I kind of wish I was too.
People stream around us like water channeling around rocks, and I finally look up at Ethan. The desperation in his face makes my heart squeeze. I’m hurting him, and I don’t know how to stop. It’s like pain surrounds me, infecting everyone who loves me. Everyone I dare to love. My body may seem whole, with intact ribs and a beating heart and breath in my lungs, but I’m just as broken as Aubrey was, lying dead in the road.
“Talk to me, Dara.” Ethan moves down a step and places his hand over mine, still wrapped tight around the railing. “Tell me the truth. I think you owe me that much.”
He’s wrong. I owe him everything. My honesty is just a drop in the bucket of all the things I owe him, all the things I’ll never be able to pay back.
“New Year’s Eve was the best night of my life,” he says, low enough for only me to hear. “Then I woke up and you were gone. You just left. No warning, no explanation. Nothing. How am I supposed to take that?”
I slide my hand out from under his and step around him. “I can’t do this right now.”
“We have to do this right now,” Ethan says, catching up with me again. “Or I’m going to spend the rest of the day torturing myself over it, and I’ve already done enough of that over the weekend.”
We reach my locker and I bend my head over the combination lock, letting my hair spill forward. “What do you want from me, Ethan?” My voice sounds steady behind my curtain of hair, but my fingers tremble on the lock, betraying me. I will them to keep still, like the rest of me.
“I want you to tell me we’re still good. That’s it. That’s all I need to hear and then I’ll leave you alone.”
My lock finally pops open, but I don’t move my fingers from it. Because if I do, I’ll probably end up touching him. I’ll touch him and kiss him and assure him we’re still good. That we’ll always be good. And I can’t. After being in Aubrey’s room, after lying on her purple comforter and trying to soak in what was left of her, I find it hard to believe that anything good can come out of something so unspeakably horrible.
“You probably would’ve been better off hating me,” I say.
“What?”
I flick my hair off my face and look at him. “When I came back here. You were probably better off hating me instead of—” My voice breaks and I take a deep breath, steadying myself.
“What? Loving you?” Ethan says. When I don’t answer, he stares at me for a moment and then shakes his head. “Right. I think I get it now. You want me to make your life hell as some sort of payback for an accident that happened a year and a half ago. You think people should hate you, and any other possibility freaks you out. Because if people don’t hate you, then you might actually have to face the possibility that it wasn’t your fault and you aren’t a terrible person.”
The truth in his words makes my face burn and I bend over my lock again, sliding it from its latch with a shaking hand. When I pull open my locker, a folded sheet of paper falls out and flutters to the floor. My breath hitches in my chest. Already? School has barely been open ten minutes. How is it possible that someone dropped this off so quickly?
Unless it’s been there since before Christmas break. I didn’t visit my locker at the end of that last day, I remember. I felt sick after lunch, so I went home early. Whoever left this for me probably did it to cast a little pall over my two-week vacation from school. Or to remind me that even when I’m not here, they still have the power to ruin my day.
I make a grab for the paper, but Ethan gets to it before me and opens it up, his eyes scanning whatever waits inside. And it’s clearly nothing good, because his body tenses and his eyes go flat and the anger arrives the same way it always does, like a switch going off in his brain, soaking everything in darkness.
“Ethan. Give that to me.”
He’s not listening. His hurt over me is colliding with his rage over this and the result is downright scary. I reach out to take the paper from him, desperate to remove it from his sight, but he evades me and walks away. His stride is quick and purposeful, like he knows exactly where he’s headed and what he’s going to do when he gets there. Several other people in the hallway watch him too, apprehension on some faces and drama-hungry excitement on others.
I hurry after him, catching up just as he rounds the corner to another bank of lockers. Travis Rausch stands at one of them, a pen lodged between his teeth as he sifts through some books on the top shelf. I open my mouth to say something, snap Ethan out of it before he does something he’ll probably regret, but he’s on Travis before I even get the chance.
