The Space Between Us (28 page)

Words. Why couldn’t I think of something to say? I had to say something, but everything I felt was flowery and ridiculous, and anything less wasn’t enough.

I turned my head, then my body, toward him and tipped my forehead to his shoulder. He lifted his arm and I slid into him, breathing his clean, foresty scent. “Thank you,” I mumbled into his chest.

“I think that was thank you, so you’re welcome.”

We stood there like that, with me curled into his body, listening to his heart beat against my cheek for a minute before he asked, “So do you miss going to church?”

How did he know what to ask? “Yeah. But it’s ruined whether I’m there or not. I used to feel like my dad was talking to me—he doesn’t do the whole hellfire and damnation thing. He isn’t that kind of pastor. I used to really love his sermons. I used to love everything about church, actually. But then Charly got pregnant and everything was different.”

“I thought he didn’t know.”

“He didn’t. Doesn’t. I guess I’m the one who changed. I’ve been so mad at him, and I know it’s not his fault, but I can’t help but think that if he were a different kind of person, a different kind of dad, we’d have been able to tell him.”

Ezra’s chest rose and fell, my body moving with it.

“Maybe he wouldn’t have freaked like you think he would’ve.”

“Maybe,” I said, not believing it. “But we weren’t worried about him being angry. We were worried about it breaking him.”

“Oh.”

The word was full of sadness. I reached down and touched his hand, his skin rough and warm beneath my fingertips. I opened my mouth to ask about him and his mom, then closed it. He was so private. I didn’t want him to pull away from me now, not after pouring my heart out. “And it would’ve been the scandal of the decade in Tremonton. If sadness didn’t kill him, the humiliation would.”

“But there are worse things than getting pregnant,” he said. “Maybe your dad would’ve been okay.”

I looked away. “Charly’s the special one. Everyone says she’s exactly like my mom.”

I let the words settle and prayed he wouldn’t try to tell me I was special too. Savannah always responded to my hinting around this truth with self-esteem boosting comments, like telling me how much my dad loved me meant anything.

He turned his hand around, lacing his fingers through mine. “That sucks.”

“And after Charly got pregnant and I knew I was leaving, sitting and listening to his sermons was hell. I
don’t miss that. But now I feel guilty for not going.”

“Yeah, you don’t seem like you’ve got much of a rebellious side.”

I smirked. “You think having a tattoo makes you the expert?” I traced the bear on his forearm with my fingertips.

He watched my fingers travel over its head and back, around each leg and back up to the head. “The tattoo doesn’t count. My mom supported it. If you want to piss off your parents, you do the
opposite
of what they want.”

“In my case, that wouldn’t work. Satan worshipping is so extreme.”

“Good point.”

“And the sight of blood makes me sick, so animal sacrifices are out.”

“That’s a relief. I can’t see us hanging out if you were busy skinning house cats. Plus, chicks who wear black lipstick scare me.”

“That makes two of us.”

His stomach grumbled audibly and I laughed. “You’re hungry. You should have said something.”

He shrugged. “I figured I’d drive through somewhere on my way back to Lake Louise.”

I walked over and opened the fridge. “Leftovers à la Bree?”

“If you’re offering.”

I pulled last night’s pork chops out of the fridge and started heating up a plate for Ezra. “So I feel like I’ve talked your head off,” I said. “It’s kind of embarrassing. You probably won’t believe me, but I don’t usually do that.”

“No, I believe you. You’ve got closed book written all over you.”

“Me?” The microwave beeped and I took the plate out and slid it over to Ezra. “What about you? You ask me question after question, but you never talk about yourself.”

He took a bite of food.

“Sure,” I said. “Eat instead.”

He chewed. And chewed. Then swallowed and took another bite of food.

“My point exactly.” My smirk, my tone—they only hid so much.

Finally he spoke. “So what do you want to know?”

So much. But I didn’t want to ask for it. I wanted there to be something magical about me that dissolved his stone-faced filter that held everything in. I wanted him to shake his head and wonder why he found himself saying things to me, things he couldn’t tell anyone else. “I want to know why you read a math textbook at the library and hide it when people come in.”

