With a nod, Izzy did as she was told, taking her time on Easton’s cone, rolling it in the sprinkles. She crossed the floor and held it out to Easton.
“Look at that,” Tara said. “Gay sprinkles on your lesbian ice cream cone from your lesbian admirer. Easton, you are so lucky!” She drew out the last two words with over-the-top exuberance.
Easton took the cone, and Izzy was pretty sure she winked at her. Izzy’s stomach rolled over and she cast her eyes down, tried to swallow the shame that came every time she was in the same room with Easton.
Stacy set the sundaes down on the counter, rang up the total, and stared at Tara as she paid. When the transaction was complete, she kept her voice low as she said, “You know, we’re all-inclusive here. Everybody is welcome. Everybody is treated with kindness and respect. Our customers expect it of us and we expect it of our customers. If you can’t manage to keep your obnoxious comments to yourself, maybe you don’t need to come back.”
Izzy was torn between acute embarrassment and indescribable gratitude as her six classmates shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot and muttered half-hearted apologies. All except Tara, whose expression was a cross between anger and humiliation.
“My father has a lot of power in this town,” she said to Stacy, though the crack in her voice took away a lot of the venom. “I’ll have him talk to the owner. He could shut this place right down, just like that.” She snapped her fingers for effect.
Stacy, God bless her, rolled her eyes dramatically. “Well, you send him right over, okay? I’ll be sure to let him know what a good job his daughter’s doing keeping up the family’s good name by making homophobic comments in a place of business.” She pulled a business card out of her pocket and set it on the counter with a snap. “My name is Stacy Bruner. Have him ask for me. I own this place.” She and Tara held gazes for what felt like a lifetime to Izzy before Tara finally backed down.
“Come on, you guys,” she said in a huff, and stormed out the door. Noah was right behind her, but the other four sort of shuffled their feet, taking their time.
“Sorry,” Kayla said, her nose wrinkled, then pushed her way out.
The other three followed, Easton taking a last glance behind her, making eye contact with Izzy that Izzy couldn’t read for sure. Didn’t matter. She wished she never had to see any of them again.
“You okay?” Stacy asked once the door had closed and the six were gone. Her voice tugged Izzy back to the present.
“Yeah. I’m fine.”
“You don’t have to take that, you know. You just call me up front. I’ll handle it.”
“Okay.” Izzy grabbed a wet cloth, wiped down the counter where a few stray sprinkles were hanging out. She needed something to do.
“Hey, Iz?” Stacy’s voice was soft. Kind. When Izzy looked at her, she said, “You’re fine just the way you are. You know that, right?”
Izzy shrugged, then went around the counter to the area with the tables, needing to get away from Stacy and any talk of anything about her. There were less than three months left in the school year. It couldn’t come fast enough for Izzy. She was going to grab her diploma, leave this awful town, and never look back.
And hopefully, she’d erase Tara Carlson and Connor Douglas and, most of all, Easton Evans from her life. Completely. She didn’t want to see her ever, ever again.
Not ever.
***
Doing okay today?
The text had apparently become Heather’s standard daily check-in. Sometimes it came more than once a day. First thing in the morning, always. Then sometimes not until noon. Sometimes toward the end of the workday. And sometimes, all three. Monday, Tuesday, and now today, Bella had been checked on by text, by phone call, by email. And while she rolled her eyes and pretended to be annoyed by the poking, deep down, she was incredibly grateful for her friends. She texted back that yes, she was doing better.
Bella was doing better. Jonas’s services on Monday had been hard. Emotional. His ex-girlfriend, the one who was now engaged to somebody else, was there, much to the dismay of Jonas’s mother, if facial expressions were any indication. But the ex looked heartbroken, and Bella felt for her. While she wasn’t the cause of Jonas’s suicide—it was nobody’s fault—she most likely felt that she was and would carry that with her for a long, long time. Bella didn’t go to the actual funeral, only the wake, and she stayed in the back, not going through the reception line or up to the casket. Frankly, she wasn’t sure how Jonas’s mom would feel about her being there either, so she stood along the back wall and silently paid her respects to the client she’d known but couldn’t reach. After half an hour, she headed to her office and threw herself into paperwork in the hopes of focusing on something else.