“You think this is funny?” he snarls, shoving the paper into Travis’s chest hard enough to send him reeling back against the locker door. His jaw drops in surprise and the pen tumbles to the floor.
“What—” Travis straightens up and locks eyes with Ethan. “What the fuck is your problem, McCrae?”
Moving closer, I put my hand on Ethan’s arm. It’s like touching marble. He ignores me and keeps his eyes on Travis, pinning him in place with his glare. I step back out of the way as he pushes the paper into Travis’s chest again. This time, Travis is prepared and braces himself.
“Did you put this in her locker?”
The bell rings, punctuating Ethan’s question. Travis’s gaze shifts to me, then behind me to the hallway, where a small crowd has gathered. No one moves to go to class. All eyes are riveted on Ethan’s rage-filled face and on Travis, as he takes the paper and looks at it. His face reddens.
“Dude,” he says, shoving it back at Ethan. “Aubrey was my friend. Why the hell would I draw something like that?”
Ethan’s fists tightens on the note, crumpling it. “Who did it then, if it wasn’t you?”
“I don’t know. Anyone could’ve put that in Dara’s locker. She’s not exactly well liked around here.”
“Yeah, you made sure of that, didn’t you.”
“No idea what you’re talking about, man.”
Ethan takes a step closer to him, muscles coiled. “I know it was you who started those bullshit rumors. They all trace back to you. What kind of sick asshole does something like that? Dara was your friend too, remember?”
Travis’s expression turns stormy and he leans in closer until his face is inches from Ethan’s. “I’m sick? You’re the one who has a fucking hard-on for the girl who killed your sister.”
Ethan’s hand shoots out, connecting with Travis’s face. The sound of bones crunching echoes through the hallway. Somewhere behind me, a girl shrieks.
It feels like forever, but it’s probably only a minute or so later when two teachers arrive to break it up. One of them is Mr. Haggerty, my chemistry teacher. He gets ahold of Travis and pulls him away while the other teacher grabs Ethan.
“Both of you,” Haggarty wheezes, his fingers wrapped around Travis’s bicep. “To the office. Now.”
Travis jerks out of his grasp and spits on the floor. With his bloodied nose and fat lip, he definitely got the worst of it. Ethan’s face is untouched, but his right hand is scraped and bleeding and already starting to swell. I want to go to him, wrap my arms around him and make sure he’s okay, but I can’t make myself move. So I stay where I am, frozen by the lockers and trying to ignore the drops of blood everywhere, while he and Travis are ushered down the hall toward the office.
Once they’re gone, the small crowd disperses. I’m about to leave too when I remember the piece of paper. It’s still on the floor near Travis’s locker, half ripped and trampled. I snatch it up and smooth out the wrinkles until the images come into focus. It’s another stick figure me, but this time I’m wearing a Santa hat and standing—no, dancing—in front of a headstone. Aubrey’s headstone, which I’ve never actually seen in person. That same wide smile is on my face, like I’m delighted to be there, doing what I’m doing.
Beneath the sketch are some letters, big and bold and printed in red:
HAPPY HOLIDAYS, MURDERER!
My fingers stiffen on the paper.
For a moment, I consider folding it up so I can place it in the green notebook with the obituary note, but then I notice a tiny spot of red on the upper-left corner. At first I think it’s marker, but when I run my fingertip over it, the spot smears. It’s blood.
Without even hesitating, I rip the paper into a dozen pieces and toss the scraps in the nearest trash can.
I spend the rest of the day and most of the night trying to contact Ethan, but he doesn’t answer any of my texts or calls. Payback, I guess, for doing the same to him all weekend.
It’s not until the next morning that I find out what happened to him after the fight. Before class, I search the halls for Noelle or Hunter and find them both at Noelle’s locker.
“I talked to him last night,” Hunter tells me before I can ask. “Three-day suspension. And he’s in major shit with his parents.”
I squeeze my eyes shut, not wanting them to see how red and watery they are. Noelle notices anyway and lays a hand on my arm.
