He laughed quietly to himself, some private joke I didn’t understand. I ignored it and moved forward with my extra nice strategy.
“I know this has probably been a lot harder on you than anyone’s realized,” I said. “I feel bad, you know. Everyone’s worried about me, but this happened to all of us. I just want you to know that I’m sorry for disrupting your life again, and I really appreciate everything you’ve done for me. I know it hasn’t been easy for you, but you’ve been great anyway.”
Nicholas looked at me, and I could see in his eyes that there was a war going on inside of him. “I haven’t been great, and you don’t have to apologize,” he said softly.
“But I want to,” I said. “I want to be as good a brother to you as you’ve been to me. I don’t want there to be anything bad between us. Not anymore. Not ever again. I’m sorry, for everything.”
I’d rerun our conversation in the diner a dozen times in my mind. It was clear to me that I’d gone too far in trying to bond with him when I said that thing about him being my best friend. The divide between Nicholas and Danny must have been wider than what I’d assumed from the childish squabbles and distance I’d seen in home movies. This was my attempt to undo that damage, but in a vague enough way not to cause more problems if I was wrong.
As I sat there, waiting for his response, I realized my problem with Nicholas was similar to the one I was having with Ren. I couldn’t get a handle on how he’d seen Danny, so I never knew what act to put on for him. If I could just figure that out, I was sure I could put his suspicions to rest once and for all.
Nicholas’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. He was taking a long time to speak, and I was growing increasingly tense. He scrubbed his free hand through his hair and sighed.
“That sounds pretty good,” he said.
“So we can try to put the past behind us? Start over?”
He nodded. “Yeah. We can try.”
I smiled and lay back in the grass. Nicholas handed me a cushion from the lounge chair to prop under my head, and we looked up at the stars in reasonably comfortable silence.
“So, did Lex freak?” he asked after a minute.
“Totally. I think she would keep me on an actual leash if she could.”
One corner of his mouth turned up. “Like a little kid in the mall.”
“Exactly.”
“Who’s the girl?”
“Her name’s Ren,” I said. “She’s in my art class.”
He took another drag off his cigarette. “She’s kind of cute.”
“It’s not like that,” I said. “Really. It’s not.”
“Methinks the lady doth protest too much.”
“I was just helping her with an art assignment,” I said, but then I remembered the way she looked at me when I put my hands on her face, the warmth of her skin.
“Sure,” Nicholas said. “Okay.”
We sat there together while he finished his cigarette and started a second. I asked about his classes, and he asked about mine. He told me about a trip to Barcelona he and Asher were planning for the summer. It wasn’t exactly groundbreaking, but it was still the longest conversation we’d ever had. The night was cool and quiet around us, and even the sharp smell of the smoke seemed oddly pleasant in its familiarity.
“We’d better get inside,” Nicholas finally said. “I’ve got like four hours of homework to do.”
“I don’t have any,” I said, “but Lex will buy that leash if I’m out of her sight too long.”
He smiled, and we stood. He put his cigarette out on the bottom of his shoe and stuck the two butts into the pack, which he shoved in his pocket.
“I didn’t know you smoked,” I said.
“I don’t, usually. Just every once in a while. The family would flip out if they knew.” He looked up at me with something fragile in his expression. “Don’t tell anyone, okay? I’ll owe you one.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “I can keep a secret.”
“Please, Danny.”
“What, you don’t trust me?”
Nicholas’s expression hardened. “Come on. That’s not funny.”
My skin went cold. I was missing something. Something important.
“Nicky, wait,” I said, trying to catch his arm as he stalked away from me. I only managed to brush his sleeve, but he still turned back to look at me. He stared at me like I was a total stranger, and I just stood there as he backed away from me and then disappeared into the house.
? ? ?
That night I got out of bed after everyone else had gone to sleep. It had been my worst day since I came here, from letting some of the old me slip through the cracks when talking to Ren to making another misstep I didn’t understand with Nicholas, and there was only one solution I could think of. I needed to learn more—a lot more—about Danny Tate.
There was a reason I hadn’t bothered with this before: It hadn’t mattered. I could see what most of the Tates wanted from me. Lex wanted a little boy to take care of. Patrick wanted someone to teach things to. Mia wanted a playmate. All I needed to do was be those things for them and they’d be happy.
But unless I could figure out what Nicholas expected me to be, I would keep screwing up with him. That wasn’t a risk I could take.
After everyone else went to bed, I snuck down to the basement rec room, to the projector and movie screen where Mia had been watching her horse film earlier. Lex had already shown me several home movies to try to jog my memory, but I’d spent most of that time concentrating on the rest of the family, learning everything I could about them so I would understand who they wanted me to be, who’d they’d seen Danny as. This was the first time I was going to watch for Danny alone, to try to understand who he’d actually been.
The home movies were kept in a cabinet against the wall. I grabbed one labeled CHRISTMAS 2008/KLOSTERS 2009 and put it in the DVD player. I sank into the giant leather sofa across from the screen to watch and turned the volume down low even though the nearest human was two stories away.
The video started with a blur and the focusing of the lens, and then it showed the formal living room upstairs with a giant Christmas tree decorated all in gold and silver in the corner. Underneath was a pile of presents that spilled out from under the tree and across the floor, the room overflowing with ribbon and bows and sparkly paper. Jessica sat in an armchair in her pajamas and a silk robe, massively pregnant, with Nicholas cross-legged at her feet.
“Smile, Mom!” Patrick said from behind the camera.
She grinned and waved, a much different woman from the one I (barely) knew. Nicholas made a funny face at the camera, and Jessica mussed his hair.
It was like a Christmas card, a snapshot of a perfect family. My heart gave a painful lurch inside my chest even though I knew just how little the snapshot captured the full story of the Tates.