“Right,” Kevin says, his voice hollow and forced. He pushes his stool back from the counter and sets his napkin beside his place. “Excuse me, Amber. Bathroom.” He leaves without another word and I listen as his footsteps echo through the living room and turn down the hall.
“Mom?” I ask, turning to look at her, “What—?”
But she doesn’t answer. She’s already pushing her stool back and leaving the room too.
I follow her, trying to catch my brain up with what just happened. Why would Kevin freak out about me looking at apartments in Lawrence? Did Mom not tell him, maybe? But that shouldn’t matter. It’s not like how I afford college or where I live next year has anything to do with Kevin.
I stop at the end of the hallway, like I did the night before the dance. This time I don’t have to strain to hear them, because Mom left the door open a crack in her rush to go after him.
“—talked about this, Claire,” Kevin is saying. “I told Cammie about it, to make sure she was okay with everything. Why didn’t you tell Amber?”
“You know why,” Mom says, her tone frustrated. “She wouldn’t like it. She’d get upset with both of us. Amber doesn’t want handouts for things like this, especially not from someone I’m dating.”
There is a long pause after this and a hot, uncomfortable feeling swoops through me. I crouch down and wrap an arm around Buffy’s neck to steady myself and she leans into me, holding me up.
Finally, Kevin says, “Is that all I am? Someone you’re dating?”
“No,” Mom says. “But I’ve told you how Amber feels about—about my past. She’d think … she’d think I’m trying to force you on her. I don’t want to do that to her again.”
“Telling her about the house isn’t forcing her to like me, Claire.”
House? What house?
“It’s giving her a choice. I thought we agreed she deserves that.”
“We did,” Mom says, her voice breaking. “I just don’t think that’s how she’d see it.”
“I see. So you lied.” The way Kevin says lied is like being doused with icy water. I can tell without seeing his face that lying, to him, is unforgivable. I don’t blame him—I hate lying too. But I hate it even more that Mom lied because of me. And that I understand why she did it.
“That’s not—I didn’t—I was going to talk to her about it after her trip. I wanted her to visit, get a feel for the city, and get a chance to look at all the apartments she picked. If we told her about the house first, she’d feel obligated to live there. I know she would. And that wouldn’t be fair. What are you doing?”
I hear the sound of drawers opening and closing. “I’m changing,” he says. “I need to go for a walk or a run or something. I understand why you didn’t tell her about this, but I wish … you know how much this hurts me, Claire. And you know why. I need some time to cool my head.”
Mom says something back, but I don’t hear what it is. I’m too busy backing out of the hallway and into the living room, where I trip over one of Buffy’s toys and fall backward onto the couch. I pull my knees up to my chest and I stay there until the sound of footsteps makes me look up and there’s Kevin, decked out in sweats with running shoes in hand, standing in front of me.
“Amber,” he says, a stricken expression on his face. “How much did you hear?”
“All of it.”
“I’m sorry,” he says, and he sounds like he really means it. “I have to go, I—” He stops, looks at the front door, and sighs. “You should talk to your mom.”
“Okay,” I whisper.
“Okay,” he says, nodding. “I’m sorry,” he says again. Then he leaves and Buffy goes over and paws at the door, whining, like she wants him to come back.
After a minute, I get up and go back to find my mother. She’s sitting on the bed in their room, tears in her eyes, looking around like she doesn’t know what to do.
“Mom?”
She jumps at the sound of my voice and swipes quickly at her face. “Oh hi, honey. Kevin had to run to the office for—”
“I heard you.”
Her hand drops and she looks down at her lap. “Oh.”
I steel myself and go over to her, settling myself in beside her on the bed. It’s the first time in a long time that I’ve been in her room, and I look around at the mix of her things and Kevin’s, thinking how well they go together and wondering if that’s all just been ruined because of me.
“I want to know what that was about,” I say, and she sighs and takes my hand.
“Kevin has a friend who lives in Lawrence and owns a management company. He mostly has commercial properties, but he’s bought a few houses near campus over the years and rents them out to students.”