“Everything will be okay,” she says, even though she has no idea what happened between Ethan and me or why he got into the fight in the first place. She’s just one of those people who believe things eventually work out. I used to be.
First period is a wasted effort. I can’t stop worrying about Ethan. Seeing that fight yesterday jump-started a new level of protectiveness in me, something much deeper than the little-sibling kind I used to feel for him. I know I won’t be able to rest until I make sure he’s all right.
On Tuesdays I have a free period right before lunch. Students are supposed to use their frees to study in the library, but seniors can leave school grounds if they sign out in the office first. So I scrawl my name on the sign-out sheet and make the short trek through the biting cold to Ethan’s house.
As I expected, neither of his parents’ cars is in the driveway. Ethan’s Saturn is there though, its windshield crusted with ice. I walk past it to the door, then hesitate before jabbing the doorbell with my numb finger.
He doesn’t answer. I wait another minute before ringing the bell again, accompanying it with a knock for good measure. Another minute passes. Just as I’m about to turn into a human icicle, the door swings open and there he is, wearing a T-shirt and shorts and rubbing his eye like he’s just woken up.
“What are you doing here?” he asks, his voice thick and scratchy with sleep. So I did wake him up. “Shouldn’t you be in school?”
“I’m on my free.” I cross my arms over my chest and bounce on my toes a few times. “Can I come in? It’s freezing.”
“Oh,” he says, snapping out of his sleepy daze. “Yeah. Sorry.”
He opens the door wider and steps aside so I can enter. As I do, I notice the bruising and swelling on his hand. I think about yesterday, how it sounded when he punched Travis, that sickening crack of knuckles meeting bone. It’s all I’ve been hearing, and seeing, since it happened.
A burst of anger charges through me, hot and sharp and completely unexpected.
“What were you thinking?”
He blinks at my tone. “What?”
Frustrated, I push past him to the living room and sink down on the couch, my coat still zippered to my chin even though it’s really warm in here. I can’t stop shivering. Ethan follows and sits next to me, keeping plenty of space between us.
“I was thinking,” he says brusquely, “that ever since you told me Travis was probably the one who spread all those lies about you, I could hardly wait to get my hands on him. I was thinking how freaking good it would feel to punch him in the face. It did, by the way. Feel good.”
I glance at his battered hand again and wonder when, exactly, he became so consumed with hostility. What was his tipping point? Aubrey’s funeral, when he could no longer deny that she was never coming back? The aftermath, feeling the pressure of everyone’s stares and hearing the same empty words of comfort over and over? Or did it start the day she died, when he was faced with the kind of news that changes a person forever, destroying something inside them that can never be restored?
“You shouldn’t have hit him,” I say, my rage fizzling.
“Well, he deserved it. I did some digging over the weekend and talked to a few people. The rumors lead right back to Travis, like I said.”
Sighing, I unzip my coat and shrug it off. “But it doesn’t matter. The notes, Travis, the things people say about me . . . none of it matters. I told you why I came back here, remember?”
“Right,” he mutters. “Because you felt guilty for not thinking about Aubrey every second of the day and you wanted to punish yourself for it.”
I clench my teeth and look away. I don’t like way he says it, like it’s the dumbest reason he’s ever heard for anything. Like I’m crazy for believing I’m not worthy of peace.
“Is that what this is, then?”
My eyes swing back toward him. “What?”
“This. Us.” He rakes his good hand through his disheveled hair, making it even messier. “Is that why we’re together? Because it hurts you to be with me? Am I just another way for you to punish yourself?”
Coldness spreads through my stomach and into my veins. Until he said it, the notion never once crossed my mind. It did hurt to be around him, at first, but as time wore on, he became separate from Aubrey, in a way. Disconnected from the boy I knew when she was still alive. He became just Ethan, the boy who helps dull the edges of my grief. No one understands the void of living without Aubrey better than he does.
