e month we’d been together—sort of, off and on—had been an act. When I thought about the parts that had been an act, it made perfect sense. But when I thought about him teetering on the edge of crying in the tree house, my stomach twisted into knots. To put on an act like that, he would be awfully sneaky, even sneakier than Sean’s wildest dreams of sneaky. He would have to be heartless. He would need to not care at all. And I knew, from growing up with him, that he cared.
Maybe he really did care about some things. Rachel, for instance. Maybe he just didn’t care about me.
I put my palm tenderly to Sean’s cheek and said, “I know where they went.”
“Can you take off your shirt?”
I couldn’t see Rachel clearly on the other side of my truck’s cab. My eyes hadn’t yet adjusted to the darkness of my secret make-out hideout. But I could hear her laughing her ass off. “Not even for Sean.”
“Well, we have to make it look good somehow. Do you mind if I take off mine? My dad says I look like sex on a stick with my shirt off.”
“Knock yourself out.”
I started to pull my shirt over my head. I was used to wearing T-shirts. When it wouldn’t give, I remembered I was wearing something Sean-like. As I unbuttoned it, I asked, “Want to make a bet how long it takes him to get out here?”
“Don’t you mean them?”
I hoped. “I don’t know. Sean will be here for sure. He’ll come after you. He’s liked you all along. But if Lori has been after Sean, she’ll try to stop him from coming. I don’t know whether she would come herself.” I pulled off my shirt and threw it out the window for effect. “Lie down.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“inking ahead is very hard for me,” I explained, as if she hadn’t found this out during a month of dating me. “I should have rigged a trip wire across the road so we’d know when they were coming. Sean won’t drive up here with his headlights on. They’ll walk up and surprise us. We have to be ready. It probably won’t take long.”
“All right.” She scooted down and stretched out across the seat.
I lay on top of her, putting my weight more on the seat beside her so I wouldn’t crush her.
“This is embarrassing,” she said against my cheek.
I was halfway offended. “Why? We actually did this last month.”
“We never lay down,” she said softly. “My grandmother would be so disappointed in me.”
“Tell your grandma you’re involved in a web of deceit, that’s all. They probably did stuff like this in their horse-drawn carriages all the ti—”
e door nearest our heads jerked open and strong hands dragged me out by the shoulders. I braced myself against the doorframe, first to keep from being dragged, and then, when that didn’t seem possible, to keep from dragging across Rachel and hurting her.
But she was gone from under me—already out the other door. As Sean threw me to the ground on my elbow, Rachel ran around the front of the truck, yelling. “Sean, stop. It’s all a joke.”
“I’m not laughing!” Sean shouted at her. He stomped off through the weeds. Immediately he changed his mind, stalked back, and stood over me. I readied myself to roll away from him if he tried to kick me.
Instead, he pointed at me. He breathed in and out through his nose, collecting himself, before he said, “You are not my brother.” He charged through the weeds again, down the road.
“Sean,” Rachel scolded him.
“Now you know how I feel,” I called after him.
Rachel turned to me. “Happy now? Is this what you wanted?” She hurried in the direction Sean had gone, calling to him. As she passed Lori at the tailgate of the truck, she said, “I’m sorry. We’ll talk, okay? But I’ve got to—Sean!” She disappeared into the trees.
Lori didn’t move, didn’t look behind her to watch Rachel and Sean go. She gazed down at me with her arms folded and her jaw set. “ Were you joking?” she asked sharply. “Because for a minute, I sure thought you weren’t.” Her eyes flicked to my bare chest and back to my face. Now that my eyes had adjusted to the moonlight, I could see everything I didn’t want to see.
Slowly I stood, brushing the dirt off my shorts and rubbing the elbow I’d fallen on. “What was I supposed to think when you made out with Sean on your dock?” Now that I had a few hours’ distance, I realized there were several different things I could have thought and I should have asked her about them. But that made me feel like the rug was being jerked out from under me, which left me grasping for anything to keep myself upright. “I can’t trust you.” She opened her hands. “I don’t understand you, Adam. I’m with you, but you act like I’m the enemy. I see our future like this, with you always leaping before you look and me watching through my fingers, scared to breathe. I can’t do it anymore. When we were just friends, I feared for you all the time, but I dealt with it. If we’re something more than friends—”
“Maybe we shouldn’t be,” I interrupted her. “What makes you so sure we’re meant to be together, anyway?”
“My mother said so.” She said this instantly, without thinking. I could tell this because she put her hand up to touch two fingers to her lips—not like slapping her hand over her mouth, but tentatively wondering where those words had come from. She brought both hands together and twisted the ring her mother had left her around and around her finger.
I said, “Your mother is dead.”
She put her hands down and stared coldly at me.
Even I knew that was too much. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
She looked at me from head to toe, and her cold stare settled on my face again.
I took a step toward her. “Lori, I shouldn’t have said that. I’m sorry.”
“I can’t forgive you for that.” She stared at me a few moments more, to drive her point home.
She turned and walked away through the forest.
I watched her go until even her blonde hair, which seemed to glow in the dark woods, disappeared into the gloom.
Then I banged my head against the truck.
It was a long walk home through the neighborhood. Even if Sean and Rachel had been waiting for me in Sean’s truck at the end of the dirt road, I wouldn’t have taken that ride. They weren’t waiting for me.
en I spent fifteen long minutes standing in my garage, picking botanical debris off my cute outfit. Showing up with beggar lice on your miniskirt was almost as bad as coming home with a hickey. Finally I opened the door.
“Lori?” my dad called from the den.
I stopped in the kitchen and took a long, deep, calming breath, then let it all out in a Zen-like sigh. I could talk to him pleasantly now. Funny: Lovesick depression felt a lot like responsible obedience. “Yes, Father?”
“You’re home early.”
Oooooh, that was low.
I took another long, deep, calming breath. is one didn’t work as well as the last one had. Stepping forward, I peeked at my reflection in the dark oven window. I looked like a serial killer. I manually raised my eyebrows and the corners of my mouth with my fingertips. Now I looked like bad plastic surgery.
“Lori?” he called again.
Smiling in a deathlike manner, I ventured into the den. e lights were out. e TV was on but quiet, as if nobody were paying it any attention. And Dad lounged across the couch with Frances curled up against him.