Abi and the Boy Who Lied

by Kelsie Stelting

  I shook my head. Some habits never died.

  We got in her car and went to the community event center where tons of vendors had set up booths with everything from decorative knives to old paintings to ornate jewelry.

  I’d never been much of a shopping person—it just reminded me of all the money I didn’t have—but seeing all the treasures through Grandma’s eyes was fun.

  Every piece had a story. This painting was like the one that hung in her great-aunt’s dining room. That brooch reminded her of a bad substitute teacher. These leather moccasins were just like the ones she had as a kid, playing outside in the summer heat.

  We made it all the way down one row, and she bent over, hands on her knees.

  “Grandma, are you okay?” I asked.

  She nodded. “Just tired.”

  Worry filled my chest. Grandma never got tired like this. In fact, she had always outpaced me when we went on walks together. “Let’s go to the tables.”

  I wrapped my arm around her and helped her to the nearest table.

  She sat down, rubbing her brow. “That early morning must have been harder on me than I thought.”

  I wanted so badly for that to be it that I nodded and went along. “I can go get us some coffee from the concession stand?”

  She nodded. “And maybe a candy. My blood sugar might be low.”

  Grandma wasn’t a diabetic, but I nodded and got what she asked for.

  We sat and drank and ate until she got her energy back. We went back to browsing the stands, but more slowly this time, with less conversation. I had a feeling we both had plenty of thoughts going through our minds.

  Around five, she said, “Come on. Let’s get dinner.”

  We drove across town to one of her favorite restaurants. Just as we got seated, she stood back up and went to an older man I recognized from the Scollers’ New Year’s party.

  “Jorge,” she said. “I’m so glad you could come.”

  Chapter Fifty

  They sat on the same side of the booth, and I looked between the two of them, begging with my eyes for Grandma to tell me what on earth was going on.

  “I asked Jorge to come out to dinner with us,” Grandma said. “We’ve been seeing each other.”

  She said it like it was no big deal, but my eyes bugged out. “Seeing each other? Don’t you mean ‘going steady’?”

  Jorge laughed, deep and slow. “Are kids still saying that nowadays?”

  Grandma giggled, lighter and more carefree than I’d seen her since Grandpa died. “No. She’s teasing me.”

  I couldn’t help but smile. “So I was right?”

  She nodded.

  Being the third wheel on a surprise date with my grandma was awkward, but I was happy for her. I didn’t like the idea of her being alone. And Jorge seemed sweet. Especially when he did all the old-timey gentlemanly things like laying her napkin in her lap and taking the check without even asking.

  After dinner, he walked us out to Grandma’s car and opened the doors for both of us. He opened Grandma’s door last and bent to kiss her on the cheek. She smiled like a schoolgirl.

  He leaned over and grinned at me. “Thanks for sharing your grandmother with me. She’s quite a gal.”

  “I agree,” I said, a stupid grin on my own face.

  After he closed the door, I elbowed Grandma. “Did you hear that. You’re quite a gal.”

  She batted my arm away, hiding a smile. “Oh, stop it.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me you were going steady with someone?”

  “I thought this would be easier,” she said, buckling up. “I thought it might be hard to see me with someone other than your grandpa.”

  I shook my head and gave her my eyes, telling her I was serious. “I want you to be happy, Gram. Whatever makes you happy.”

  Her smile was conflicted. “Sometimes it’s not that simple. You mean more to me than any man ever will.”

  I reached over and hugged her across the console. “I’m so lucky to have you.”

  She hugged me back with one arm and kissed my cheek, no doubt leaving a red ring of lipstick behind. “Love you, sweetie.” She put her car in reverse and started backing out. “Now, tell me what you decided to do—or not do—with Jon.”

  I cringed. “Grandma, do you really want to talk about this with me?”

  She shrugged. “I need to know whether to take you to the women’s clinic or not.”

  “I think so.” Thankfully, she kept her eyes on the road so she couldn’t see how much I was panicking. “But how do I even know if I’m ready?”

  Her lips lifted on one side. “You’ll just know. And if you love Jon as much as I think you do, I’d rather you be safe than sorry.”

  Chapter Fifty-One

  My phone vibrated with a call from Stormy, and I picked it up.

  “Hey,” she said, “you left yet?”

  “Nope, getting gas now, though.”

  “Come by the restaurant. It’s dead as hell, and I want to say goodbye.”

  I wanted to have time to get back, take a shower and quick nap before seeing Jon, but I wanted to see Stormy too. There was never enough of me—or my time—anymore.

  “I’ll be there in a few.”

  Stormy was right about the restaurant being dead. The parking lot might as well have had tumbleweeds blowing around for how empty it was. I took a spot right up front and walked inside.

  Stormy leaned over the counter, her cheek in one hand and phone in the other. At the sound of the door opening, she perked up.

  “Thank God, Abi,” she said, walking toward me.

  “Bored?”

  “To death.” She hugged me, then waved for me to follow her. “What do you want to drink? Shirley Temple? Hot cocoa? Nothing is too nice—or free—for the godmother of my future child.”

  “Just tea with lemon,” I said. Then. “Wait. What? Godmother?”

