Ethan and I detach ourselves and squint in the direction of the doorway. Corey stands there watching us with a mortified expression.
“I’m gonna . . . back away slowly now,” he says, and he does just that, closing the door behind him.
Ethan rests his forehead against my shoulder and laughs. At some point in the past however many minutes, we’d ended up reclined back on the couch, legs entangled and hands underneath each other’s shirts. I quickly extract my hand and hold it clenched at my side. My body tenses beneath his, and he can obviously feel it, because he leans back to look at me, his smile fading into concern.
“We still good?”
I nod and scramble into a half-upright position. He lifts himself off me and takes my hand, helping me the rest of the way. Once again, I find myself not being able to look at him, so I finger-comb my hair and adjust my shirt instead.
“I’m sorry,” he says, still slightly breathless. “Again.”
“You don’t need to apologize. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t . . . want it.” Like the last time we kissed, it feels like something that happened to other people. Like it’s not even real. Maybe that’s why I keep coming back here, and why I let this happen not only once, but twice. Because in those moments, I can pretend to be someone else, just a normal, happy girl who’s finally found a boy to love. The girl I could have been, if life had kept to the path it was on instead of veering off into tragedy.
“I’ve been in love with you since the first time you came over to hang out with Aubrey,” Ethan says softly. “You knew that, right?”
A lump forms in my throat and I swallow, forcing it back. “God, Ethan, this is so messed up.”
“Yeah, it’s kind of weird for me too. I mean, after everything.”
After everything. Meaning, after I caused the death of his sister, the person who meant more to him than anyone. Weird doesn’t even begin to cover it.
I rest my head against the back of the couch, suddenly exhausted. “Do your parents know you’ve been hanging out with me?”
“No.” He threads his fingers through mine. “But I don’t exactly keep them up to date on my personal life. They didn’t know about Lacey either.”
“You know they don’t want me near you, right?” I tell him about my parents dropping by his house a few days after the funeral and the reception they got. “Did they give you my apology letter?”
“What apology letter?”
I knew it. My head pulses with anger and I avert my face, not wanting him to see it. Who knows what would’ve been different if he’d seen that letter a year and a half ago? Maybe I wouldn’t have wasted so much time assuming he hated me.
Once again, Ethan notices the sudden tension in my body. He leans in and presses his warm shoulder against mine. “They’re assholes, Dara. They’ve always been assholes. Besides,” he adds in a gentler tone, “I don’t need a letter from you to know how sorry you are.”
If he says one more sweet thing to me right now, I’m going to burst into tears. His kindness makes my heart ache. I look down at our intertwined hands and try to picture us as a normal couple instead of two people whose lives are connected by tragedy. A tragedy I made happen. I think about our parents’ disapproval and the shocked looks at school and what Aubrey would think if she were alive to see us. Everything is stacked against us, and yet here I am. Travis was right—I’m totally a sucker for punishment.
The shed is growing darker by the minute. It’s definitely past time for us to get off this couch and head up to the house for some pizza, yet neither of us makes a move to leave. I stay focused on our hands, linked firmly between us.
“I think I did know how you felt about me,” I say. “Deep down. It’s just . . . you were my best friend’s little brother and I was . . . in denial, I guess. Why didn’t you tell me years ago?”
“I hid a lot of what I felt back then.” He skims his thumb along my palm. “But I’m done with hiding. Life’s too short for that.”
twenty-two
Sophomore Year
FIRST THING MONDAY MORNING, I HEADED straight for the second floor and Justin’s locker. He was there, laughing and talking to his friend Will like he didn’t have a care in the world.
“I need to talk to you,” I said, sidling up behind him. I nodded briefly at Will, a silent apology for interrupting.
Justin glanced over his shoulder at me. If I hadn’t been paying such close attention, I might have missed the flash of oh, shit on his face. He looked back at Will and shrugged, like he had no idea what this was about, and grabbed his backpack. I led him over to a less populated spot by the Multimedia classroom.
“Can we make this quick?” he asked. “I have to get to class.”
Two days had passed since Paige’s party. Two days of worrying and second-guessing and wondering if I was somehow to blame. Not once had I really gotten angry with him or what had happened. But now, with him looking at me like I was ruining his morning . . . I was suddenly furious.
“Did you tell Aubrey yet?” I said through clenched teeth.
“Tell her what?”
“What do you think?”
He glanced around like he was afraid to be seen with me and then met my gaze again. “Look. I don’t really remember what happened the other night, but going by the way you’re glaring holes through me, I’m guessing it wasn’t good.”
“No, it wasn’t good,” I said. “It wasn’t good at all. You seriously don’t remember what you said to me? What you . . . did? How convenient.”
He looked away, his body shifting uncomfortably. “I remember a little.”
“Whoa, that was quick. Two seconds ago you didn’t really remember and now you remember a little. Maybe in five minutes or so your memory will return completely and you’ll remember every single moment, like I do.” I moved closer to the wall as a group of people brushed past us. When they were gone, I asked him again, “Did you tell Aubrey?”
“Did you?”
“No.” I didn’t want to add that she was mad at me for something else and hadn’t spoken to me since she left my house with her pie yesterday. “I figured I’d give you the opportunity to explain yourself first. Which you obviously haven’t had the balls to do.”
His jaw tightened. “Okay, so I messed up. I get that. But telling Aubrey about this isn’t going to help anything. I know you think I’m an asshole and maybe I am, but I do love her. One stupid mistake doesn’t have to ruin everything.”
I almost told him he should have thought of that before getting drunk and groping me, but I was afraid someone nearby would hear me. “Tell her,” I said in a low voice. “Or I will.”
I spun on my heel, eager to make a quick getaway, and smashed directly into the person behind me. When I saw who it was, my cheeks flooded with warmth.
“Everything okay, Shepard?” Travis asked, glancing between Justin’s face and mine. Clearly, he could see he’d interrupted an argument. How long had he been standing beside us? How much had he heard?
“Yeah.” I adjusted my expression to look normal. “Everything’s fine, Travis.”