“I stopped by your place tonight.”
“I was hanging out with Laurel.” Dammit. I hated that I couldn’t stop lying.
“Oh.” He sounded relieved. “Your brother said you went somewhere with Silas.”
“Well, yeah,” I backpedaled. “He drove me there. To hang out with Laurel.”
“Oh—I guess that’s good. Is she okay? I know you said something was wrong at the movie. And she was all quiet and skittish.”
“Like Libby?”
He laughed. “Yeah. Hey, Lori and Laney have been begging to have Libby over—you should come too. They miss you.”
“I miss them too.”
“West, what do you like about me?”
The sudden switch back to our previous topic jarred me. In Elliot’s voice, there was so much insecurity that it broke my heart. “All our history,” I said. “And that you respect me. And that you’re not into high school drama. And all the thank-you notes you write to the seventh-grade girls who buy you roses on Valentine’s Day.”
He laughed. “My mom makes me do that.”
“Good cover story, tough guy,” I said. “I know better.”
Elliot laughed again; I loved the sound of it, so wholesome, so familiar.
“Know what else I like?” I added.
“What’s that?”
“The way you take care of Whit.”
“When I can,” he said, his voice bittersweet. “When he lets me.”
“It’s all you can do,” I said, thinking yet again of Silas and how this town was full of heroes.
I was supposed to leave for my cousins’ place the next day, but my aunt called in the morning, saying that she and Mae were en route from the lab to the pharmacy. Strep throat, still contagious.
With my day suddenly free, I called Silas to see if he wanted to go to the beach. He didn’t answer, not all morning, so finally I just stopped over at his house. I stepped inside and shouted, “Hello?” up the stairs.
I was halfway up the flight when Teresa called from the kitchen, “West, is that you?”
“Hi! Yeah. Is Silas home?” I asked, pausing on the stairs.
She came out of the kitchen and gave me a funny little frown. “No, he’s not. I thought—didn’t you see him last night?”
“Well, yes, but I guess I usually see him most days.”
“No, I mean, I thought he said he was going to tell you that he was going back to Alaska with his dad.”
It was like a punch in the gut. “Back to Alaska?” I said, as if the three words were in another language.
“Well, shame on him,” she said. “I would have thought he’d have mentioned it to you. He and Glen have had tickets for forever, but they really only made the decision yesterday. He didn’t tell you?”
“No,” I said, my throat feeling dry and scratchy. I clutched the stairway railing hard. “Back to Alaska?” I asked again, hoping I’d misheard her when she’d really said her son was out getting groceries.
She nodded.
I was panicking far more than was appropriate. “I should go,” I said to Teresa, a little breathlessly.
“Laurel’s upstairs if you want to say hi. I’m sure she’d love to see you,” she said with an encouraging smile.
“I’ll have to come back later.” I was going to start crying in about four seconds.
As I biked back over the bridge and toward my house, I thought of the words he had used just the night before: “unceremonious,” “ignoble,” “risky,” “necessary.”
Angry tears of betrayal ran down both of my cheeks.
“We already had the tickets,” he had said. Tickets, not ticket. One for his dad. One for him.
I thought I might throw up.
I had even asked him last night if we were still talking about his dad, and he had never answered.
My legs were shaking, so I got off the bike, let it crash to the ground, and sat down in the ditch. What had all that been about last night—all the “What do you want?” and “I can define you.” It was bullshit—and a heartless, cowardly good-bye.
And I had thought him a hero.
I knew I shouldn’t, but I pulled out my phone and texted him: Silas Hart, you are a FUCKING BASTARD.
I called Elliot. Voice mail. Trudy. Voice mail. I called Gordon, even though I never called Gordon.
Voice mail. And Gordon never went anywhere.
“I really don’t care,” I said aloud through a rasping voice and tears that proved otherwise. “Really,” I said again and walked my bike down the main road into town.
Mark Whitby intercepted me before I got there. “You need a ride?” he asked, looking at my bike.
“I need a friend,” I admitted.
