by Alexis Bass
I spill everything. Once I start talking, it’s easy to keep going.
Henry nods along. He doesn’t say anything until I’ve gotten it all out. “Okay.” His voice is steady and calm. “I’ll take you to Newton’s. If your dad’s car is there, you can drive it back. If it’s not, I’ll take you both home.”
I close my eyes. I hate the possibility of Henry being around for whatever transpires after my father comes out of Newton’s. But I find myself saying, “Okay,” and feeling tremendous relief.
“And here’s what to say to Graham.”
“What?”
“Type this, verbatim: ‘My mother called to say she was outside waiting for me—needs me home straightaway. I’ll call you tomorrow.’”
I do as he says, switching out “straightaway” for “right away,” editing out the British, and press send. Just a few seconds later my phone beeps.
“Shit.”
“What’s it say?” Henry asks.
I read the text out loud. “‘Is everything all right? Do you need anything? What happened?’”
“Tell him everything’s fine and your mum just needed you to help her with some last-minute stuff that she couldn’t get done on her own tonight.”
I’m typing everything he says, substituting “mother” for “mum.” It sounds like something that Graham will believe.
Graham responds in seconds. I don’t wait for Henry to ask before I read him the latest text. “‘Ellen said she saw you leaving in Henry Crane’s car. What’s really going on?’”
“Tell him to bugger off,” Henry mutters.
“I’ll just tell him the truth.” I bend my legs up so I can lay my head against my knees.
“It’s none of his business, Amanda,” Henry says. “It doesn’t have to be.”
I don’t say anything else, and neither does he. I turn my phone off, and the rest of the ride is completely silent.
CHAPTER
THIRTY-SIX
My dad is waiting outside Newton’s when we pull up. He’s standing next to his car, leaning against the passenger door with his arms crossed in front of him, staring at the ground.
“Thank you,” I tell Henry.
“Of course,” he says.
Henry drives toward the parking lot exit but doesn’t leave. He parks on the other side of the lot. Probably so my dad won’t see him.
My dad doesn’t notice me until I’m approaching him. I hope my hey-how’s-it-going smile doesn’t look as painful and misplaced as the one he’s giving me when he passes me his keys.
“Thanks, Amanda.”
I thought that maybe he’d have trouble walking. Maybe his eyes would be heavy the way Jonathan’s eyes always get when he’s drinking. Maybe his words would run together. But he doesn’t appear to be drunk at all.
We’re quiet at first. Just the low hum of talk radio in the background as we cruise down the road. Henry trails behind us but turns left when we get to the second light.
“Sorry you had to take time out of your Friday night to come get me,” he says. He’s trying so hard to sound positive.
“Dad?”
“Yeah?”
“You don’t even seem drunk.” I think it might make him feel better. Less ashamed, maybe.
He chuckles, quickly and quietly. “I don’t know that I really am drunk.”
I look at him. His eyes are glassy, and he sniffles, like he might be about to cry. My instinct is to get out of the car and run away, ditch him and the car right here in the middle of the intersection. If he really does cry, I won’t be able to handle it.
“I had a whiskey and some beers,” he tells me.
This isn’t a surprise. When my father drinks, he has either a couple of glasses of red wine, or a whiskey and a few beers. This is what he always drinks when we go out to eat. He’s never asked someone else to drive.
“I’m probably fine,” my father says. “But I don’t know . . .”
I nod, grateful I have to watch the road so I don’t have to look at my dad. I know all too well what’s been eating at him—the lingering and constant thought waving from miles ahead: one false move and things can go all wrong. One false move and you can ruin things for yourself, and for other people, too.
He clears his throat. “If you ever need a ride, for any reason, at any time, call me and I’ll come get you. I won’t ask questions. I won’t be angry. You won’t get in trouble. Just, if you can’t drive, call me, and I’ll gladly pick you up.” It’s so cliché, so Standard Dad, I’m surprised he’s never said it before—even after the accident.
