“About him not going back to sleep?” I asked, but held up my finger to silence her before she could confirm or correct this. Lisa’s voice exploded in my ear: “Skylar, you’ve got to get over to Nick Crawford’s, like, right away. Alexis is here with that guy—Adam or what’s-his-face from last summer. She’s totally wasted and—Madison, that’s my beer! No, yours is on the stereo.” Hysterical giggling, followed by dead air.
The next message was also from Lisa. She appeared to have called me by accident, because it was all muffled cackling and bass.
The last message was Eli. At the sound of his voice, I braced myself for hearing he’d beat up Aaron and now needed me to bail him out of jail. “Skylar, you’re never going to believe what happened tonight. Call me.”
What was with these people? Leave more info!
I punched my speed dial and paced the room while waiting for Eli to answer his cell.
“What’d they say?” Abbie asked.
“Nothing. Three messages and no one said anything even remotely useful.”
Then came Eli’s chipper, “Hey, girl.”
“What happened tonight?” I asked. In the background I heard John’s boisterous voice and lots of girly laughter. “Where are you?”
“Sheridan’s. You coming out? Lisa said she tried but couldn’t get you.”
“The ringer on my phone’s been off. So what happened at Nick’s?”
“You coming out?”
My teeth ground together. “What happened at Nick’s?” “It’s better in person. Trust me.”
“Well, I just got home and I don’t know if I can get back out.”
“You should. It’s totally worth it. And I haven’t seen you since you got back. What’s up with that? You avoiding me, girl?”
“She’s avoiding me too!” Lisa said in the background.
“Me too!” Madison added.
The entire group’s sobriety sounded questionable. Super.
I raked my hands through my hair. “I’m not avoiding anyone. I’ve been busy.”
“You coming, or what?” Eli asked.
I sighed and looked at Abbie. She’d cover for me. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“What’s going on?” Abbie asked when I hung up.
I squeezed my phone in my palm. “I’m headed back to the dark side.”
14
I found Eli, John, Lisa, Madison, and several others I didn’t know crammed into the bed of John’s truck and parked in their normal spot. They were loud and obnoxious, making my head throb with each step closer.
“Skylar!” Lisa squealed as I approached. She clumsily jumped from the truck and ran toward me as best she could in her tall, awkward shoes. Her skinny arms wrapped around my neck—she smelled of sweat and Satsuma.
“Look at you!” She stumbled backward and held me by the shoulders as she assessed me. “Hawaii did you good. Where’d you get that dress? It’s so cute.” She didn’t wait for an answer, just spun and waved at the truckload of people. “Everyone say hi to Skylar!”
“Hi, Skylar!” they chorused.
Eli stood and picked his way around the tangle of legs. He looked good, even though he’d buzzed off his gorgeous blond hair since I’d left.
“Hey, beautiful.” He drew me into a too-familiar hug. He always got a little handsy when he’d been drinking.
“So what’s going on?” I asked, putting space between us. I noticed several split knuckles. “Oh my gosh, Eli.”
“You should’ve seen him, Skylar,” Lisa said. “He was all, ‘Do you have any idea what you did to my girlfriend?’ and then he just flattened him.”
I glared at Eli. “Explain. Now.”
“Aww, why you gotta be like that? I knew you’d get all bent out of shape. That’s why I wanted you to come down here, because—”
I turned on my heel and stalked toward my car.
“Skylar!” Lisa called after me.
Eli’s fingers curled around my wrist when he caught up to me. “Because I knew you’d hang up before I could explain.” He held me there beside him, looking down from his six-foot-two-inch frame. “I did it for you.”
I pulled away and crossed my arms over my chest. “Walk me through what happened.”
Eli sighed and ran his injured hand through his shorn hair. “Well, this afternoon I bumped into Nick Crawford and—”
“Fast-forward to the party. To—” I couldn’t say it. “Him.” Laughter rang out from the truck bed as Lisa rejoined the group. Fear struck me. “Do they know? Please tell me you didn’t—”
“No one knows anything. But so what if they did, Skylar? You didn’t do anything wrong.”
