How it Ends (8 page)

I stopped him again and made a low
un-un
in the back of my
throat without ever breaking the kiss. He drew back slightly, searching my face and murmured as if surprised, “You’re not like I thought you were.”

“No,” I whispered, gazing back, half hurt, half thrilled, because he saw me now, the real me, not the flirty school Hanna but the
girl
, and then he smiled this wry little smile like the joke was on him and kissed me again.

We talked for a little bit, nothing big, just teasing stuff, and about ten minutes later got up and went back to the party in time to watch the ball drop in Times Square, yell Happy New Year, and kiss right there in front of everyone. I went into the bathroom afterward, brushed my bed head (finally, Seth-induced bed head!), and put on fresh gloss, but there was no way to tone down my pink cheeks or the brilliance in my eyes.

Sammi caught me in the hall and, pulling me aside, whispered, “Oh my God, did you do it with him?”

“No, he didn’t even get up my shirt,” I whispered back.

“Well, that’s not what it looks like.”

“Well, I can’t help that,” I said and was so happy that, when we went back downstairs and I saw Seth sitting in the corner of the couch, having a beer and talking to a couple of guys, I didn’t even really mind that he’d put himself in a place I couldn’t get to. Instead, me and Sammi started talking to two guys from Connor’s block and it didn’t take long for Seth to come put his arms around me and start joking around and feeding me potato chips. I was flying so high that I stood on tiptoe and whispered, “So now you’re my love slave, right?” and waited for him to laugh, and he did, well, it wasn’t a laugh exactly but he gave me that same wry smile and his gaze went all distant. So I quickly told him I was only kidding but it lessened something somehow, and nothing I said or did after that brought the connection back to that same heady level.

And it killed me because I want to know him,
all
of him, everything about him, and I want him to know about me, to ask me all my thoughts and my dreams and what I love and hate…everything. All the real, true love things below the surface, all the secret hopes and stuff you never tell anyone but the people you really trust, the ones you know won’t use it against you.

I wanted me and Seth to be like that more than anything.

He got Phil to drive us back to Sammi’s at two and kissed me good night, but it gave me a gray feeling, like I’d finally had my chance and blew it, which was, in fact, the truth, as I had apparently been good enough to be with but not good enough to formally ask out, and that just broke my heart.

Gran and Grandpa came for New Year’s Day dinner but they didn’t stay long because Gran didn’t feel good. She’s stopped waitressing part-time because she’s kind of shaky and she even brought her own travel mug because she says it’s the best way to drink without spilling.

She asked me if I’d read any good books lately and when I said no, because I hadn’t been over to peruse her bookcases in a while, she offered to lend me one of her book club selections and I said sure, okay, because I didn’t have anything better to do and, let’s face it, the phone wasn’t exactly ringing off the hook.

So I went back with them after dinner was over and while I was there she asked me if I knew how to list things on eBay, because she was thinking about selling her collection of Hummels, as she couldn’t dust them anymore and they were probably worth something.

I said sure, why not, and spent the rest of the day writing descriptions of old-fashioned, foreign-looking knickknacks and showing Grandpa how to navigate the auction site.

How do I get roped into these things?

I am in the pantry sorting
the remaining vegetables and removing any that shows signs of spoiling when Lon appears in the doorway. “Helen.”

“You’re in my light,” I say absently, examining the last of the beefsteaks.

“Helen,” he says again, and this time I hear the tight wheeze in his voice, the urgency, and the beefsteak rolls from my hand and onto the floor with a soft, dull plop, and I hear myself say, “Lon?” in a voice I would have never thought was mine. “What is it?”

He sags against the door frame, one hand pressed to his chest, and struggling for breath. “Call the…ambulance.”

Gran called my mother and said
Grandpa had another heart attack and was in the hospital. She said they’re monitoring him and having visitors would be too stressful but asked if I would go over to their house before dusk every day and put out the deer food, feed the stray cats, and fill the bird feeders, because she’d be spending most of her days there with him. My mother told her I would.

I hope Grandpa gets well soon, because my mother said Gran would be lost without him.

That’s so sad.

I hope someone will be lost without me someday.

Serepta is lonely without Gran and follows me around while I get her food and water, so of course I have to sit in my chair and pet her before I put out all the other cat food.

Good thing Gran left written instructions because I have to open seven cans, put them out on plates around the yard, then refill the water and dry food bowls.

