I shake my head as I crouch down beside him. So, not only had he given up violin and joined a band and gotten hot while I was away, he’d also taken up brawling. Good to know. An image of Aubrey flashes through my head, her mother-hen face jacked up to maximum.
“Why do you have this?”
I glance up to see Ethan holding a piece of paper. The same piece of paper I stowed in my green notebook a couple of months ago, the one featuring Aubrey’s obituary and the first article about the accident. It must have slid out when everything fell. Two seconds ago I was thinking about her, and now here she is again, declaring her presence like she’s afraid of being forgotten.
“Oh . . .” I take the page from him and stand up, wobbling as all my blood rushes to my head. “I found it in my locker one day.”
Ethan straightens up too and hands over the rest of my stuff. “Someone put that in your locker? Why?”
“I don’t know. To torture me, I guess?” I don’t want to tell him about the first piece of mail, the pencil sketch of me pushing Aubrey, and that I’m wondering now if Travis is somehow behind both. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter. I painted myself as a target the minute I decided to come back here, right? I deserve every shot I get.”
Before I can react, his hand captures mine and holds on tight. “No, you don’t, and I wish there was something I could do to make you see that.”
The bell rings, the shrill sound of it breaking through the intensity of the moment. Without another word, Ethan drops my hand and walks with me to the end of the hallway, where we each go our separate ways.
I pop my head into the kitchen, where my mother is catching up on some work at the table. “I’m going out,” I tell her. Not waiting for a reply, I duck back out and continue to the front door.
“Dara! Dara, wait a second.” She catches up to me in the entryway. “Where are you going?”
I give her a look. It’s Saturday afternoon. She knows very well where I’m going. She doesn’t like it, but she knows. “I’ll probably be home in time for dinner.”
“Wait,” she says again when I reach for the doorknob. “I need to talk to you.”
Sighing, I turn to face her. “Mom, I’m not going to stay away from Ethan just because you’re afraid of what his parents might—”
“I talked to Dr. Lemke yesterday,” she cuts in. I shut up and stare at her. “He said you want to cut back on your sessions.”
I nod, wondering what else they talked about. “Going once a week isn’t necessary anymore. Maybe we could switch to monthly or something.”
“I’m not sure that’s wise, Dara.”
“Maybe not,” I say, “but it’s my life, and I’d rather not spend the rest of it in therapy, talking about the same things over and over.”
Mom’s sigh is much longer and wearier than mine. “As for your friendship with Ethan . . . Dr. Lemke thinks it might be good for you. I’m not sure I agree with that either, but I’m willing to follow your lead and let you heal in whatever way feels right to you.”
“Okay,” I say slowly. “Thanks.”
She crosses her arms and watches me expectantly. I know she’s waiting for me to act thrilled and say I told you so, but the truth is, my reconnection with Ethan doesn’t always feel right. Sometimes, when I think about Aubrey and how much she loved him and leaned on him, a different kind of shame overtakes me. Is it selfish of me to want him in my life? To want him in ways I probably shouldn’t? He’s Ethan. Aubrey’s little brother, who I’ve teased and defended and treated like my own little brother since we were preteens. Sure, he’s gotten all cool and cute and tall, but he’s still the same old Ethan.
Only he’s not, really. The old Ethan didn’t give me goose bumps. The old Ethan didn’t make my breath go shallow just by looking at me.
It makes me feel guilty, enjoying these feelings, but I do.
“Okay,” Mom replies, then surprises me by wrapping me in a hug. She squeezes extra tight, like I’m about to do something brave and life-threatening, like go off to war. I don’t resist the contact. She obviously needs the reassurance.
“I’m fucking starving,” Corey announces a few hours later as he winds the cord for his bass into a thick black coil. “You think your mom would cook us up some spaghetti or something?”
Hunter shoots him a look over the top of his cymbals. “You’re always starving. And no, my mother is not your personal chef.”
“I bet we could have a personal chef, though. Someday. When we’re rich and famous.”
“Dream on.”
Ethan catches my eye and shakes his head like it pains him to put up with these boys. I bite my lip, stifling a laugh. Now that the showcase is out of the way, band practice is much more relaxed. Even Kel’s in a good mood. Julia and Noelle are both busy today, and if I’d known that before coming over I probably would’ve stayed away too. But now that I’m here, I’m glad I didn’t. The lighthearted vibe is contagious.
“Let’s order pizza, then,” Corey suggests.
Hunter puts down his drumsticks. “I’m in. Let’s go pick it up. I could use some fresh air. And a smoke.”
“I’m in too,” Kel says, collapsing beside me on the couch. He slides over until his leg is flush with mine. “What do you like, Dara?”
“Excuse me?” I glance over at Ethan. He’s kneeling in front of his amp, facing away from us, but I can see his back stiffen.
