No One Needs to Know (17 page)

Someone sets down a bread basket and I grab a piece, just to have something to do with my hands.

“So, thank you. For choosing me,” I say after a few heartbeats of silence. “For giving up your friendship with her for me.”

“Of course,” she says. “I’ll always choose you.”

OLIVIA

It was perfect.

The whole night was perfect.

ZOEY

We’re standing on the bow of the SS Salish, the wind whipping so hard it steals my breath away. My hair keeps tangling around my mouth.

Actually, I don’t even know if there’s an
SS
attached to the Salish. It’s a ferry boat, not, like, something from
Gilligan’s Island
.

Across the bay, the moon sinks into the water as if it’s a tennis ball bobbing on the surface of Puget Sound. I lean against the green-painted metal railing and close my eyes, feeling the wind pummeling my skin. We’re on the second-floor deck, too high up to feel the sea mist, but I can imagine it, the feel of the water on my cheeks.

It’s not even that breezy on shore, but out here, halfway between Tacoma and Vashon Island, that’s hard to believe. The water is so dark it’s an inky black, as if I could leap from the boat and into the water and be swallowed whole. The boat would steam away and no one would know that I’m missing.

“It’s fucking cold out here,” Liam says as he emerges from the doors behind me, but there’s laughter in his voice.

I turn away from the water, zipping my jacket the rest of the way to my chin and wishing I’d known to dress more appropriately. “I know. No wonder Carolyn wanted to stay inside.”

“She’s pretty happy with the pretzel,” he says, jutting a thumb over his shoulder.

I can see her, now that I have my back to the bow. She’s just inside the double doors, parked at one of the long leather benches, a table in front of her. But instead of reading the books Liam brought, she’s got her face practically pressed to the window.

I look over at Liam, meeting his gaze head-on. “Thanks for letting her come. And for buying her the snack.”

“Of course. She’s important to you, which makes her important to me.”

It’s weird, hearing those words, and a million things run through my mind.

But the biggest of them all—in this moment where I feel simultaneously alone and protected, taken care of by Liam—is that I can’t help but wonder what it would be like if I’d let more people in, all along. If I hadn’t given Ava the power to dissuade me; if I’d found a way to make friends.

Would there be other people in my life who care about me … who cared about Carolyn? Is this what I’ve been missing out on this whole time?

“Was that the wrong thing to say?” Liam asks, studying my expression.

“What? Oh, uh, no. Just got me thinking.”

“About?”

“About what it would be like to not feel so … ”

“Alone?”

I whip around and stare at him.

“What? I get it too, you know,” he says. “Our condo doesn’t even feel like home. It just makes me restless.” He leans against the railing, just a little bit at first, then farther and farther and farther … until he’s half bent over backward, staring up at the stars, the inky black water rushing by below him. I want to reach out and grab him, pull him back, but I know he’s not actually going to fall overboard.

“They always took all these trips, you know? It’s not a new thing. But we had our
au pair
hanging around, taking care of us when we were younger. The first was from Germany, then two in a row from France.” He stands upright again, though I’d bet it has more to do with needing to straighten his spine than wanting to look at me, because he doesn’t quite meet my eyes. “There’s always something … hollow inside when you realize your parents would rather work than spend time with you. I mean, they created us. You’d think they’d want to be in the same room once in a while.”

It’s weird. The wind is whistling across my ears, but I can hear a distinct melancholy, a wistfulness to his tone.

“I haven’t seen my dad in years and years,” I offer. “He doesn’t even pay child support.”

Liam nods slowly, resolutely, and then moves closer to me. He grabs the railing on either side of my hips so that I’m pinned between him and the iron. But not in a trapped kind of way; in a comforting, close sort of way.

Briefly, I wonder what it would be like if this felt romantic.

If it was Olivia who was leaning in close.

I tip my head back so I can meet his hooded eyes.

“Olivia doesn’t know this … ” Liam trails off, then seems to get lost, staring into me.

“Doesn’t know what?” I ask.

My words seem to wake him up, make him realize he’s got me sort of caged between him and the railing. He steps away and we turn, so that we’re both facing forward again.

The dock looms somewhere ahead, and the speakers blare to life, telling the passengers to return to their vehicles. We don’t have a vehicle; we walked onto the boat for the six-thirty sailing, and the whole round trip is barely an hour. It was a short, completely for-scenic-purposes ride.

“I board this boat almost every night.”

I narrow my eyes but I don’t turn to him. The tone of Liam’s voice says he’s not quite comfortable with what he just revealed, that he doesn’t want to meet my eyes.

“You what?”

“The last ferry leaves Point Defiance at 10:30. I’m usually on it.”

“You ride the ferry every night? Alone?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

He doesn’t speak for a long time, and I think the boat’s going to dock and everyone’s going to get off and the ferry workers are going to find us up here and kick us off, and still he won’t have spoken.

But instead, with the docks looming, he breaks the silence. “Because I can’t sleep. And sometimes I’m … ” he sighs. “Lonely. And somehow being on the water is soothing. The dock is less than ten minutes from my house. It’s hardly an inconvenience. If I’m not going to sleep anyway, I’d rather be on this boat. Listening to the water and the fog horns, watching people go back and forth from the island.”

“You have Olivia.”

“I know.”

“How have you kept this from her?”

He zips his hoodie all the way to his chin, hunching into it. “Sometimes I go directly to the docks from my friends’ houses. Sometimes I sneak out after she’s in bed, or when she’s working on homework.”

“You should talk to her,” I say. “She doesn’t like that you’re pulling away. She’s scared.”