“I like math.”

“And the hiding?”

“I don’t like people bugging me about liking math.”

“That doesn’t seem a little sixth grade to you?”

“No, and it’s called
grade six
here. I don’t know why you’re pretending you don’t know anything about me. Like Bree hasn’t told you everything.” A ragged edge had crept into his voice, something sharp beneath the surface. He looked at the cupboard above the sink and pointed. “Mind if I get myself some water?”

“Go ahead.”

I folded my arms and watched him.
Let it drop, Amelia.

He drank, then put the glass down. “If someone asked you about your college plans right now, would you feel like talking about it?”

“Of course not. Last time
someone
insisted on discussing the wreckage that is my future, I smashed a cactus.”

“Exactly.”

“But I’m not just
someone
.” My vulnerability stung with all the rawness of skin under a ripped nail.

He needed to reassure me. Now was the time for him to say something ridiculous like,
No, you aren’t just someone, Amelia. You mean so much more than that to me.
If he said it softly and kissed me hard right now, I’d completely ignore the gag-worthiness of that kind of declaration and the fact that I’d fished for it, and I’d believe him. With everything in me, I’d believe him.

“I need to go,” he said.

And I’d just bared my pathetic soul.

I glanced at the clock. “So you were kidding when you said you didn’t have to be there till three o’clock.”

“I forgot I have to stop for gas.”

“Yeah.”
Shut up, Amelia.

“What is going on?” The irritation in his voice just made me madder. “You want to go check the gas gauge?”

I kept my voice calm and low. The last thing I needed was to be called emotional. “Yeah, I’d really love to go out in minus six hundred degrees to prove you have a full tank. If you’d rather lie and duck out than have a real conversation with me, whatever.”

“How has this not been a real conversation? We’ve been standing here talking for almost an hour.”

“No, twenty minutes. And
I’ve
been standing here talking. You’ve been refusing to share anything that might make me feel like I might actually know you.”

His body stiffened. “You know me. I’m just shy. So what?”

“But you’re
not
shy! Shyness wears off when you get to know somebody, and this is definitely getting worse. You just don’t trust me.”

“It has nothing to do with you.”

“Exactly. It never does. Sorry for not being thrilled about it, but I’ve had enough of that recurring life theme.”

He looked me in the eyes and I saw layers of ice cracking, something simmering underneath. “Fine. You win.
My mother is bipolar and occasionally suicidal. My brother is a junkie and a criminal. My father is gone and I don’t blame him, because if I could run away without the entire world exploding, I would too. What else? Oh yeah, the girl I was with for three years hates me because I couldn’t love her enough, whatever that means, and the girl I can’t stop thinking about insists I don’t trust her. And she’s right, because I don’t trust anyone anymore. Happy?”

The air rushed out of me like I’d been kicked in the stomach.
Happy?
No. Needy. Egomaniacal. Ashamed. But definitely not happy.

“I’m going to be late,” he said quietly.

I looked down at my feet. Was I supposed to apologize? He’d been trying to do something nice and I’d crushed it like glass under my boot. Stomp and twist. But it was true—he pulled further into himself the more time we spent together and it felt like rejection.

That made us wrong for each other.

“Thanks for the hot chocolate,” I muttered.

“You’re welcome.”

I walked him to the door, fighting the churning in my stomach with every step. I wanted to hug him and apologize, but I couldn’t. He might not hug me back. He might just stand there with my arms around him.

“You want your pork chop for the road?”

He shook his head, and I wished for the millionth time
his eyes weren’t so unreadable. I leaned against the wall, watching him put on his boots and bundle up. “So, don’t freeze to death.”

“No promises.”

The door was only open for a couple of seconds, just long enough for him to slip out and cold air to force its way in. I stood perfectly still, leaning into the closed door, letting the cold and the silence swallow me.

I
need to talk to you.”

“Gimme a minute,” I mumbled. Midsentence, midthought, mid-email—did she always do that intentionally, or was it some kind of interruptive radar she’d been born with?

At least she was still talking to me, though. And the way she’d cleared out when Ezra had stopped by yesterday had been surprisingly thoughtful.

