by Sarah Sutton
“So I heard.” She looked up at me, her light eyes finding mine. “Elijah told me you hit your head a few weeks ago.”
“Yeah, well, I’m just clumsy. Nothing to do with winter.” I glanced at her purse, which sat in the crook of her elbow. She had her hair pulled back into a ponytail, her makeup done simply. “Were you going somewhere?”
“To the store,” she answered. “I’m hoping to get a collection of fresh lunch meat. I thought maybe I could bring it over to you and your mother tomorrow, and we could have a nice lunch. I’ve been a little missing in action lately.”
Her words were so surprising that a response eluded me. I felt something warm my insides as we stood in the cold together. It had been so long since our families had been together. After Terry, all their time and energy had been spent trying to keep their heads above water.
“I need to apologize,” I said to her. “It was wrong of me to go prying into your life like that.”
I felt her fingers touch mine before I realized she’d reached out, giving them a squeeze. “I’m glad you did. And thank you for being there for my son these past few weeks. I know how important you are to him, and I’m glad you were there for him.”
“He’s important to me, too.” More than you know.
For a moment, I feared I’d spoken the last bit aloud, or that she’d heard my thoughts somehow, because she gave me a knowing look. “Elijah’s good with his hands. Good with art. One thing he’s not good with, however, is words.”
I blinked at her. “What do you mean?”
“Just don’t lose hope,” she told me, squeezing my fingers one final time before letting go. She didn’t give me long to think about what she meant, because she started to walk away. “Don’t tell your mom about tomorrow. I want to surprise her, if you think that would be okay.”
“Trust me, Mrs. Greybeck,” I said, already anticipating Mom’s enthusiasm. “She’ll love it.”
Around eight o’clock that night, the doorbell chimed. The door opened with ease from when I’d busted through it the other night. Mom had shoved one of our end tables in front of it since it wouldn’t properly lock now, and she’d already recruited Dad to fix it when he came to town on Monday.
I wrested the door open further, finding who stood on the other side. “Eloise. Hey.”
She looked down at me with a relaxed gaze, eyes swiped heavily with eyeshadow, lips pink with gloss. She had on a leather jacket over a pretty top, her skirt riding up to her mid-thigh. “Hi. Are you going to let me in?”
“Why are you so dolled up?”
“Duh,” Eloise scoffed. “We’re going to a party.”
I blinked at her standing on my snowy porch. “Do you mean the dance? Because I told you that I can’t go.”
“Not the dance,” Eloise said, shoving me back so she could come inside. Though she was lean, she was strong. I shouldn’t have doubted that; she did concuss a girl in volleyball this past season. Her strength was not something I underestimated. “A party. You heard that Jeremy’s throwing one, right? After the dance?”
Only a beat passed before I burst out laughing. “You really think I want to go to Jeremy’s party like nothing happened? Seriously?”
“You can’t hide out in your bedroom forever. And no matter what you want, you can’t just cut Elijah out of your life. Your souls are practically forged into one.”
“This coming from a girl who thinks a spark during a first kiss is ludicrous.”
Eloise slung her arm over my shoulders and began to steer me into my bedroom. “Listen, REM-Sleep. You didn’t get to go to the Snowflake Dance. That sucks. But you can go to Jeremy’s party. And have fun, and pretend like your life isn’t crashing down all around you.”
Ha, no kidding. My life was crashing down all around me. I couldn’t help but wonder, though, if this was how Elijah had felt those weeks ago. Terry being arrested, the sculpture project to work on, a new girlfriend. Everything complicated, coming all at once. “I doubt Jeremy would want me there.”
“That’s the beauty of a public party,” Eloise said, turning to rummage through my closet. She threw a look over her shoulder. “Anyone can show up.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
“I don’t know about this,” I said, digging my fingernails into my palms. Eloise had to park down the street since there were so many cars filling Jeremy’s driveway, lining the road. “I mean, we could always just go home. Have a girls’ night.”
