The Reece Malcolm List (30 page)

“You, too.” But that’s it. We’re back to not knowing each other. I wonder if after tonight we’ll ever speak again. I mean, who even knows where I’ll end up?

The second act is as solid as the first, and during the closing number, “Our Time,” I link arms—in character—with Aaron and Sai, and tell myself to hold on hold on hold on to this moment. If everything changes, I still have all of this. Next life change, next new school, I won’t be a timid mouse, and I definitely won’t
ever
be a wild squirrel.

Maybe I’ll be okay after all.

Mr. Deans tries to keep us after our curtain call (many solid minutes of crazy applause) to give us a speech about how much we’ve learned and grown and accomplished, but the cast party is planned at Liz’s place, since her parents are out of town, and everyone is inching toward the door and not paying attention. So he cuts us loose, and I run to the dressing room to switch the pajamas for a newish red dress, my red flats (while trying not to think about my mother buying them for me), and a black cardigan, before meeting up with Travis and Mira in the lobby so we can take off.

“Your mom,” Travis says to me, “is so cute.”

“Why are you talking about my mom?” I snap, instead of responding in any number of normal ways.

He rolls his eyes. “Because she just walked by!”

“Trust me, she didn’t,” I say. “Someone who looked like her did. Can we go?”

Mira nudges me as we walk out to Travis’s car. “You okay?”

“I’m fine.”

“Right.” She nudges me again. “Let me know if you’re not, seriously.”

“Thanks.” I won’t be spilling anything to Mira but the offer is still nice. Justine pushed me so hard to reveal my deepest thoughts but never even seemed to notice when I just needed her to
be there
for me. It’s kind of weird how Mira can read me so well. It’s even weirder that she knows to ask and then let it go.

Liz’s place is already pretty packed when we get there, clearly not limited to just cast and crew. Travis dashes off, probably to solve the Aaron Finley Sexuality Conundrum, but I hang near the front room. And despite Sai, and despite my afternoon and what I fear waits for me at my mother’s house, one thing I feel right now is wanted.

“I’m getting something to drink,” Mira says. “You want anything?”

“I’m fine. Thanks.”

People keep coming up to let me know how great I was, how much they liked the show or liked working with me. So I get drawn in. And that’s how I stumble upon Sai, even though I’ve been doing my best not to (and assuming he won’t be here anyway).

“Oh, sorry,” I say, because somehow we’re the only two in the little darkened hallway between the kitchen and the rest of the house at the moment. (I was looking for the bathroom . . . maybe he was doing the same?)

“Sorry?” He grins like the last few days didn’t happen. “You didn’t even run into me.”

“Shut up,” I say. “Just—”

“Just what?” He leans in close close close. Our foreheads almost touch. “Good show tonight, Dev. Maybe your best.”

“You, too. I hate it that I seem to get my best right before the show closes.”

“Yeah, you started off pretty strong, though.” He leans in closer, slides his arms around me like we’re going to hug, but instead I close the remaining space between us.

And our lips meet.

Sai’s fingertips press into the small of my back. I wrap my arms around his shoulders like I’ll float away without his leverage. We kiss again, though to be very honest it’s tough knowing where one leaves off and the next begins. His hands trail up my back, cup around my face, pull me closer because somehow that’s possible. We’re still kissing. Again again again. It’s everything I’ve ever heard about kissing, too—not like kissing Elijah. Which was perfectly nice but. This is heat and hands and teeth and forgetting to breathe and deciding who needs to breathe anyway? Everything I taste see feel is Sai.

“Shit,” is what he finally says. Not exactly the first thing you want to hear after the best kisses of your life from the boy you’re maybe in
love
like with.

“What?”

“Just—” He steps back from me, rubbing his mouth with the back of his hand. And I start to cry. “Dev—no. It’s not you. I’m just . . . I’m no better than my dad.”

“Nicole,” I say.

“She’s my girlfriend. And I just screwed up big. I said I’d never be like him and I am
exactly
like him.”

Normally I would comfort him. Normally I would say how obvious it is that kissing someone while dating someone else isn’t exactly on par with cheating on your wife. But I am not not not in the mood to comfort Sai, and I’m not sure I ever will be again.