It’d been wrong of me to be at the party, to drink so much, to flirt with a stranger, but I didn’t split hairs with Eli.
“So he was at the party . . .” I prompted.
“Yeah. I don’t know how long they’d been there. Their whole group was pretty loaded, so I’d say awhile. Oh, and you should see Alexis. She looks so trashy. I used to think she was pretty hot, but not anymore.”
A lump formed in my throat as I thought of Abbie’s account of Alexis—drunk and crying. Not good.
“Did . . .” I forced myself to continue. “Did you see him do the same thing to Alexis that he did to me?”
“I don’t think he has to, if you catch my drift.” Eli at least had the decency to blush at this. Eli was a good enough guy—he’d tell you so if you asked about his inconsistencies between what he heard Sunday mornings at church and how he acted the remainder of the week. He just liked to have a little fun.
“Anyway, I know you told me to leave him alone, but I saw him standing there and just couldn’t help it. I walked up to them and Alexis said, ‘What do you want, Eli?’ but I ignored her. All I said was, ‘Do you have any idea what you did to my girlfriend?’ And Aaron said, ‘What?’ like he was totally confused. Then I punched him. It was a total sucker shot. He fell down, but I think it’s ’cause he’d been drinking, not because I’m such a man or anything.” He grinned. “Or maybe it was, I don’t know.”
“What happened then?” I asked.
“What do you think? We hightailed it out of there. He has some big friends. Plus I didn’t want to hang around and give the police time to show up.”
I suddenly felt too tired to stand and crouched on the cracked asphalt.
Eli sank beside me. “You okay?”
“Yeah, just . . .” My head spun. Why couldn’t Aaron have stayed in Florida for the summer? Why’d he have to reinsert himself in my life, a place he’d only briefly been welcome?
“Are you mad at me?” Eli asked. He looked like a little boy who thought he might be in trouble. I couldn’t help smiling.
“No. I’m . . .” I shook my head. “I don’t know what I am. I guess Alexis called my house looking for me. I need to try to get ahold of her.”
Eli nodded. “You want ice cream or anything? My treat.” I shook my head. No way could I eat.
“Okay. Another time then.”
“Do you think Alexis is still at the party?”
Eli shrugged. “Like I said, we got out of there pretty fast.”
I moved to stand and Eli helped pull me up. “Sorry if I caused trouble,” he said, fingers still tangled in mine. “I just saw that guy and . . . reacted. Thinking about what he almost got away with . . .”
“Thank you for taking care of me that night.” I looked up at him through my eyelashes. “You were so nice. And you’ve been great about keeping all of it private.”
Eli shrugged, squeezed my hand. “No big deal. You deserve happiness, Skylar. And now maybe with that jerk Connor out of your life, you can finally have some.”
I drew my hand away. “Actually, Connor and I got back together tonight.”
Eli blinked rapidly, as if unable to compute what I’d just said. “You what? Skylar, what are you thinking? Do I need to remind you what that guy did to you?”
I sighed. “It’s really none of your business. And fo
r the record, he never did anything like what you did.”
“Yeah, and you’ve never let me forget it. Do you have any idea how hard I worked all spring to get you back? You just pushed me away. And now you end up with him?”
“Don’t talk about Connor like that,” I said, thinking of all the ways he’d held me together since we met. “You have no idea.”
“So, what were you doing with me then? Did these last couple months mean nothing to you?”
I crossed my arms over my chest and looked away. I didn’t want to think about things that had happened between us since March. I wanted to close that chapter of my life and be happy with Connor. “You’re acting like it meant something to you, and we both know that’s not true.”
Eli sneered. “How do you figure?”
“Lisa said you’ve already got some new girlfriend. It seems to me—”
“You left! And you didn’t even say good-bye to me. You just got in Connor’s car and rode away.”
“I—” Like the stuff I’d done with him wasn’t bad enough. Knowing I’d hurt him . . . “I’m really sorry.”