“Okay,” I answer quickly.
“You know that, right? That you can always call me?”
I’m nodding. But it’s a lie. If I were ever in trouble, where I needed a ride, I would call a cab. I probably would’ve even waited an hour for its arrival.
“I’m sorry I didn’t say it sooner,” he says. The leather squeaks as he shifts in his seat. “I just . . . I thought it was something you already knew.”
I speed up when we get to the last stoplight before we reach our house. The longer we’re in this car together, the more time he has to confess that he never made this offer to Jonathan. And then I’ll have to reassure him that what happened that night wasn’t his fault either. How far does the blame go? Does it extend all the way to conversations my parents should have had? Hypotheticals: We’ll drive you.
I can see the guilt in my father’s eyes: I should’ve been stricter, should’ve been looking for signs, should’ve thought to address this subject. I get it. It’s regret over things he never thought twice about before, but can’t stop overanalyzing now. There are no solutions. This is just our life now. Some wounds don’t heal; they aren’t supposed to.
CHAPTER
THIRTY-SEVEN
Henry calls around midnight. His voice on the phone, groggy and low and carelessly British, is the voice I missed for sixteen months, and still miss.
“I’m outside,” is all he says.
I don’t even bother with a jacket as I hurry out the front door and head across the street, where Henry is parked two houses down.
“Everything peachy?” he asks. He notices my pajamas and turns on the car, cranking up the heat.
“Yeah,” I say. “My dad was fine. He just . . . didn’t think he should drive.”
“And Graham?”
He sighs at the same time that I do.
“I’m afraid to tell him the truth,” I admit.
My heart beats so furiously I swear it’s passing through the car, thudding against the pavement.
“Tonight would have been unbearable if you weren’t there.” I let the words fly. “How’s that for the truth?”
I’m aware that the worst thing I could do right now is look at Henry, but I do it anyway. He smiles, and I have to grip the edges of my seat so I don’t maul him with kisses.
“I was happy to see you, too,” he says, “and I’m always happy to be of service.” His smile is muted, fading quickly, and he stares vacantly ahead, transfixed on something in the distance.
“Henry . . .”
“That must’ve been really hard, for your dad to call you.” He runs his hand over the top of the steering wheel, back and forth, watching his fingers move across the leather.
“It was strange,” I say. “He gave me that whole spiel about how I’m supposed to call him if I ever think I shouldn’t be driving.”
Henry’s hands stop moving, and he leans his head back against the headrest, turning slightly to look at me. “Had you ever needed to call him before?”
“The one and only time I’ve ever been drunk I was at home with Dawn in my room, with no plans to go anywhere else. We were playing Monopoly.”
Henry smiles, but I catch him biting the corner of his lower lip.
“Have you?”
“Needed to call someone—yes,” he says roughly.
“Who did you call?”
He hesitates. “No one.” He rubs his eyes. “I never ca
lled anyone. I would just drive. And it always turned out fine, so . . .”
“It happens all the time,” I find myself saying. It’s like we said that day in econ, when we talked about the diffusion of responsibility—we’re all more aware now. “But what were you thinking?” The words fall out, and I shake my head. I sound like Patricia Johnson, like this is a bad Lifeline interview. “You probably weren’t thinking at all.”
The truth is: I want insight into my brother, even though he and Henry are so different.
“I was thinking.” He looks at me with stormy eyes. “Like the night of Sutton’s graduation, I didn’t care. All I wanted was to see you. I knew it probably wasn’t the best idea for me to drive. And I did consider not going to Sylvia’s. But not seeing you that night felt . . . unimaginable.”
I try to think back on that night, try to remember if Henry had been tipsy. Maybe I just couldn’t tell. I’d had nothing but water all night and I felt tipsy—like I’d had ten glasses of champagne—or however many it takes to feel like you’re flying. Like you’re untouchable.
