“How could you, Stephen?” Pilar dropped her wildly flailing arms and let her voice lower in volume. The quiet was worse. The hurt in her brown eyes stung like a slap.
I turned my back on her, walking across the room and peeking out the window. No sign of Matt, but there was Isabel’s silver car parked in the driveway. If Matt spotted it, I’d be in deep shit.
“I was so stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid, believing your innocent act was the real deal, like, oh, Stephen is so modest and Stephen is so kind, and Stephen isn’t like those other guys. Stupid!” Her hands were moving again, making intricate designs in the air.
“If you’re referring to Joan, stop. We’re just friends. I swear.”
“Right. You lied about being grounded this weekend to get out of visiting me, but you have her over here in your friggin’ bedroom, and I am supposed to believe anything you say?”
“First of all, I didn’t lie. I am grounded.” My mouth twisted.
Pilar mimicked the twist. God, that hurt. It didn’t matter if I’d been planning on ending things with her. It didn’t matter if I didn’t feel about her how she felt about me. It hurt for someone I trusted to stand there and make fun of me. Tears pushed at my eyes, but I ignored them, choosing to focus on the anger instead.
“How did you even know where I live? And you broke into my house! What kind of person does that? Have you been stalking me? I knew all of this was too fast. I knew I needed to slow it down.” My shoulder jerked three times and I grimaced again.
She didn’t copy me that time. “I’m not stalking you. I know your parents’ names, remember? I know how to use the effing internet. Your address is available for anyone who wants it. I didn’t dig through your trash, you stupid jerk. And I didn’t have to break in. I knocked three times before I tried the door. It wasn’t locked.”
We glared at each other, both of us breathing hard, me fighting the rage, remembering the saltshaker flying past Mom’s head a few nights before. I would never be the kind of guy who hits a girl. I would never be a bully.
Pilar started crying. Her face was red and she pressed her hands against her eyes.
“Pilar.” I took a step forward.
“Don’t touch me. I knew you were too good to be true.”
“Pilar,” I said again. “I was never your boyfriend. I didn’t cheat on you. I couldn’t cheat on you, because we were not together … not like that.”
“Yes, we were. What are you talking about?” Her eyes widened and she rubbed at the tears with her hands.
“No, we never talked about it. You assumed, and I didn’t correct you, so that’s on me, but Sylvie said—”
“Sylvie? Who the fuck is Sylvie?”
“She’s this girl I know—”
“The one that was here?” Pilar’s eyes darted toward the hall where Joan had disappeared.
“No, that’s Joan. I already told you.”
“Joan is the girl Luz saw you with in the library, then. Luz said she was Asian and had a bad dye job.”
“Who is Luz? And Joan’s hair is fine. Leave her alone.”
“Luz is my cousin. She goes to your school, you douchebag. She saw you with Joan, and she said everyone in Moorhen knows about me, that they all think I slept with you. And she said you screwed some other girl at a party, but I didn’t believe her. I didn’t want to believe her, I mean, but she said she heard it from your friends at school. She heard we had sex at the mall. I can’t believe you would let people believe—”
“I didn’t. I didn’t let people believe anything. Ballard started that rumor, and I couldn’t stop it. I kept telling people it wasn’t true. I promise, I denied it to everyone I could.” My leg kicked out twice, bumping my guitar case. I winced, hoping I hadn’t hurt it.
“So what? I’m supposed to take your word for it? I’m supposed to forgive you, just like that, and take you back?” Pilar held out her arms, a gesture somewhere between a question and an invitation.
I shook my head and backed away, dropping onto the bed.
“Answer me, Stephen.” She let her arms fall and stood there, looking suddenly weak, not at all like the fiery girl who whirred through my life like a tiny Tasmanian devil.
I made myself meet her eyes. Earlier, I had decided to end things. I planned to do it face-to-face, and here we were, face-to-face.
“Fine, Pilar.” I looked at my hands and back at her, the first girl to want me in a way I desperately ached to be wanted. At that moment, I wavered. I wanted so badly to kiss her one last time, to carve her body into my brain, so I could pull out the memory on bad nights. I wanted to always remember how it felt to be wanted.