“No,” I say, holding my hands stiffly in my lap. I’m back to being a statue again, rigid and still. “If anything, you’re the opposite. Being with you makes me happy, and in some ways that’s even harder—”
“Because you think you don’t deserve to feel happy,” he finishes for me. He shakes his head. “Either way, I can’t win, can I?”
Frustration simmers in my chest again. Unlike him, my anger comes on slowly, gradually, building and rising instead of exploding in a blaze. “You know what? I’m sorry my head is so screwed up. I’m sorry I’m so conflicted about my relationship with you. But God, Ethan . . . did you ever stop and think about how she’d feel about all this?”
“Who? Aubrey?”
“Yes. Do you ever wonder what she’d think about us if she were here?”
His eyes stray to the wall directly across from us, which is lined with framed pictures. The portrait in the middle, the biggest one, shows a much younger Ethan and Aubrey, posing together with their violins. I forget sometimes how alike they were.
“She’d hate it,” I go on when he doesn’t reply. “She’d want me to look out for you, not . . .” Kiss you. Fall in love with you. Lose my virginity to you.
“I don’t need you to look out for me. I can take care of myself now. You’re not my replacement big sister, okay? You’re not—” He suddenly winces and looks down at his hand. Without realizing it, he’d balled it into a fist, aggravating the swollen tissue there. “Anyway,” he adds, gritting his teeth through the pain, “it doesn’t matter if she’d hate it, because she’s not here. She can’t hate anymore. She can’t think anymore. She can’t do anything anymore. She’s dead, and I’m getting sick of you using your guilt over it as an excuse to drive us apart.”
Each word is a brick, dropping from a great height and slamming into me, one by one. If I ever had any doubts about the resentment he holds for me, deep down inside, they’re all gone now.
I stand up on shaky legs and turn to face him. “I don’t get it, Ethan. How can you even want me? Has this all been some kind of experiment for you or something? Your way of seeing if it’s even possible to forgive me?”
He stands up too, his face drawn in confusion. “What? No. Dara—”
I grab my coat from the couch and walk out of the living room, stopping him from talking. Stopping him from reaching for me and putting his arms around me and making everything okay. Because despite what Noelle believes, things don’t always work out in the end.
twenty-eight
Senior Year
LATE SATURDAY MORNING, MY MOTHER WAKES ME up with a firm knock on my bedroom door. “Brock has the stomach flu,” she says.
I roll over and look at her, my brain scrambled with sleep. “What?” I croak.
“Brock,” she repeats, and I dimly notice that she’s wearing dress pants and a blouse. “Tobias’s friend from down the street? Tobias was supposed to spend the afternoon at his house, but his mother just called and said Brock woke up with a stomach bug.”
I don’t know why she’s telling me this. “Are you going to work?”
“Yes, Dara. I mentioned yesterday at dinner that I needed to go to work for a few hours today, remember?”
I don’t, but this shouldn’t come as a surprise to either of us. For the past few days, I’ve done nothing besides go to school and sit alone in my room. And whenever Mom makes me emerge from my cave to do necessary things like eat, I do them as quickly and quietly as possible before escaping to my room again. I know it worries her, this sudden backsliding into my old reclusive ways.
“I can’t get out of it,” Mom goes on, glancing at her watch, “so you’re going to have to look after Tobias today.”
I freeze under my blankets. Look after Tobias. Just him and me. I used to babysit him all the time before Aubrey died, back when our relationship was easy and affectionate and fun. Since then, I haven’t been alone with my brother for longer than a few minutes. My parents never ask me to babysit, and I never offer. The thought of being fully responsible for him makes my palms clammy.
“Where’s Dad?” I ask, trying not to sound as panicked as I feel.
“He’s got that big job today.” Mom gives me an exasperated look. Clearly, Dad’s big job was discussed during dinner last night too. I vaguely remember something about heavy snow causing some sort of roof collapse, but I’m fuzzy on the details. “You’re okay with it, right?” she says, unsure. “Taking care of your brother for the afternoon?”
These Things I’ve Done Page 21