  She gave me a nervous smile. “If you’re up for it?”

  I nodded so fast, a loose hair fell in my face and I had to brush it back. “I mean, of course, but are you sure? You don’t want Macy or Leanne to do it?”

  “No,” she said. “I want you to teach my child what it’s like to overcome the odds and fight for exactly what you want.” There was a ferocity in her eyes that told me this hadn’t been a spur-of-the-moment decision. She’d chosen me.

  There weren’t words to tell her how much that meant, so instead I hugged her tight.

  She sniffed slightly and turned toward the drink machine. “Iced tea it is.”

  That was Stormy. She said what needed to be said and didn’t dwell in the emotions of it all.

  I followed her on the opposite side of the counter like I had all summer and sat in one of the two-person tables. While I was here, there was one thing I could use her advice on…

  She walked over and set a sweating glass in front of me. “Any plans for tonight?”

  I shook my head and told her about Jon’s cousin.

  Sympathy transformed her features. “We need to send him a card or something. Can you get me his address?”

  I nodded, picked at my thumbnail.

  “How are you two doing?”

  A slight smile came to my lips. The lips that were permanently and forever Jon’s. “We’re doing good.”

  “Okay, you have to tell me. Have you two had sex yet?”

  My cheeks reddened as I shook my head. When would I become one of those girls who was cool about sex? Or would that just elude me forever?

  “Are you…saving it?”

  Saving it. Like sex was something I could stick in my bank account for a rainy day. More like a life-changing, relationship-changing decision that would follow me for all of forever.

  “No,” I said. “I’m not saving it. Actually…” I stalled and then pulled the slim pack of pills from my purse and showed them to her.

  Her eyes widened. “Seriously? Are you ready for that?”

  Grandma had said I would know. I knew about Jon
. That night spent lying side by side with him was enough to tell me I wanted to lie with him every single night for the rest of forever. How much better would it feel being even closer to Jon?

  “I love him so much,” I said.

  A frown touched her lips for a second. “I wish I would have waited for Frank. He said he didn’t mind that I wasn’t a virgin, but still…”

  “It’s now that matters, right? Besides”—I nodded toward her midsection—“you’re sharing something with him you’ve never shared with another guy.”

  Now she smiled. “That’s true.” She stalled. “So you’re okay that Jon’s not a virgin then?”

  I’d never been through an earthquake, but this had to be what one felt like. Like the ground that had once been steady was shaking underneath you, and you had no idea when it would stop or even how long it would last or what would get ruined in the process. What your life would look like after the ground had cracked and everything you held dear fell off the shelves and shattered.

  “What?” I managed.

  Her eyes went wide. “You didn’t know?”

  I could only get one word out. One name. “Denise?”

  Remorsefully, Stormy nodded.

  She shouldn’t have been apologetic. She wasn’t the one who had sex with Jon’s ex-girlfriend and kept it a secret. She was just the one who told me the heartbreaking news.

  Here I’d thought we were on level playing field. That when Jon’s mom talked about waiting until marriage it would be our marriage he’d be pretending to wait for.

  Why hadn’t he told me?

  How could I tell him I knew?

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Road hypnosis: when you’re driving and you go into a hypnotic state. Your brain goes on autopilot, getting you home safely without much conscious thought.

  I didn’t know how, but I made it back to Austin. To the college. To the crowded parking lot and up the stairs.

  Until I reached the dorm and found Anika on her bed, watching something on her laptop. Then my eyes latched onto a new note on my desk.

  I snapped back to reality. Back to my reality.

  Where the only person who put me first was the creep writing me letters and my problems were too big to tug people from their busy lives.

  She smiled at me, and I became the actress my abusive parents had trained me to be. I smiled back and said, “Hey, how was your weekend?”

  She popped out an earbud. “It was amazing. So needed. What about you?”

  “Same. It was good to see my friends.”

  “Did you get some time with Jon?”

  I frowned. “No, his cousin was in the hospital and died this weekend. It’s been really hard on him.”

  “Poor guy,” she said, her expression somber. “I’ll be praying for him, and I’ll give Kyle a head’s up.”

  “Thanks.” I tried to sound grateful, but honestly, I was just wiped. Whatever reserves I had left, I’d just used trying to pretend like everything was okay.

  “You look exhausted,” she said.

  I nodded, thankful for the out. “I am. I think I’m going to shower and get some sleep before he gets here.”

  “Sure,” she said and put her earbud back in. Conversation over.

  I grabbed a new outfit, my shower caddy, and a towel and went to the community showers. I’d forgotten my shower shoes, but at this point, I had bigger things to worry about.

  The hot water pounded against the yellowish tile, and I stepped underneath the stream. Showers used to relax me, but now the relentless water felt like just one more thing trying to drown me.

  Giving up, I twisted my wet hair into a ratty knot, shrugged on my outfit consisting of sweatpants and a T-shirt, and shuffled back to our room.

  Anika gave me a concerned look but didn’t pry.

  That made me like her even more.

  I dropped my shower caddy on my desk, letting droplets spill onto the unopened letter, and climbed into my bed. Once I’d curled under the covers, I closed my eyes and let sleep utterly and totally consume me.

