Mrs. Liu wasn't used to people knocking on their door since their family moved to Green Valley, so she was more than confused when someone tapped three times, wrong the doorbell, and banged again. She was even more surprised when she pressed her eye to the view finder and an anxious teenager was looking back at her. She knew Amber hadn't made any friends at her school, so she was at a complete loss as to who this child could be.

She opened the door cautiously.

"Yes?" she asked, the word loaded with every question that had flitted through her mind since the first knock,

The girl scrunched up her slightly sunburnt nose. "Are you Amber's mom?"

"I am."

"Is she here?''

Mrs. Liu propped a hand on her narrow hips. "She is."

The girl rocked from one foot to the other. "Can I see her?"

"Why do you want to see her?" Mrs. Liu asked, her protective instincts on high alert. Krystal was the only kid from school Amber had invited over. She couldn't imagine Amber keeping any possible friendships withother students a secret.

The teenager's anxiety only seemed to increase. "I thought she might want to know. Her and Krystal are friends, right? Or whatever..."

"Isn't that poor girl getting married today?"

"Yeah. Crazy. And it's not even like she's pregnant or anything. Well, I don't think she is anyway. The gossip was all about her and Amber. I don't even think she likes Gavin. I mean, he's cute and all but I can go to a sermon if I want to get preached at. He wasn't like that freshman year. Weird."

The girl babbled on and Amber's mom figured she was harmless enough. She waved her inside.

"I'll show you to Amber's room," she interrupted. "What did you say your name is again?"

The girl in a breath. "Oh, um Julie. I'm not like Amber's friend or anything. It's just, it's messed up, you know?" She nibbled on her lip. "And I wanted to apologize too. I was kind of being my mouthy self and accidentally made her mad. There's just stuff I want to know and no one around here talks about anything." She pulled a long end of her brown hair into and chewed on that rather than her own skin. "Well, the Bible, but you talk about it enough and the stories are more full of holes than Holy, you know. But that's not what I wanted to talk about today. It was insane. I was right there in the church." 

They reached Amber's room and Mrs. Liu decided it was a good idea she stick around to hear exactly what had happened. She knocked on Amber's bedroom door. 

"Honey, one of your classmates is here to see you." 

"Tell them to go away! Why would I want to talk to any of them?" 

"She says, it's about Krystal, sweetie." 

That produced some movement on the other side of the door. It flung open to reveal an exhausted looking Amber with unstyled black hair spiking in every direction. Her long pajama shirt was on backwards, the tag tickling at her neck.

"What is it?! What happened? Did something happen at the wedding?" 

"You look gross," Julie observed. 

Amber blinked at her and rubbed at the top of her head. "What are you doing here?" 

Julie folded her arms and sank back onto her heel. "I was totally at the wedding today and it was insane." 

Mrs. Liu had heard that much from the girl, she wondered if she always rambled on this much and how many headaches she left in her wake. 

"What?!" Amber demanded. 

Julie jumped. "Wow, like calm down. So I was at the wedding and it looked kind of ... well, mature. All these ugly purple bits of fabric everywhere and like beige shirts for all the guys. Hideous. I was only there because my parents were there saying I'd be walking down the isle next if I didn't learn to be more demure. I think they honestly just want to get rid of me because really I'm not a