“I don’t want to know what that means,” Mel says with a groan, and my face floods with heat.
“We just kissed,” I blurt out.
“Mostly,” Luke says, grinning at me, and I swear I want to wipe the smirk off his face. Why is he telling them this? Especially when it’s complete bullshit.
“Interesting story,” Naomi says. She sounds skeptical, but Luke doesn’t seem to notice. In fact, he seems pretty damn proud of himself. He pulls me over to the couch, and we both sit.
The next couple of hours pass quickly. I spend the first hour hyperaware of Luke’s hand making circles on my back, but by the second hour I find myself starting to relax. As if there’s anything normal about having Luke Cohen’s hands on my body again. As if there’s anything normal about sitting here with Mel and Naomi and Luke when I no longer belong here.
When my body stiffens, Luke seems to sense it, and then he starts gently massaging my shoulders. My impulses war with each other. Part of me wants to shut my eyes and lean into his touch, the other part wants to jump up as if I’ve been electrocuted, run out of the house, and never come back.
“I should go,” I say, pushing myself to stand.
“Jessi has a busy day on Saturday,” Luke says. “Lessons at the club, and then your job at All Saints, right?”
I nod, kind of shocked that he actually remembered.
“Let’s get you home,” he says, holding his hand out to me. I put my hand in his and watch as he threads our fingers together. All the nerve endings in my palm come alive at his touch, and it’s all I can do to act normal.
“Bye, Mel. Bye, Naomi,” I say, waving with my free right hand and then following Luke out the front door. I’m expecting him to drop my hand as soon as we’re out of their view, but he doesn’t let go until we’re in front of the passenger door of his car. I guess it’s possible that Naomi is looking out the window or something.
“Thanks,” I say as he opens it and I slide in.
Neither of us speaks until we’ve pulled away from the house.
“What was that story?” I ask, trying to get my voice to sound normal.
“The best I could do under pressure, Ms. No, You Tell It.”
“You tried to throw me under the bus first!” I point out. His lips twitch with a smile, and I think it’s the first time Luke has smiled at anything I’ve said since the day I saw him at the grocery store.
“What was with we ‘mostly’ kissed?” I asked.
“I didn’t want them to ask questions.”
“Well, now they think . . .”
“We’re adults. We can do whatever we want,” Luke says with a shrug, and I turn to look out the window, my neck hot.
When he adds, “You’re not in high school anymore,” I face him with a quizzical expression. I hadn’t been aware that any of what we’d done and hadn’t done when we were together was contingent on my being in high school.
“I don’t know what that means,” I tell him as we pull up in front of my house, but he shakes his head.
“Never mind,” he says.
As I climb out of the car, my mind is a year in the past, flipping through memories I haven’t let myself think about in a while. Luke’s hands. His hot breath on my skin, his lips slightly parted, and the way his eyes went almost black after every kiss. The helpless way he sometimes looked at me, as if I were in total control, when the truth was, I had been just as breathless and desperate as he was.
“Good night, Luke,” I say, unable to meet his eye as I shut the door.
“Night, Jessi.”
9
THEN
The hardest thing, with Luke being miles away, was not letting him, not letting us, become the single most important thing in my life. When we weren’t video chatting or talking on the phone, we were texting. It had become my mission to make him an emoji fiend by the time I was done with him. Which, if I had my way, was going to be never.
School became a simple hurdle to get over before we could get to the weekend, when we would see each other again.
We told Mel and Rowan the last weekend in September. The first weekend of October, Luke drove all the way back to Winchester. It was late on Friday night when I got his text: I’m outside.
I jumped out of bed, finger-brushed my hair, and raced down the stairs and out the front door. I waited outside his car door, leaping on him when he opened it. We kissed for what felt like eternity, and then we both slid back into the car, him behind the wheel and me in the passenger seat.
“Your parents are going to hate me,” Luke said, running a hand through his hair. It was already messy from me pushing my hands through it while we kissed. I loved seeing Luke, perfect put-together Luke, all disheveled and rumpled, and knowing it was because of me.
“My mom won’t notice, and my dad goes to sleep at like nine.” It was after ten now. “What will most likely happen is that Mel will start to hate me.” Even as I said it, a hint of fear sparked in me. I guess it was natural now to second-guess how each and every one of the Cohens felt about me. After all these years, it turned out that Luke saw me completely differently from the way I’d always thought he had. That was a good thing, but it also meant that the others might have seen me differently, too. Rowan was certainly never in a good mood with me lately. And there was the whole thing the night his mom was diagnosed and the way he’d been after the fact. Maybe even Mel’s feelings about me were more complicated than I understood.
Luke grinned now, as if what I’d said was absurd. “Never.”
“You skipped your last class to drive all the way out here,” I pointed out.
“She doesn’t need to know that.”
“And you’ll get home smelling like ChapStick and me.”
“I hope so,” he said, and leaned across the console to kiss me again. “Stop worrying what Mom thinks. She loves you.”
Something lit up inside me at his words. Most days, I was ninety-nine percent sure of this, but occasionally, insecurity reared its ugly head.
