blood blossom along the seam. She reaches for a tissue and presses it to her mouth. "There are things you don't know about Emma. Things she's kept from you. From everyone."
This is it. I knew Jordan knew more than she was letting on.
My chest tightens as I struggle to take in air. "Does this have anything to do with the fight I walked in on last year?"
Jordan closes her eyes, waits a beat. Opens them. "You can say that," she says in a single sad breath. The fingers that stick out from her cast fiddle with a rogue thread on the bed spread. She gives it a tug and the string grows longer, a patch of white fabric bunching up behind it. "I'm not sure if you know this, but I'm not into guys—I prefer girls." Pink tinges her cheeks, bringing out the freckles splashed across her skin.
I nod slowly, choosing my next words with care. "I did hear something about that. But it doesn't change anything, if that's what you're worried about. It doesn't matter to me who you like."