“Forget it. But I still can’t understand what you’re doing back with Connor. You know he’s just gonna hurt you again.”
I bit my lip and forced myself to look at him. “I love him.”
Eli rolled his eyes. “Good luck with that.”
“That’s not fair.”
“You expect me to be fair? When I said I loved you, you just stared at me. I’d never said that to anyone before, and you were so . . .” He squeezed his fists, then shook his head and backed away. “Whatever, Skylar. See you around.”
“Eli,” I said as he walked away, but I didn’t follow him. What else was there to say?
He climbed into the truck, smiling as if we’d had a perfectly fine conversation. A cute blonde girl said something to him, and he laughed and threw a friendly arm around her shoulders. He gave me a hard look as if dismissing me.
Alexis didn’t answer her cell phone. Instead, my call went straight to voice mail.
I navigated Nick Crawford’s curvy, confusing neighborhood, not exactly sure how to get to his house. I’d only been there a few times. Once in eighth grade for a class project and twice in high school for parties.
As the minutes dragged on, my steering wheel grew slick with sweat. What would I be dealing with when I found Alexis? What kind of awful situation would she have to be in before she resorted to calling me? Alexis’s problem wasn’t with me, but since I hung out with Lisa and Madison, we weren’t exactly on speaking terms. Jodi she talked to some, though I’d guess these days they didn’t have much in common.
Maybe she’d called Jodi . . .
Before I could think better of it, I held down her speed-dial number. Jodi still held number one, which meant I’d had this phone too long.
“Skylar?” she whispered.
I glanced at the clock—11:15. Not exactly a decent hour to call these days. Used to be she’d have been up for a few more hours at least.
“Sorry to call so late. I wouldn’t have, but I had a really weird phone call from Alexis earlier and I wondered—”
“She’s sleeping it off on my floor right now. That’s why I’m trying to be quiet. Although I’m not sure why.” Jodi’s voice returned to normal volume. “I could probably go jump on her and she still wouldn’t wake up. She’s out.”
“Is she . . .” My stomach twisted as I remembered the nausea of the roofie kicking in. “Does it seem like she just drank too much or . . .”
Jodi sighed. “I guess. When I showed up, she was passed out on the front lawn.”
“Where was Aaron?”
“Don’t know, don’t care.”
I’d turned into another cul-de-sac. At least I could stop looking for Nick’s house and get out of here. “Well, thanks for taking care of her.”
“Yeah. I’ll make sure she knows you tried.”
“And”—I swallowed—“thanks for earlier. At the baseball park. I think . . .” I so didn’t want to say this. “I think Connor and I are giving it another try.”
“Okay, good.” But Jodi sounded tearful. “I think that’s good.”
I had no idea what to say, how to fix the tension between us.
An odd sound erupted from Jodi’s end of the phone.
“What’s that?” I asked.
Jodi giggled. “Alexis snoring. Doesn’t she sound just like my dad?”
“Totally. Remember that time I spent the night at your house, and he may as well have been in the room with us, he was so loud?”
“He’s using those Breathe Right strips now. I guess they work. He doesn’t keep me awake anymore.”
“Good.” Long pause. “Okay, well. I guess I’ll talk to you later.”
“Later.”
A strange wave of nostalgia hit me as I hung up. It’d been so long since I felt close to someone my age. I needed a friend. A close friend.
15
We’d seen each other three days in a row, but the newness still hadn’t worn off. When Connor opened the door, dressed for an afternoon of six-year-olds, my stomach did that roller-coaster flip thing.
“Hi,” he said, his voice soft and sweet like hot fudge.
“Hi.” I stepped inside and made a show of looking around. “Quiet.”
“Everyone’s out back.”
I brushed my fingertips along his pink forehead. “Looks like that’s where you’ve been.”
He leaned against me, pressing Curtis’s present into my ribs. “Ouch!”
“Oops, sorry.” He grinned and took the package from me. “Guess I’m out of practice.”
“Me too.” I thought of Eli and my face heated. Would Connor remind me of this spring?
