She walked out of the kitchen and among the other guests. It felt like it took every atom of courage she had. “Hi. I’m Jane,” she said to a pair of chatting girls who weren’t Lakehaven alums. The girls smiled and introduced themselves. She could feel Adam watching her, letting her inch out on the social ice alone, but there for her if needed.
For the next thirty minutes, she worked the room, like she was a normal person. It felt like stepping out onto a high wire strung across a canyon. The other three Lakehaven kids who were there—and at community college with Trevor—were all neutral at least, and one was friendly, asking her how she was doing. “I’m better.” And she braced herself for the Well, you’re for sure doing better than David Hall response she expected, but the boy just nodded and said, “Well, that’s good, Jane.”
It was like life could be normal.
She waited for Adam to get involved in a discussion about superhero movies—there was no greater distraction for him—and then she walked outside into the cool breeze. A pair of guys stood off from the patio, smoking cigarettes, deep into a discussion of a TV show about zombies that Jane couldn’t stand to watch. She did not need to imagine the dead rising and shambling about the landscape. One boy watched her, gave her a slight nod and smile, and she wondered why. Maybe the dress did look nice.
“Hey, Jane,” Trevor said behind her as she stood at the edge of the patio. She turned to face him and she felt an odd jolt at the sight of him.
Were we still friends the night of the accident? Or was I afraid of you?
The two smokers finished and went back into the house.
“Adam brought me. I’m sorry I’m crashing.” She had not really considered the humiliation she would feel if he asked her to leave.
“It’s fine, I’m glad he did. I should have invited you. Called you after I saw you talking with Amari.”
“You were busy, and frankly, if you’d asked me to come, I might have lost my nerve.”
“Why?” The embarrassment faded from his eyes and his gaze met hers.
For a moment she did lose her nerve. “Quite the wild college kegger,” she said, finding her voice. “What with Nana here.”
“With Nana here, we get much better food and my bro-dude friends don’t seem inclined to trash the house or drink as much.”
“I like her.”
“Nana moved back in with us after my mom died. I think I would have been lost without her.”
She hated to ruin the moment. Trevor, being nice and acting open with her, warmer than he had been at the coffee shop. “The paramedics who helped me were both attacked. I talked with one whose house was burned down. I asked her if she remembered seeing any cars as the ambulance approached the accident site. She saw a truck very much like yours turning off High Oaks as they turned on.”
His mouth twisted for a moment.
“Were you there, Trevor?” Her voice was soft.
The smile came back on, but faded. “There are a lot of trucks like mine.”
It wasn’t an answer. She knew the boy he had been; she didn’t know the man he had become.
“I know. But I’m still asking you. Were you there?”
Nana stepped out onto the patio. “Y’all hungry? I just pulled ribs out of the oven.”
“We’ll be there in a minute, ma’am, thank you,” Trevor said. Jane gave Nana a smile and thought, Maybe I’m about to upend Trevor’s life. I’m sorry, Nana.
Nana stepped back inside.
“You and Adam came into Happy Taco after we did. I saw the video, so there’s no lying about it to me. He said you arrived separately, him looking for me. He said you told him you were looking for me, but you told Amari you were looking for David. Why?”
He looked at her for another long second, took a sip of beer. Like he didn’t know what to say. He let out a breath, like it had been long held.
After a moment he put his blue-eyed gaze steadily on her. His awkward smile was gone. “I wasn’t looking for David. I was looking for you. I ran into Adam there, in the parking lot. We didn’t come together. He was looking for you, too.”
She went blunt. “Did you see the crash?”
He looked stricken. “No, no, of course not. Jane. Do you think I would have driven off and left you there?”
“I don’t know, Trevor. Remember, I don’t remember. Why were you following us?”
“Not following, looking for you. Because I thought you were seeing David and I wanted to know if you were.” He kept his gaze steady with hers. “I watched you two leave school. Clearly there was something major and emotional going on between you. I went to football practice and I covered for David, because he was skipping it. I thought maybe you were just giving David a ride home. You’re neighbors, friends. Whatever. But you had totally ignored me when I called to you when you were leaving. That wasn’t like you, or like David. You were both acting so oddly. Later Kamala texted me you two were being all cozy at Happy Taco and did I know why? So I went there to see you.”
Instead of Trevor’s face she saw headlights, in a mirror, bright, close. Following, following. She blinked the image away.
“Why would you care? Why would you try to find me and lie about it to Adam?” But then she knew. She knew it in his face, in the way he’d acted toward her at the coffee shop, tentative, shy, uncertain, a guy who had girls watching and smiling at him as he worked. And the pang of annoyance she’d felt when she noticed that. A guy who probably was normally confident. For a moment she thought she’d reached out and touched his plain, strong face along his jawline, then his blond hair. But she realized it was a memory, a shard of the past slicing through the haze, another time she’d looked at him with love. This boy she’d fake-married in first grade with rubber-band rings, this boy she’d fought a bow-headed bully for in fourth. This friend. This more-than-a friend.
“You and I had been seeing each other. No one knew. Maybe Kamala suspected. You know how her mind works.”
She bit at her lip. “Why keep it a secret?”
“You wanted it that way. You said your mom didn’t want you to date, she was still kind of mental about your dad’s passing and you not being around when she needed you. I didn’t like sneaking around, it felt wrong, but I didn’t care, I just wanted to be with you, Jane.”
She remembered the reconstructed time line. After Kamala and David’s texting back and forth, Trevor had texted David, asking him what was up. David apparently didn’t respond, and then Trevor did not text again.
“Kamala tried to talk to David, he put her off, then you text.” She opened her eyes.
“Kamala thought you two were messing around together. Her best friend and her boyfriend.”
“I thought they were broken up. She had broken up with him. That’s what she told me when I came back to school.”