by Sarah Sutton
“I have to tell you something,” Eloise said suddenly.
“What?”
A beat of silence passed, and I wondered if she was going to keep her silence after all. And then, in a rush: “I know it wasn’t Jeremy you kissed at the party.”
The pair of panties slipped from my fingers, falling back on the tier without a sound. Eloise’s eyes were still wide, their dark centers edged by white as she focused on me. Her words rang back and forth between my ears, pinging off the sides of my skull. My brain felt like it was sucked back to the night in the closet—Elijah’s mouth against mine, a shiver running down my spine, my fingers on his waist, his hands on my skin—
I swallowed, hard. “What did you say?”
“I know you didn’t kiss Jeremy at the party,” she repeated, dropping her voice. “I know it was—”
“Don’t say it. Don’t…just don’t.” Don’t say it aloud, Eloise. You can’t say it aloud. My fast-beating heart felt like it was running a marathon in my chest, crashing into my ribcage. “What did you do?”
“Nothing!” she said immediately. “I swear!”
“Then how do you know?”
“I took you to the room and left you there. I’d planned to come back in a few minutes—you know, like I said—so I just went to get a quick refill.” She drew in a sharp breath, and I could tell she wasn’t sure she wanted to finish her explanation. “I saw Jeremy come out of a different room a few minutes later. Not the room I’d left you in. I ran to find you, but when I opened up the closet door, you were gone…”
Don’t say it, don’t say it.
“…and he was in there.”
He. Elijah. Elijah.
“We both just stared at each other for a second. He seemed more dazed than anything. I told him I was looking for you and quickly shut the door. Then I found you coming out of the bathroom and I took you home.”
More dazed than anything. Dazed how? With wide eyes, swollen lips, fog-ridden thoughts? Unable to clear them, unable to think straight. Mouth tingling. Blood humming. Was that how he looked? How he felt?
I leveled my gaze to Eloise’s, two feet of space between us. “That’s why you never asked about the kiss.”
I’d never thought much about why she didn’t ask me how the kiss with Jeremy had gone. But now it seemed obvious. She’d known all along I hadn’t been kissing him.
“I didn’t mention it at first because I thought maybe you two just talked in there,” Eloise said. “You know, like, ‘oh, hey, you’re not the guy I’m supposed to be meeting, how are you doing?’ kind of thing. But I saw your face when he came over last Saturday, Rem. That wasn’t what happened between you two, was it?”
Deliberately, I closed my eyes, blocking out the image of her tentative expression, trying to force away the memory of Elijah. Remembering now did no one any good. When I spoke, I was surprised my voice sounded remotely even. “It was a mistake,” I said. “An accident. But he doesn’t know it was me, and we need to keep it that way.”
“He doesn’t know? What, did he think you were Savannah?”
I drew in a breath, held it for a few seconds, and released it.
Eloise’s hand grabbing my own made me jerk, my eyes springing open. “You have to tell him the truth,” she said, voice and gaze holding twin amounts of seriousness. “He thinks he kissed Savannah that night, but he kissed you. Elijah kissed you.”
Gosh, just hearing those words aloud… “I know he did.” I was there.
“Then why don’t you tell him the truth?”
“Because I can’t,” I said, tearing my hand back. I walked around the side of the underwear tier to give us some distance, knowing that if she reached out again, I’d probably cave and listen to her. “He’s got a girlfriend, Eloise. A really smart, really pretty girlfriend.”
She made a face at me. “Who happens to look an awful lot like someone, huh?”
I ignored that. “His brother’s in jail. His home life is a mess. He doesn’t need his best friend throwing a ‘hey, I kissed you, and it totally changed my life in a great way’ truth bomb at him.”
One of her thin dark brows rose. “It changed your life?”
“Eloise.”
“Remi.” We held each other’s gaze, trying to judge the other from our distance. I stood firm, holding my ground. Eloise was the one who finally wavered, her posture slackened into something of a defeated curve. “You’re really not going to tell him?”
“No, I’m not,” I said, moving to the next rack. My fingers shook, but I curled them into fists, hoping she wouldn’t notice. “Because I’m mad at him.”