Kel blinks, giving me the full benefit of his icy-blue eyes. “On your pizza,” he says with mock innocence. Hunter’s right—this guy is utterly shameless.
I shift away from him. “Surprise me.”
He grins as if my words are a personal challenge and stands up, joining Hunter and Corey by the door. When Hunter realizes Ethan and I haven’t joined them, he turns back to look at us. “You guys coming?”
Ethan’s gaze finds mine. This is it. I feel like I’m standing at the edge of a cliff, staring down at the choppy water below, and it’s time to make a choice. I can turn back right now, forgetting I was ever here. Or I can take a risk and jump.
My decision must be evident on my face, because he goes back to playing with his amp and says, “No, go ahead. We’ll stay here and clean up.”
I catch Corey’s smirk out of the corner of my eye and it makes me wonder how much they know. Did one of them see us last Friday night in the hallway? Does Ethan confide in his friends about these sorts of things? I don’t know, and I don’t think I want to.
Once the guys are gone, Ethan seems to take much longer than usual to organize his belongings. Maybe he’s weighing the same options—turn back or jump. The tension between us is palpable, and I’m honestly not sure if it’s a good tension or a bad one. It feels good, but a little scary at the same time.
Finally, Ethan places his guitar in its case and locks it, the sound of the clasps like gunshots in the small space. I watch him, aware as I always am now of the breadth of his shoulders, the clean lines of his face, the unconscious way he pushes his hair off his forehead, like he’s not quite used to having it there yet. Suddenly, I want more than anything to push it back for him, feel the soft strands between my fingers. But I’ve become so accustomed to avoiding human contact, to resisting the urge to touch, I’m not even sure how to do it anymore.
As if sensing my inner battle, Ethan turns around. His eyes flick between me and the small section of carpet between us, like he’s asking permission to cross it. When I don’t look away or make any other gesture to discourage him, he moves over to the couch and stops in front of me, still on his knees. Slowly, he takes both my hands in his and eases me toward him, so close that my legs have nowhere else to go but around his waist.
It takes me a few moments, but I eventually gather the courage to pull my hands out of his and rest them gently on his shoulders. He stays completely still, his gaze fastened on my face. But I can’t look at him, not yet, so I keep my eyes on my right hand as it slides from his shoulder to his collarbone to his chest, where it stops just over his heart. It
’s pounding almost in sync with mine.
“Dara.”
I raise my eyes to his. The strain in his face matches the tone in his voice. I lean in and brush my lips along the edge of his jaw, hoping to smooth the tension away, but my touch has the opposite effect. His fingers dig into my hips, and he draws me even closer as his resolve crumbles completely.
This kiss isn’t like the first one, fumbling and tentative and awkward. I’m no expert, but even with my limited experience, it’s obvious he’s good at this. So good that for the first time in a year and a half, I forget about keeping still. My arms circle his neck and my body melts into his and all I can think about is how good it feels to be so close to another person.
Until the shed door swings open, that is, hurling me back to earth.
“Hey, E, did you want—oh, shit. Sorry.”
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.”
“Okay,” he said, uncertain. He eyed us both again b
efore continuing down the hall.
I started to follow him, but then changed my mind and turned back to Justin. “I’ll give you one more day. One. Think you can remember that?”
Done with him, I spun around again and walked away.
twenty-three
Senior Year
CHEMISTRY HAS BECOME MY FAVORITE CLASS. Not because I like the material, but because it’s the only class where I feel like I’m on the verge of fitting in again. And it’s all due to Noelle.
Every time we have a lab or group project, she always chooses to work with me. Since she acts so normal and friendly around me, more of my classmates have been following suit. In this class, I’m not the girl everyone’s afraid to talk to for fear of saying the wrong thing. Having a friend makes me more accessible; if someone as nice and cool as Noelle feels comfortable around me, then maybe I’m okay after all.
If only I could convince myself of this. Months of agonizing grief and guilt have made me question every good thing that comes my way.
“Noelle,” I say during chemistry class on Wednesday. We’re supposed to be filling out a worksheet, but Mr. Haggerty (aka Mr. Clean) is outside in the hall gabbing with another teacher and everyone’s taking advantage of his absence to talk. “Do you know about me?”
She stops doodling on the worksheet and gives me a baffled look. “What do you mean?”
“Do you know about—” Uneasy, I concentrate on a scratch on the table, running my finger over it. “Do you know what happened with Ethan’s sister? How she was killed?”
Noelle’s eyes go wide and she blinks at me once before looking away. “Oh. Uh, yeah. I saw a few newspaper articles online. And Hunter told me about it too. The real story, I mean, not what some of the idiots around here think happened.”
Several emotions hit me at once and I can’t tell which is most powerful—relief or surprise or embarrassment. Of course she’s heard the rumors. “Everyone else knows too? Kel and Corey and Julia? The real story, I mean?”
These Things I’ve Done Page 17