“Well, answer me.”
“I don’t feel that way about you … the way you feel about me. It was all too fast, and I was a little scared of you.”
“You were scared of me?” A strangled laugh escaped her lips.
“I liked you, Pilar. Or, I tried to like you. I enjoyed kissing you, and you have to know how gorgeous you are. It wasn’t you—”
“Don’t you dare try that washed-up ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ shit, Stephen. Tell the truth this time.”
“It is the truth.” I held out my hands, palms up, offering nothing. “I liked you liking me, more than I actually liked you.”
She wiped her eyes and nodded. “Fine, whatever. I have to go. Isabel’s waiting.”
I walked behind her down the hall. When I opened the front door, Pilar walked out and Matt walked in. He didn’t say anything, just watched Pilar walk stiff-spined across the yard and open the passenger door of the silver car. He closed the door once they’d pulled out of the driveway.
“I didn’t invite her. I know I’m grounded.” I said those words calm as anything, but inside I was quaking. Right down the hallway, past the ugly blue tarp, there was a boy getting high and a girl I was falling pretty hard for. If Joan heard the front door close, she might assume the coast was clear and come out of hiding. I had to get Matt out of my house. “You can go home and call my mother now.”
Matt stood there, arms crossed, face muscles taut. “You’ve put me in a bad situation, Stephen. I’d rather be your youth pastor right now and talk to you about what just happened, but your mom trusted us both this weekend.”
“I’m not asking you to not tell on me, okay? You can tell my parents. Heck, I’ll tell them myself. I didn’t invite Pilar. She found my address online.” I opened the front door slowly, sweeping my arm out to make my purpose clear. My shoulder was shrugging every ten seconds or so, but otherwise I was amazingly calm.
“We should talk.” Matt wasn’t giving in so easily. Probably that was my fault. I let him off the hook for being a glorified babysitter, so he was free to swap “authority figure mode” for “youth minister mode.” “Can we sit in the living room?”
“No.” I answered too fast, my eyes moving too quickly toward the hallway.
Matt’s eyes narrowed, suspicious adult mode activated.
Shit.
“Why not?” He turned from the door, not waiting for an answer.
“Because I don’t feel well. I had an upsetting experience emotionally, and I’d like to be alone.” I considered faking a spiritual crisis and insisting on talking outside, under the stars, where I was closest to God or some such nonsense, but Matt knew me pretty well. He’d never buy it.
Our house was our house, normal to me, perfect for our three-part family unit, but that night it closed in. As I followed Matt into the living room, the pale wallpaper appeared to move, the lines forming faces that seemed to laugh at me.
I don’t know why I ever tried to pull that kind of thing off. I wasn’t cut out for lying about parties or getting drunk or sneaking around with girls. All of that was Ballard and who Ballard wanted me to be. After a week of not talking to Ballard, not listening to his insane plans to get laid on prom night or convince Sylvie to give him the time of day, I could clearly see how screwed up our friendship had gotten.
Matt looked around the li
ving room, but it was well and truly empty.
“I told you, I don’t feel well.” I turned my back on the hypnotic wallpaper.
“Why don’t you come home with me? Kelly’s almost finished with dinner, and you’re supposed to eat with us anyhow.” Matt walked toward the kitchen just as I heard it.
Dammit. No.
The tarp moved. It made a distinct swishing sound. I knew what it was, because I heard it all the time. The guys would duck in and out of the construction zone, trailing sawdust and dirt through the hallway. Every evening Mom swept and surveyed the progress.
Matt froze. I froze.
Joan must have heard Pilar leave, but she didn’t hear Matt arrive.
My foot kicked out, hitting Matt in the back of his leg, only somewhat on accident.
“Ouch!” He swung around to face me, but immediately turned back at the sound of Nick and Joan practically falling on each other in the hall.
“Come on already, Nick. You shouldn’t have come here to start with.” Joan’s voice was a terse whisper.
