“Come here,” I tell him, motioning him inside.
It’s endearing the way color floods his pale cheeks as he glances all around, scouring the parking lot to see if the coast is clear before he settles into the back seat beside me, pulling the door shut behind him. It cuts off the faint thumping of music from the dance so that we’re left in complete silence, just Jaden and I.
“I should point out that this is my grandparents’ car,” he mumbles nervously, glancing back and forth between me and the headrest in front of him while fidgeting with his hands, “so this could be weird, but I’m down with being disrespectful.”
A laugh escapes my lips and I can’t stop myself even as Jaden stares at me in confusion. He really is such a sweet, charming guy and I can’t believe I almost threw away my chance with him last summer. I’m so happy to be here now with him. “We’re not going to do anything disrespectful, Jaden,” I manage to tell him through my fit of laughter.
Immediately, Jaden realizes his mistake and begins to laugh too, embarrassed. He reaches up to pull off his bow tie and open the top few buttons of his shirt, then angles his body toward me. “Ever?” he teases.
“Not here,” I correct, playing along with him. I lean forward and briefly press my lips to his, then sit back again to look at him fully. “Can I be upfront with you?” I ask, adopting a more serious tone rather than playful. I need to tell Jaden something. I don’t like keeping secrets unless I absolutely must and if I want to say something, I’ll say it. I like to think of myself as being rather straightforward, yet so far with Jaden, I’ve been anything but straightforward. I still haven’t told him the full truth as to why I avoided him for so long, but starting now, I want to be completely open and honest with him, because like he said last night, we don’t know when our time will run out.
Jaden dramatically pretends to get comfortable, sitting up straight and giving me a nod. “Yes. Be upfront. If I’m a bad kisser, tell me. I will gladly let you teach me.”
I roll my eyes at him and then exhale, allowing enough time to pass for him to realize I’m not about to joke around with him, that I’m trying to be sincere. When he finally wipes the grin off his face, I tell him, “I really liked you last year,” though I’m pretty sure he already knew that. We spent a lot of time together last summer. We knew we liked one another. Everyone knew; everyone could see it. But a lot of time has passed, so I feel as though some clarification is needed, which is why I reach for Jaden’s hand and trace the lines on his palm with the tip of my index finger and say, “And I really like you now.”
Jaden closes his hand around mine and edges across the back seat toward me. His smile is small but crooked as our eyes meet. His are smoldering and the blue within them is electric and beautiful, striking and enchanting. He leans forward and brings his lips to the corner of my mouth. “Well, Kenz, isn’t it a coincidence that I really like you too?” he whispers, and before he can close the distance between us, I reach for his jaw and press my lips to his first.
21
As I stand on Holden’s porch, I’m nervously twisting my hair around my index finger while I wait for someone to open the door. It’s Tuesday evening and I’ve just got off work. It’s just after 10PM and I know Will was coming over to hang out, so I drove straight here as soon as my shift ended. Holden hasn’t spoken to me since the homecoming dance on Saturday, all because of our disagreement over the Hunters, and Will has been stuck in the middle, awkwardly tiptoeing around the two of us, trying to remain neutral. Although it’s Holden’s fault for overreacting over nothing, I can’t bear not talking to him. Being around the Hunters again really isn’t a big deal, but he is making it one.
“Kenzie!” Holden’s mom, Mel, says cheerfully when she swings open the front door. Even though it’s late, she doesn’t seem to mind me showing up at her house. “They’re upstairs,” she tells me, stepping back and opening the door wider to allow me inside. “Just head on up!”
“Thanks.” I quickly kick off my shoes in the hall and make my way upstairs. I’m determined to clear the air and I’m not leaving until I have. It will be impossible to hang out with Jaden and Dani if Holden is going to become grouchy every time that we do.
I can hear cursing from Holden’s room before I’ve even reached it, from both him and Will. I stand outside the door for a minute, breathing deeply and mentally preparing myself in case Holden decides to argue with me over the matter, and then I push open the door. Holden’s room is rather cramped and messy. There’s not a lot of space in here, and there’s a lot of trash and dirty clothes scattered all over the floor. He and Will are glued to the small TV screen with PlayStation 4 controllers in their hands and their backs to me. Will is perched on the adjustable computer chair, while Holden is sitting on the edge of his bed. Neither of them seem to hear me enter.
