“I’m supposed to go to this mud racing thing with Rachel and her boyfriend, but if you want to hang out I can get out of it.”
“No, that’s perfect!” she said, finally smiling again. “That’s what I was going to ask you about. Eric’s racing. It’ll be amazing.”
“Eric?” I was still having trouble reconciling hipster Eric with farm-kid Eric, though I supposed the mudding thing made sense for someone who knew how to fix a tractor.
“He’s shockingly good at it. And I think he’s going to race Ryan. It’ll be fun to see Eric kick his ass.”
“Not sure ‘fun’ is the word I’d use, but I’ll be there,” I said.
And then we kissed, for a long time. I wished it were forever; I wished I could freeze that moment, standing in the middle of the mall, and not have to think about anything else ever again. I didn’t want to think that Ryan was next, and that on Saturday, everyone would be watching. And I had no idea what was going to happen.
SOMETHING ABOUT KNOWING ASTRID really and truly believed that I wasn’t the one who’d attacked Jason and Trevor seemed to give me permission to finally get some much-needed rest. I managed to put everything out of my mind and just sleep, and it felt wonderful. I woke up the next morning, feeling more awake and alert than I’d felt in weeks.
But the questions weren’t gone. I wasn’t sure what to do next until I remembered the thing that Astrid hadn’t explained: why she hadn’t gone to the party. It wasn’t her story to tell, she’d said. Clearly, then, it was Eric’s. I needed to talk to him.
The key was figuring out how to get Eric by himself—today was one of the days we all had lunch together. I scoured the cafeteria as soon as I got there, not bothering with food, and managed to catch Eric in line before he’d even sat down. “Can we talk for a minute?” I asked. “Alone?”
Eric smiled. “Looking for some dish on Astrid? I’m all yours.”
Not even close, but I saw no need to say that right away. I steered him to a table in the opposite corner, where the rest of their crew wouldn’t see us. Eric put his tray down but moved it aside a little; I almost felt bad that he seemed so excited to help me make things work with Astrid when there was a good chance I was going to ruin everything by opening my mouth. But I had to know.
I wasn’t sure where to start, though. “Things have been really . . . complicated . . . for me since Hayden died,” I finally said. “There’s a lot going on, and I have a lot of questions. I thought maybe you could help me.”
“I can try,” he said. “Although I didn’t really know Hayden. I knew Astrid wanted him to come hang out with us eventually, but she said he was shy, wasn’t ready yet.”
“My questions aren’t really about Hayden. Not directly, anyway.”
Eric gave me a quizzical look.
“I know this is going to sound kind of random, but I was talking to Astrid, and she was telling me about the night Hayden died. How she was supposed to go to that party, but she didn’t. And I got the sense that maybe . . . maybe she didn’t go because of you.”
Eric’s face fell. “I see,” he said.
“I get that we don’t know each other that well, and it sounds like this is probably pretty personal,” I said. “But is there any chance you’d be willing to tell me what happened?”
He looked down at the table for a minute, then looked back up at me. I could tell he’d made some sort of decision. “I’ll tell you whatever you want to know, but not here. Can you come by my house this afternoon? After school?”
“Sure,” I said. Whatever the story was, it sounded like it was going to be a big deal. I could barely wait.
The minute the final bell rang I headed over to Eric’s house. I remembered he had a car, so I figured if I walked I could be sure he’d beat me there. The ground was damp from all that rain the other night, which I supposed was a good sign for the whole mudding thing, but I was wearing an old pair of Chuck Taylors and they squeaked as I walked, Hayden’s playlist, as always, on my iPod.
He’d included two versions of the song “Hurt”—one was the original Nine Inch Nails version, which he loved. He had a thing for goth stuff; he went through a horrible Marilyn Manson phase that I wasn’t sure our friendship would survive. He was convinced in particular of Trent Reznor’s genius. I, on the other hand, didn’t think I was even capable of liking a Nine Inch Nails song until I heard Johnny Cash’s cover of “Hurt,” the second version Hayden had included. Johnny Cash had covered a whole bunch of songs you wouldn’t expect—Depeche Mode, Tom Petty, that sort of thing. I thought it was brilliant; Hayden thought it was a stunt he’d been talked into when he was getting ready to die. I’d softened my position on Trent Reznor eventually; I thought it was cool that he’d let Nine Inch Nails go for a while so he could score movies. Hayden had never wavered on the Johnny Cash covers, though, and the fact that he’d included both songs seemed like a sign to me, that he didn’t totally hate me. Although I knew I was in constant danger of reading too much into the playlist. I wished I could feel more sure about why Hayden had included what he did, what it all meant, what he thought I would eventually be able to understand.
I finally got to Eric’s house; his mom must have been out with the kids because he was the one who answered the door when I knocked. “Come on up,” he said, and I followed him to the attic.
“Want something to drink?” He walked over to a mini-fridge and pulled out two bottles of water. I nodded, and he handed me one. “Let’s get comfortable,” he said. “We might be a while.”
The piles of cushions and blankets were still strewn all over the floor from our movie night. Eric claimed a beanbag chair and I tried to stack up some pillows so I wasn’t splayed out too awkwardly. I remembered how comfortable I’d felt the other day, curled up with Astrid; it was pretty much the opposite of how I felt right now.
I wasn’t sure how to get him to start, so I figured I’d just start babbling and he could interrupt me. “I don’t know how much Astrid’s told you about me . . .”
Eric smiled. “Enough, that’s for sure. She’s very into you, in case you can’t already tell.”
I blushed. “Believe me, it’s mutual. But you know about Hayden too, right?”
“I do,” he said.
I appreciated that he didn’t try to say more, that he just acknowledged that I’d lost something. It didn’t make things better, but nothing would.
“She told me she was trying to help him,” I said. “She was supposed to meet Jess at that party, but she didn’t go.”
“And that’s where I come in,” he said.
I was relieved that he understood. I waited for him to say more, but he seemed to be thinking. Then he took a long drink from his water bottle, like he was gearing up for something.
“What the hell,” he said finally. “All my other friends know. And if you’re going to be hanging out with us you might as well know too. Come take a look.” He got up from the beanbag chair as gracefully as anyone can get out of a beanbag chair and walked over to the corner where he’d been painting the other day. I followed him and stared at the portrait, at those features that had looked so familiar, and then I realized why. I looked at Eric.
He nodded.
“That’s Jason,” I said.
“We used to be a thing,” he said.