“Jackie,” he said, looking right at me. “Just pretend it never happened, okay?”
The bell rang, signaling we needed to head to first hour.
“No,” I said sternly. “I want to know why you did it.”
“We’re going to be late for first period,” he said, starting to climb the steps.
“I don’t care,” I told him, surprising myself. “I know you don’t either.”
“Fine,” he grumbled. Lee led me to the back of the school and over to a cluster of trees that couldn’t be seen from any of the building windows.
“Is this a part of some secret plan to kill me?” I questioned him as I looked around. We were completely alone.
Lee glanced over his shoulder to glare at me. “This is where I normally come when I don’t feel like going to class.”
“Oh…”
“Has anyone told you about my parents?” he asked me then.
“Your parents?”
“Yeah, the reason why Isaac and I live with my aunt and uncle.”
“No,” I said, not knowing where this conversation was going. I’d always wondered what happened to their parents, but truthfully, I was too afraid to ask.
“My mom left right after I was born,” he told me. “I never even met her.” I kept my mouth shut, waiting for him to continue. “Her leaving messed my dad up pretty bad. He’s an Army officer, and instead of raising Isaac and me, he dumped us with his brother and went overseas. We only see him every few years.”
I put a hand to my mouth to cover my surprise, but Lee wasn’t looking at me. His gaze was focused on the sky. What he was telling me was almost worse than what happened to my family. Even though they were gone, at least I knew that they loved me.
We sat in silence for a while and the almost-summer sun warmed my skin. “Lee, I’m so sorry,” I finally said.
“You know? You’re probably the first person to actually mean that,” he said.
“Really?” I asked him.
“I’ve heard so many people say ‘sorry’ to me, and it’s all fake. They don’t really know what it feels like to not have a family.”
I nodded my head. “You know the worst part, though?” I asked him. “When people look at you differently. I’m no longer Jackie, daughter of the Howards. I’m Jackie, the girl with dead parents.”
“Better than Lee, the boy whose parents couldn’t care less.”
“Why do you hate me?” I said then.
“I don’t hate you. It’s just…” Lee sighed and ran a hand through his curly hair, trying to find the right words. “Let’s just say I have mom issues. I never knew mine, and Katherine—it’s hard enough for her to pay attention to all twelve of us. And then you showed up, and my aunt felt so responsible for you that she gave up her studio. I felt like you were stealing the little time I had with her away from me.”
“I don’t know what to say,” I told Lee.
“I wasn’t asking you to,” he said. “I went back and got your sweater because I finally realized that unlike me, you don’t have anyone.” I could tell that he was struggling for the right words. “I was too jealous to understand that you were in just as much pain as me. I was a dick.”
Sighing, I grabbed Lee’s hand. As angry with him as I was for everything he’d put me through, at least he was telling me the truth. “Yeah,” I said, agreeing with him. “You totally were.”
Lee cracked a smile.
***
Nathan never made me nervous. There was something about our friendship—something so natural and easy—that I didn’t have with any of the other Walter boys. But today as I walked down the hall toward his room, I had to wipe my hands on the back of my skirt and push away the urge to flee.
Katherine had picked him up from the hospital after we left for school, and when we got home at four o’clock, all the boys rushed up to visit him. He had been required to stay in the hospital for the rest of the week, so most of the guys hadn’t seen him since Saturday. I hung back, patiently waiting for my turn so we could talk in private.
We hadn’t spoken since the morning of his seizure, and I could feel my stomach sloshing back and forth in anticipation. What Lee said to me in the ER was still lodged in the back of my mind. Yes, Monday morning we talked through our issues, but I couldn’t help but think in what if terms. If only I had pulled myself out of bed when Nathan asked me to go running—swallowing my shame and fear of seeing the other boys—then maybe I wouldn’t feel so guilty right now.
Outside his room, my knuckles were poised above the door, but then, losing my nerve, I dropped my hand back down to my side. Gentle notes of a new song were being teased out of his guitar, and I could picture Nathan sitting on his bed, eyes closed with the instrument in hand. Maybe I could come back later, sometime when my stomach wasn’t so jittery.