“I’m going.” He stomps past me, and I spin around before I can stop myself. I think about my role in the show and how Mary Flynn’s life ended up crappy mainly because she could never speak up and admit how she actually felt to the people who mattered. No timid mouse, no wild squirrel, and definitely no Mary Flynn.

Saying every bit of truth to Reece Malcolm might have changed everything for me. It might have even
ruined
a lot of things. But even if I could go back to this afternoon, I’d never change that it happened.

“You’re such a jerk to blame me,” I say. “You didn’t
have
to kiss me. You didn’t have to kiss me
multiple times
. Go ahead and hate yourself if you want, but—”

“You know I could never hate you, Dev,” he says. “You’re my—”

“I’m your
what
?” I ask instead of letting him finish. “I’m not your friend because friends don’t lead friends on or blame them when they’re mad at themselves. And I’m definitely nothing more to you. I am going back to the party. You can do whatever you want.”

But of course that’s just an excuse to sound tough. In reality I find an empty room to slip off to. Maybe I can cry this all out and get back to life before anyone notices. I might not be a timid mouse or wild squirrel but I’m still
me
. My heart’s not heavy with unsaid words but, well, it’s still
heavy
.

Also I wish there were a way to forget how kissing Sai felt.

“Devan?”

Holy crap, I have to get better at looking out for people. Somehow Mira is already in here. “Oh my God, I thought I was alone.”

She laughs, but this snuffly laugh. Like she’s been crying, too. “Are you okay? If you say you’re fine I’ll hit you.”

“No, I am totally
not
fine,” I say. “Are you?”

“Nope. Lissa’s making out with Aaron Finley.”

“What? What about Elijah?”

Mira, unsurprisingly, can still roll her eyes when they’re teary. “
Right
? She only wants him when she can’t have him, I guess.”

It did at least solve the Aaron Finley Conundrum. “So Travis is pissed? And was mean to you?”

“No . . .”

“Oh. Do you like Aaron or something? I didn’t even—”

“Devan!” She smacks me, but not hard. “Have you seriously not figured out how pathetically in love with my best friend I am?”

“Totally not. Clearly.” But suddenly a lot of things click. “Does she know?”

“Hopefully not,” Mira says. “That’s the only thing that would make it more pathetic.”

“If it makes you feel better, I just kissed Sai. A lot.”

“Uh, that doesn’t make me feel better at all. Why does everyone get to kiss someone tonight except for me?”

“Afterward he
wiped off his mouth
,” I say, and Mira cringes. “And freaked because he’s still going out with Nicole. So I think I win.”

“Yeah, maybe you do.” She buries her head in her hands. “I’m such an idiot. I really kept thinking because she couldn’t actually get things to work with E that maybe . . . there was this chance. But if she’s making out with Aaron, it’s not about not being completely okay with guys, it’s Elijah-specific. Which means this was always hopeless.”

“I’m sorry,” I tell her. “But it’s easy to get hung up on the wrong person. I’m like the biggest example of that ever.”

“I should have told you sooner.” Mira’s expression is soft for once. “Not that I was pining over Liss, just that I’m . . . I figured you’re from the Midwest, and—”

“Yeah, but I’m friends with Travis,” I say. “And I’m nice to the other guys in—”

“No, but, a lot of girls are like that with gay boys, but then they find out a girl’s gay, and they freak. But, still. You’re pretty much nice to
everyone
, and I should have given you the benefit of the doubt.”

“Yes,” I say. “You should have. But I get how it is to have this part of you that seems like no one could handle it if they knew.”

“If you ever want to talk about whatever that is,” she says, “you can. No judgment.”

“Ha!” I smack her this time. “You’re totally full of judgment.”

“You know what I mean.” She sighs and wraps her arms around her knees. “I always want parties to be fun, but I usually end up in some room crying about some girl.”

“Let’s go be social, then,” I say. “It’s less pathetic, and maybe we can try to forget how much tonight sucks.”

“You go be social,” she says. “I need to be pathetic for a while longer. But get a full report on Travis’s reaction to Lissa and Aaron, okay? It’ll make me feel better.”

“Hey, um.” I get up and hover in the doorway. “Do you think I could maybe spend the night at your house tonight? My mother and I had this huge fight, and, maybe—”

“Definitely. Let me know when you want to go. We can try to catch a ride or call my dad to pick us up.”

