I almost choke. “What would you have done?”
“Ruin their reputations around town somehow? Get a tattoo? I don’t know. I didn’t really need to provide details . . . the threat was enough.”
All I can do is shake my head, amazed. He’d stood up for me, fought for me, even after I’d taken his sister away. Right after I’d taken his sister away. That he was still willing to help me after what I did makes me feel even more undeserving of him.
“Thank you,” I tell him, and press my lips against his. It’s inadequate, but it’s all I’ve got at the moment.
He kisses me back for a minute, then pulls away and says, “How about we take that cake down to the family room and not come back up until it’s gone.”
“Sounds good to me.”
We gather up forks and napkins and the cake and carry everything downstairs in one trip. The family room hasn’t changed much either, aside from new lamps on the end tables. A fire crackles in the wood stove, making the room feel cozy and warm. We dump everything on the coffee table and settle on the couch.
“Do you remember the last time we were down here together?” Ethan asks.
It takes me a minute to summon up the memory. “It was spring. May, I think.” About a week before Paige’s party and everything that happened with Justin. I remember, because it’s one of the last times I was in this house with Aubrey. “We were watching Harry Potter.”
“Right.” Ethan smiles and puts his arm around me. “I was sitting where I am right now and you were stretched out beside me, your head by my leg. I couldn’t concentrate on the movie at all. You had on this shirt that was sort of low cut, so I had an awesome view.”
Emboldened by the vodka shot, I reach out and swat him. “Ethan.”
“Sorry. Most of my memories involve lusting over you.” He tugs my legs over until they’re draped across his. “Anyway, right after the movie ended you guys left to meet Travis and Paige or something, and my heart was broken.”
I remember that part too. Justin was busy that night, so it was just the four of us for a change. We went to the movies and then to Starbucks for frappuccinos, and Travis spent the whole night joking around with Aubrey.
“Do you think he was in love with her?” I ask before I can stop myself.
“What?”
“Travis. Do you think he was in love with Aubrey?”
He looks at me like he’s wondering if it’s possible for a person to get drunk from a couple of ounces of liquor. “Why would you think that?”
My mind flashes on the day I found the two of them together in the library, how red Travis’s neck got when he saw me. “You’ve seen the way he acts around me,” I say, picking at a loose thread on my leggings. “He hates me. He looks at me like I’m a murderer.”
Ethan’s jaw twitches. “No. I’m almost positive he wasn’t in love with her. They were just really good friends. She was the only one who never made him feel dumb, you know? I think even Paige made him feel like an idiot sometimes. Still does, probably.” He runs his fingers over my kneecap, tickling me. “And I’m sure he still has a soft spot for her because of what she did for him.”
“What she did for him?” I ask, confused.
His eyes widen. “She never told you about that?”
“About what?”
“She tutored him in math and English for an entire year. He would’ve had to go to summer school or repeat tenth grade if it weren’t for her.”
I gape at him. How did I miss this? What else was going on in Aubrey’s life I didn’t know about?
“Maybe he asked her not to tell anyone,” he adds. “Even you. I probably wouldn’t know either if he hadn’t come over here a few times to study.”
I lean my forehead against his shoulder, feeling a bit rattled. “Wow. I had no idea. All this time I thought he might be the one putting those papers in my locker because he loved her and hated me for—”
“Wait.” He pulls back, causing my forehead to drop off his shoulder. “Papers? Plural? There was more than the obituary one?”
“Just one more,” I assure him, and I describe the stick-figure sketch of me pushing Aubrey, that big, happy smile on my penciled face.
“And you think Travis is behind it?” His hands, both resting on my leg, clench into tight fists.
“I don’t know. Maybe. I think he started some of those rumors about me, at least.” I touch his cheek, run my thumb over his tensed jawline. “Forget I said anything. Tonight’s about the good memories, okay?”
His features relax and he nods, capturing my hand in his. And for the next two hours, that’s what we do—talk about our good memories of Aubrey. The funny things she said and did. Her amazing talent. Her quirks and pet peeves. How sweet and thoughtful and loyal she could be. How much she loved us both. How much we both loved her.
It’s cathartic, exchanging these stories with Ethan. I can talk all I want to Dr. Lemke or Mrs. Dover or my mom, but none of them knew Aubrey like Ethan did. None of them shared a connection with her that was forged through years of laughter and kinship and pain. None of them truly understand how it felt to lose her so early, long before she was ready to go.
“What do you think she’d be doing now?” I ask after we’ve exhausted every happy memory in our collective brains. It’s close to midnight, minutes away from a brand-new year and the day Aubrey would have turned eighteen. We haven’t moved from the couch, and the cake still sits in front of us on the table, untouched. We decided to wait until it’s officially January first to eat it.
“Probably freaking out about college,” Ethan says, sprawling back on the couch.
“Yeah.” I feel a pang of sadness. She’d never get to go to college, or get married, or have kids, or sit around with us like this, talking about old times.
“Two minutes,” Ethan says, checking the time on his phone.
“Do you have candles for the cake?”
He glances around, then gets up and crosses the room to a set of shelves in the corner. “I have a candle,” he says proudly, swiping a squat, red candle off one of the shelves. He brings it and the lighter from the wood stove back to the couch. I unwrap the cake, and he sticks the candle right in the middle, causing the thick, white icing to ooze up the sides. “Time?” he asks as he lights the wick.
I peer at his phone. “Fifteen seconds.”
He settles back on the couch again and grabs my hand, and that’s what we’re doing when midnight and Aubrey’s birthday arrives—sitting together and remembering her. I think about last year, how I’d spent the holidays at my aunt and uncle’s house because I wasn’t ready to come home. Mom and Dad and Tobias flew in for a few days so we could celebrate together, but it didn’t feel like a celebration. Not like right now.
“What did you do last New Year’s Eve?” I ask after the candle has been blown out and we both have forkfuls of cake.
Ethan hacks off another bite. “Hunter got me drunk.”