No new messages, but I get another idea.
I plug the address into Google Maps. I don’t even have to check the email—the number is seared into my brain: 291 Schilling Road. I press Enter, and the map spins away from my sagging Iberville neighborhood to a spot a few miles away. The target stops on a lot that looks totally isolated. I switch to Street View and find an image of a very tall, very locked fence. Some distance beyond sits an old warehouse, slouching and gaping like a living thing.
Why on earth would Ethan want to take me there?
There’s a quick knock at my door. I minimize the window as Mom pokes her head inside.
“Hey, hon. Ready for your treatment?”
I nod, slide the computer off my lap, and lie in my designated spot in the center of my bedroom floor. I’ve spent so much time here I’m surprised there isn’t a permanent outline of me in the carpet.
Mom settles next to me and starts the whole routine, pounding my back with a cupped hand to loosen the secretions that plug up my lungs and make it impossible to breathe, which I’ll then hork into a plastic basin. It’s all very glamorous.
“How’s Ethan been?” Mom asks.
“Good.” The word comes out choppy, punctuated by the beats across my back.
“He hasn’t been by as much this week.”
“He’s busy with school.” I frown into the carpet, replaying our conversation last night.
Mom knocked on the door to say I had a visitor, and then Ethan was there. I felt suddenly self-conscious in my ratty brown bathrobe, but he didn’t seem to notice or care. He dropped his duffel by my bedroom door, tossed me a bag of contraband Skittles, and flopped onto my bed, all in one continuous motion. His hair was too shiny not to be wet, and he smelled faintly like chlorine. He’d come straight from swim practice.
I tore open the bag of Skittles and probably looked like a pig, stuffing the colorful candies into my mouth. “Mmm,” I moaned.
“Should I leave you two alone?” Ethan asked.
I threw a candy at his forehead, and he laughed.
“You didn’t call me back last night,” I said.
“I know, I had a calc test today, and I didn’t study.”
“How did it go?”
“Let’s just say I’ll be getting another Karin Sato lecture imminently.”
“Ouch.”
I’ve had the pleasure of being present for one of his mom’s legendary lectures, and it was…unpleasant. It’s one of the many things we have in common: our very invested mothers.
“So, tell me about school,” I said. “All the details. I want to feel like I’m there.”
“There’s a new kid,” Ethan said, “Isaiah something or other. He’s in my chem class, and he’s trying out for swim too, so he’s kind of latched on to me.”
“Oh no—” I started, but Ethan knew exactly where I was going and jumped in.
“Don’t worry. He’s not a Sam 2.0.”
I grinned, remembering the weird girl who followed me around for a few months last year. Though she was harmless at the beginning, I drew the line when she dyed her hair ash blond to match mine and started carrying an inhaler in her purse. It wasn’t funny then—it was totally creepy—but when I complained to the principal, it turned out it didn’t matter, because Sam had already transferred to another school. We can laugh about it now.
“Is Savannah still trying to hump you?” I asked.
Ethan smirked, and the Skittles felt suddenly heavy in my stomach. I forced a smile and needled him in the ribs. “Okay, what happened?”
“She wants to go to Tucker St. Clair’s party together tomorrow.”
A party. Another thing I couldn’t go to.
“I thought you hated Tucker St. Clair.”
“I do.” He sat up and grabbed the bottle of Cacharel Ana?s Ana?s on my nightstand, turning it from side to side so the liquid sloshed around.
I asked Mom for French perfume for my birthday last year and practically had an aneurysm when she actually got it for me. Even though I’m not allowed to wear it, I love the way the bottle looks next to the neat stack of French novels on my nightstand.
“So?” I pushed.
“So everyone is going. His parents are out of town for some charity thing.”
But it’s a weekday, I almost said. “Are you going to go, then?” I asked instead.
“I dunno.”
I felt his eyes on me, so I pretended to be very focused on twisting the Skittles bag closed.
“Do you want to hang out instead?” he asked.
Yes. God, yes. “No. You should go to the party.”
“Are you sure?”
My stomach flipped. I hadn’t expected him to agree so quickly. But why wouldn’t he? Savannah Thompson is blond, tan, and sweet, and I’d be willing to bet she wouldn’t cough and hack if he tried to kiss her. Or taste like a salt lick. So many attractive qualities in a girl.
I nodded. “Yeah, I’m sure.”
“Hope…”
Something about his voice made me unable to look up. I felt like he could see it written all over my face, all my pathetic longing and desperation.
He put the perfume down.