Excerpt from I'm the Girl by Courtney Summers, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"I'm not working there."

"If I don't get my money back, George, you might not have a choice."

I press my knuckles against my forehead, tears pooling at the corners of my eyes, and let out a shaky breath. Tyler sighs.

"You thirsty?"

I nod. He gives me another drink of water.

"We shouldn't even be talking about this now." He sets the glass down. "You're—you need rest. So do I. It's been a long fucking day."

"Yeah," I say.

He rests his hand on the top of my head, his thumb lightly stroking my forehead as the warm hold of the drugs take over. The hard lines of his face smooth as I drift, and as I drift he keeps his hand there. I know I'm not an easy person to love, and the times I really feel it are the times I'm asking it of him the most.

"Besides," he says quietly as my eyes close, "you forget the part where the Hayeses don't want to see an Avis pass through that gate ever again?"

I struggle to stay awake. It's a losing battle, but I have to know. Because the road, the car, and the body feels like it happened today, but everything after ... her ...

"But I was there. Wasn't I?"

Feels like a dream.

"Yeah," he finally answers. "You were."


When Nora James shows up at my door a week and a half later, her sister's death is on her, everywhere.

I'm not used to seeing her so undone. Nora is a girl who lingers in the corners of your mind, a mean kind of pretty, bordering on unapproachable. If she looks like she has time for you, it's likely a trick of the light, but when it's not and she means it—nothing more important could happen to you. At least not in the halls of Ketchum High. She was one of the most popular girls before she graduated. Captain of the volleyball team. She's tall, lean up and down, with strong shoulders, skin taut around muscular arms and legs that call attention to how hard she trains. She's always been so sure of herself, but she seems so small to me now. Her chin-length black hair is tied into a baby ponytail that reveals her undercut but doesn't hide the tangled, unwashed state of it. Her pointed face is pale white, dark circles under her wide hazel eyes.

"Watt says you don't remember most of it," Nora says—as close to "hello" as I'm getting, I guess. "But I want to know what you do. Show me where you found her."

"You know where I found her." Everyone does.

"Show me where you found her," she repeats. "And tell me everything."


She drives us to the road. I tell her I can't be out long.

"Why? Where else you got to be?"

I don't answer. Before she showed, I was making myself sick waiting on Tyler to come back from the mall, the modeling agency. I begged him not to go, told him to forget about it. He wasn't going to get his money back so let me see about Aspera, and it was the wrong thing to say. I keep thinking of the flash of worry I saw in his eyes before he left, the possibility of coming home empty-handed too great for him to ignore.

I keep thinking about how I'd rather him come home empty-handed.

"Should Sheriff Watt be telling you what I do and don't remember?" I ask Nora, but now it's her turn not to answer. "How's your dad?"

She keeps to her silence. All she's got is her dad. Motherless, her and me. Nora's mom left when she was thirteen. It was one of those hard leavings too. The kind that doesn't call. Doesn't check in. The kind that makes you wonder if you ever had a mother. I can't help but wonder if I got the better deal, mine six feet underground. I glance at Nora's hands on the steering wheel, fingers clutched around it so tight, it looks like they could snap it in half. The fervor of those first few days following the discovery of Ashley's body has settled into an uneasy, open wound. Tyler drove down that road right after, said there was yellow tape everywhere, reporters and cameras, a little wooden cross planted in the ground, people laying flowers when all they really wanted was to gawk. It rained that first night, he told me. Whatever evidence they didn't gather, washed away. I want to tell Nora that; that where she thinks she's taking me now is gone, just like her sister.

Excerpted from I'm the Girl by Courtney Summers. Copyright © 2022 by Courtney Summers. Excerpted by permission of Wednesday Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.