“Okay,” I say slowly. “So what does that have to do with me?”
“Jeff—Kevin’s friend—promised Kevin a few years ago that when Cammie goes to school in Lawrence, he’d cut him a deal on renting a place for her off campus. With a roommate and the discounted rate, it will cost significantly less than if she lives in the dorms.” Mom stops and looks at me for a second, like she’s deciding something. Then she nods and says, “So when Kevin found out that you want to go to school in Lawrence, he asked Jeff if he could have the same deal for you.”
My heart is racing and I feel shaky all of a sudden. “Why would he do that?”
Mom shakes her head and sniffs loudly. “Because that’s what Kevin does, honey. That’s the kind of man he is. He thinks of you as his family, and he knows you haven’t had the most … stable life. That it’s been hard for us, and especially you, a lot of the time. He didn’t think it would be fair for you to struggle to find somewhere to live with Buffy and then watch Cammie have a ready-made place to stay a year later. He wanted to give this to you too.” She clears her throat and adds, “He said Jeff has the perfect place for you. A little house right off campus. They’re holding it until you decide what to do. And … and Kevin wants to pay. For your portion of the rent. Since that’s what he’ll do for Cammie, and since he knows I can’t.”
Kevin wants to pay for me to have a place off campus to live next year? Somewhere I can keep Buffy with me while I’m at my dream school? I can’t even wrap my head around that.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask, snatching my hand out of Mom’s and scooting away from her on the bed. I’m having trouble processing everything, but her lie makes me angry, so I grab on to the anger and hold tight. “Were you ever going to?”
“Yes,” she says, looking at me steadily, “I was going to a few weeks ago, even though I was worried about what you’d say since you were so resistant to using a friend of his to fix your car. But then I found your list.”
I go still. “What?”
“Your list,” she says, looking away from me now. “Your rules. I couldn’t find the password for the FAFSA account, and I remembered you wrote it down. So I looked for it. In your desk. So that I would be ready when you got home from work.”
The rules. She found the rules. Oh my God, I’m going to be sick. “Mom,” I say, “I’m—those aren’t—”
“You don’t have to explain,” she says, her voice thick. She’s crying. And I hate it. “After I found them, I didn’t think—I didn’t think you’d want to hear about the house. So I decided to wait until after your trip. I wanted you to look at the apartments we picked and get an idea of your options before I added this one.”
“You could’ve told me before I went,” I tell her, even though I know it isn’t true.
“No,” she says. “You would have felt obligated, and I didn’t want that.”
“Mom,” I say, but I don’t know what else to add, because she’s right.
She brushes the tears off her face and gets to her feet. “You know, I read that list and I understood every rule, honey. Every single one.”
Then she starts toward the bathroom, mumbling something about her makeup getting in her eyes.
I used to imagine this moment. Years down the line, t
elling my mom how hard all of her relationships have been for me. How much it hurt to get comfortable with someone right as she was ready to move on. I thought it would feel good for her to know those things, but it doesn’t.
It feels like shit.
thirty-two
I find Hannah first thing the next morning at school at our usual table with Elliot and Ryan. She takes one look at my face, disentangles herself from Elliot, and comes over to loop a protective arm around my shoulders.
“Get cookies,” she tells the boys, and then she drags me to the accessible stall in the bathroom by the gym, where no one ever goes.
“What happened?” she asks, and it all comes out in a rush. Kevin leaving for the world’s longest run, the rules, how Mom left not long after Kevin came home and didn’t come back until late. By the time I’m done talking I’m half laughing, half crying, and Hannah is rubbing my back and making soothing noises to calm me down.
“Okay,” she says, once my breathing is somewhat back to normal. “It does sound bad. But I have to remind you that fights do happen in grown-up relationships, so maybe it’s not as bad as you think.”
“I don’t think he slept at home last night. Or if he did, he left again really early this morning.”
Hannah bites her lip and hands me a wad of toilet paper so I can wipe the mascara under my eyes. “Yeah, that’s not good … Have you talked to Cammie yet? Or Jordan?”
