“I didn’t see you turning down any beers tonight.”
“Didn’t say I was smart. All I got is good taste in women.” He surprises a laugh out of me and shrugs. “I came because I was hoping you might show. Then when I saw you, figured you’d just ream my ass again, so I stayed away.”
Good figuring. I fish a paper napkin out from between the seats and blow my nose.
“Mostly I wanted to tell you that I thought about it, and you were wrong.” Jesse’s mouth is set. “About it being some guy-ego thing that made me go after Shea. He hurt you, and yeah, I lost it. Same as I would’ve if you were my best friend or my sister. Didn’t have anything to do with sex. You don’t let somebody you care about get beat on. Ever. Bet you feel the same way.”
I nod, thinking painfully of Nell, and look down at my sneakers.
“Let me take you to the ER for that arm.” He waves me off before I get three words out. “Costs too much. I know.”
He takes me home, driving slow. I lean against the door, watching dark woods go by.
We get there and he idles, looking at me. “Kamikaze Darcy. Wait and see if they aren’t all calling you that in homeroom on Tuesday.”
I sit there with my matted hair and wet clothes, and somehow, I feel almost shy. “Well . . . thanks.” I reach for the door handle, then glance back. “Almost said see you at school.”
He looks down, half smiling. “See you around.”
There’s nobody in the kitchen. At the sound of the door, Libby comes out of the living room, but her expression falls flat at the sight of me, and she leaves again, not asking where I’ve been or why I’m all wet.
I go upstairs and take a long, hot shower with my left arm raised, because even the spray hurts. While I’m drying my hair, I hear voices below, and put on Mom’s bathrobe to step out into the hallway.
It’s Nell. She’s back. The tension that’s been driving me for the past twenty-hours or so dissolves so quickly that I almost fall down in a heap. I stand there, straining my ears.
“. . . nobody was home, so I figured you were over here.” Nell’s voice is quiet, dull. “I just wanted to tell you that I’m back.”
“Where have you been?” Libby. “I was ready to lose my mind. You got any idea what you put me through?”
“I needed to go somewhere to think. That’s all. It’s nothing bad, Mom. I just had to go think.”
“Don’t give me that. You tell me what’s going on! What’s Darcy gotten you into?”
“Nothing. You always think everything’s her fault. I’m the one who ran off. Now I’m back. And I want to go to bed.” Nell pauses, using the firmest tone of voice I’ve ever heard from her. “Good night, Mom.”
“Nellie Rose, get back here.” I can almost see Libby standing in the hallway, shoulders rigid as Nell’s footsteps head toward the back door. “Nell.” Sounding weaker. “Baby. What is it? You can tell me.” Her voice breaks as the door closes.
I step back and see Mags standing in her bedroom doorway at the end of the hall, wearing plaid pajama pants and a T-shirt, obviously listening in on the conversation, too. I want to go to her, but before I can move, she turns and walks back into her bedroom.
Another door closes.
TWENTY-SIX
I WAIT UNTIL the house is asleep, then creep downstairs and out the back door.
Nell’s window is dark. I tap on the screen—shave-and-a-haircut. A minute later, she slides it open for me.
It’s been a long time since I did this, and it isn’t as easy to climb through her window as I remember, especially with my bad arm. I try to boost myself up and pain shoots up my forearm into my elbow. I catch my foot and almost crash into her nightstand, which would be a disaster, since Libby’s probably snoring away on the couch with her Louisville Slugger under her arm.
Nell lies on her back in bed, staring up at the old glow-in-the-dark constellation stickers on her ceiling. I slide under the sheet beside her, resting my arm across her stomach. It feels like months have passed since yesterday. The James Dean collage looks down at us. She has a still from East of Eden up there, Cal and Abra’s kiss at the top of the Ferris wheel.
“I’m sorry I hurt you,” I whisper.
Her profile is lit by moonlight, and I can follow the trail of freckles across her nose. Fairy kisses, Libby used to call them; Nell loved that. “It’s okay. I lied to you.” She doesn’t apologize this time, just lies there with her hands folded over her chest, looking at the stars. I close my eyes.
“So where were you?”
She shrugs one shoulder. “In the woods.”
“The whole time?”
“I went to that field where the lupines grow, even though the lupines are all dead now. It’s quiet there. Then I found seven dollars in my coat, so I walked to Smiley’s and bought some snacks.” She pauses. “I didn’t go see him, if that’s what you mean. He wouldn’t like that.”
I remember the car driving smoothly away, leaving her in the dark and the rain. “You know that’s wrong, don’t you?” After a beat, she nods a little. “You guys been messaging each other all this past year?”
“Only since June. I blocked him last August when you told me to. He made another profile. He missed me.”
I breathe in, trying to stay in control, not letting my anger get bigger than me. He’s like some poison she drank that’s eating through everything until it reaches her heart. Or maybe it started there. “Nellie, he’s going to marry her.”
“I know.”
“I didn’t do right by you. Last August, after I picked you up that night, when I told you I didn’t want to hear about it—him—again, I left you hanging with nobody to talk to. I wasn’t being a friend to you. I’m sorry.”
She turns to me, surprised. “Darcy, you’re always my friend.”
My eyes start to sting. Thought I’d cried out every drop in my body. “I’m not done. You shouldn’t have listened to me. I think maybe it was too big a secret for us. Maybe somebody else would’ve known what to do better than I did.” She faces back to the ceiling, lying still. “I’m not saying I’m gonna tell. But I’ve screwed things up pretty bad, huh? You and me . . . we’re in the same spot we were in that night. Nothing’s gotten any better.” She doesn’t speak. I have to force the next words through my lips: “You can’t keep sneaking around in backseats with him. That’s me. That’s not you. You should be the one planning some fancy wedding, and it should be with some guy who doesn’t expect you to share him with anybody, or keep his secrets.” She’s quiet. I shake her gently. “You know?”
A little nod. Her breath catches, and I realize she’s crying, and has been for a while. I touch my head to hers, and we lie there with moonlight across her sheet in patchwork squares. “We got to do something,” I say. I’m talking to myself, though, because now Nell’s asleep.