“So this is how you guys hang out when I’m not here,” I say loudly, causing them both to flinch.
Holden scowls as he pauses the game and throws the controller down onto the floor in frustration at the interruption. “Kenzie,” he says, rising to his feet, “What are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be at work?”
“I just got off,” I tell him, stepping further into the room. I exchange glances with Will, but he keeps his mouth shut as he sinks down in the chair. It’s so typical of him not to get involved, even though I know he is on my side. “So I thought I’d drop by and see if there’s anything I can do that’ll help you learn how to be nice to Jaden and Dani.” I fix Holden with a firm, challenging look and cock my head to one side.
Holden releases a long sigh and closes his eyes, rubbing at his temple. “Not this again,” he mumbles. He knows I’m here to confront him and exasperation is written all over his face, but I just don’t want him acting out again the next time we are around the Hunters.
“Yes, Holden, this again,” I tell him, folding my arms across my chest. I don’t raise my voice, but I do keep my tone firm. I’m not going to back down on this. “What is your problem with the Hunters? I know it can be hard figuring out what to say around them, but c’mon.”
Holden groans under his breath. “Can’t you just let it go?”
“Let it go?” I repeat, blinking at him in disbelief. “Will,” I snap, firing my eyes over to him. “Who’s wrong here?”
Will swings awkwardly back and forth on the computer chair, clearly uncomfortable from the pressure I’m putting him under. He thinks for a moment while Holden and I stare at him expectantly. Finally, Will shrugs and sits up. “You are taking this a little too far, Holden,” he says quietly. “So what if we talk to the Hunters? I don’t see why there’s a problem.”
“Okay, fine! Fine,” Holden snaps. He shakes his head and then heaves a sigh, collapsing back down onto the corner of his bed, staring at the floor in defeat. His nostrils are still flaring in anger. “It’s awkward, but fuck it, I’ll just deal with it.”
“Now was that so hard?” I ask with a small smile, but Holden completely ignores me. I know he’s uncomfortable around Jaden and Dani, but he’ll ease up the more he’s around them, I’m sure. He’s pissed off at Will and me ganging up on him, so I sit down on the bed next to him and playfully wrap my arms around his lean body. I bury my face into his chest and forcefully hug him. Even though he doesn’t reciprocate, he doesn’t push me off, either. He’ll come around soon, but for now, I’ll take what I can get.
“Since you guys are friends again,” Will says, sitting forward in the chair and dangling the game controller from his fingertips, “you’ll both be at the party I’m throwing next month, right?”
“You’re throwing another party?” I ask. I remain wrapped around Holden, refusing to move. “Didn’t someone smash a mirror last year?”
“Yes,” Will says, rolling his eyes. “But it was only a cheap one. Mom hated it, anyway. Dad’s out of town again on the fifteenth, so she says I can throw another party if I want to.” He pauses only to give us a devilish grin. “And I sure as hell want to,” he say
s. “Invite whoever you want.”
“We can still drink, right?” Holden mutters. He’s still being grouchy, though I can tell by the curious glances he gives Will that the thought of a party has piqued his interest. He just doesn’t want to show it.
“Yeah,” Will says with a laugh. “Just don’t go throwing up in my back yard or anything. Now can we get back to the game?” He waves the controller at the TV screen and pulls a face at Holden, urging him to unpause it. “Two players max, sorry, Kenzie. You can watch.”
“That’s okay,” I say, finally releasing my grip on Holden and standing up. In one final attempt to lighten the mood, I squeeze his shoulder. “I’m not staying. I have homework.”
“Sucks to be you,” Will says. “See you at school.”
As I head to the door, Holden grabs his controller from the floor again and unpauses the game. He doesn’t acknowledge the fact that I’m leaving, but I don’t worry too much about it, because at least Will gives me a quick wave over his shoulder before he tunes in to the game.