I shake my head. I’ve been thinking about, and dreading, both of those conversations since last night. “Jordan asked me to come over after dinner last night but I said no. I haven’t heard from Cammie. I don’t even know if she knows what happened.”
“You should talk to her. To both of them.”
“I don’t know,” I say, because I’m afraid of what they’ll say.
The first bell rings and we exchange a glance.
“We can stay here if you need to,” Hannah offers.
I shake my head and unlock the stall door, pushing it open and going to check my makeup in the mirror before we go out to face the masses. My eyes are puffy and red, but otherwise it’s not terrible. Hannah digs some concealer out of her purse and blots it on me to cover up the mascara that I can’t quite wipe away.
Ryan is waiting for us outside the bathroom when we come out, and he wordlessly passes me the bag of cookies.
“Thanks,” I mumble.
“Everything okay?” he asks.
I shake my head. “Not really.”
“Sucks,” he says, patting my shoulder.
“Tell me about it.”
“Where’d Elliot go?” Hannah asks.
“He’s taking your stuff to first period.” Ryan hesitates for a second, then adds, “Cammie stopped by the table not long after you left. I’m assuming she has something to do with whatever happened, because she looked … mad.”
I blow out a breath and shove a cookie into my mouth. Great.
The three of us go to my locker so I can dump my backpack and get my books for first period. I’m trying to find my mini stapler when there’s a tap on my shoulder and I look over to see Cammie standing next to me.
“Hey,” I say cautiously.
“Hi. Want to tell me why my dad slept at Oscar’s last night?”
I take a step back at the sharpness of her tone and bang the back of my head into my locker door.
“Shit,” I say, reaching up to press on the back of my head. Eyes watering, I grab the door and slam it closed.
“You okay, Amb?” Hannah asks from behind me.
“Yeah,” I hiss, gritting my teeth in pain. I look back at Cammie, who is glowering now. “He and Mom had a fight.”
“About?”
I hesitate for a second. “The apartment stuff. He didn’t know we were gonna be looking at them.”
Her eyes narrow. “Whose idea were the apartments? Yours?”
“I mean, yeah, but—”
“God, I can’t believe you, Amber!” Cammie says, shaking her head. “My dad was so excited to do this for you. He said he wanted to make it fair, and at first I hated that because why does it need to be fair when you’re not his kid? But he said he wants us all to be family for a long time, and the more I thought about that, the more I—” She cuts herself off with a huff, eyes on the floor. “I thought it would be nice. And then you shit all over it.”
“I didn’t,” I blurt. “It’s just—”
But she’s backing away from me. “I don’t want to hear it.”
She turns and hurries off down the hall without another word, right as the warning bell rings.
A hand settles on my arm and I look over at Hannah and Ryan, who are both watching me with worried eyes.
“Bathroom?” Hannah asks.
“I can’t miss. If I get upset, I’ll blame it on my head.”
Hannah looks like she wants to argue, but Ryan cuts her off with a shake of his head. So she sighs and says, “I know that wasn’t a great conversation, but I think you should try talking to her again. Explain it all.”
“I don’t think she wants to hear it, Han.”
“Maybe not,” Hannah says, “but you know she needs to.” And with that, she links her arm through mine and walks me to class.
* * *
I still haven’t seen Jordan by lunchtime, and when the bell rings I’m so nervous about running into him and having him be just as angry as Cammie was this morning that I feel like I might throw up.
To avoid finding out, I linger in the hallway off the commons and send Hannah in to get my food, which she does with a deep sigh and a roll of her eyes that she doesn’t make much of an effort to hide. She’s barely been gone five minutes—so not long enough to make it through the à la carte line—when I hear her voice and two pairs of footsteps coming toward me.
“Look who I found,” she says, coming around the corner and gesturing to the person behind her.
Jordan.
“Hey,” I mumble, narrowing my eyes at Hannah.
“Hey,” Jordan says, his brow furrowed in worry.