When I got home from shopping with Eloise, the warm, welcoming arms of grounding greeted me. I wasn’t surprised.
Mom took my phone, kidnapped my computer, and I nearly had to laugh at how ironic all this was. Hadn’t I said that Mom would never enforce such a bogus rule? But here she was, even going to the extent of locking her office, not putting it past me to use her personal computer. That could’ve been because of her residual anger, too, since she was still giving me the cold shoulder.
It seemed that everyone was against me. Even the freaking universe.
Detention had one perk, though: I was able to dedicate time to working on snowflakes.
During the detention period on Thursday, while I sat in silence, I clipped away at my extra credit. In that hour, I managed to get seven more done—they weren’t the prettiest, but maybe I could hang them in a darker corner—bringing me to twenty-five snowflakes total.
Which meant I had eight days to finish 125 more snowflakes.
Friday after school, I buckled down and got to work. I didn’t have my cell phone to play music, so I had to resort to—gasp with me—an old-fashioned CD player. The only CDs I could find were Christmas ones since the season had just passed, but they were better than nothing.
Mom and I still hadn’t talked since I snapped at her, but she was pulling long days on-site, designing someone’s bathroom or something. I pushed my guilt aside so I could focus on my frustration with Elijah and these stupid snowflakes. There was no time to feel guilty.
I shook the blue and silver glitter onto a patterned snowflake, careful to get as little as possible on the table. Once the snowflake was fully covered, I set it aside and reached for my scissors, cutting into the next pattern.
Stupid Elijah. Why did he have to be so dumb? It made me feel better about whatever idiotic feelings I thought I’d had for him. How could I like a boy who was so stupid, so selfish? Kiss or no kiss. And that had to be the only reason I thought I liked him in the first place—he was just a great kisser. Didn’t make him a great boyfriend. Mom had been right—emotionally unavailable.
What gave him the right to talk to me like that? Eloise had asked me what had my panties in a twist, but seriously, what twisted his? Family stuff? What right did that give him to be so horrible to me? Calling me a bad influence. Saying he was “done talking” before walking away. How had our friendship devolved that much in such a short time? Tuesday night, we were fine. Better than fine. He’d kissed the back of my head! How had we gotten to this point of me yelling at him and him ignoring me?
My scissors cut into the top of my finger with a sharp, slicing pain. I let out a yelp and dropped the piece of paper. I put my finger in my mouth, wincing.
I hated this internal back and forth, which only gifted me the present of more anxiety. Every time I was determined to speak up, to tell Elijah the truth, I remembered all the reasons I shouldn’t. He’s got a girlfriend, it’d ruin your friendship, he doesn’t like you like that, maybe he was drunk, you were a little buzzed, it was just one kiss.
But man, I really wanted to tell him. Even if to just get it off my chest.
A soft sound came from the front door, and I didn’t realize it was a knock until it came again, a persistent thwamp, thwamp, thwamp.
With my finger in my mouth, I padded my way to the door, trying to peer out the fogged-over glass. Even with the porc
h light on, I couldn’t see who stood over the threshold. “Hello?”
“It’s me,” came a muffled reply.
I grabbed ahold of the doorknob and pulled. The hinges groaned in response, the jamb rocking against the weight behind my pull. I so wasn’t in the mood for this.
After a second of trying and prying, the door swung inward with a loud crack, forcing me off-balance. Jeremy’s wide eyes and loose posture greeted me. He stood in the snow with his hands in his pockets, one corner of his mouth curved up. “Whoa there. Looks like you need to get that door fixed.”
Normally I would’ve fluffed my hair or at least attempted to make this loose shirt fit in a more flattering manner, but flirting was the farthest thing from my mind. In fact, I tried to hide my annoyance. “Hey. Uh, were we hanging out?”
His smirk grew wider. “Yeah, remember? Yesterday at lunch, I asked if you wanted to go to the movies tonight. You said yeah.” He gestured over his shoulder to where his car was parked on the side of the street, headlights on. “I texted you.”