My house is only a five-minute drive from Holden’s place, so I’m pulling into my quiet cul-de-sac in no time at all, though I find it odd that the house is in complete darkness. There’s not a single light on, not even the porch light, which is unusual given that the porch light is always left on for me coming home late from work. I pull up by the sidewalk and turn off the engine, puzzled. As far as I’m aware, Mom wasn’t supposed to be going anywhere tonight. There’s a possibility Dad may have been called out on an emergency plumbing job, but there’s no reason why Mom shouldn’t be here.
Stepping out of the car, I sprint up to the porch, fumbling around in my bag for my keys. There’s a sense of worry at the back of my mind. I jam my keys into the lock, but for some reason they don’t end up working. I grab the door handle and shake it around, then try again. It takes me a few seconds of frantic struggling before I realize that the reason my keys aren’t turning in the lock is because the door is already unlocked. So someone is home.
Holding my breath, I slowly push the door open and peer around the frame into the darkness of the house. My eyes take a minute to adjust while I silently step inside. The house feels eerie in the cold, quiet stillness that surrounds me. There’s the distant dripping of our leaky faucet echoing down the hall from the kitchen, but I hardly even notice it, because my attention is drawn to Mom.
She’s sitting on the bottom of the stairs, still and unmoving, her knees hugged to her chest. Loose strands of dark hair frame her face, the rest clipped back, and her strong features don’t look the way they usually do. Her lips seem thin and frail, her cheeks more hollowed. What really, truly terrifies me is the lost, broken look in her dark eyes as she stares aimlessly at the small, pink frame she’s clutching in her hands: a look of complete and utter devastation, her still gaze raw with hurt. On the floor beside her, a glass of wine that’s full. Next to it, a bottle that’s almost empty. In front of her, the name of the child she lost.
There’s a lump in my dry throat that I painfully swallow as I take a tiny, cautious step forward. “Mom?”
“She would have been four today,” Mom whispers, her voice cracking with pain. Her eyes don’t move from Grace’s frame and she seems entirely disconnected from reality as she lifts the glass of wine to her lips, taking a long sip. She swallows and lowers the glass again, but as soon as she does, her bottom lip begins to quiver. “What would she have liked for her party?” she asks into the silence while I listen. “What kind of cake would she have liked? What kind of ice cream would she have wanted there to be?” As she asks the questions we both know we will never know the answers to, her pained eyes well up and a single tear breaks free, rolling down her cheek and dripping off her chin. And then another, and another. “Would she have liked chocolate like you? Or vanilla like your dad?”
“Mom,” I murmur, trying to soothe her, but my voice sounds almost as broken as hers. I can’t bear to see her like this: this low and this heartbroken when there is nothing in this world that anyone can do to fix it. My cheeks grow wet as I try to wipe away my own tears. I step closer to Mom and lower myself down onto the stairs next to her. A wave of sickness hits me when I glance over to Grace’s name and it stares straight back at us.
Mom’s right. My baby sister would have no longer been a baby by now. Today, she would have been four years old. She would have been learning new things in preschool. She would have developed her own interesting little quirks by now that we would have adored.
Mom and Dad had always thought of Grace as a miracle. After years of complications, they never thought they’d be able to have a second child, and so they settled with having just one. Just me. But their hopes were raised back when I was thirteen, when they sat me down in the living room one evening with big, beautiful grins on their faces and delivered the news they’d always dreamed of sharing: I was going to have a sibling, and we were going to be a happy family of four. We were so excited back then. I would press my hands to Mom’s stomach and feel the baby’s kicking feet, and Dad would sing along to the radio while cleaning out the spare room upstairs in order to convert it into a nursery, and Mom would buy tiny pink little outfits to fill the new chest of drawers they’d bought.
It’s been four years, but we still don’t know why we lost Grace. She was healthy, yet she didn’t make it. Many stillbirths are often unexplainable, and unfortunately, we were never given a reason. The doctors could only tell us how sorry they were, that they couldn’t determine the cause, and I think not having a reason is why it’s been so hard to move on after all this time. Mom has nothing to pin the blame on other than herself.
