“Why on Earth are you saying sorry?” Mom laughs a little too hysterically, motioning for me to come and sit beside her. “This is your house, too. I just figured that since you didn’t come home last Labor Day that ...” Her voice trails off and she smooths her small hands down the front of her khaki Bermuda shorts. “I’m glad you’re here.”
I believe her, but it’s the edge and hesitation in her voice that gives me cause to worry. Drawing my eyebrows together, I walk all the way into the living room and take a seat on the opposite side of the couch. “Is everything okay?”
“It’s—” She struggles to find the right word, and I notice her fingers are taut as she taps them against her slim legs. “It’s fine. Everything is great, in fact. I’m guessing you saw the gift from your dad out front.”
My mother’s birthday isn’t until January and their anniversary was a couple months ago, so I can easily guess that the brand spanking new SUV must be some type of reconciliation gift. A very extravagant reconciliation gift. I guess Dad really is trying to move back in.
I try not to show any type of emotion—surprise or bitterness or anger—when I say, “It’s gorgeous.” Mom and I have enough issues, like the fact that she still has a hard time looking me in the eye, for me to go and offend her minutes after coming home.
The sound of “Crazy Kids”—the ringtone I’d assigned to Kendra just this past week after she called me crazy in a text message—starts to play, and I give my mother an apologetic look before excusing myself to the kitchen.
“I’m running late,” Kendra complains as soon as I say hello. “My brother didn’t get here to get me until an hour ago, so I’ll be there around—oh, I don’t know—seven thirty or so?”
I grab a Coke from the fridge, biting the inside of my cheek at the full shelf of Dad’s favorite beer. “Sounds good,” I tell Kendra. Even though we haven’t made any concrete plans for the night, the fact that she’d changed her mind late in the week to come to Bristol this weekend had been the driving force behind my decision to come home. “Just text me when you get here?”
After we hang up and I finish my drink, I go back to the living room to find my mom finishing up her housework. After Lily died, Dad had hired a housekeeper to come in three times a week, but my mother wasn’t having it because she hated the thought of someone else cleaning the house, even if she and my father did have the means. As she adjusts a turquoise and mustard yellow throw pillow on the couch, she lifts her head a little until her gaze meets my lips.
I sigh, but say nothing as I support my back against the doorway.
“Do you have any special plans this weekend?” Once again, there’s a note of hesitation in her voice.
“Kendra and I are probably going to catch a movie, but tomorrow I’m all yours. Maybe we can do a movie, or—”
Standing upright, she chews nervously on her bottom lip. “You didn’t tell your dad you were coming, did you?” she questions softly.
“No, why?”
A slow, deep flush creeps up her neck and face as she informs me, “We actually made weekend plans to head to Myrtle Beach tonight. Well, your dad made them and surprised me with the news two days ago. I’m supposed to be picking him up from the dealership at seven.”
Apparently my dad has been just full of surprises lately.
When I open my mouth to speak, she rushes forward and for the briefest moment, we lock stares. There’s a momentary flash of longing and regret in her eyes, but then it’s quickly replaced by genuine concern. “I promise it’s not going to be a problem to cancel. Or you can come with us. Just let me call Matthew and—”
“No!” I shout. She stops in her tracks on her way to the phone in the foyer. Once again, she’s staring directly into my eyes, unblinking as she waits for me to say something. As unforgivable as I think some of my dad’s actions have been, the fact that my mom looks so thrilled about taking a getaway with him is something I can’t overlook. “Seriously, there’s no need to do that. You go on to the beach, I promise I’m fine here.”
“Are you sure, I really don’t—”
I reach her in three long strides and pull her to me. At five-foot-four, she’s shorter than me by four inches, so her head lies awkwardly on my neck for a moment before I release her. “Mom. Go.”
When she leaves the house an hour and a half later, I casually ask her not to mention to my father that I’m here in town. She’s so eager to get on the road, she doesn’t even see through my request.
I don’t want to have a run in with him that leaves my mother upset.
With Kendra still not quite in town, and the house so empty I can’t quite stand being alone, I grab my purse intent on getting some food. Even though Friday night is always its busiest time, I can’t resist heading to my favorite restaurant—a throwback 1950’s style diner that’s a mile and a half from the high school I attended.
But the moment I walk inside and spot James on the other side of the restaurant with two of his friends, I consider walking out. Unfortunately, the bell at the top of the door has already announced my arrival, and he’s looking right at me. He dips his chin in recognition, so I push forward and take a seat in an empty booth as far away from him as I can. I pretend to study the menu that I already know by heart. When another body scoots into the booth across from me, I smell the familiar sent of the Fahrenheit cologne I bought him two years ago for Christmas. I press my lips together.
“Can I help you?”
“I haven’t heard a word from you in months and you wouldn’t answer your door all summer. How do you think you can help me?”
Scowling, I whip my gaze up. “You have ketchup on your chin.”
He swipes a napkin over the spot but offers me a crooked smile nonetheless. “You’re not still mad, are you?” Considering the last words we said to each other prior to tonight, this is an odd question for him to be asking me.
“Oh, I don’t know. Your fraternity called me out—very publicly, might I add—for being a hobag, and you went right along with them. So ... I guess I’m a little mad.”
“I swear you hold a scary grudge.”
Two years ago, he said nearly the same thing to me just before my mom called me downstairs to let me know what had happened to Lily. For more reasons than one, those words have so much more meaning after everything that’s happened, both with my family and between us.
“No grudge here. Just a little smarter.”
“You fucked two of my friends. I had to listen to them tell me how hot your goddamn body was and—” James takes a shuddering breath and then scrubs his hand over his face. “What you did was wrong, Evie.”
My gaze zeroes in on the slight bump on his nose, the result of an elbow to the face during a basketball game during our sophomore year. At the thought of my fist making contact with that bump, I smile sweetly.
“We were broken up,” I remind him through clenched teeth. “And you hooked up with more girls than that—way more. A lot of them while we were dating. You can lie all you want and tell me you never cheated, but I know better. I’ll take being called a hobag over actually being a cheating shitbag any day of the week.”
He doesn’t confirm or deny my allegations as he crosses his arms over his chest, wrinkling his gray t-shirt. For some reason, I can’t help but picture Rhys Delane, of all the people, in that gray shirt that hugged his body like a glove on the day we ran into each other two weeks ago.
James reaches out to touch my face, but I quickly recoil. “You changed.”
“Yep. That’s what you told me.”
“It was like you had a goal to see how much shit you could screw up after your sister died.”
“Unless you want your balls in your throat, be careful what you say.”
“Damn, Evie.” At my stony expression, he bends forward, gripping the edges of the table. “I’m not telling you this to hurt you but because I love—I loved you. I’m sorry things went the way they did with us. I overreacted, but you pushed me away at every turn.”