We went to the beach, me and Whit, and we sat together on top of a picnic table in the shade, our feet on the same bench. The breeze coming from over the lake felt nice, but I spotted Silas’s house on the other side and felt sick all over again.
“You gonna tell me what’s wrong?” Whit asked, nudging my knee with his.
But it was difficult to explain my extreme reaction over a boy who was not my boyfriend to my boyfriend’s best friend. I just said, “I’m really, really lonely.”
“Did you and Elliot break up?” he asked, looking shocked.
“What? No, of course not!”
Whit’s shoulders relaxed and he exhaled deeply.
“Why would you even ask that?” I demanded.
Whit shrugged, his classic escape maneuver.
I wondered if he was thinking of the drive-in. He said, “So tell me about Laurel,” and I knew that he was.
“She’s cool. She’s a dancer.”
“Nice.”
I was irritated thinking about the Harts, Silas’s betrayal still slicing through my heart. The tears threatened to start again.
“I’m sorry you’re lonely,” Whit said quietly.
“It’s okay,” I said back, even though it wasn’t.
“You should come with me out to Sloane’s tonight.”
“Tonight?” I looked hard at Whit. “Simon’s having a party on a Monday?”
“It’s not a party, just a group of people hanging out.”
“Oh. So a party, then?” I said, annoyed.
Whit frowned. “It’s not a big deal. What’s your problem with it anyway?”
I pretended to think. “Let’s see . . . last fall . . . me, Trudy . . . following Elliot around while he called your phone till we found you passed out in the cornfield next to your puke? Yup, I think that’s it. Trudy was about five minutes from calling her dad.”
Whit pressed his lips together, stared out at the lake. “Sorry you’re lonely,” he said again. I lay my head on his shoulder; it was as close as Whit would come to saying, “Me too.”
“Hello?” I shouted when I walked into my house after Whit had dropped me off. “Anyone home?”
“Hi,” said Shea, sitting on the couch, looking small.
“Hey, kid,” I said, my voice softening at the sight of him. “Where is everyone? Are you okay?”
“Mom took Libby over to see Lori and Laney. Dad’s at the church; Mom told me to stay on the couch and watch cartoons till he came home to make me lunch. She said it would only be a few minutes.”
“But he didn’t come?”
Shea shook his head.
“Did you eat?”
He shook his head again.
“Why didn’t you have cereal? Or call Mom? Or walk over to Dad’s office?”
He burst into tears. “Mom said to stay on the couch!”
“Oh, Shea,” I said. “I’m sorry, bud.” I sat beside him and pulled him into a hug. His little body curled into me. I wanted to cry too. “It’s okay,” I said, rubbing his back. “It’s okay. It’s okay.”
After his tears stopped, I made him a grilled-cheese sandwich and, welling up with sisterly generosity, even removed the crusts. He ate at the breakfast bar and told me about the cartoons he’d watched, already bouncing back strong,
but when my dad walked into the house a half an hour later, I glared at him. “You were supposed to make Shea lunch,” I accused. “He waited all afternoon for you.”
Dad’s face fell, and for a moment, I almost abandoned my anger for pity.
“Oh, Shea,” he said. “I’m sorry. I was just headed over when Rob Taylor stopped in, and then we got talking, and then I . . . I forgot. You okay?” Shea nodded, quick to forgive as he eagerly chewed his grilled cheese. Dad ruffled Shea’s hair. “Good.” Then, to me, he added, “Thanks, Wink.”
I nodded curtly, feeling less charitable than Shea, when my phone started to vibrate.
My blood pressure skyrocketed just seeing the name on the screen. Silas.
I took his call on the porch. “Hi,” I said, my voice cold and cruel. “I hate you.”
“What the hell, West?” he asked.
“Are you in Fairbanks?”
“Layover in Anchorage. West, what’s wrong? Are you with your cousins?”
“What the hell do you think is wrong, you bastard?! You went back to Alaska and didn’t even tell me? How am I supposed to do all our detailing alone? I thought we were supposed to be—to be good to each other.” I bit back tears. “And I’m just so—mad at you.”
“West.”