“Four years old,” Mom whispers, shaking her head slowly, tears still rolling down her cheeks. She is refusing to tear her eyes away from the frame despite the pain it’s putting her through. “We were supposed to have two beautiful girls,” she murmurs, and then she finally seems to crack as she breaks out into a sob, her emotions pouring out of her. She drops her gaze and presses her hand to her mouth, trying to muffle her own wails. “Two,” she weeps, and I’m sobbing along with her as I shift closer, reaching for the glass in her shaking hand, prying it from her stiff fingers. I set it down on the floor of the hall and then turn back to my mother, wrapping my arms tightly around her trembling body. Her eyes are squeezed shut and an endless flow of tears cascades down her cheeks. She collapses against me in overwhelming defeat and I hold her as tightly as I can as she buries her face into my polo shirt, soaking the material.
Suddenly, the front door is pushed open and I glance up through blurred vision, only to see Dad stepping into the house, worn out, hands dirty from work. Mom is still sobbing and so am I, and Dad looks down at us in both fear and concern. He glances sideways at Grace’s frame, and when his eyes meet mine again, his own expression breaks into one of heartache. Dumping his tools on the floor, Dad falls to his knees in front of Mom and me and immediately pulls us both into the safety and reassurance of his strong arms. He clings onto us both so tightly, and I squeeze him back even harder, desperate for him to do something, to make this all better so that we don’t have to go through pain like this ever again.
But there is nothing Dad can do to make it all stop. He doesn’t know how, the same way I don’t, the same way Mom doesn’t. We are broken, and no one knows how to fix us.
22
I’m riding shotgun in Will’s Jeep on the drive home from school on Thursday, just the two of us because Holden has football practice, when my phone vibrates in the back pocket of my jeans. I tune out of Will’s rant about how much of an asshole his Biology teacher is and fish my phone out of my pocket, glancing down at the lit-up message displayed on my screen. It’s from Jaden, and although the message is rather blunt and vague, my heart does skip a beat or two when I read the words he’s written.
Meet me at the lake at five. Same spot as last time.
Jaden and I had no plans together tonight, but luckily I don’t happen to be slotted in for a shift at The Su
mmit, so I’m free and more than willing to spend time with him, even if I don’t know what exactly he has in mind. I like the demanding tone to the message, however. I like that it’s not a question. I like that he knows I’ll be there. We haven’t seen each other outside of the school walls since last weekend, so I’m more than desperate to hang out with him anywhere other than by my locker for once.
“What are you smiling about?” Will asks, eyeing me suspiciously. He moves one hand from the steering wheel to lower the radio and then teasingly wiggles his eyebrows at me. “Talking to your boyfriend?”
I roll my eyes at him and look back down at my phone, quickly typing a reply. “He’s not my boyfriend,” I say. At the same time, I hit send, letting Jaden know that I’ll definitely be there.
“Whatever you say,” Will continues to tease, and then as he pulls into my cul-de-sac, he adds, “Are you inviting him to my party?”
I slip my phone back into my pocket and straighten up in the passenger seat as my house comes into view. I grab my bag from the floor and pull it onto my lap, then release my seatbelt and get ready to jump out, my hand resting on the door handle. I look over at Will and nod. “Yeah, if it’s okay with you.”
“Why wouldn’t it be?” he asks. Pulling up outside my house, he unlocks the doors and tilts his head to look at me, hair flopping into his eyes. He should really get his hair cut. “You know me, I go with the flow. Invite Dani too. She’s nice and she could use it.”
“Sure thing,” I say. I was planning on inviting Dani, anyway. She most likely won’t come, but at least the offer will be there. “Catch you later!” I tell Will as I slide out of the Jeep and slam the door shut behind me. He doesn’t wait around for me to get inside my house, and within a matter of seconds, he’s gone.
Swinging my bag onto my shoulder, I run across my lawn and onto my porch. Mom and Dad are both at work, so I have the house to myself, though I hardly notice that they’re not here. They’ve been so quiet this week. Last night, I found Dad sitting at the kitchen table in silence, staring at a cut on his palm for almost an hour. He didn’t hear me when I asked him if he wanted coffee. Yesterday morning, Mom skipped work and was still wrapped up in bed with water and painkillers on the bedside table when I got home from school. She was ill, she told me. But I knew better: She’d drunk her way through three full bottles of wine the night before.
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