Gradually, things would get back to normal. She knew that in her head. It was going to take her heart a while to catch up.
But today was Wednesday. And Wednesday had a bright spot. A very, very bright spot. Today she would see Easton for the first time since Friday night. For the first time since they’d slept together. Bella was both excited and nervous. They’d done some texting since then, but Bella had sort of kept a bit of a distance. She didn’t want to mix Easton in further with the sorrow she felt over Jonas, and she was pretty sure Easton had understood that. She’d kept in touch but hadn’t pushed, and when she asked about tonight, Bella’s heart soared. Seeing that gorgeous face was just what she needed right now.
It was a little after six and much of the building had cleared out for the evening, as usual. Bella was back after feeding Lucy and Ethel, and waved to the receptionist who worked until seven on Wednesdays so she could point people in evening classes and sessions toward where they needed to go. Before heading to the classroom, Bella had a few things to drop in her office, so she headed there, the proverbial spring in her step as she walked. Yeah, okay, she was really excited to see Easton. She was also a bit jittery, as she knew they needed to talk. Things had gone kind of sideways on Friday and nothing had gone as Bella had planned. It was time to fix that, to lay everything out on the table. It was well past time, and Bella was acutely aware of that, needed to prepare herself for the possibility that Easton might be upset when she found out what Bella had kept from her. But they’d talk and work through it, she was sure.
She’d just sat down at her desk and pulled a drawer open when she heard the very rapid click, click, click of heels coming down the hallway. Somebody walking very quickly. When she glanced up, she was surprised to see Easton walk right into her office and stop next to her desk. Bella had no time to be happy about her presence, though, because this wasn’t the Easton she was expecting. This Easton was different. Still dressed in work clothes, still gorgeous, but different. Tense. Serious. Angry? Bella had never seen her angry, but it was pretty obvious by the way her dark brows formed a V above her nose and by the flashing of those blue eyes, usually the color of the ocean, but somehow seeming cooler, icy now.
“Easton. Hi.” Bella felt her own brow furrow. “Are you okay?”
Easton looked at her for a moment, tilted her head slightly to one side, squinted a bit.
Bella’s stomach churned. “What is it?” she asked quietly. “Tell me.”
“Maybe you should tell me,” Easton said, her voice equally quiet, but intense. Sharp.
It was Bella’s turn to cock her head. “Tell you what?”
Easton reached into the messenger bag that dangled from her shoulder and pulled out something that made Bella’s blood run cold. A lump formed in Bella’s throat, and try as she might, she couldn’t swallow it down. Easton opened a yearbook and set it on the desk in front of Bella. Her finger tapped a photograph, one Bella knew well because it was framed and hanging in her parents’ house.
“Is that you?” Easton asked, her voice barely a whisper.
Bella suddenly understood what it felt like when somebody said the floor dropped out from under them. That was how she felt. She sucked in air very slowly, swallowed again, and scratched at he
r eyebrow. Without looking up, she nodded in slow motion and said, “Yeah,” drawing the word out.
At Easton’s small whimper, Bella did look up. Easton took a step back. “All this time?” she asked, and now it wasn’t just anger, it was pain on her face. “All this time I talked about my hometown and my high school and, God, the things I thought about then. My secrets. And all this time, you knew you’d been right there in the same school? In the same classes? You knew me, and you never said anything? You never said anything.” She enunciated the last line, accenting each word.