Eloise popped her car door open, giving me a look as the overhead light came on. Her eyeshadow glimmered just before she ducked out. “Don’t be a party pooper.”
Jeremy’s party before had been a certain type of lackluster. The turnout was low, the beer was bad, and the music made me want to bang my head against the wall. But that party did have one thing going for it.
This one, though…this one was not like the other.
As I pulled myself from Eloise’s car, music immediately curved over my ears, muffled by the walls of the house but still audible. I glanced around at the other houses along the street, wondering if someone was going to put in a noise complaint. If I could hear the music from outside, it must’ve been blaring. Through the windows, I could see bodies inside, shadows dancing along the walls, moving with the music.
I grabbed ahold of the porch banister, my boots slipping on the damp wood. “I guess everyone came after the dance, huh?”
“Looks like it. From what I can see,” she said, nodding toward the window, “no one even changed. People are still wearing their formal outfits.”
So I’d be the only ones in jeans, standing out like a sore thumb. Fantastic.
“You just need a drink in you,” Eloise said, patting me affectionately on the shoulder. “Something to make you feel good.”
“No alcohol,” I said immediately, making a face. “Maybe just a glass of water.”
Eloise snorted as we passed over the threshold, the temperature changing drastically as we walked inside. It was obvious why. I counted more than thirty people just in the hallway and pooling into the living room, talking, drinking, and dancing. Eloise took my coat from me, shoving mine and hers up behind a potted plant near the door, our secret hiding place.
Don’t look around, I told myself, energy zipping along my skin. Don’t look for him. If he’s here, you don’t care.
“Come on. Since you’re going to be sober, you can be the designated driver. I’m getting me a drink.” She wrapped her fingers around my wrist, pulling me through the house.
There was a handful of people in the kitchen, lounging against the countertops, sipping from their cups. On the counter, multiple bottles of something were lined up, varying in color and size, with a handmade sign that read HELP YOURSELF.
“Pick your poison,” Eloise said to herself as she snatched up a red cup, pulling it close to her mouth as she debated.
Suddenly, two hands touched my waist, fingers curling, turning me around.
Jeremy loomed tall above me, his dark natural curls slicked back and out of his face with some sort of gel. He still wore his white and black suit, a hot pink bowtie secured around his throat. “Remi. You came.”
Instantly, I was thrown to another time, another party. A flirty banter that had felt so natural, so right.
It’s a nice surprise to see you here, Remi.
Are you saying you didn’t throw this party secretly hoping I’d come?
Man, am I that obvious?
He pulled his hands off my waist, holding one out. “Want to dance, Remi?”
It felt strange, looking at him now after everything had changed. Two weeks ago, this moment would’ve sent my heart swooning, all aflutter. All that I felt now was a bit rueful. I didn’t ask him where his date was, didn’t ask him how the dance was.
I just offered a polite smile. “I’m good, Jeremy,” I said with a nod, Eloise glancing between us. “I’ll see you around.”
My words didn’t cause the smile to fall from his face, but he just nodded, l
ooking almost contemplative. “All right. Have fun tonight,” he said, and then he turned away.
“What a bonehead,” Eloise said, watching as Jeremy disappeared.
“He’s not,” I told them both, letting out a soft breath. “He’s just a boy.” Just the wrong one.
As I watched him go into the living room, my eyes were snagged by a pair that loomed in the distance, caught in the crowd.
I’d seen Elijah in a suit before—we’d had other dances, and our junior prom—but somehow seeing him in this lighting, dressed up, felt completely and entirely different. My heart lurched into high gear as our eyes tangled, and even over the distance, I could practically feel the heat of him pressing up against me.
His blond hair wasn’t slicked back like Jeremy’s but flowing loose over his forehead in a way that fit him perfectly. He wore a black suit with a black undershirt, his tie charcoal gray and tied expertly around his neck. His dad had knotted it most likely, since Elijah couldn’t tie a tie to save his life.
I saw his lips move from across the room, and then someone crossed in front of him, shielding him from my sight.