“I’m so sorry,” he says, taking my hand and squeezing it, closing his eyes. This is what eats at him, keeps him up at night. This is what he tries to forget when he kisses me. Not who my brother is—but who Henry is, or almost was. How close he came to ending up like Jonathan.
I think about changing the night—giving back Henry. He’d stay at Matt’s party; Graham would keep Grace occupied; Jonathan and Sutton would be having too much fun to leave. My mind is a blur, but if I could just get it straight, the new order of the night, then maybe I could forget this pesky feeling that’s tugging at me from every angle—a compilation of our mistakes that made it possible for Jonathan to walk out of that party and get into his car.
“Amanda,” Henry says softly. “Should I not have told you?”
Instead of answering him, I lean over the center console and wrap my arms around him, tighter and tighter and tighter until he’s clutching my shoulders and burying his face in the crook of my neck. He pulls back and is about to kiss me—but suddenly there’s a sharp rapping on the window.
I whip around in surprise. Henry’s arms fall away and he leans back. It’s Jonathan; I can tell by the baggy hang of his T-shirt, the only part of him I can see through the passenger window. He walks to the front of the car, under the glow of a streetlight, so there’s no choice but to notice him.
Henry’s stare is unwaveringly angry. It’s the first time he’s seen my brother since before the accident, other than watching him on Lifeline. I open my door and step out, leaning against the door and leaving one foot in the car.
“What, Jonathan?”
But he’s staring through the windshield at Henry. I’m not the reason he’s here at all.
Henry gets out of his car all the way, shutting the door behind him.
“Do you want me to see your sister?” Jonathan asks him.
Henry’s eyebrows shoot upward. “No,” he says. “I—I don’t want you anywhere near her.”
Jonathan nods. “Then tell her to stop calling me.” His eyes shift to me. “Are you coming inside?”
“Yeah, I’ll be there in a second.”
Jonathan hesitates—a flash of my brother from before the accident, reluctant to leave me out here at night alone in a parked car with a boy. He walks slowly toward the house, looking back at us twice.
Henry and I climb into his car, but it’s like all the air has left.
“I should probably go inside,” I say.
Henry nods. “Yeah.” He looks at me, and I don’t know if I move first, or he does, but I’m kissing him and he’s kissing me back; my fingers play in his hair, and he keeps a hand behind my head, holding me to him. Because outside of these suffocating circumstances and burdens that we’ll never really be free of, this is all we have.
Jonathan’s sitting on the stairs in the dark, waiting for me, when I walk inside.
“Not now,” I say. I’m not in the mood to hear his opinion about Henry and me.
“I was warned, you know, about the two of you,” he says, standing.
I don’t like the way he’s now towering over me, looking down at me.
“Is that what Sutton told you during your forty-eight seconds of conversation?” I push past him and start heading up the stairs. I don’t even look to see how he reacts to this comment.
“No,” he says. “It was Grace.”
I whirl around to find him still on the stairs, leaning against the railing, watching his hands as they fiddle with the hem of his shirt.
“She told Sutton and me we weren’t the real Crane-Tart love story. I always thought she was kidding.” He winces. “Then I saw you with him at Sylvia’s.” He looks up at me. “Or I saw you guys leaving, anyway.”
There are a thousand things I want to say—so many apologies they get caught in my throat. I’m frozen at the top of the steps, as he walks toward me.
“You looked really happy,” he says, one hand on my shoulder. He leans in and gives me a kiss on the top of my head, before he goes up the rest of the steps.
I shake myself out of it, or try to, and follow him down the hall. It’s the first time he’s said something honest about that night—about Grace. I feel bad for being angry at him. But he goes into his room, shuts the door, and locks it. He doesn’t answer when I knock. It doesn’t matter that I’m there jiggling the handle, calling his name for I don’t know how long. He never answers.
