I splash some water on my face and gulp down several breaths. I just want to go home, but I know Eva will come after me, and I don’t want her around Maggie tonight. Not tonight.
Downstairs Kimber and Luca are already deep into a game of air hockey while Eva watches from the 1970s-era orange-and-brown-striped couch. Her plate is empty and she’s licking her fingers.
“Damn, that’s a good cookie,” she says.
“Pie, Eva,” I say, pasting on a smile and sitting down next to her. “Calling the beloved Maine whoopie pie a cookie will get you excommunicated around here.”
“But it’s like a squishy Oreo.”
“And thank the gods for it, but it’s not a squishy Oreo. It’s a whoopie pie.” I force myself to take a bite and then talk with my mouth full. “Repeat after me. P-I-E.”
She laughs and leans into my shoulder. I want to kiss her right here, pie-stuffed mouth be damned. I need something to erase Luca and Emmy’s conversation, the knowledge of what I’m keeping from Eva and why. Something to remind me that this—?Eva and me—?is still happening, still okay, still right, no matter who my mother is.
So I pull Eva’s face toward me with two fingers on her chin and press my lips to hers. She smiles against my mouth and kisses me back. It’s sweet and soft and perfect.
And short. Luca clears his throat loudly, jolting us apart.
“Gray!” I turn toward him slowly. He stares at me from the air hockey table, spinning his striker in one hand. “Come play Kimber.”
I stare at him for a few seconds, wondering when he’s going to talk to me about spilling my own mother’s dirty secrets. “You sure she can handle that?” I ask, something like anger bubbling just under my skin.
“Oh, bring it.”
I push myself off the couch, wiping my chocolate-dusted fingers on my jeans. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“I’m right here, guys,” Kimber says, hands on her hips. “And I just kicked his ass, Grace. I can hold my own.”
She’s smiling, so I laugh. “Fair enough.”
I take the striker from Luca, and Kimber drops the puck. We push it back and forth pretty easily at first. I take the first point, Kimber takes the next two, and then things go a little faster. And by faster, I mean harder. Soon, we’re both throwing our entire bodies into the game, and my right shoulder is sore as hell. The click-clack of the puck echoes through the basement.
“Um,” I hear Luca mumble, but I tune him out.
I slam the puck toward Kimber’s side, and it collides with her fingers right next to the goal. She screams and drops her striker, clutching at her hand and glaring at me.
The nail on her middle finger is broken and bleeding.
“Damn, Gray, what the hell?” Luca says, rushing to Kimber and taking her hand in his.
“Sorry,” I say. “But her finger shouldn’t have been hanging over the side of the table like that. Number one rule of air hockey: Keep your fingers off the field.”
“Still, you pretty much threw the puck at her.”
“She was playing just as hard. I didn’t mean to hit her finger, Luca.”
“I’ll get a Band-Aid,” Eva says, already halfway up the stairs.
“Why are we even playing air hockey?” I ask Luca, tossing my striker onto the hockey table. It rolls over itself a couple times, clattering loudly. “Don’t you want to talk?”
“What?” he asks. Kimber sucks on her finger.
“Don’t act like you don’t know what I’m talking about.”
“I don’t.”
“Here we go,” Kimber mumbles.
“And what is your problem?” I ask. A little voice in my head is telling me to shut the hell up, that this isn’t about Kimber at all, but I don’t listen to it. I’m tired. Tired of feeling like a stain. My mother’s just a person. And yeah, I do hate this friendship she has with Eva, but I hate this feeling like my mother is the human equivalent of a wrecking ball even more. I just want it to stop.
“I don’t have a problem,” Kimber says calmly.
“Clearly, you do. You’ve hated me since you and Luca first eye-fucked each other.”
She grimaces. “Nice, Grace. And I don’t hate you.”
“Well, you sure as hell don’t like me.”
“I think you’re reckless and impulsive and dishonest. There’s a difference.”
“Dishonest, what the hell? Why? Because I rearranged some gnomes? So did your boyfriend. So did you.”
“We did that for you. And don’t think Luca doesn’t know that you and Eva sneak around all night doing whatever the hell you want without a thought to how upset that would make Emmy if she knew.”
“Kimber—?” Luca says, but I cut him off.
“We’re talking on top of a lighthouse, not tagging every wall on the cape.”
“And riding bikes all over the place,” Kimber says. “And what’s with all the peanut butter?”
“Oh my god, not peanut butter,” I deadpan.
Luca glares at me. “All right. Enough.”
“Yeah, enough, Luca,” I say as Eva tromps back down the stairs. “Just say it.”
“Say what?”
“What’s going on?” Eva asks, handing Kimber a Band-Aid and a tube of Neosporin.
“That you wish I were different,” I say to Luca. “That you wish Maggie weren’t my mother and that I would handle all of her bullshit better so you wouldn’t have to deal with me.”
Silence settles over all of us. My eyes sting and my chest burns. I have no idea where those words came from. They just spilled out, unconsciously rising up and filtering through all of my anger and hurt over Luca’s and Emmy’s worry. Now that the words are out, they feel right. It’s almost a relief to have said them.
“Gray.” Luca takes a step toward me, his eyes wide and a little watery-looking. “That’s not—?”
“I need to go,” I say, my voice scraping against my throat. I don’t know what else to do or feel. Escape is my first instinct, so I run with it and start for the stairs. “I’m really sorry about your finger, Kimber.”
She doesn’t respond and Luca doesn’t call me back as I take the stairs two at a time.
But Eva is right behind me.
Our feet dangle over the edge of the lighthouse, our legs pressed against each other, our bodies held in by the wrought-iron railing.
It’s barely ten o’clock, but Eva and I are already up here. We left Luca’s and climbed the winding stairs, no hesitation or verbal agreement. We just knew this was where we needed to be. I’m not sure what Eva’s thinking. My own head is full of about ten different emotions. The jar of Peter Pan we’re sharing helps. Peanut butter has quickly become my number-one comfort food.
Still, a certain thought keeps popping to the surface, like those damn rodents in that Whack-A-Mole game. I smack it on the head and it disappears, only to resurface seconds later.