Didn’t I tell him that Mom took my cell? I glanced behind him, trying to think of a response. Was it bad that I hesitated? “That’s…sweet, Jer, really. I’m actually going to my dad’s tonight, though—when my mom gets home from work, I have to go.”
“It’s only six,” Jeremy said eagerly, stepping closer to the threshold. His expensive tennis shoes were caked in snow; my mother would’ve freaked. “The movie is only a little over an hour and a half. Plenty of time to squeeze it in, don’t you think?”
Guilt fluttered over my skin as I looked at him. I knew what he was talking about. The lunch line. After he told me about Elijah, he’d kept talking, but my brain had stopped listening. And here he was, on my porch, looking nice and handsome, waiting for me. How jerky would it be if I canceled?
“I’m grounded,” I settled on. “I made those plans before I got grounded.”
“What if I dropped you off at your dad’s afterward? You’re still grounded, just heading out a little early and, well, making a pit stop.” He leaned against the jamb of the door and tipped his dark head against it, eyes glittering. “We didn’t get to really hang out Wednesday. I want to make it up to you.”
Something like that should’ve made my stomach flutter with butterflies, but my body couldn’t summon the excitement. All things considered, it wasn’t a bad idea. I wouldn’t have to spend the hour in the car with Mom and her passive-aggressive silence. And hey, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. Sure, he had talked a lot on our first date, but this would be our first real second date, without Elijah or Savannah to distract us. Maybe some more alone time with him was exactly what I needed.
“Let me pack up my stuff real quick. I’ll meet you in the car?”
“Sure, sure.”
I shut the door in his face. My teeth bit into my bottom lip as I moved into the kitchen and tightened the caps on the glitter bottles, the nick on my finger stinging. The thought of Mom coming home and running into him made me hurry faster. How would I even introduce him? A shock of panic darted through me. Definitely not as my boyfriend.
I packed my stuff as quickly as I could, grabbing my overnight bag from my room and doing a quick outfit change. Nothing fancy, just jeans and a t-shirt, and I slipped on a jacket. At the last minute, I spritzed on the perfume I’d worn to the party, the one that Jeremy said he’d liked. I hadn’t worn it since, but maybe it would get me back into my old flirty mindset. Even though I could hardly stand it.
Using a scrap of construction paper, I crafted a note to Mom. A friend is taking me to Dad’s. See you Sunday. -Remi
Snow fell at a light pace, flecking on my face as I hurried outside to Jeremy’s car. Without being able to stop myself, I peeked across the street, but Elijah’s truck was missing from the driveway.
“I’m sorry I forgot about our date,” I said as I settled into Jeremy’s car. “That’s…super rude and totally unlike me. I’ve just had a lot going on lately.”
With gentle movements, he eased the car back down the driveway, nodding. “Ah, it’s okay. Fighting with Elijah takes a lot of energy.”
I frowned. “How did you know I’m—”
“Savannah mentioned it the other day in class.”
I looked at my bags, which were stuffed down by my feet. How many people knew that Elijah and I were fighting? Was Savannah going around telling everyone, or just Jeremy? “I’ve just been so swamped with schoolwork. I’m doing some decorations for the Snowflake Dance, did I tell you that?”
He made a noncommittal noise as he took the road that led out of town. “Elijah reminds me a lot of his brother. I remember him, don’t you? He was a senior when we were sophomores.”
“Yeah, I remember him.” How could I not? Almost every time I went to Elijah’s house, he was there, in his room, in the living room, in the kitchen, a lingering presence. With his charisma and personality, there was no missing Terry. Everyone loved him, looked up to him. They always said he’d go on and do great things.
And now he sat in a jail cell.
“Crazy how people can be so different from what they seem,” Jeremy said, almost as if reading my mind. “Makes you wonder who’s going to turn out that different in our grade. Sometimes I wonder about Eli. He was really close with his brother, wasn’t he?”
Now I couldn’t keep my mouth shut. My tone spiked in acidity. “Elijah is nothing like Terry. Why would you say that?”
