Change of Heart (23 page)

“You knew where Billy lived,” I said. “You followed him home from your house after he spied on Sean and Morgan. You threw the weapon into his yard, didn't you?”

“I couldn't face her,” Colin said, his voice choked with anguish. “I couldn't face my mom. The idea of her looking at me and knowing what I'd done. And after what happened in the schoolyard ...”

His hand shot out. I recoiled against the car door. But it wasn't me he was after. It was the door handle. He pushed the door open.

“Get out,” he said. “Tell my mom I'm sorry. Tell her—tell her I love her. Tell her I loved Sean. Just, please, don't tell her the other stuff.”

“Why don't you tell her yourself, Colin?” I said.

But he wasn't listening to me. He was staring straight ahead, through the windshield and out over the water. He turned the key in the ignition.

“Get out,” he said. He released the parking brake and gunned the engine. He stared out at the open space ahead. What was he going to do?

“Colin—”

“Get out!”

I closed the car door and settled into my seat.

“She's your mother, Colin. She loves you.”

He gripped the steering wheel. “Get out of the car.”

“Turn off the engine, Colin.”

He stared straight ahead.

“Please, Colin?”

Nothing.

I reached over, turned the key, yanked it from the ignition, and threw it out of the car.

Colin turned. I thought he was going to hit me, but he didn't. Instead, he slumped forward over the steering wheel, his shoulders shaking. He made a terrible sound. He was sobbing.

I groped on the floor of the car until I found my cell phone, and I punched in my dad's number.

“I

don't get it,” I said to Morgan the next morning. She had called me from the restaurant on the ground floor of my dad's building and asked me to come downstairs. I found her fretting over a latte. She begged me to go with her to Billy's house. “You've already talked to him on the phone. And you've known him practically your whole life. What are you so nervous about?”

“I dumped him,” she said. “I yelled at him. I said all kinds of mean things about him. I treated him worse than anyone, and he still wanted to see me and talk to me and have my picture with him. Do you want me to go on?”

“But he already told you he still loves you.”

“I know,” she said. “But ... I'd just feel better if you came with me. Please, Robyn?”

I said okay. Besides, I wanted to see Billy, too.

His mother answered the door. She beamed at Morgan. She frowned at me.

“Robyn, your face—”

“It looks worse than it feels,” I told her. That was an understatement. I had tried to cover the bruises with concealer, but that just made my face look pale and lumpy. Without any makeup on, the whole side of my face looked like some crazy Picasso painting, all red and black and blue.

“I'm fine,” I told her. “Really.”

She looked doubtful but stepped aside to let us in. We found Billy seated at the kitchen table, which looked as if it had been set for a buffet for a dozen people. It was crowded with salads, casseroles, stir-fries, breads, juices—all of it one hundred percent vegan—and Billy was chowing down like there was no tomorrow. He stopped chewing when we walked into the room. His eyes went to Morgan first. He looked at her the way a kid looks when he's finally presented with the pony or the puppy that he's always wanted. Then, reluctantly—but I understood—he turned to me.

“What happened to you?” he said.

“I walked into a fist.”

“Someone hit you?”

I told him what had happened at the arena and then said the same thing I had just said to his mother: “But I'm fine.”

He smiled at me, turned back to Morgan, and invited us to sit down. “You hungry?” he said, reaching for what looked like some kind of tofu wrap. “My mom bought enough food to feed an army.”

“How are you doing, Billy?” I said.

“It was great to walk out of that place. It was even better to be in my own bed last night. But it took me a long time to get to sleep. I kept thinking that maybe someone was playing a trick on me, that maybe the cops were going to come back and arrest me again and put me back inside there.”

“Colin confessed,” I said. “You don't have to worry about anything now, Billy.”

“Thanks to you and Morgan. I know my parents believed me. But you and Morgan were the only people who did anything about it. You were the only ones who were in my corner the whole time.”

I glanced at Morgan. She was looking down at a bowl of tabbouleh.

“Morgan?” Billy said softly. He reached across the table for her hand, which looked like my cue to get out of there. As I stood up, I noticed that Morgan was still staring at the salad.

“Morgan, what's wrong?” Billy said.

When she finally looked up, there were tears in her eyes. “I love you, Billy,” she said.

“I love you too,” Billy said. He reached for her again, but again she refused to take his hand.

“And I'm sorry I doubted you, too,” she said.

“It's okay,” Billy said. “I went kind of crazy when we broke up. I know I was being a pain. I knew it even when I was doing it—I don't blame you for being mad at me. I wished you'd come to see me, but I understand. I mean, you knew him, and I guess you liked him.”

