Excerpt from All That's Left Unsaid by Tracey Lien, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"Stop stressing so much and just let him go. You're gonna stunt his growth if you keep smothering him."

From her father, Ky learned that the formal itself went off without a hitch. Denny won the title "Most Likely to Succeed," which came with a sash that he tucked into the breast pocket of a borrowed suit. He used a disposable camera to take photos with friends, with the teachers of Cabramatta High, of the crusty and over-fried dinner served at the RSL club. And then they walked to Lucky 8, a restaurant known for having a wedding singer perform even when there wasn't a wedding; a restaurant that had six tanks filled with live fish and lobsters and king crabs; a restaurant reserved for celebration and hope and new beginnings.

What happened next, according to both her mother and her father, was bad luck. It wasn't the glib kind of bad luck that accompanies a stubbed toe or stolen hubcaps, but the kind of bad luck that shimmies across rooftops looking for a family to curse, for a child to steal. Ky had asked her parents what the police had told them, but instead of sharing what else they knew, they simply shook their heads, their eyes swollen and red, their lips forming the words Bad luck, bad luck. Ky had wanted to yell at them then, too, but when she opened her mouth—silence.

"I don't know," Ky said, finally locking eyes with Mr. Dickson. "We haven't heard anything from the police since the incident."

"Well," Mr. Dickson said, pausing the twirling of his plastic fork, "if there's anything we can do, any way we can help, just say the word."

Jack shit, Minnie said in Ky's head.

"Thanks," Ky said, speaking over the imagined voice that continued in the background.

Mr. Dickson nodded while chewing. Ms. Buck rested a hand on Ky's shoulder; it took everything for Ky to not squirm away. Ms. Faulkner looked like she was about to cry.

Inaudible to anyone but Ky, Minnie continued: But I tell you what—Ky, as a Good Big Sister, will do more than jack shit! She will take matters into her own hands, won't you, Ky? She will redeem herself for failing her brother! She will step up for the first time in her pathetic do-good, rule-following gimp of a life! Because those dipstick cops won't do shit! Because they'll just write us off as troubled FOBs with FOB troubles! Because if we can't speak up when one of our own is beaten to death, then what the fuck is wrong with us? Because, because, because!

When Ky's parents called to tell her that Denny had been stomped to death in Lucky 8, she didn't answer because she wasn't home. When they tried her at work, she didn't answer because she was on deadline—she had been assigned a human-interest story on a couple living in their car who had just won the lottery. When her parents left a message with the newspaper's front desk, Ky never got it because Becca Smith, the receptionist, said she couldn't understand them through their thick accents.

"I think a Chinese man called for you," she said. "He gave me a number, but honestly, it was hard to understand him, so I didn't write it down."

"Oh, thanks." Ky looked around, hoping that someone else was listening in on the conversation, someone who could validate her feelings, assure her that, yes, the encounter, like so many of Ky's previous interactions with Becca Smith, was objectively off-putting, and that Ky's response—to feel unsteady, as though someone had kicked the back of her office chair—was not only normal but appropriate, more than appropriate, maybe even too generous. She didn't catch anyone's eye. It was just between her and the perpetually sunny receptionist. "I guess I'll check my Rolodex for Chinese Man and call him back."

"Great! I'll leave you to it!" Becca Smith said, tapping her acrylic nails on Ky's cubicle divider, her smile stiff, as though she had detected but not fully processed Ky's sarcasm.

Excerpted from All That's Left Unsaid by Tracey Lien. Copyright © 2022 by Tracey Lien. Excerpted by permission of William Morrow. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.