Hannah shoots me a reassuring smile as Jordan comes around her and over to me. “I’ll leave you guys alone. Ryan’s getting your food, Amb, but I’ll put it in your locker if you don’t come in to lunch.”
“Thanks.” She goes and then I look at Jordan. He’s watching me carefully, studying my face, and I can’t tell if he’s talked to Cammie about my alleged mooching or not. So I blurt, “Have you talked to Cammie today?” and then immediately snap my mouth closed and stare at my feet.
“No. I did see Kevin leaving the Kleins’ house this morning in either sweats or pajamas though. You okay?”
“Oh. Yeah.” A lump rises in my throat, but I do my best to swallow it. “He and my mom had a fight. And Cammie hates me now, just FYI.”
“What?” Jordan asks, raising his eyebrows. He grabs hold of my hand and tugs me closer to him. “What are you talking about?”
I take a deep breath and open my mouth to tell him it’s nothing, to forget I even said that. But what comes out instead is … everything. Mom and Kevin’s fight, the rental house in Lawrence, and my encounter with Cammie this morning that could not have gone more wrong.
When I’m done, I hold my breath, waiting to see what he’ll say.
“That explains why I couldn’t find either one of you this morning,” he says finally. “I looked for you everywhere. But you’ve been avoiding me.”
“No,” I say, which is only partly untrue. He raises an eyebrow and I sigh. “Maybe a little. I just worried that…” I can’t finish the thought. It feels stupid to tell Jordan I worried he’d pick Cammie over me, even though it’s the truth.
“Yeah, I think Cam had the same idea.” He leans against the locker bay and reaches for me. I only hesitate for a second before I let him pull me close. He presses his lips to my hair and says, “You don’t have to worry about me. I’m not going anywhere. Okay?”
“Okay,” I agree, getting up on my tiptoes to kiss him. He kisses me back, reachi
ng both hands up to cup my face, and I grab onto him like a lifeline, glad that in the midst of all of this, I still have him.
At least for now.
* * *
After school I stop at home to pick up Buffy and then walk to Jordan’s house. We’ve kept up our Thursday night tradition even though Ms. Ulbrich has decided he no longer needs an official editor, and tonight I’m more grateful than ever for that. We eat dinner with his parents and play horse until my fingers are numb and then go inside to watch movies and steal kisses on his couch. I stay later than usual and somehow fall asleep with my head in his lap. I wake up to him gently shaking my shoulder and his parents smiling at us from across the living room.
“What time is it?” I ask, my voice thick and scratchy from sleep. Buffy’s on the floor at our feet, and she lifts her head when she hears me. I reach down to rub her nose, trying to gauge how long I was out.
“Almost ten,” his mom says, while Jordan brushes my hair out of my face.
“Oh shit,” I mutter, pushing myself upright even though all I want to do is burrow myself closer to Jordan and stay there as long as possible. “I’ve gotta go so I don’t miss curfew.”
“I’ll take you home,” Jordan says, shifting to the edge of the couch and reaching for his shoes.
We hold hands the whole drive, Jordan absently rubbing my knuckles with his thumb. But when we turn onto my street the circles stop and his grip on me tightens. And I know exactly why: Kevin’s car is in the driveway.
“Do you want me to come in with you?” Jordan asks as he pulls in and puts the Jeep into park.
I shake my head and take a deep breath. “It’s okay. They’re probably both asleep already and forgot about the lights.”
“You sure?” Jordan asks, and I nod. “Okay,” he says, leaning in to kiss me. “Text me if you need anything. No matter how late, okay?”
“Okay,” I promise, kissing him again and lingering for a long moment before I pull away.
The house is dark and still when Buffy and I slip inside, so I’m careful to keep quiet as we head upstairs. At the top of the landing, though, I stop short, because the door to the guest room is open and I can see from the hallway that one of the bedside lamps is turned on. I take a step closer and peer inside to find Kevin, still in his scrubs, putting a stack of folded khakis into the dresser.
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