“All this time we wasted,” I said, shaking my head and wanting to get away from the subject. “Being friends. Not kissing. So stupid.”
“So stupid,” Luke agreed, and I kissed the grin off his face.
When we broke apart again, he had a serious look on his face. “How’s Ro doing?” he asked.
“Good. I think,” I said. Ever since I’d told him about me and Luke, Ro had been even more distant. We had a couple of classes together, but other than that, I hadn’t seen very much of him. He had a different lunch period than I did and normally sat with his tennis friends anyway.
When I went over to the Cohen house, he usually wasn’t there.
“I’m worried about him,” Luke said, swiping a hand over his face.
“I don’t think he’s drinking much anymore, now that school’s back on,” I said. All the times I’d seen him, at least, Ro had seemed sober. Cranky, but sober.
Luke nodded, but he still had a worried crease in the middle of his forehead.
“My dad’s flying out to see me this week,” he said then. “He wants me to show him around the campus and my dorm and everything.”
“Really?” I knew it had been a couple of years since Dr. Cohen had seen Luke or Ro. “Is that . . . a good thing?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. I mean, on one hand, he’s helped with a lot of Mom’s bills since she’s been sick, so I guess he’s not completely heartless—”
“But?”
“But he still cheated on her. He’s still him.”
“I could probably never forgive him,” I admitted now. “If he was my dad.”
Luke looked at me with a thoughtful expression and reached out to brush some hair off my face. “You’ll really ride or die for Mom, won’t you?”
I remembered Ro’s words over the summer, about how Mel’s illness was their business, not mine, and my face warmed.
“It’s not a bad thing,” Luke said gently. “It’s just . . . you know, she’s not p
erfect.”
“I don’t think she is,” I said, though honestly, I couldn’t see any reason why I would ever pick anyone else to be my mother.
“I think she’s part of why I hate Dad,” he said, leaning back against the headrest.
I tried to hide my surprise.
“Maybe she just wanted us to know the truth, but the older I get, the less sure I am. She told us about all the lies, the affairs, the ways he disappointed her even years before those started. I think she needed us to be on her side.”
“Mel would never do that. Not purposely.”
Luke looked at me for several seconds. “Okay,” he said. “Well, intentional or not, it worked, because I can’t stand the guy.”
“I know he sucks,” I said now, “but I think it’s a good thing that he’s making an effort. Some parents don’t even try.”
“We still talking about mine?” he asked.
I shrugged.
“Talk to me,” he said, tracing circles on my kneecap.
“Okay, well, my mom is sick. I get that.”
He nodded.
“But she’s been so adamant about not getting help, and I just think that when you love someone, you’re willing to try to get well for them. Even if I’m not enough of a reason, you’d think that for my dad she’d at least try.”
Luke said nothing, so I kept going. “Also, Dad is always reminding me that she loves me, but everyone knows that the first time things got really bad was right after she had me. How can she love the person responsible for ruining her life?” It was the first time I’d ever allowed myself to say this out loud, though the thought had been there for years, niggling at the back of my mind. How could it not be?
A deep frown was etched between Luke’s eyebrows. “Jessi. You don’t really think that, do you? That you ruined her life?”
I shrugged. “I mean, having me made her sick.”
“Maybe, but maybe not,” he said. “Also, she has all this help available to her, and she won’t take it. That’s not on you. You know that, right?”
I wasn’t sure I believed him, but I nodded.
“Have you ever tried talking to her? Telling her how you feel?”
I hadn’t—not really. When something is your normal, it doesn’t occur to you that it can be any other way.
A lump had filled my throat, and I found it hard to look at Luke. “Can we talk about something else? I’m sick of parents.”
“Same,” he said, playing with a strand of my hair again. “Have you heard anything back from State yet?”
I shook my head.
“You know where there are no parents? College,” he said, leaning in to kiss me.
“That sounds glorious.”
“Mhm,” he agreed. His lips were moving along my jaw and down my throat now. “And you know who is at State?”
“You?” I said distractedly as his breath set fire to my skin.
“You’re so fucking smart,” he breathed against my neck. I grinned from ear to ear. When Luke had been deciding about schools last year, I’d secretly hoped against all hope that he would pick one in the state. He had his choice of a few, and I’d been over the moon when Mel told me he’d chosen State. I knew it meant I’d get to see him more often, but I hadn’t let myself think ahead to going there, too. To being there with him, or even being there as his girlfriend.
“My, my,” I said. “It sounds like you’ve picked up some bad habits from college.”
“I say fuck,” Luke protested.
“Not like Rowan,” I said. It had just slipped out, the comparison between them. I’d spent so many years rehashing all the similarities and differences, all the ways Ro was and wasn’t Luke.
“I guess not,” Luke said, straightening in his seat again. “I really should go before I get you in trouble.”
“You mean before I get you in trouble.”
He grinned. “That, too.”
When I hopped out of the car that night, I couldn’t stop smiling. Being with Luke was everything I’d dreamed of and more. The Luke in my head had been, well, the Luke I knew as Ro’s brother and Mel’s son. But the Luke I was getting to know, the Luke I was dating, was so much more. He was funny and sexy and kind and good. He had told me the night he came to my house weeks ago that he was just as fucked-up as everyone else, but to me, he was turning out to be pretty perfect.