“I was an idiot,” Morgan said. “Sean was nothing like you, Billy. Not even close.”

“You know what?” Billy said. “Let's not talk about him ever again. The important thing is that you were on my side. You believed in me.”

A tear trickled down Morgan's cheek. “No, Billy,” she said in a barely audible whisper, “I didn't.”

Billy looked slightly baffled. “What do you mean?”

“Morgan,” I said. But it was too late.

“I thought it was you,” she said. “I'm sorry, Billy. But I really thought you did it. I know how stupid that was. You would never do anything like that. But—”

She stopped when she saw the look on his face. His mouth was slightly open, his head tilted to one side. If he was breathing, I couldn't tell. He looked like someone who had just been stabbed through the heart.

“I love you, Billy,” Morgan said again. She was crying now. “I'm sorry I doubted you. I'm sorry for what I said.”

Billy stood up and stepped away from the table. “I think you should leave,” he said.

Then he turned and walked out of the kitchen. I heard his footsteps as he climbed the stairs to his room.

Billy's mother came into the kitchen to see what was going on. She looked at Morgan. Morgan wiped at her tears with the palms of her hands.

“He's tired,” Billy's mother said. “I don't think he slept well in there. I know he didn't eat well. It's going to take some time for him to readjust.”

Morgan stumbled to her feet. I followed her out of the house.

“You didn't have to tell him,” I said.

“Yes, I did,” Morgan said. “I was awful to him. I couldn't let him think something that wasn't true. I couldn't let him love me under false pretenses.” More tears trickled down her cheeks. “I guess I don't have to worry about that anymore. I never should have broken up with him. I never should have gone with Sean.”

I couldn't think of anything to say.

I was sitting in the window at my dad's place, watching for my mother's car. I had called her and told her that I'd had a slight accident and that my face was sort of bruised. My dad, who was on his way out when I was making the call, shook his head.

“You're just postponing the inevitable,” he said.

He was right. But I knew my mother pretty well. If I told her over the phone exactly what had happened, she would make it out to be far worse. But if she could see me for herself, she would eventually realize that although my face looked terrible, I was basically all right.

“Make sure you tell her that I had nothing to do with it,” my dad had said before he left.

I was just about to call Morgan to see how she was doing when someone knocked on the door. Because no one had buzzed first to be admitted into the building, I figured it had to be one of the tenants from the second floor. I went to the door and peeked through the peephole.

Nick.

My heart raced as I opened the door. “You just missed him,” I said. “And he won't be back until late.”

“I know,” Nick said. “I heard him go out.”

He stood out in the hall, looking right at me with his purple-blue eyes. He was lean and muscular in his black skinny jeans and a black T-shirt with a well-worn leather jacket over it.

“Are you really finished with that guy, Robyn?” he said.

“You mean Ben?”

He nodded.

“Yeah, I really am.”

“How come? He didn't treat you bad, did he?”

I shook my head. “He's nice,” I said. “But—”

“But what?”

I met his eyes and remembered all the times he had held me close. I remembered how warm I used to feel when he wrapped his arms tightly around me.

“But he's not you. I missed you, Nick.”

He took a step closer to me, forcing me to tip my head up to keep looking at him.

“I missed you, too.”

My phone rang. Nick glanced at it. So did I.

“It's my mother,” I said. I held my phone to my ear.

“I'm right downstairs,” she said. “And I'm in a hurry, Robyn. So—”

“I'll be right there, Mom.”

I ended the call and looked at Nick.

“I have to go.”

“That's okay. I know where to find you.”

Then he kissed me. Lightly. Gently. Sweetly. So sweetly that all I wanted to do was wrap myself around him forever and ever.

“Nick—”

“I'll call you tomorrow,” he said. “I promise.”

After my mom had seen my face, after she had freaked out, and after I had finally calmed her down again and she'd started the car and pulled out into traffic, she glanced at me and said, “What on earth are you smiling about?”

“Nothing,” I said.

Billy didn't come back to school until Wednesday. I spotted him as soon as I got off the bus. He was standing in front of the school with Dennis Hanson. Dennis was talking, but he wasn't looking directly at Billy. Billy was nodding. He looked much better than he had the last time I'd seen him. He still looked thin and tired, but when he saw me and smiled, he looked like the Billy I had always known.

Then he looked beyond me.

Morgan was coming up the street. She stopped in her tracks when she saw Billy.

“I'll be right back,” Billy said to Dennis. He walked past me to Morgan and stood in front of her for a moment. Neither of them said anything. Then Billy put out his arms and Morgan walked into them and they just stood there, clinging to each other. They didn't seem to care that everyone was looking at them. Even Dennis.

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