My phone dings yet again, and this time I reach into my backpack and check it. Leigh has sent a zillion texts—all of them containing the phrase where the hell?—but nothing from Wil. I stuff my phone in my back pocket. I don’t want to think about Leigh. Free-spirited, dowhateverthefuckmakesyouhappy, art school Leigh. She should understand Wil and me better than anybody. She’s watched me love him for years.
I turn for home without stopping by school for my truck. I want to stretch out on the couch in the dark and wait for Wil to call. I want a beer. The thing about me, the awful, secret thing about me is this: In the first three years of high school, I didn’t drink to look cool. I didn’t force down watery beer because everyone else was doing it. I did it because I loved the after. I loved the warmth, how heavy and loose it made me. Alcohol undid me. Sometimes I miss being undone.
It’s silent when I step inside. I flop onto the couch and pick at the cushion seams, where the gray ikat pattern doesn’t quite line up. Mom and I reupholstered the sofa with extra fabric from the resort’s most recent makeover, and it’s obvious to anyone who’s looking closely. I reach for the remote and let daytime television dull the uneasiness that needles me. I go for three minutes without checking my phone, then four. Micah comes home too early, and he doesn’t ask, and I don’t, either. He dives onto the couch next to me with a box of sugar cereal and tilts it in my direction.
“Sick day in quotes?” he says over a mouthful of dried marshmallows.
“Sort of,” I say. I pick out a green clover and crack it between my teeth.
“I heard you and Wil made out in the hall today.”
“False.”
“Just telling you what I heard.” He shrugs. “Dude. Don’t hog the pinks.” He chucks a pillow into my lap and lets his head drop. “Sugar crash.”
My eyes burn as I watch the tough boy lines in his face wriggle down deep, out of view. I want to stroke his hair, its sunset colors, the way I did when we were kids and he couldn’t sleep. I miss him being this close.
“Quit being psycho,” he tells the television.
“Huh?”
“You’re watching me sleep, like Mom. That is creepy. Quit.” His lips part slightly.
“Sorry.” I touch the end of a single lock of his hair with my ring finger. “You want to order some food?”
“Pizza. Pineapple and ham. And orange soda.” His eyes snap open at the mention of food.
“I feel as if it’s my duty as an older sister to inform you that that meal will take at least six to ten years off your life.”
“If you don’t want it, maybe I’ll call Emilie.” He sits up and shoots a devlish boy grin my way.
“Gross. I’ll call.” I sigh. “But for the record, I don’t appreciate blackmail.” I reach for my cell. The screen is blank. Please. Wil. I think. Please.
Nothing.
I scroll through my contacts, highlight Wil’s name.
“Oh my God, Bridge!” Micah sighs. “Just call him already, okay? I’ll order the damn pizza.” He launches off the couch and thumps up the stairs in bare feet.
“And breadsticks!” I yell.
I’m staring at Wil’s name when there’s a knock at the door.
“Hi.” He’s standing on the porch, all formal, straight lines.
“Hey! Hey.” I fall into his chest, and he slides his arms around me. “I’ve been worried about you. I’ve been—I hope everything’s okay.”
“It’s been a long afternoon,” he murmurs into my hair. “You smell good. I missed your shampoo.”
“Get a room!” Micah yells from my bedroom window.
Wil coughs.
“Come on in,” I say. “Micah and I were doing some family bonding.” I grab his hand and pull him inside.
“I actually came by to see if you wanted to go out.” He grins when he sees the empty sugar cereal box on its side on the coffee table. “Busy afternoon around here?”
“Important things have been accomplished on this couch.” I wait for him to tell me about Porter and Yancey, to say the word Mom. But he just gives me a quick, soft kiss.
“So Micah and I were just about to have dinner.” I scour his ocean eyes for clues. “You in the mood for pizza?”
“Actually I’m kind of family-timed out,” Micah announces from the top of the banister. “I could use a little alone time. Hey, dude.” He gives Wil a wave and disappears again.
Wil says, “Looks like you’re free.”
We go outside and sit in the truck. Wil leaves the keys in his lap and stares straight ahead, his mouth the tiniest bit open. I wait, because I know him. Everything in his own time. I close my eyes and I remember what it was like to be in this truck and think sunburn was the worst of it.
“I’m sorry you were there this morning.” Wil’s voice is like cracked leather: soft in some places (sorry and you), hardened in others (there). “I know it was weird for you. I should’ve taken you back to school first. I should’ve gotten you out of there.”
“Wil. You don’t have to explain.”
“I know they’re just doing their jobs,” he says it like he’s trying to convince someone. “But they don’t have to live with my mom the other twenty-three hours every day.” He swallows. “Not that I mind—”
“I know you love your mom, Wil.”
“Right. Right. And I really don’t mind being there for her when she’s having a hard time. Like with the nightmares and stuff. But every time the cops show up, I know it’ll start all over for her. It’s like the first night after it happened, all over again.”
He makes a noise I don’t understand. In my lap, the phone buzzes. Leigh. I silence it.
“And it never stops,” Wil continues. The veins in his neck are shadowy lines beneath his skin, like petrified wood. “If we’re not talking to the cops, we’re trying to make sense of the shitty records my dad kept for the business, or I’m doing the math on the mortgage. I know it hasn’t been that long since—but it just feels like it’ll never be over, and I need it to be over, Bridge. I need it to be over.” His chin drops to his chest.
I put a hand on his knee as he murmurs the phrase again and again. I wish I could end it for him, just like he wishes he could end it for his mom. Maybe that’s the worst part of tragedy: realizing how small we are. Wanting to end another person’s pain and being completely powerless to do it.
“My mom thinks we shouldn’t be dating right now,” he blurts. He sucks in a quick breath, like he’s surprised himself.
A lump bobs in my throat. “What?”
“No. It’s not—she likes you. She just thinks that we have too much going on right now for me to be dating.” He scrunches his face muscles like shiiiit.
Dating. The word makes us smaller than we are.
“I shouldn’t have said anything.” He reaches for me. Pushes my hair out of my face. “God, that was so stupid.” He shakes his head.
“No. I guess that makes sense, why she would feel that way.” My heart beats nonono. “I get it.”
“Hey.” He leans in, nudges his forehead against mine. “I told her she was crazy. I told her that you’re the only thing that makes sense right now. Just because she doesn’t know what it’s like to have something good—”
“Tell me you didn’t say that,” I say, relieved.