Bella’s head was a mess. So many things. So many thoughts and feelings. All at once. All flying around like leaves on a windy fall day. She felt awful. She felt guilty. She should’ve said something sooner. She knew that. God, everybody knew that. She could picture Amy’s I told you so expression in her head. “I meant to tell you,” she began, her voice embarrassingly feeble. “I was going to on Friday—”
“On Friday?” Easton’s eyes went wide. “We’d been talking, going for coffee, for weeks before that. Weeks.”
“I know.” Bella swallowed, clasped her hands together to keep them from shaking, wondered how she hadn’t predicted it might be this bad.
“Why did you wait so long, Bella? Or should I call you Isabella?” Easton didn’t quite sneer her full name, but she didn’t say it with any kindness, and the sarcasm that colored the word wormed under Bella’s skin, lit a spark there that grew to a flame alarmingly fast and ignited the pain and anger from old wounds she thought she’d rid herself of for good.
“No, you know what? Why don’t you call me Dizzy the Runt? Or better yet, Izzy the Cunt? That’s the name you guys were most fond of. Or don’t you remember?”
Easton’s face went white with shock. With what looked like realization.
And in that moment, it hit Bella. “You don’t remember, do you?”
“Oh, my God.” Easton brought a trembling hand to her lips. “Oh, my God…” She shook her head slowly back and forth. “Bella.”
“You and your friends made my life a living hell, Easton. How is it possible you don’t even remember? The names you guys called me. The horrible bullying over my sexuality—which I wasn’t even sure of at that point. I was so confused.” Bella’s voice dropped to a whisper. “The teasing you did, winking at me, blowing kisses, mocking me. How can you not remember?” Bella should be angry. She knew she should. But it vanished just as quickly as it had appeared. And just like that, she wasn’t angry anymore. She was sad. Deflated. And for the first time in more than ten years, she felt every bit like that poor, confused high school version of herself. She propped her elbows on her desk and dropped her head, digging her fingers into her hair. “It figures,” she muttered. When she looked up, Easton was gazing off into the empty office.
“Was this, like…revenge for you?” She brought her focus back to Bella, but her eyes didn’t flash anymore. They were just…defeated and wet, her voice barely a whisper. “Getting to know me? Having dinner with me?” She paused, and Bella heard her swallow. “Sleeping with me?”
“What?” Bella looked at her in shocked disbelief, insulted. “No! God, no. You kind of need somebody to know all the facts in order for revenge to work. Yes, I knew who you were immediately, but it became pretty clear that you didn’t recognize me, so I was happy to leave it that way.”
“Why?”
“I—” Bella started to answer. She wanted to answer. But the truth was, she didn’t really have an answer. It was true that, at first, she’d have been perfectly fine to never reveal their common background to Easton. She’d have been totally happy for them never to connect on any level other than a professional one. But then… “I don’t know,” she finally said, her own irritation obvious in her tone. “I liked you.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah, oh. In my defense, I didn’t want to. And I didn’t expect to. And I would rather not have.”
“I see.”
It stung. Bella could tell by the quick flash of pain that zapped across Easton’s face as she looked around the office, cleared her throat.
“I didn’t recognize you. Like, at all.”
Bella snorted as she waved a hand over Easton’s form. “Yeah, well, not all of us are born looking like you. Some of us take a while to get comfortable in our own skin. I’ve changed a lot, physically. I did a lot of hiding in high school, trying not to be seen by your crew. Took me years to realize I didn’t have to do that.”
“And you changed your name.”
“Sort of, yeah. I didn’t want to be Izzy ever again. I grew to hate her. She was weak and pathetic. Bella is a different person entirely. I knew you had no idea who I was.”
“And you thought never telling me was the best idea?” Easton held her arms out from her sides.
“I wasn’t sure how, Easton. I didn’t plan any of this. It just sort of…happened this way. What would you suggest I say? ‘Hi, remember me? I was the poorly dressed chick in high school with a major crush on you that you and your friends bullied and teased relentlessly until I was able to graduate and run as far and as fast as I could from you. Nice to see you again!’ Would that have been the best way to approach it?”