CHAPTER
THIRTY-EIGHT
Graham is mad, an emotion I’ve never seen on him before, not to this extent. He’s pulling books out of his locker before first period when I approach him. He stops briefly to sigh at me, in case it was unclear how he feels about a girlfriend who leaves in the middle of a date and doesn’t return any of his phone calls the rest of the weekend. He stares at me like he already knows what a horrible, cheating coward I am.
“I’m sorry—” That’s all I get out before he goes off.
“I don’t know how long you’ve been lying to me, but I’m not stupid.”
“Of course not, I—”
“You wouldn’t lie unless there was something going on.”
“Graham, listen—”
“If you’re going to sneak off with Henry, fine, but at least have the guts to tell me.”
“You’re right, I—”
“Instead you ditched me, left me there waiting for you, worrying about you, asking around about you like a moron, even after it became clear that you weren’t coming back.”
“It was something personal and . . . depressing.” I hate that I use the word I know will work to get me his sympathy, because he’ll jump to conclusions involving Jonathan and Sutton and Grace. I hate that it sounds like I’m making excuses for last night, when there are mountains of things he deserves an apology for.
Henry’s a few feet away down the hall; my eyes can’t help but find him. He’s looking over Imogen’s head as she talks to him, right at me. Graham notices that I’m looking past him and turns around. Henry’s eyes revert down to Imogen in the most obvious way.
Graham’s expression goes from angry to astonished. “If there’s something going on between you guys, just tell me.”
Graham has never lied to me, and the least I can do is return the favor. I wanted him on my side, and I still do. But I can’t ask that of him anymore. “Whatever you think happened—”
“I promise you, I’m assuming the worst.”
I have to look away when I nod.
“Jesus, Amanda.” He slams his locker shut. “Who are you, even?” Graham holds on to his head as though it’s about to fly off his neck, his fingers digging into his hair.
“I’m so sorry,” I say. “Henry knew what I was going through, and—”
“That’s such bullshit!” he cries. “We’re all going through it! And I’ve tried so hard to understand you.”
“I know, you’re right.” I’m spotty with tears, and they feel like a cop-out. He sadd
led himself with my pain, my guilt, when he didn’t have to. I wish there was a way to repay him.
“Damn it, Amanda, I don’t deserve this.”
All I can say is: “It’s not your fault.”
CHAPTER
THIRTY-NINE
I find Henry in the art supply room after fourth period, right before lunch. It’s the place we first started flirting, and the place he asked me to meet him when Jonathan was released from prison and he wanted to know whether Jonathan had contacted Sutton. It’s a large, musty room stacked with shelving, piled with supplies and unfinished projects. Henry stands in the corner, surrounded by blank canvases.
He’s not surprised to see me.
“So, are you okay?” he asks quietly.
“Are you?” His secrets are my secrets, and I’ve let some of them go.
Word around the halls is that Imogen slapped Henry, then locked herself in the bathroom for an entire hour after she’d heard the reason Graham Sicily was back on the market. He looks to the ground, neither confirming nor denying that he’s all right.
“Sorry,” I say. “I got tired of lying.”
He shakes his head. “We went about this the wrong way, you and me.”
How could she do that to him?—it’s what the bulk of the gossip floating around about me seems to ask. How does anyone go through with something knowing it’s the wrong thing, knowing full well it could hurt other people? The answer isn’t pretty: you just do it.
“We shouldn’t have gone about it in the first place.”
Henry sighs. “What do you want to fight about now, Amanda?” he asks. “Everyone knows, and we can handle them, no matter how catastrophically gloomy it is for them to see us together. I want to be with you, and now there’s no reason why we shouldn’t.”
“What about Jonathan?”
“What about him?”
“You hate him.”
“Me, and everyone else.”
“I know he’s awful, but he’s still—”
“What do you want me to do, Amanda? Make nice with him? Ask him out to a ball game? Bond with him over a six-pack? We can manage without that, don’t you think?”