So I stay a while longer, even though I want to be pathetic, too. I sing at the top of my lungs along with everyone else, I sample the punch someone dumped a flask into, and I manage to let full minutes pass without thinking about Sai. Or my mother.

It’s a bad night. But in a lot of ways it’s a really good one, too.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Things I know about Reece Malcolm:

42. Maybe I was right about her all along.

We sleep in late the next morning, rare for me after performing
and
with so much on my mind. But it isn’t until Mira’s mom knocks on the door letting us know breakfast is ready that I open my eyes. Sleeping on the floor left me feeling a little broken, but at least it matches my mood. I hate easy mornings after awful nights. They’re such lies.

“I, um, I guess maybe I should go home?” I say to Mira after breakfast. It isn’t that I want to face my mother, but I can’t avoid her forever. Getting it over with seems the smartest option, and I want to know what’s next for me, the stuff I can’t control at least. “Is that okay?”

Mira asks to borrow her dad’s car, and her parents agree. So we take off for the house, and I know that later I’ll need to call her and explain a lot. It’s funny how safe Mira seems now.

When she drops me off, I wave and make my way as slowly as possible up to the front door. And I’m hoping to hide out in my room for a while, but as I walk in, my mother looks up from the living room sofa.

“Hey,” she says.

“Hi.” I take a deep breath, like I’m launching into a monologue or something. In really bad form. “So, um. I guess I should know where you want me to go, or if you need to call your lawyer or whatever.”

“You idiot.” She leaps to her feet and bolts across the room. And hugs me. I’m way too confused to react. “I mean—blah, blah, something comforting and nice.”

Somehow that actually makes me laugh.

“We had a
fight
,” she says. “A long overdue one.”

“You said maybe they shouldn’t have sent me here.”

“Yeah, and so did you.” She taps my nose with her fingertip. “You’re right; I am in no way a good mother to you. Which is exactly why I worry constantly I shouldn’t have told them to send you to me. It feels so goddamn selfish. I wasn’t ready to be a mother then, and—even though I’m aware that I’m not now—I want to be.”

“Right,” I say. With a glance to her still very flat stomach.

“Stupid,” she says. Somehow nicely. “God, sorry. Just—I don’t mean the kid. I mean you.”

“Seriously?”

“Totally seriously,” she says in the voice she uses whenever she makes fun of something I say. It’s really good to hear. “It was such a relief having you here when I found out I was pregnant. Brad and I kept saying,
Well, Devan’s amazing so the kid should probably turn out fine
.”

“Really?”

“I guess you didn’t get that far back in my email.” She sits down on the couch again. “Stay out of my stuff, all right? I don’t like this snooping side of you.”

“I just . . . I had to find out.” Suddenly the truth seems smarter than any excuse I could come up with. “Why you left me. I wanted to make sure you wouldn’t do it again, so—”

“Devan,” she says in this waterlogged voice. I’m really not prepared to see Reece Malcolm cry. “Oh, God, kid. There isn’t some big mystery. I was fifteen when I got pregnant, sixteen when you were born.
Your age
. Could you take care of a baby now?”

I shake my head.

“That’s
it
,” she says. “It’s no more complicated than that.”

“But—that didn’t mean you had to, like, walk away completely.”

“It, well . . . it sort of did,” she says. “The agreement I thought I was signing—”

“You
thought
you were signing?”

“My mother thought I’d regret giving up custody of you,” she says. “So it turns out the papers never made their way back to the lawyer. But I was under the impression I had to stay out of your life, which I thought was for the best. I can barely function with people my own age, as you’ve seen. I had no business being around you.”

“That’s totally not true,” I say. “All Dad did was ignore me—at least it seemed like it—and Tracie was awful, and he never stopped her, and you would have been better, I know it.”

“Maybe,” she says. “I had a lot of growing up to do. Anyway, I can’t fix the past. If I had some magical way to give you an instant happy childhood, I’d do it in a heartbeat. But all we have is now and everything after.”

“So if you’d actually signed those papers, I wouldn’t have been sent here,” I say as it dawns on me. “When Dad died. That’s how you found out your mom didn’t give them to the lawyer? So you could have told them that. That your mom interfered or whatever the legal word is, and you didn’t know you had custody of me.”