  When I woke up, it was two in the morning, and Jon was lying in the bed with me.

  He had his arm draped over my side and his legs curled against mine. It should have felt amazing, but instead I felt trapped. He was a stranger now.

  I lifted my head up to see Anika’s bed empty. She and Jon must have switched.

  I looked down at Jon, his smooth skin and rough five o’clock shadow. The even planes of his face that seemed so relaxed in sleep.

  But even that couldn’t distract me from seeing all the ways Denise had loved him. All the ways I hadn’t. Her hands had brushed his jawline. Her lips had pressed against his. Her body had moved against his, in the most intimate of ways.

  I had to get off the bed. Had to get away from him and from the ghost of her.

  So I did. I climbed down the ladder, careful not to wake him, and stuffed my hand in my mouth to keep my sobs from leaking out.

  How had we gotten here? How had Jon gone from the love of my life to the love of someone else’s?

  The stress and worry of it all crushed down on me. So hard I couldn’t imagine having room for me and my worry and Jon in an extra-long twin.

  Instead, I got into Anika’s bed. Slept under her comforter. Because whether I was sleeping underneath her unfamiliar bedding or sleeping in my bed next to Jon, I’d be lying with the unknown.

  “Abi.” Jon’s husky morning voice woke me.

  I blinked my eyes open to see him standing next to the bed.

  Our room looked different. Backwards. And then I realized I hadn’t slept through a nightmare; I’d woken up to one.

  “What are you doing in Anika’s bed?” he asked. His green eyes were worried, pale in the wan morning light.

  I shook my head and answered honestly. “I don’t know.”

  “Can you come back to your bed?” He gripped his other arm, and before he looked down, I recognized the look on his face. Fear. Insecurity. Hurt.

  I’d put that there. The death of his cousin had put that there. And I couldn’t add any more pressure, whether he’d kept secrets from me or not.

  I had my fair share of skeletons too. I had to live with mine. And his.

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  I barely made it to practice the next day. Barely survived it, too.

  A deep weariness had settled into my bones. Made it hard to do anything other than go to class and practice and sleep. Jon was so lost in his own grief, he didn’t seem to notice.

  He threw himself into his studies. Into his classes. When he had time, he came to my room. He slept in my bed a lot, but we didn’t fool around or even share more than quick, chaste kisses.

  I had a feeling he just needed me there, which was good, because that was about all I could do.

  At our latest track practice, Nikki had had enough.

  “What is going on with you?” she demanded in the locker room, staring up at me with her hands on her hips. Which I was just tired enough to find funny since I was a good eight inches taller than her.

  I turned away to hide my ludicrous smile and got my shirt out of my locker. “I don’t know.”

  She grabbed my wrist and turned me back to her. “Seriously. I’m worried. I never see you in the cafeteria. You’re dragging in practice. You have circles under your eyes the size of frisbees. What is going on? Is it about the letters?”

  “Shh!” I said, looking around the locker room. No one seemed to have heard us or cared, but I still talked in a hushed tone. “It’s not about any of that. My boyfriend’s cousin died, and it’s hard. And my profs are burying me in homework. I miss my grandma, and my friends, and...it’s hard!” I cried, letting all my frustration out on her.

  She blinked. “Oh.”

  “Yeah, oh.” I threw my shirt back in my locker and slammed the door shut. “Thanks for the ‘concern.’” I shoved past her.

  I knew I was being unreasonable. That she was just being a good friend and looking out f
or me. But that was the thing. I didn’t need anyone looking out for me. I’d dealt just fine on my own for my entire life. The last thing I needed was another mom. I had one, and she was Satan incarnate.

  Instead of going to dinner like I usually did, I went straight to my dorm and poured all of my frustrations into my homework. I wouldn’t let my grades slip. Or my athletics. They were all I had left.

  Every time I looked at Jon, I saw the secret. If we ever had sex, he would just realize how much better he could do, and that would be it. There was no winning. Not in my life.

  I went to bed after finishing my homework since we had practice at five the next morning. Both of the distance teams were finally going out of town and doing a huge loop Jon had shown me before school started.

  The next morning, when I got to the parking lot where everyone was piling into university vans, I caught sight of Jon.

  He walked over to me. “I was going to walk with you, but I couldn’t get ahold of you last night. Are you okay?”

  I rubbed at my tired eyes. “Just exhausted. Whose idea was it to get up this early?”

  Coach Cadence cleared her throat. “That would be mine. In the vans, Johnson, Scoller.”

  We did as told and went to our separate vans. I got a seat by the window and sat quietly while the cityscape turned to country. There weren’t any obvious markers, but Coach Cadence drove like she’d been here a million times before.

  She parked alongside the road, and we got out of the van, congregating in the middle of a dirt road. Even though it was before six in the morning, the sun was hot.

  I wondered when the fall chill would take over, because I was already sweating. I peeled off my sweater and tossed it back in the van.

  “Line up here,” Coach Cadence ordered.

  I stood at the imaginary line with the other girls. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught sight of Jon with his teammates. Grieving Jon was gone and had been replaced with the determined athlete I’d watched and run alongside in high school.