“It’s a weird thing, you know,” Liam says, just as the boat finally arrives, bouncing off the black-rubber sides of the ferry dock.

“What?”

“Pushing her to be her own person … and still wanting her to be there when I need her.”

I smile, willing myself not to tear up from his words, knowing how much Olivia needs him, too. “I think you should tell her that,” I say, just as the door behind us swings open and Carolyn walks onto the foredeck.

Liam sighs, his shoulders rising and falling dramatically. “Yeah. Maybe I will.”

OLIVIA

“I can’t believe you even have all this crap,” Zoey says, standing in the middle of a pile of junk, her hands on her hips. “How does one family accumulate all this stuff?”

I chew on my lip and survey the piles of boxes I promised my dad I’d get rid of. I don’t even know why I’m doing this today—my parents probably won’t show up for another few weeks.

I sigh. “It just looks like a lot when it’s all stuffed into one room. We haven’t touched it since we moved here.”

Zoey snorts and then slaps a hand over her mouth, and I try not to laugh at the ugly sound. “Wait—you haven’t always lived here?” she asks.

“Nope. Mom thought we should downsize.”

“And … how is your monstrous condo a downsize?”

I click the lid back on a giant Tupperware container that, as it turns out, is filled with my mom’s hand-me-down “antique” quilts. She’ll have to sort through that one herself. “Have you ever seen that big purple Victorian up on Yakima street, in old town? Like a super monstrous one?”

Zoey narrows her eyes. “The one with the white shutters and a dinosaur sculpture in the middle of circular drive? With gargoyles or something near the sidewalk?”

“Yeah. The big sculpture is a horse, actually. It’s just really old. But anyway, that’s where I grew up.”

“Holy shit,” Zoey says. “That house is insane.”

I giggle. “Yeah. It was beautiful. And creepy at night, but also amazing.”

“Why’d you move?”

I screw my lips up to the side. “My parents were taking more and more trips. I guess they were worried about us in such a big house, or maybe they figured it was overkill. The condo’s more secure and requires no maintenance.”

“Ah.”

I trace my finger over the red Sharpie words written on the next box, which spell out
China
. “The move was sort of the beginning of the end, as far as our family time went. Liam and I were sixteen and had our own transportation, and they knew we were safe in the condo. Heck, we don’t even have to leave the complex to go out to dinner or to the movies.”

“I see,” she says.

“But it feels like a shelf to me.”

“What?”

“I’ve always felt like they bought the condo because it’s a kind of shelf. They can put us up on the shelf and then go do whatever they want, and whenever they breeze back into town, they’ll take us off the shelf and ask us how we are, and drag us to a couple of parties or events to show what great parents they are, and then when the week is up, they can put us back on the shelf again.”

“Oh.”

“Sorry. That’s probably enough whining for the day. In any case, the move is what led to this heaping pile of junk.”

Zoey spins in a slow circle, as if taking it all in.

“Aren’t you glad you showed up?” I ask.

She grins, grabbing a faded orange Nerf football from a nearby wire crate and hurling it at me.

I barely have time to react before it bounces off my shoulder. “HEY! So uncalled for.”

“Oh come on, you owe me at least that much,” Zoey says. “I was lured here under false pretenses.”

“I said I needed your help!”

She flashes me an
oh please
look. “I figured it was
Olivia
style help. Like picking out the right shoes to match your outfit. And, by the way, wrong choice.”

I gasp, picking up the football and tossing it back at her. “Not nice!”

Zoey catches it, grinning from ear to ear. “I’m only kidding. You actually look pretty great. But seriously, if I had known I’d be sorting through approximately one thousand pounds of stuff, maybe I would’ve pretended to be busy.”

“Gee, thanks,” I say, grinning. I can’t really blame her. This place is crammed.

I open one of the boxes near her, revealing a pile of Legos. “I forgot all about these. Liam was obsessed forever. His whole room was covered in Lego creations and he refused to disassemble anything.”

“Really? What did he like building?”

“Totally nerdy stuff. He had this serious
Star Wars
thing forever. His whole room was decked out. The Legos were mostly spaceships or whatever.”

She giggles. “And here I thought he was super alternative,” she says, making air quotes.

“Please. He couldn’t
buy
street cred. The whole skater dude thing only happened in the last couple of years. Even now he’s like half jock, half skater. I guess he’s still figuring it out.”

I open another box, pulling out a frilly, white, lace-trimmed dress. It’s weird seeing all this stuff. It makes me want to dig into one after another after another and get lost in the memories.

I want to share them all with Zoey.

“And how about you?”

“I’ve always been … this,” I say, holding the dress up. I tuck the hanger under my chin and drape the dress against my chest. “Girly girl. My mom modeled a little when she was a teen. I always thought her pictures were the epitome of glam. She didn’t want me to get into it, though. Not officially. So she’d let me dress up and wear makeup and we’d take a bunch of snapshots and then print them out and staple them together like they were little portfolios.”

Zoey grins. “Your mom sounds cool.”

“She is. Was. I don’t know anymore. I mean, we used to be close. She’d pretend to be a designer who was auditioning models, and I’d dress up and use my fake portfolio and do my runway walk, and she’d be like
fabulous, darling!”
I say, throwing my arm up into the air like my mom does when she gets animated.

Zoey’s smile melts away and she studies me with an intensity that’s just this side of disconcerting. “Do you miss her?”

I shrug. “Liam and I spent a month in Europe with them over the summer. By the end I was happy to have my space again. But sometimes, yeah.”