At first I thought it was a giant pain, going through all this work every day just to feed some wild cats, but when they started inching
toward the food, I changed my mind. They’re thin and scraggly and so wary, like they think I’m going to kick them or something. It makes me wonder what kinds of terrible things happened to them before they found their way here.

Most of them were dumped by people, and if it wasn’t for Gran, these cats would have died of starvation a long time ago.

Talk about
real
community service.

I did some research on feeding deer, just for the fun of it, and found out that giving them corn in the winter isn’t such a great thing, and that if they really need food to survive it should be hay, or even cutting down a few trees so they have fresh browse.

Feeding them corn when it isn’t a natural food supply for the season can actually do more harm than good.

Hmm.

What’s that old saying about the road to hell being paved with good intentions?

Gran’s going to hate knowing that all this time we might have been hurting them more than helping them.

I think I’ll tell her later, when she’s not so stressed.

In the meantime, I’m going to ask my father if we can get some hay.

Sammi finished her community service requirement. She thinks I’m nuts for not letting guidance know I fell off the list, but I’m not telling them now. God, then I’d have to go to stupid summer school or something to make it up, so forget it. I’ll worry about it next year. I can always do double the time if I have to. I told Sammi that and made her swear on her mother’s life that she would never mention the phrase
mandatory community service
in front of my parents because I don’t want to remind them of it, either. She swore but she still thinks I’m crazy.

I’m not crazy. I just want to be available in case something wonderful happens this summer.

The first day of spring.

Seth stopped at my locker, picked up a strand of my hair, tickled my nose with it, smiled, and said, “Just don’t want you to forget me, pretty lady.”

I could kill him for giving me just enough to get all hopeful again, every single time.

I come to the hospital every
day and the nurses in the ICU are very helpful. They bring me a chair and a box of tissues, lower the lights, and leave me alone to sit beside Lon.

“I love you,” I say quietly and try to stop shaking before touching his arm but it’s impossible. He looks so old and frail in the hospital bed, so caught in the tangle of IV lines and monitors, so far away from me in his sedation that I don’t know how to reach him. He’s never been out of reach before—not since the beginning anyway, when I wasn’t supposed to fraternize with him—and this separation terrifies me.

“Don’t you leave me, old man,” I whisper, holding his hand, bending my head, and letting the tears fall. “You told me you would never leave me, so don’t you do it. You have to rest and get well, Lon. You have to come home. You do.”

He has to, because I don’t know how I could live without him.

Tomorrow is my birthday. Sammi
is coming home with me after school and then we’re sleeping over Crystal’s, since her brother is throwing the first keg party of the season and we’re invited.

My mother woke me up with the same song she always plays on my birthday, some dinosaur named
It’s a Beautiful Morning.
I used to love it when I was younger and she made a big fuss over me, but come on, I’m sixteen now, okay?

Still, she dances in, invading my room and opening the blinds, but no matter how crabby I act, she just keeps singing until I peek an alligator eye out from under the covers and she knows I’m up.

Okay, honestly? I love my birthday.

It’s a day when
anything
can happen.

When I got to school Sammi was waiting in the courtyard with a shiny red
Happy Birthday
balloon that only lived long enough to tell the world (including Seth) that it was my big day before a bunch of seniors grabbed it and sucked out the helium.

I didn’t mind because at least it had gotten the word out, and that was the whole point.

The only dark cloud is that me and Seth haven’t really talked lately, and once again, I don’t know why. I
never
know why with him. He doesn’t look mad when we bump into each other, or disgusted or anything, he just sort of recedes and does his friendly but distant thing where something is off but I can’t pinpoint what.

It’s maddening.

And according to Sammi, who saw him in the hall with his current girlfriend Solange this morning, he has a big hickey on his neck almost hidden under his hair.

That’s not good birthday news.

Anyway, Sammi bought me pizza in the caf, which was nice, and we brought it out to the courtyard and hung out on the curb eating and keeping an eye out for Seth, who of course never showed up.

Maddening, I tell you.

“What if nothing good happens?” I said, leaning back on my hands. “I mean, this is my
birthday,
Sammi.
Something
has to happen.”

“Maybe he’ll dump Solange,” Sammi offered, drawing up her legs and resting her chin on her knees. “That’d be a good present, right?”

I shrugged. “Only if I was next.”

“Do you really still want to be?” she said, glancing at me.

“Yeah,” I said without hesitation.

Sammi sighed.

“What?” I said.