I sighed and pushed back from the keyboard, gliding across the hardwood.

“What?”

“Well, actually . . . ” Her voice trailed off. She was
sitting sideways in the armchair with her legs dangling over the edge, scissors in one hand, a braid in the other. She’d freaked out this morning about the static making her hair stick to her neck, and begged me to give her two French braids. The effect was very Swiss Miss.

“Wait, what are you doing?” I asked.

“Trimming split ends. It’s so freaking dry my hair is turning into straw.”

“Cutting your own hair is mental-patient crazy. Put the scissors down.”

Oddly, she obeyed. And I could see nervousness in the set of her mouth and lines between her brows.

I folded my arms and waited.

“Actually it’s Ms. Lee who wants me to talk to you,” she said.

Ms. Lee. Charly had all but moved into the counseling office—wasn’t that enough for that woman? “You can tell her I’m doing fine,” I said, “and I’m not coming in.”

“No, not like that. She wants me to, like,
talk
to people. She wants me to tell people things, and I told her I’d start with you.”

Things?
Was Charly actually gearing up to tell me off? Because if so, I had a few choice words for her too. “So talk, then.”

Charly sighed. “Jeez, Amelia.” Her voice was shaky.
“You don’t have to make this so hard. I just need you to listen to me.”

It was the way she said my name. Something in it startled me. Then it made me ache, like she was going to cry and it was going to be all my fault.

“I’m sorry,” I mumbled. “I’m just ticked at Savannah.”

“Maybe we should just talk later, then.”

“No. Really, I’m sorry. Go ahead.”

She took a deep breath and the bulge of her belly rose and sank with it. “Well. Back in the fall, at home, I sort of let people believe things. Things that weren’t exactly true. At first I couldn’t explain, and then once everyone had already assumed things, and I’d already disappointed everyone, those things kind of became true to me—I mean, what everyone thought, instead of what really happened.” She was pulling her braid like she was milking a cow, like she could coax sense out of it. “So I kind of stopped believing that the things that everyone thought were true
weren’t
actually true.”

“Charly.” I took a deep breath of my own. This warranted being annoyed, but I didn’t feel annoyed. I felt afraid. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. I need you to replace pronouns with nouns, and ‘things’ with other words.”

“I can’t remember the difference between a pronoun and a noun.”

I closed my eyes. “Are you kidding?”

“Maybe?”

“Okay, but you know what I mean. I really
do
want to listen to whatever it is that Ms. Lee wants you to say, but you’re not making sense.”

She nodded, her eyes big and focused on mine. “Okay.” She dropped the braid and started tugging on the other one. “Okay. So you know in the fall, before homecoming?”

“Yeah.”

“You know that party I went to on that night when I didn’t—”

“Of course I know,” I interrupted, trying to keep my voice patient. “The night you didn’t come home, the night”—I waved my hand in the air at her—“this happened.”

“Yeah, that night.” She swallowed. “Well, I drank a little bit.”

I remembered. She’d arrived home looking like the hangover poster child. “A little bit?”

“A little bit. One wine cooler. But I don’t remember most of that night.”

“Yeah, but what did you drink after the wine cooler? I saw what you looked like when you came home, remember?”

She just shook her head. “I only had the one drink. I swear.”

“So then you got high?”

She shook her head again, her lip trembling. “No. I don’t remember.”

The twinge of fear in my stomach was swelling, but I couldn’t stop it. “What are you saying? You don’t remember getting high or you don’t remember anything?”

“I remember Ty’s cousin bringing me a wine cooler and—”

“Was it open?”

“Yeah, and I remember sitting with the guys on the porch and drinking it because it was too hot and sweaty inside, and then it gets . . . harder to see. Blurry, kind of, and more just flashes, and even then I don’t know if it’s because I’m trying too hard to remember something. Voices. Somebody’s shirt in my face. That feeling of being picked up, hoisted and upside down, you know? Like over a shoulder?”

“Charly, look at me.” It was my voice that was trembling now.

She wouldn’t. Somewhere midstory she’d trained her eyes on the window to where snow was blowing sideways. The wind howled like wolves.