Again, she’d stung Easton. She could see it on her face. Her mouth opened, as if she was about to say something, then she closed it again and cast her eyes downward. She said nothing, words seeming to have left her.
Bella glanced at her watch, grimaced. “Damn it,” she muttered. To Easton, she said, “Listen, it’s almost seven.” She was in no mood to teach tonight. Not even close. But she had no choice. “I have to get ready.”
“Sure.” Easton gave a nod, turned, and slowly left Bella’s office.
The yearbook was still open on Bella’s desk and she almost called to Easton to come back and get it, but honestly, she needed a minute alone to collect herself. To catch her breath. To figure out how not to burst into tears. There was an ache in her chest now and she didn’t know how to deal with it. She and Easton had something. Had had something. But she’d let it slip through her fingers because she was too afraid of facing her past.
She closed the yearbook quietly, not wanting to look at poor Dizzy the Runt any longer. She’d been banished, and Bella had no desire to bring her back. She’d worked too hard and too long tucking her away in a tiny box and putting her on a high, high shelf in her brain. The cruel twist of fate—that even after seeing her face in the yearbook, Easton still hadn’t remembered Izzy—seemed fitting. Izzy was going to stay in her box. Bella had no intention of ever bringing her out again.
Except that maybe she needed to.
Chapter Twenty-one
“Hi, sweetie, how was school today?” Easton was curled on the couch, her feet tucked under a blanket, looking much more like a person weathering an icy winter than somebody in her house on a warm June evening, the daylight still hanging on even as it was after 8:00.
For the next twenty minutes, phone pressed to her ear, she listened as Emma told her every intricate detail of her day, few of which had anything to do with learning. Easton couldn’t help but smile at her daughter’s exuberance, as well as the impressive speed of her words as she went on and on. The list of important things in life was so enormously different to a child than to an adult, and Emma was no exception. Things that warranted a lot of her seven-year-old attention included the odd texture of cafeteria pizza, Archie the class turtle who went home with a different kid each weekend, and her friend Jessie’s super-curly hair. “How can I get mine like that, Mama?” She didn’t really wait for any answers before moving on to the next topic, which was her upcoming sleepover Saturday night. Her first.
“Okay,” Easton said, finally about to get a word in. “Time for you to get washed up and ready for bed. Let me talk to Daddy and then I’ll come back and say good night.”
“Wow,” Connor said, when he was able to get on the line at last. “Are your ears bleeding?”
“My God, our child can talk,” Easton said, wi
th a chuckle.
“She’s ridiculously excited about the sleepover. Can’t stop talking about it. I’m gonna let her sleep in on Sunday, since I doubt five seven-year-old girls will get much sleep when they’re all together. So, I’ll let you know when she’s ready for you to pick her up.” There was a short pause as he grunted in exhalation and Easton assumed he’d sat down. “So, hi. What’s new?”
His voice was a relief in her ear, and Easton still marveled at how they’d managed to keep their friendship intact, despite their split. Connor knew her better than anybody else, and when she was feeling uncertain or confused or frightened, and her grandfather wasn’t available, he made a great sounding board and gave pretty reasonable advice. This subject, of course, wasn’t something her grandfather could help with.
“Remember Tara Carlson from high school?”
“Of course. She dated Noah for a while senior year, right? I still talk to him on Facebook once in a while and I see her on his page here and there. Why?”
Easton scratched at her forehead, trying to figure out how to explain the new information she had and not sure where to start. Deciding to just dive in, she said, “Do you remember that girl that Tara was so awful to? The quiet one? She was new junior year, came in from that school that closed.”
She could picture Connor sifting through his memories, sandy brow furrowed, probably running a hand over his bald head. “Tiny thing? Dark hair? Carried her notebooks against her chest like a shield?”
“Yes. Her.”
“What the hell was her name…?” He drew the words out, indicating he was thinking, thinking…
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