“Whoa, hey, I’m just running my mouth. I do that well. You know how it is.” Jeremy squeezed my knee, and I could feel each of his fingers through the thin material of my leggings. “Let’s talk about something else, yeah?”
I slumped low in my seat, fighting for peace and calmness even though they felt pretty elusive.
Chapter Sixteen
The movie wasn’t as bad as I’d been expecting. Though I vastly preferred rom-coms to action flicks, it wasn’t horrible. Jeremy had shared his popcorn with me, though it was over-buttered and under-salted. It wasn’t a horrible time. But there was something missing about it, something…lacking. Like when you woke up in the morning and the sun was absent from the sky. It was okay, but not right.
Talking with Jeremy felt like that. It was okay, but it didn’t feel right.
But it was easy to talk with him about silly, meaningless things, and after the week I’d had, meaningless things felt nice and mind-numbing.
“That’s such a terrible thing to say. Mrs. Cassidy isn’t faking being married.”
“Hey, I’m just saying, that ring looks like it could’ve been bought at the dollar store.” Jeremy laughed, shaking his head. “Plus, she has a picture of her and her dog on her desk, not her husband. That’s a little fishy, isn’t it?”
“Maybe she and Mr. Valdez have something going on,” I suggested. “I mean, I’m sure no woman could resist that mustache.”
Jeremy lifted his hand from the wheel and placed his finger across his upper lip. “You dig a guy in a mustache?”
“Oh, definitely,” I said, rolling my eyes. “I’m sure Mrs. Cassidy thinks the same.”
Without warning, Jeremy eased the car over to the side of the road, letting it slide to a gentle stop as he flipped the hazards button on. We were on an empty road, though, so I was sure that no cars would be driving by.
He turned in his seat to face me. “I have to tell you something, Remi.”
“You’re pregnant?” I teased, trying to hold onto the humor from before, blinking at how fast his mood had changed. From jovial to serious in a snap. I glanced over at the side of the road, the snow shining like glitter in the moonlight. “Congratulations. Though I’m curious who the baby daddy is.”
“I like you.”
Yeah, that jovialness totally went out the window. “What?”
“Come on, isn’t it obvious? I took you to the movies. I’m driving you an hour out of the way to your dad’s house. Why else would I do that?”
I thought about all the times Elijah had driven me to Dad�
�s, even stayed and played with Harmony for a little while. “Well, I mean—”
“Do you want to go to the Snowflake Dance with me?” he asked, grabbing my hand from where it rested on my leg, squeezing my fingers. “I needed to ask somebody, and I want it to be you. I’m throwing a party after too, so you can just tag along with me.”
Nothing about his words made me feel like I stood on top of the world, and staring into his eyes didn’t make me feel like I was falling. I searched and searched, but there was nothing in his gaze that made me feel like a flower leaning toward the sun. A snowflake falling to the ground. Why? I could’ve screamed the question at that moment because I desperately couldn’t figure it out. Why couldn’t I just force my body to react to him? Force the endorphins or whatever to come out and do what they were supposed to when he smiled?
I was so, so lost in my thoughts that when Jeremy leaned forward across the console, I had no time to react.
He pressed his mouth to mine, nearly knocking our teeth together. His lips aligned with mine in a way that made my mouth feel…small. Maybe it was the fact that his mouth opened almost immediately over mine, fighting for control.
His mouth tasted like popcorn and moved quickly. He reached to cup the back of my head with his free hand, fingers pressing against the spot where I’d hit the shelf. The pain there had long since stopped aching, but with direct contact like this, a ghost hurt flared up.
Though the thought was horrible, I couldn’t stop myself from imagining it. I wish this were Elijah.
I didn’t realize that I had my eyes open until the glare of the dashboard lights burned into my retinas.
Things became crystal clear to me at that moment—even though I was thoroughly ticked at Elijah, I couldn’t fool myself into thinking that any of the affection I felt was directed at Jeremy. Him saying those things and showing up unannounced didn’t give me butterflies or cute little thoughts. I just felt…bad. Like I was leading him on. And at this moment, with his mouth on mine, I totally was.