All at once, everything rushed back into focus. The music, the noise, everyone around me—all of it had been muted, like I’d pressed the button on a TV remote and everything ceased to be except him and me. Now everything felt too loud, too much.
“I’m going to the bathroom,” I told Eloise, not waiting for a response before I turned to edge down the hall.
If I thought the line to the bathroom was long last time, it was huge now, stretching nearly to the corner of the kitchen. People in dresses and suits shifted on their feet, waiting for their turn. The air still felt clogged in the hallway, those filling the narrow corridor taking in all the oxygen. I just needed space to myself, just for a moment, just to breathe.
Without really thinking about it, I made a beeline for the guest bedroom, hauling the door open and shutting it quickly behind me.
Like last time, the room itself was as dark as night, shadowy and hard to see properly. The humidity from the rest of the house hadn’t reached this closed-off room, and the air felt a little bit lighter. I ventured further, eyes snagging on the closet pushed off to the side, door shut. It was just a closet. Nothing special.
I pulled open the door, finding the space empty. Since it was the guest bedroom closet, the interior was clean. Shelves lined the perimeter of it, but nothing sat on them except for slivers of dust, fingerprinted and smudged. I brushed the edge of the corner I’d hit my head on, surprised there wasn’t a dent or divot in the wood.
My legs folded underneath me, and I sank to the ground, pulling my knees up to my chest and leaning my head against the wall. Though the music still boomed, echoing around me, peace settled over me as I sat by myself. Eloise was out there somewhere, Jeremy was out there, Elijah was out there. And I was in here, listening to myself breathing.
I didn’t know how long I sat there, allowing my soul to settle inside my body, to take a deep breath in and let an even bigger one out. Long enough for the tracks to have switched out in the living room, the bass dropping loud.
Long enough that the door to the guest bedroom opened, a rectangle of light filtering across the floor.
I knew it was Elijah the second the shadow formed, even though I couldn’t see his face. That dang sixth sense. He came closer, footsteps soundless over the carpeted floor, until he was in the doorway of the closet. Until he was sitting down across from me, exactly in the space he’d stood last time. All the air that I had been inhaling fled from my lungs in an instant, leaving me staring back, breathless.
For several moments, neither one of us spoke, the music from inside the only noise between us. “I saw you come in here,” Elijah said finally, solemn expression unchanging. “Can we talk?”
I clutched my arms tighter around myself, as if the action alone would keep me from coming undone. It was two nights ago, but I could still easily recall the pressure of his mouth on my skin, could easily feel it. If I allowed myself to, I could’ve gotten lost in that feeling of fireworks and sparks and desire and electricity that had existed between us.
Elijah pulled one of his knees up to his chest too, dress pants riding up with the movement.
“You didn’t change,” I said, stating the obvious.
“I didn’t. I brought Savannah here straight from the dance.”
My fingers dug into my thigh. “The front door broke again,” I told him, buying time, stuffing words into these spare seconds. “You have to fix it.”
Elijah didn’t answer; his gaze was so heavy on me.
I was grateful for the dimness, because even though I couldn’t see his expression, that meant that he couldn’t see mine either. We were both in the dark. But even so, I could feel his eyes tracing over me, and that attention had every nerve in my body tingling. Though everything had happened, it felt right to just sit there with him. It almost felt like old times. Just the two of us enjoying the other’s company, listening to their breathing. A part of me wanted to just close my eyes and pretend that nothing had happened—that I hadn’t actually made out with him in his brother’s truck—but there was no going back.
And the other part of me, the larger, more dominant part, didn’t want to go back. It just wanted to replay his touch and kiss over and over until the end of time.
“I’m sorry,” Elijah said quietly, breaking up my rampant thoughts and the silence. “For Thursday night, for the night of the party.”
His words rang through in my mind. He was sorry. He was sorry for choosing Savannah.
I leaned my head against the wall, the firmness grounding me from the sharpness in my throat, in my chest. “You don’t have to apologize,” I forced out, the words feeling gross and thick on my tongue. “It’s fine.”