I started to cry; his voice sounded so far away—because it was. “Who does that?” I half berated, half sobbed into the phone. “Who just packs up and leaves without saying good-bye? Assholes, that’s who.”
“West,” he said again. He sounded amused. “I’ll be back in three days.”
I sniffled. “What?”
“In time for the Fourth of July. I get to meet Trudy, remember?”
“But—but your mom said you went back to Alaska with your dad,” I stuttered, confused.
“I did,” he said. “We already had the tickets, and you were supposed to be out of town this week, so I went along.”
“You’ll be back in three days?” I repeated, my heart a little lighter.
“You weren’t even supposed to notice I was gone. Why aren’t you in the Cities?”
“Mae got sick. Why didn’t you just tell me? Last night at the beach?”
His sigh was audible through the phone. “It’s complicated. I’ll try to explain when I get back.”
“In three days.”
“In three days,” he repeated.
“Okay.” I felt like an imbecile about overreacting, but relief swallowed all my other emotions whole.
“Missing me already, huh?” he said, his voice smug and thick with amusement. I pictured the twisted smile on his face.
“No,” I said.
“You’re a shitty liar, Westlin Beck.”
I was quiet, reveling.
“Hey, want to know something?” he asked.
“What?”
“I already miss you, too.”
I set my face against the grin that threatened to take over my lips. “Just hurry back.”
“To the girl who hates me?”
“That would be me.” In a voice that didn’t mean it.
“Can’t wait.” In a voice that did.
sixteen
I saw a little of Laurel and a lot of Elliot in the days that followed. Laurel—who had, for the time being, ceased sobbing—begged me to invite Whit to watch fireworks from their roof, and I was happy to comply. Elliot, for his part, seemed to connect my good mood to Silas’s absence, and I chose not to correct him.
On Wednesday night, Elliot took me out to Ciatti’s restaurant in St. Cloud, the same place we’d had our first official date back in sophomore year. Big booths and skylights and lots of bread and oil. Silas would return later that evening, so I kept my phone on me.
“I’ve been emailing with that coach I told you about in North Dakota,” Elliot said, pushing his empty plate back. “Some recruiters are coming to watch me play this fall. We should go tour there, don’t you think?”
I wrinkled my nose as I tore a piece of bread in two. “What’s in North Dakota?”
He laughed. “What’s in Green Lake?”
“Touché.”
After a pause, Elliot said, “Me.”
“Huh?”
“Me. I’d be in North Dakota. I mean, if I went to school there. And maybe that’d be a reason you’d like to be there too.” He looked at me and pressed, “Right? I mean . . . maybe?”
“Yes. Totally,” I said automatically.
Elliot looked so serious. “Tell me where you’d rather go, West, and I’ll contact their athletics office and see if they’re interested in me.”
“No, it’s not that,” I said. “I don’t have anywhere in mind. I just . . . you know I don’t like thinking about all that. It stresses me out.” I pulled my phone out of my pocket—just to see if Silas had gotten in yet. No text.
“Are you waiting for a call?” Elliot asked.
“No. Sort of.” He waited for me to explain, but I couldn’t. “From Trudy,” I lied, and took a big drink of water.
“What if I took next week off?” Elliot asked.
I swallowed wrong and it hurt going down. “What do you mean?”
“What if I just told my dad I needed a week to have a real summer? We could road-trip out to the Dakotas and visit some colleges, see what we think.”
“I don’t know; I have some detailings scheduled.” A road trip? With Elliot? We’d probably have to stay in hotels. And next week? Silas was just getting back.
“They wouldn’t be that hard to reschedule though, would they? Or maybe Hart could handle them alone.”
I pursed my lips. “I don’t know,” I repeated.
“Okay, so no road trip,” he amended. “Just a week to spend at the beach and at the movies. Hell, we’ll go bowling. We’ll do the kind you like with all the neon—”
“Cosmic,” I said, my voice quiet.
“Yeah, cosmic! And we’ll drive out into the country and listen to your radio show under the stars. What do you think?”