When I entered my house, I was surprised to see the kitchen light on. When I went in, my mother was staring into the open fridge, like she was riveted by something. Scattered around the counters and on the kitchen table were the entire contents of our refrigerator. Milk, condiments, full Tupperware containers, vegetables.
“What’s going on?”
“It’s stupid,” Mom said, her voice weirdly shaky. “I couldn’t sleep and I . . . I thought since you and your father do so much around here, I thought I’d help out and do some cleaning. I had this burst of energy, and I took everything out, and now . . .”
She looked so small standing there, so defeated, that I heard myself saying, “That happens to me too sometimes.”
When Mom said nothing, I continued. “The other day I decided to clean out my closet, and I dumped everything out so I could organize from scratch. And then halfway through, I got tired and overwhelmed, but it was too late to stop. It sucked.”
The sound of Mom’s laughter surprised me. It was short and light, more like a giggle really.
“I guess overambition runs in the family,” she said.
I walked over and took the sponge from her. “Here. I’ll help.”
“Okay,” she said, sounding relieved. “That would be great.”
As we worked silently, scrubbing and wiping and putting everything back, I thought of Luke’s words tonight. Have you ever tried talking to her? Telling her how you feel?
I stole a glance at Mom, a strand of hair falling over her pale face as she worked. The topic of her illness felt too big, too delicate to broach without warning, so I decided to start small.
“Why did you name me Jessi?” I asked.
For how much I hated my name, it had never occurred to me to ask my parents where it had come from.
Mom looked surprised at the question, but after a moment she said, “It’s silly.”
My heart pinched.
So I was right about how little thought they’d put into it.
“I used to have a complex about my name,” Mom said now. “Katherine.”
“But it’s so . . . basic,” I said.
Mom smiled. “Exactly. I can’t tell you how many girls I went to school with who had the same name. Over the years I was Kate, Katie, Kitkat, Katherine I., and Kathy, all so people could tell us apart. I swore for years that if I ever had a daughter, I’d name her something unique, but not outlandish. Nothing like Tulip or Daffodil.” Mom snorted now. “God, I went to college with a girl named Wisteria.”
“So basically no flower names?” I said, and Mom laughed again, the sound full and warm. It felt like sitting in the sunshine, feeling the rays of light hit my skin.
“Your father and I took so long to decide when we had you. He really wanted Jessica, but I wouldn’t have it. Too common. So we compromised. Went with something simple. Jessi, first of her name, short for nothing.”
“I always thought you . . . that you kind of phoned it in,” I admitted.
She gave me a weird look. “No, not at all.”
We went back to working in silence, and I wondered if I’d angered or hurt her. I was still chiding myself for ruining the moment when she asked, “Who were you with tonight? Melanie?”
“Luke,” I said. Then, feeling brave, I added, “We’re dating.”
Mom turned to me. “Luke? Really?”
“Why are you so surprised?” I sounded defensive, but I couldn’t help it.
“I just thought you and Rowan were . . . closer,” she said at last. Even though I shouldn’t have, I thought then how different Mom was from Mel—Mel who had known for years about my cru
sh on Luke and Mom who knew so little about me. I thought too of that night last summer when I’d snuck into her room and confessed about my crush on Luke. I’d secretly hoped for months after that she’d randomly bring it up, that somehow she’d heard me and remembered everything I told her, but she never did.
“Well, you have to tell me about him,” she said as she closed the door of the fridge.
“Okay,” I said. She got us glasses and filled them with milk, and we sat at the kitchen table and talked. It was kind of everything I’d dreamed of, everything our first conversation about Luke hadn’t been. For one thing, it wasn’t one-sided. I told Mom about what Luke was studying in college and how he’d come down last weekend and told me he liked me. She listened and asked questions, and the whole time I was thinking, So this is what it would have been like to have my mother in my life.
When we finally went to bed about an hour later, I couldn’t believe how well this had gone. I was itching to tell someone.
I picked up my phone to send a text, then hesitated. Should I text Ro or Luke? For the past ten years of my life, it would have been a no-brainer. Ro was my person, but in just a few weeks, everything had changed.
Just had a really good talk with my mom.
It was past midnight, and I wasn’t surprised when Luke didn’t text back.
Still, I went to bed feeling light and floaty, excited, like things were finally changing.
But when I woke up the next morning, my father was alone at the dining table, looking somber.
“Where’s Mom?” I asked.
“Asleep. She had a rough night.”
It felt like an arrow to the heart.
“What do you mean?”
“She didn’t get to bed till late, so she’s exhausted,” he said.
“Oh,” I said, and went into the kitchen to get breakfast.
I didn’t tell my father that we’d been up together, talking. I didn’t tell him about the hope I’d felt, that quiet soaring feeling of possibility.
Maybe things were changing. Maybe we were at the start of a million more conversations full of long-held truths and midnight secrets.
I’d connected with Mom last night. Now it felt as if I would never be able to hold on to her for more than just a few seconds.
Some Other Now Page 14