He leaned into me, fixing his serious gaze on my face. His lips brushed mine. It’d been like this since Wednesday, both of us a little nervous, a little hesitant. As if we couldn’t quite believe this was happening.
A noise startled us. We turned to see a little girl with long, dark braids and dark eyes watching us with an impish grin.
“Hi,” Connor said brightly. “What do you need?”
“Bathroom.” Her voice rang loud and clear in the tiled entryway.
Connor pointed her down the hallway. “First door.”
She turned on her tiny—and pretty stylish for a six-year-old—Mary Janes and flounced down the hall.
I smoothed my hair. “That was embarrassing.”
Connor gave me one last kiss before unpinning me from the wall. “It’s just Zoe. No big deal.”
“Is Zoe somebody I should know?”
Connor whispered in my ear, “Curtis says she steals crayons. I’d watch out.”
I giggled and let him lead me through the living room to the sunny backyard occupied by a dozen or so kids. The boys chased each other in a swarm that reminded me of bees, and there appeared to be two gatherings of girls. A few jumped around the moon bounce, and a handful played Marco Polo in the pool. A fluke, or did girls really separate themselves into groups this early? I couldn’t remember much about kindergarten except the big timeline my teacher stretched around the classroom so we could count down to the last day of school. The girl sitting next to me had bawled our final day, but I’d sung “Bye!” as I waved and skipped out of the room.
I eyed the moon bounce. “I love those.”
“Easy. We got it for the kids. Not people who can legally vote.”
“When they leave, we’re so getting in that thing.”
“Hey, guys,” Brian said from the grill. “Great timing. I’m just getting ready to put the dogs on. Or as you kids say it, the dawgzzzz.” He made a few weird gestures with his hands, as if throwing around gang signs.
I grinned—Brian’s cheesy dad-humor always made me smile—but Connor groaned and tugged me away. “We’re gonna go see if Mom needs help. She’s not embarrassing.”
“Oh, she’s not?” Brian called after us. “What about all that weeping at your graduation party
?”
Sadness pricked my heart. I should’ve been there. My parents and Abbie had gone, but I’d gone out with Lisa, Madison, and the guys, inwardly crying that none of the Rosses had come to my party earlier in the day. And, not surprisingly, round three with Eli happened that night.
I pushed away those dark, cold thoughts. “She cried at your party?”
“She didn’t cry. She wept. Dad prayed before they served food, and Mom huffed and heaved all through it.”
“Can we put that to rest, please?” Amy said. Her teeth gritted as she pushed on the folding table’s stubborn leg. “Step aside, Mom.” Connor brushed her away. “This is man’s work.”
She winked at me. “We better get Chris then.”
“Ha ha,” Connor said, followed by a series of grunts as he battled with the table.
Amy shielded her eyes and smiled at me. “I thought Abbie and Owen would be with you.”
“She should be here soon. Owen was about twenty minutes from going down for his nap, so she was going to put him down and then come over.” I waved my hand, indicating I didn’t understand all the details. “I don’t know. She worked it all out with Mom and Dad.”
Amy sighed. “Good. I was afraid she was avoiding Chris.”
“Why?”
My question obviously surprised her—her eyes widened and her mouth opened, though she didn’t answer for a moment. “You hadn’t heard they broke up?”
“No! When?”
“Yesterday.”
“Yesterday?”
I thought back to yesterday, to Abbie. I’d dropped her off at summer school, then Connor and I hung out with Owen. That night we all watched a movie. Connor left twenty or so minutes after Mom and Dad returned from counseling, and then Abbie went to bed just after Owen’s 10:30 feeding.
No fits. No tears. No locking herself in her room while she played “their song” over and over. And why not? That would’ve all been normal Abbie behavior. But this . . . It couldn’t get much further away. In fact, it looked like a page from the Skylar Hoyt handbook—I’m acting fine, so surely I feel fine.
“I can’t believe she didn’t tell me.”
I didn’t know if I’d said this out loud or in my head until Connor said, “She probably just didn’t know how.”
So Over It Page 10