“Remi—”
“Were the snowflakes at the dance pretty?” I asked, squaring my shoulders. “I ended up giving them to Mrs. Keller. Did they look nice?”
“They looked like stars.” His words were vapor, bouncing against the walls of the closet, the walls of my brain. “Hung by strings, falling from the sky. They looked beautiful.”
I pinched my thigh harder, swallowing hard.
“I heard about the rumors. I know you didn’t change your grade, Remi,” Elijah said in the gentlest tone I’d ever heard. “You wouldn’t do that.”
Bitterness ate at me. “Why not? I mean, I go around kissing other girls’ boyfriends, so why wouldn’t I change my grade? Why stop there?”
“Remi.”
“Yeah, fine, so the two aren’t really on the same level of severity, but they both suck,” I went on, looking out toward the bedroom. Emotion crawled its way further up my throat, leaking out. “That’s what bad influences do.”
His hands cupped my elbows, warm fingers on cool skin, and he ducked his gaze to try and snag mine. “Remi Beaufort, I’m an idiot.”
Despite the seriousness of his voice, the seriousness of the situation, I snorted. It was an ugly sound. “I already knew that.”
But Elijah wasn’t about to be deterred, and he swallowed, fingers shaking on my skin. “Being with you is the only thing that’s ever felt right, Rem. I can talk to you about Terry when I can’t talk about it with anyone else. Why do you think I did your papier-mâché for you, take you freaking panty shopping, spend entire nights talking to you on the phone? Because you’re my best friend, and I’m yours, and I can’t imagine living my life without you in it.”
“You said panty,” I told him, almost as an afterthought. “Those are the kinds of things you do with your best friends, Elijah. Those are things I’d do with Eloise. Shopping and spending time together—friends do that.” Emphasis on the friends part.
Elijah scooted closer across the floor, the space between us no longer enough for one person. If I leaned forward just a smidge, I could’ve kissed him. “But I love those things. I love spending time with you. I just…crave it. When we’re not together, I want to be. So badly. A
nd it’s always been like that—wanting to be with you—but I never really paid attention to just how much. Kissing you at Jeremy’s party was an accident, but Thursday night wasn’t. As soon as you showed up at the library, I knew, without a shadow of a doubt.”
I sighed. “Knew what?”
“That I loved you,” he said simply, surely. They were three words that felt like three punches against my ribs. A strong heartbeat, boom, boom, boom. Elijah let go of my arms and placed a palm on the ground beside me, leaning in, forcing me to tilt my head back to meet his gaze. “And I don’t mean love you like a little sister or anything like that. I don’t think it’s ever been like that. You’re this huge part of my life, Rem, but I never realized why. But then it—it was simple. Clear. A light filling the darkness in my mind, like the stars hanging in the sky. It was you.”
I nearly choked on a breath of air I tried to drag into my lungs. “You chose Savannah.”
“I didn’t choose Savannah.” He shook his head, his hair tumbling. “Though it probably looked that way. I took her to the dance, yes, because she asked me not to cancel last minute. But we’re over. As soon as you left Thursday night, I called her and told her. Everything. She didn’t even seem surprised, because it was never her, and we both knew it.”
My heart raced, about to arrest in my chest and leave me dead in the middle of the closet. I wanted to look away, to take the intensity out of the moment, but I felt too connected to him. A pull that there was no escaping. And his words—what exactly did they mean? What exactly was he saying?
“I didn’t tell you that I knew it was you because you were my second choice,” he said quickly, almost desperately. “I swear. You were never a second choice. You were a first choice I was afraid to choose. So afraid, Remi. Afraid that you wouldn’t feel the same way. That I’d lose the only person who truly understood me. You were obviously not saying anything about the party for a reason, and for the first time in forever, I couldn’t figure out what you were thinking.”
I looked at the fabric of his tie as his words trickled through my brain, like droplets of water running down a windowpane. We’d both been afraid of the same thing. It felt fitting, that he felt the exact same as I did. So many times we shared things—even ice cream. And now we shared that feeling, the fear of telling how we felt.