Panic pulled at me, and I didn’t know why. Here was my boyfriend, offering to do all the things I had wanted him to do this summer, and it made me feel nervous and suffocated and overwhelmed. I chose my words carefully. “That all sounds amazing—and I’m holding you to cosmic bowling, which is the only appropriate way to bowl—but you don’t need to sacrifice a week of pay for me. I want you to get your car.”
“I don’t care about the car,” he said.
“I do!” I teased. “If Whit drives, he’ll stay to bowl and kick my ass. I know I can at least beat you.”
“West.”
I exhaled deeply. “Elliot, please don’t give up a car for a few days on the beach.”
“But I miss you,” he said, reaching across the table and taking my hand.
“I miss you too,” I said, squeezing it. “Look, you’re the hardest worker I know. This summer might suck, but this fall . . . everything will be different. Trust me.”
Later that evening, I lay in bed listening to the sound of Chuck Justice coming from Libby’s room down the hall while I thought about Elliot. The handful of lies I’d told him lately made me sick. Ours had never been a relationship like that—or, before we were dating, a friendship like that. The bell tower was my one big secret; other than that, I’d always been an open book.
Until now.
Silas Hart. My friend, nothing more.
Besides, Silas had a girlfriend. My stomach turned as I realized that he had probably spent the last three days with Beth Öster—and her short skirts. I thought I might throw up.
This was ridiculous.
Trudy would be home tomorrow. Trudy would sort me out. I’d lay out my summer like a knot of tangled necklaces and let her go to work.
Knots intrigue me.
I was going to drive myself insane.
I had said one very, very true thing tonight: Elliot was the hardest worker I knew. Busting his ass on the farm, on the football field . . . making ridiculous offers to keep me happy. I didn’t deserve him. I re
ached into my desk drawer and pulled out my “wedding ring,” slid it onto my pinkie, and stared at it, letting the weight of years build a fortress around my heart.
Then I thought of Beth Öster in the pictures I’d seen of her online: beautiful, tiny, perfect. An unbelievable math whiz, according to Silas. I wondered what they’d done this week. Had they been attached at the hip after so many weeks apart? Silas would be full of stories—would I be in any of them? Had they spent the days talking? Holding hands? Kissing? More?
Stop it, I told myself. It doesn’t matter anyway.
But it did.
I slipped into uneasy sleep until that hazy space between late night and early morning, when Silas called. “Hey.” His voice was soft, tired, relieved. Close.
“Hi,” I said, doing a full-body stretch like a satisfied cat.
“Did I wake you up?”
“Mmm, yup.”
“Sorry.”
“It’s okay,” I said, yawning. “You home?”
“I am.”
I pulled off the ring, which was pinching my finger. “Good.”
As she had promised, Trudy also came home, and we hugged like long-lost sisters. “Tell me everything,” I said to her as we climbed into her family’s paddleboat from their dock just before lunch. It was an ancient aluminum pontoon Sgt. Kirkwood had made before we were born. “Are the campers crazy? Do you work with any cute boys?” Why do you never call me back?
She laughed, put her arm through mine, and straightened her sunglasses. Her pixie hair and big eyes made her look just like a young Michelle Williams. “The campers are crazy . . . but also super sweet. I help with the zip line—can you believe it?—so I had to get over my fear of that pretty fast. You wouldn’t believe how much we pack in to every day, West. I’m out like Sleeping Beauty every night.”
“And is there a prince?”
She took a drink from a sweating water bottle. “Actually, there are two boys I have my eye on: Alex and Adam Germaine. They’re, um, brothers.”
“Trudy Kirkwood!” My jaw dropped as we pedaled the pontoon, side by side. My legs felt strong from all the biking Silas and I had been doing. “Is this summer going to have a happy ending?”
Trudy smiled at me. “I think so.” She looked thoughtful and stopped pedaling for a moment. There were people grilling, swimming, and playing Frisbee at the public beach, just north of Trudy’s house, and some kids playing with sparklers at the end of a nearby dock. “But what does a happy ending really look like?” She pedaled again. “Know what I mean? One person’s happiness is another person’s grief.”
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