My gaze drifts to the moon. “Yeah, probably.”
“I’m sorry,” she says. “I shouldn’t be so pushy.”
The silence that follows is comfortable. My chest opens. It’s like I can breathe again. We’ve left the topic of Lex and secrets.
Jordan speaks first. “Hey, Win?”
“Yeah.”
“Can we talk about girls again? I bet I can figure out your type. I’m good at that.”
Uh-oh. My type? “Sure.”
She cocks her head while she inspects me, her brown eyes running all the way from tip to tail. “You’re tall. Like six feet, right?”
I nod.
“Hmm. Putting that together with the whole tennis and running thing, I’m guessing you go for sporty over that ballerina. Anna Kournikova? Is that the girl of your dreams?”
“Not even close,” I say, but a familiar shiver racks my spine. Titillating and guilt-laced.
Wrong girl. Right name.
chapter
sixteen
antimatter
I cried out when Keith grabbed my arm.
“What’s wrong with you?” he snapped, leaning over the bed where I lay. “Charlie’s waiting. Get up.”
He’d already gotten dressed and had breakfast. Me, I’d missed practice. I hadn’t been able to move that far.
Specks of July haze filtered in through the lace curtains, the day already overtired and overhot. I hated the impatience in his tone. I strained to push off the mattress, but the sharp pain in my abdomen made me whimper. I twisted my head toward the wall.
Keith’s voice lowered. “Come on, Drew. You’re okay.”
“No, I’m not!”
“What? You’re really sick or something?”
I pressed my head against the scratchy pillowcase and nodded.
“You need me to get Gram?” he asked.
No, I didn’t need that. Not at all. Our grandmother hadn’t warmed up to me since that first night. I said all the wrong things around her and she thought I was dumb. I knew she did. Keith, on the other hand, was loved, doted on. She’d even taken him into Cambridge to some famous bookstore, and when she went grocery shopping, she bought him vegetarian bacon, which tasted awful just like I knew it would. All I got were the dirty looks and chilly admonishments to stay quiet, act my age, and mind my manners. But I couldn’t help myself. I mewled again, a tortured sound. Keith scooted from the room to get her.
Two minutes later brought a flurry of footsteps and whispering in the hallway.
“What’s wrong with him?” And there it was. My grandmother’s voice, dripping with scorn.
“I think it’s his stomach. He hasn’t … I don’t think he’s gone to the bathroom since he got here.”
“He hasn’t gone in six days?”
The hallway rang with a bevy of giggles. God, was that Charlie out there? And Phoebe?
I withered beneath the blankets. Wished death on the entire world.
Keith cleared his throat. “Well, maybe, I think, maybe he should see a doctor. He’s crying.”
“He doesn’t need a doctor,” my grandmother said firmly. “I’ll be right back.”
There was more giggling in the hall and then a knock on the door.
“Go away!” I shouted. The last thing I wanted was for everyone to crowd around and laugh more. Why would they do that? Why? It wasn’t funny. It hurt.
“It’s just me, Drew,” came a soft voice.
My stomach flipped over in a way that had nothing to do with my digestive issues. It was Anna, the elder cousin. She slid through a crack in the door and sat beside me. Her pale green dress was the same color as the leaves on the willow branches outside. I breathed her in, with my nose, my eyes, my everything—that long dark hair, that earthy warmth that smelled like digging flower beds in the spring with Siobhan, that syrupy way she melted into the blankets. My heart rate slowed. Suddenly I didn’t care that I had nothing on but a pair of pajama pants. I just wanted to crawl into her lap and stay there.
She rubbed my back. “I’m sorry you don’t feel good.”
I curled closer.
My grandmother swooped in then. “Sit up, Andrew.”
I wouldn’t let any moans of pain escape me, not in Anna’s presence. I was brave. I propped myself into sitting and ignored the fire raging in my midsection. Let my skinny legs dangle over the side of the bed. My grandmother jabbed at my gut with dry hands. I stiffened and resisted the urge to bite her.
“Does anything else hurt?” she asked.
I shook my head.
“This wouldn’t happen if you ate the food I made instead of sneaking downstairs at night and gorging yourself on junk.”
Oh, great. She knew. I looked away.
Smack! Her hand came out too quickly for me to register, ringing me with a sharp slap across the face.
“Pay attention when I talk to you!”
My lip curled. I wasn’t scared. Or hurt. Something awful came alive inside of me. A million images rushed into my head. Images of bad things. Very bad things. Things I could do.
“I’ll give him that, Gram,” Anna said quickly, taking the spoon and jar of medicine out of her hand. “He’s just embarrassed to have us all looking at him.”