He inhaled sharply. “I thought we decided you weren’t going to pry into your mother’s private records.”
“No, you decided that. And you didn’t care about my mom’s privacy, you just didn’t want me to find out about your deep, dark secret. Isn’t that right?” Suddenly, Emma felt drained and hollow, the anger deflating. She blinked back tears. “Ethan, I love you. I shared everything with you. And now it feels like I don’t even know you at all.”
The muted sounds of the party drifted toward them on the cool night air. Crickets chirped hopefully around the car. But inside, everything was deathly silent.
“Did you read my file?” Ethan asked. His voice had gone low and calm. She looked sideways at him. He sat very still, his mouth pulled into a straight, stoic line.
She shook her head. “No. It didn’t feel right.”
The rigidity left his body, his shoulders collapsing helplessly. He shoved his shaggy hair back with one hand. “I should have told you,” he admitted, his lips crumpling miserably. “I wanted to tell you. But it’s not a part of my life I’m proud of, okay?” He slumped back into the driver’s seat, his face twisted in anguish.
Emma stared straight ahead, into the dark knot of mesquite in front of the car.
“This was a couple years ago.” Ethan’s voice was so quiet she had to hold her breath to hear him. “My dad came back to town after a long business trip. The house was a total mess. Mom was too sick to clean, and I was, like, fifteen, so I was kind of useless about housework. Dad flipped out about it. I mean … really flipped out. He started beating the hell out of my mom, pushing her from room to room, shoving laundry into her arms, and throwing dirty dishes at her. In the dining room he broke a broomstick across the backs of her legs, he hit her so hard. He was punishing her for being lazy, he said.” Ethan’s face tilted away into the shadows. “So I clocked him over the head with a beer bottle. I didn’t know what else to do. It didn’t break, but it knocked him down pretty hard. He was out cold for a few minutes. Woke up later with a concussion.”
“Oh my God,” Emma breathed. She reached her hand out and touched Ethan’s arm, but he didn’t move. She knew he was reliving that awful night, in some dark corner of his mind.
“That’s not the most screwed up part. My mom called the cops on me. When they got there I was upset, kind of incoherent about the whole thing, so instead of jail they took me to the hospital. I ended up spending a night strapped to a bed, pumped so full of haloperidol I couldn’t even remember my name. I guess I was lucky—jail would have been much worse. When they evaluated me the next day, they concluded I was acting to defend my mom, and because I was a minor they just dismissed the whole thing out of court. But I had to keep going in for counseling for a year or so.”
“Wait, your mom called the cops?” Emma asked, her chest tightening. “You were just trying to protect her.”
Ethan turned to look at her sadly. “That’s not how she saw it, I guess. No matter how bad things get with my dad, she always takes his side, says she deserves it or whatever.”
In the silence that descended between them, they could hear a crooning R&B ballad piping through the sound system up at the house. Emma took Ethan’s hand in hers and squeezed it hard. His fingers were limp and heavy in hers, as if he’d turned to wood and could not feel her touch.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “I should have let you tell me in your own time. I should have realized it must have been something that was … hard for you to talk about.” She swallowed. The first tendrils of relief unwound inside her. Ethan wasn’t crazy. He wasn’t like her mother. He was a victim, just like Emma. “I’ve been so scared, Ethan. Everything I thought I knew about my childhood, my family, is wrong. It feels like every day I find out some new, huge secret. I guess I just expected the worst when I saw that file. Because the worst keeps on happening.”
He nodded, looking down at his lap. “I don’t want to have secrets from you, Emma. I want to share everything.”
“So do I,” she said. She reached for his hand, but he gently disentangled his fingers from hers.
“Are you sure about that? That’s not what it looked like tonight.”
Emma shook her head. “Ethan, he kissed me. I drank too much at the party and wasn’t thinking clearly enough to stop him in time. It was a stupid mistake. I’m really sorry it happened, and I wish I could take it back. But you have to believe me—I’m not interested in Thayer. I love you.”