“You said that already,” Nick told her, louder than he needed to.
Matt and I stood there waiting for the voices’ owners to reach us. And they did. Joan drew up short with a gasp. Nick ran into her, and I might’ve laughed if I hadn’t been grimacing something awful and picturing spending the rest of my high school career locked in a closet at The Exchange, allowed only food and prayer books to keep me on the straight and narrow.
Nick looked from me to Matt and grinned. “Hey, dude, the more the merrier.”
Joan’s light brown skin pinked with embarrassment.
“Hi,” she said.
When neither Matt nor I responded, Joan grabbed Nick by the hand and dragged him out the front door. It was all over fast, but not fast enough. My shoulders drooped and I covered my eyes, counting, calming.
“You can explain that over dinner,” Matt said.
I had no reason left to argue. I followed him out of my house and down the street to a meal with Kelly in a kitchen that felt more like a holding cell.
Chapter Fifteen
Monday, I went to school exhausted and even more confused than I had been. Over supper at Matt and Kelly’s, there’d been lots of talking, but none of it done by me. Mostly Kelly chattered about her friends and her high school days. Matt tried to get me to stay and watch a movie, his way of getting me to relax and talk about things, but I still didn’t want to talk.
Except maybe to Joan. I desperately wanted to talk to Joan, to explain how Pilar ended up at my house. I didn’t know exactly how I would explain it, because the truth wasn’t going to win me any points. But I was done with lying, so when my parents got home Sunday, I told them about Pilar. I mean, I told them I met her at a party at Lake Martin and met up with her at the mall once, but our relationship, or whatever it was, had ended.
I told them Joan came over to keep me company and get away from her sister, which Mom was unsurprised about. When she got over the shock of my having lived a double life the last few weeks, she thanked me for being a friend to Joan. She said it with the same soft look around her eyes that Sylvie sometimes had.
On Monday morning, I headed to school, intent on talking to Joan, and mostly ignoring the fact I was grounded. Still. And would be grounded indefinitely. Dad yelled. He said some pretty harsh things, but I was used to Dad’s tirades. What left me empty was what I heard late Sunday night. The walls of our house were as thin as cotton candy, and I had no trouble hearing everything that happened in the little pantry Dad used as an office. He was in there when I went to bed, typing away, and later I heard Mom go in too.
“You okay?” Dad asked her, his voice kind in a way he rarely offered me.
Mom burst into tears. I’d seen my mother sniffle-cry over sad movies and wipe away stray tears at funerals and weddings, but this was different.
The last time I’d heard my mother cry that way was back in middle school, when my rage came fast and furious, and she was usually the target. My whole body would quake and feel out of my control, and I know now she wanted to help me by offering coping strategies, but then it just felt like she had no idea what she was talking about, like she just wanted to control me, when I couldn’t even control me.
And dammit, I cried too, in middle school and Sunday night, covering my mouth to hush the sound. Sometimes I behave like a royal jackass, I know, and it’s true Dad makes my blood boil at least 50 percent of the time we’re together, but I never meant to hurt my mother. This time, I hadn’t thrown anything. No glass shattered in our house. But my lies broke her open just the same.
Ballard met me at the edge of campus. “Still not talking to me?”
I’d double locked Gwinn and was walking with my head down, noticing a scatter of yellow leaves beneath my shoes. September was past, autumn skirting the edges of our Alabama summer. I didn’t answer him, which was answer enough. He sighed but didn’t walk away.
“Seriously, man, I was drunk. I didn’t mean to throw you under the bus like that.”
I don’t get why people think being drunk excuses their awful behavior.
We reached the double doors leading into the science wing. I opened one and walked inside, ducking into Chemistry before Ballard had a chance to make more excuses. I didn’t get to blame the bad decisions I’d made over the last few weeks on my Tourette’s syndrome and I’d be damned if I’d let him blame everything on alcohol.
