“Wow.” I shake my head, trying to take it all in. “All this time, you’ve known so much about me. That makes me feel really stupid. Or like I’m a liar or something.”
“Not even.” He looks down at the ground and up again, studying me thoughtfully. “I guess there was a part of me that wanted to see what you were like on my own. I wanted to see what Connor saw. And I thought of telling you a bunch of times, but whenever I brought up school or my cousin, you shut down.” He shrugs. I stand there, feeling like he’s pointing out everything wrong about me. Like he sees how messed up I am. “And to be honest, hanging out with you kind of bummed me out. That’s why I stopped coming by. Because I thought of how much Connor would’ve wanted to be me. It almost makes me feel guilty, you know?”
“So hanging out with me is a total bummer?”
“That’s not what I said.”
“Look, I just told you I never leave my apartment. I get it if you have better things to do than spend time here.”
“Well, I don’t want to hang out inside all the time, but what’s the big deal if we hang out when I’m home anyway?”
“Oh.”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Hanging out with you is better than sitting in my apartment by myself.”
He’s so matter-of-fact. Like I should get this. Like it’s a compliment. But it doesn’t feel like one. It feels like I’m only good enough to bother with when there’s nothing better to do.
“I sit in my apartment by myself every day,” I say.
“But you said you’re trying. So it won’t be forever, right?”
“You make it sound so easy.”
“My aunt, Connor’s mom, stays inside a lot. Because she’s sad.” He sighs. “That’s why my mom’s running the restaurant. It’s her sister. We had to move. We had to help. And since we got here, my aunt is doing better. My mom even got her to come help out with the dinner rush last weekend. So see?”
He looks at me hopefully. Like he’s waiting for me to walk right out the door and down the stairs with him because his aunt did it.
“But I’m not like her. I don’t stay inside because I’m sad. I stay inside because I’m scared.”
“I’m sorry you’re scared,” he says.
“Please don’t pity me.”
“I don’t.” He sounds annoyed that I’d accuse him of that.
“Fine.”
He simply smiles. “Okay.”
Evan is nice enough. But now I can see he might not be talking to me at all if Connor hadn’t liked me. And now that I know that, I wish I could tell him I’d known his cousin so I had something to make knowing me worthwhile. I want to have a story that’s heartwarming and original that Evan can carry with him forever. I want him to be able to tell his mom the story so she can tell his aunt. Maybe it would make her day. But the truth is, Connor was someone I had never talked to and never will. And now he’s one of the names on the memorial wall.
chapter thirteen
“Do you want to come in?” I ask Evan while he’s still standing on my welcome mat with my letter in his hand. “We can do homework.”
I step aside and hold the door open all the way. Even if hanging out here is only a matter of convenience for him, it’s everything to me.
“Uh, sure.” He hoists his backpack onto his shoulder and comes inside. “Wait. You still have homework?”
That makes me laugh. “Of course. Online school is still school. I have to do all the same assignments and stuff.”
“How does it work exactly?”
“I have to put in five instructional hours a day, but I can do them whenever I want as long as it’s over a twenty-four-hour period. And then I e-mail all my homework and assignments to my teachers.”
“Oh. That’s actually pretty cool.”
I shrug. “It’s okay. Are you hungry?” I ask.
“I could eat.”
He follows me into the kitchen, and I swing open the door of the fridge. There’s not much to be said for what’s in there.
“We have strawberries,” I tell him. “Or I could make you a grilled cheese sandwich.”
“I love grilled cheese.”
Evan sits down on a stool at the counter while I form my assembly line. Bread. Butter. Cheese. Piping hot griddle. I could make grilled cheese with my eyes closed. But knowing Evan is watching me makes me nervous.
“I like extra cheese. What about you?”
Evan nods. “Sure.”
I slap another slice of cheese onto the bread and turn to face him.
He’s really here.
At the kitchen counter.
In my apartment.
Wearing a faded red T-shirt for a surf shop in Haleiwa, Hawaii.
One of his curls comes loose and flops down across his eye. I’m zoned out, watching him as he pushes the curl back behind his ear. Then he jerks his head up and sniffs the air.
“I think it’s burning,” he says.
I turn around to see smoke billowing up from the bottom half of the sandwich. Seriously? How many grilled cheese sandwiches have I made in my lifetime? He must think I’m a total idiot.
I pull the griddle off the burner.
I dump the charred sandwich in the trash.
I start over.
Bread. Butter. Extra cheese. Piping hot griddle.
I promise myself I won’t look at Evan this time.
But that’s really hard to do.