“He dumped Solange,” she said and met my startled gaze. “I heard it in the pizza line.”

“Oh my God, why didn’t you tell me?” I said.

She shrugged and reached for a pebble.

“I knew it,” I said, jumping up and brushing pizza crust crumbs off my skort. “I
knew
this was gonna be a good day.”

“Where are you going? Like I don’t already know,” she added in an undertone, tossing the pebble back onto the driveway.

“To give Seth a chance to give me my birthday kiss,” I said, nudging her with my foot. “Come on.”

She shaded her eyes with her hand and peered up at me. “Why don’t you wait until
he
comes to
you
for a change?”

“Because you know he won’t,” I said, shifting impatiently.

“Right,” she said. “Isn’t that kind of the whole point?”

“Not on my
birth
day,” I said, scowling. “God, Sammi, I have
one wish,
and why should I just sit around
hoping
it happens when maybe I can do something to
make
it happen? You know I’m not exactly the sit-back-and-take-whatever-comes-to-me type.”

Sammi arched an eyebrow. “Except when the whatever is him.”

“No,”
I said coldly, but that was a giant lie and we both knew it, so I abandoned my snotty self and resorted to begging. “Come on, Sammi, come with me. Pleeease?”

She did but I lost her outside the media room to some junior guy, so I told her I was headed for the upstairs hall if she wanted to catch up. And then I walked and looked and, finally, right before the next bell rang, I spotted Seth and a bunch of seniors climbing out of a car in the parking lot. I stepped down the hall out of sight, listened to their approaching laughter, and right before they came in, set down my purse and crouched to fuss with my shoe.

They swept in reeking of pot and having some kind of sports argument.

I picked up my purse and rose, searching out Seth in the mix. He was talking to the guy next to him and didn’t seem to see me, so I said, “Hey,” as he passed.

He glanced my way, eyes bloodshot, and said, “Oh, yeah, hey, how’re you doing?” and went back to his conversation.

I ducked to search for something in my purse, just in case anyone turned around, but no one did. And I should have left, I should have but I didn’t, because I thought maybe he’d come back, and that’s when
the voices drifted to me, one kid saying, “Man, she’s been dogging you all year. Why don’t you just do her already and get it over with?”

Seth’s response was too low to be heard, but the following burst of laughter wasn’t too low at all.

Neither was the single sharp crack as my heart broke.

I couldn’t even think for the rest of the day. All I could do was sit there replaying the laughter and getting sicker and sicker. Teachers called on me and I just said, “I don’t know,” to whatever they asked. Sammi asked me what happened and I just shook my head and said, “I’ll tell you tonight,” because I couldn’t bear to say all the things that were rising into my mind.

I thought I’d been so careful, secretly restructuring hall routes, just happening to be in all the places he was, occasionally dating other guys so he wouldn’t think all my hopes and dreams revolved around him…

But they knew.

Stoned guys, deaf and dumb to all but sports, partying, and their dicks, knew.

And if
they
knew, then everyone else knew, too.

Seth knew.

I hadn’t been subtle, I’d been obvious.

I’d been
dogging
him.

Oh, God, just the word made me want to puke.

I was so miserable that I never even noticed the thousand-year-old nun who creaked up and snagged me for being out of uniform with my black stockings, so I had to buy a brown pair from the office, which apparently carried only the Original Yodeling Goatherd Brand of Thickest, Ugliest, Lowest-Hanging-Crotch Panty Hose in the Entire Free World, and put them on.

Wynn passed me in the hall and said, “Hey, happy natal day!” and gave me a big smile. Connor’s girlfriend Teresa stopped and asked if I
had anything good planned, and in the heartbeat before I answered, I realized that whatever I told her would get back to Connor and then to Seth, and if I ever wanted to make a stand and end this before I had no pride left at all, it would have to be now.

“Oh, yeah,” I said, studying my reflection in my locker mirror. “Me and Sammi are heading down to an all-night kegger some guys I know are throwing for my birthday.” I fluffed my hair. “Ought to be a blast.”

“Sounds like it,” she said. “Is it an open house or invite only?”

“Invite only,” I said without hesitation. “They’re not from this school and they’re kind of older. Sorry.”

“No problem,” she said, smiling. “I just figured it was worth asking, since we’re always up for a good party. Well, have a great time and don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

I snorted a laugh and said, “Then it had better be a short list, Ter.”

And she grinned and walked off.

I shut my locker and headed in the opposite direction.