My next period was Algebra II, and I walked into class ready to talk to Joan, but Joan wasn’t there. Sylvie sat by herself at the front of the classroom, tight red jeans tucked into knee-high black boots. The temperature had dipped to seventy, and the slightest gust of wind meant fall in Alabama, time to pull out boots and scarves.
“Where’s Joan?” I asked, pausing by Sylvie’s desk.
“With Wade.” She made a face, scrunching her pouty lips.
I sighed. “What does she see in him?”
Sylvie motioned for me to sit in Joan’s empty chair. “You should get her to talk about it, because someone besides me needs to talk sense to her.”
“Why would she listen to me?” I opened my notebook as the bell rang and Mr. Collins walked into the classroom.
“She likes you. A lot.”
I blushed. “She likes Wade.”
Sylvie shook her head. “No, she’s just sort of attached to Wade. He’s got this hold on her, and he’s a real ass about it. If I were a guy, I’d beat the shit out of him and make him stay away from her. But that’s obviously not happening.” She flexed her nonexistent bicep and laughed sourly.
Sadly, my own biceps weren’t much bigger than Sylvie’s. I rode my bike a lot, sure, but that was more about my legs than my arms. Maybe if someone else held Wade, I could kick him all over and walk away the victor, but there wasn’t much hope of that happening. Besides, Joan didn’t seem like a girl who needed a boy to protect her.
After school, Ballard followed me home, driving at a snail’s pace so he could holler out the window.
“C’mon, man. I said I’m sorry.” He honked, making me jump on the bike seat. “I get it. Even drunk, I shouldn’t have said anything about the experiment. And I wasn’t even that drunk, so I should’ve known better. I’m sorry, Stephen.”
I flipped him the bird.
He sped away and I assumed he’d given up. That hypothesis was incorrect. He was parked at my house, and he knew where Mom kept the extra key, so when I got inside, he was sitting on my bed.
“Listen, I know you’re still pissed, but I did you a favor. Right? I mean, how many girls have you made out with since Sylvie at my party?”
I dropped my backpack on my desk and left the room. Ballard followed.
“And now girls are looking at you differently. Haven’t you noticed?”
I could’ve told him to leave, but Ballard was Ballard. He always got what he wanted, and I was too tired to fight after he admitted the alcohol was no excuse for being such a douche. I opened the fridge and gr
abbed a Coke. My shoulder jerked, but only once.
The one-jerk tic wasn’t so bad. If I paid attention to when it was coming, I could disguise it as a shrug or stretch my arms over my head and yawn so it wasn’t as noticeable. At home though, I didn’t bother trying to hide my tics. I shouldn’t have to care about that stuff inside my own house.
Behind us, there were construction sounds, drills and saws. Somewhere down the hall, Nick Dane was swinging a hammer. My stomach knotted itself and I slumped at the kitchen table.
“Did you hear me?” Ballard had kept talking, but I was focused on Nick being in my house, how he got to rescue Joan when I screwed things up Saturday. “I heard a couple of cheerleaders talking about you today. They said you’re cute.”
“I don’t care, Ballard. I just don’t care.”
“What do you mean you don’t care? Hot girls, bro, talking about you. You, Stephen. And I did that for you.”
I laughed, a gravelly sound that echoed into my Coke can as I put it to my lips. I said, “No, Ballard, you didn’t do that for me. I did that for me.”
He crossed the kitchen to get himself a Coke, as at home in my house as I ever was. “Where’s your dad? He’s usually clicking away in his writing cave.”
“I dunno. He’s pretty mad at me anyhow. I’m glad he’s not here.”
Ballard sat down at the table. “What’s he mad about?”
I filled him in on everything that came after the party in Beckley Field, my grounding, Pilar showing up … I didn’t tell him much about Joan though. I didn’t tell him I was pretty sure I was in love with her, or how it didn’t matter now, since Pilar made sure Joan knew I’d called her a bitch.
Nick appeared in the doorway, re-tying his ponytail, a greasy strand of blond escaping to frame his jaw. He had a thin face, and pale stubble dotted his chin. “Hey, bros, I’m taking a smoke break. Didn’t mean to get in the middle of something.”
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