Where You'll Find Me (13 page)

“Oh,” Dad finally says, clearing his throat. “I’m so sorry to hear that.”

Nate nods. “Thank you.”

Mom takes a sip from her glass of water. “How old was he?”

“He was seventeen. It was recent.”

“Did your brother go to Edison, too?” Heather asks. It’s only then that I realize if Nate actually had gone to Edison, he would have been in the same class as Heather. Our school is big, but not big enough that you’d never see someone in your own class.

“No. He was pulled out of school before we moved here.”

Heather nods. “It’s funny, I don’t remember you.”

“I wasn’t at Edison long. Just long enough to make friends with Hanley.” Nate seems to lie as easily as I do, which is a little unnerving.

“Oh,” Heather says. Though she looks confused, like she’s trying to place Nate in memories where she won’t find him, she shrugs and goes back to her pasta.

I force a smile, feeling like we’re dodging bullets, though I can’t help but wonder if I’m going to learn anything new about him tonight. But then the topic of conversation switches to Detroit sports teams, and I slump in my seat.
He’s going to tell me
, I remind myself. It wouldn’t be fair if he only opened up because my parents forced him to with all of their questions. I find his hand under the table and squeeze it. He squeezes mine right back.

As if sensing my thoughts, my parents start firing questions his way again.

“Nate, what do your parents do for a living?” Dad asks.

“My mom is a dental hygienist. My dad works from home. A computer software thing.”

“Did your mother work at an office around here?” Mom asks. “Our old dentist office closed, and we’re looking for a new one.”

“She didn’t work when she was here,” he says, like it’s the truth. “She took a leave of absence when my brother was really sick.”

I wonder if that part actually is true.

“That makes sense,” Mom says. “Maybe she can give us a recommendation sometime, though. She must know of a good dentist in the area.”

“I can ask her,” he says.

“Please don’t,” Heather groans. “I hate the dentist.”

Nate laughs. “Me, too. You’d think it would be better to have your mom as your hygienist, but she only has to be gentle with strangers. Not with her own family.”

“Bet you haven’t had many cavities, though,” Dad says.

“None,” Nate confirms with a grin.

“Impressive,” Mom says.

“So, where do you go to school now?” Heather asks.

“On the west side of the state. That’s where my family lives now.”

“What’s the name of the school? I’ve probably heard of it through NHS.”

The hesitation is just long enough for me to suspect that what he’s about to say is going to be a lie. “It’s a small school. Private. Lakeshore…Academy.”

The way he stumbles over the words confirms my suspicions. I’ve lied so often and long, I can spot another lie a mile away. There’s a lot Nate hasn’t told me, but he’s never lied. He promised he wouldn’t.

When Nate’s eyes meet mine, I don’t make any effort to disguise my realization. His expression falls. He knows he’s busted. I know whatever he’s hiding has to be something big.

He forces a smile, and says, “Mrs. Helton, this pasta is amazing. Thank you so much for having me.”

That’s a true statement. It is good. But as my suspicions and fears filter back in, I’m not hungry anymore.

…

I imagine that from my parents’ perspective, the rest of the evening went well. Nate kept the conversation on the weather and old cars, and earned himself an invitation to come back anytime. From my perspective? Not quite so great.

As we head into the garage, under the guise of waiting for Nate’s parents to pick him up, I ask, “So, if I do a search for Lakeshore Academy, what are the chances a real school’s going to pop up?”

He sighs. “Hanley—”

“Why lie about that?” I interrupt. “What are you hiding that’s so big you can’t even say the name of your school?”

He leans against the wall and doesn’t meet my eyes. “I don’t think I can do this.”

“Do what?”

He sighs. “My life is a mess. My family is a mess. Your life and your family are perfect. I don’t want to mess that up.”

Emotions boil under my skin. “My family is far from perfect. You know what happened with Kayla. You know how they reacted. How I have to hide my feelings and who I really am because I’m not the perfect girl they want me to be.”

“Yeah,” Nate says softly, “and I can’t be one more thing you have to hide. I don’t want to do that to you, Hanley.”

“But…” I stop when tears clog the back of my throat. I won’t cry. Not again.

“I tried. Really, I did. I went to the party, I had dinner with your family, I tried. But I don’t think this is going to work.”

I bite my lower lip hard because even blood would be better than tears. “So, what, you’re leaving?”

His blue eyes burn me. “I’m sorry. Maybe someday I’ll get my life together, and I’ll come back and find you…”

“You’re an asshole, you know that?”

“Hanley. Don’t do this. Being angry might make this feel better right now, but in the long run, it’s not going to help. Let’s just say good-bye.”

Shaking my head adamantly, I say, “No. I
am
angry at you. I thought…” A sob chokes off my words, but I refuse to let the tears fall. “Just go, Nate.” I won’t say it. I won’t say good-bye.

Grabbing his backpack, he walks over to me. There’s pain in his eyes. Maybe it’s my own pain reflected back at me. Either way, I have to look away. He wraps his arms around me, putting his hands on the small of my back. I stand stiff and straight and don’t move a muscle. He plants a kiss on my forehead, soft and gentle as a whisper. “Good-bye, Hanley.”

And then he’s gone.

I stand there until the cold overpowers the shock. Then I walk to the side door that’s been unlocked for weeks. I should go after him. Or maybe I should lock the door and keep him out for good. But I can’t do either, so I let my fingers drop from the handle and head back inside.

Chapter Seventeen

There’s no way in hell I’m stepping foot in the garage. There’s too great of a chance Nate will be back—the times he left before were far from permanent—and seeing him after last night is not high on my list of priorities. I’m too overwhelmed. Maybe too scared. So as soon as I’m ready for school, I head out the seldom-used front door and walk around the corner to the driveway.

As usual, Heather is waiting for me in the driver’s seat. “Did you come out the front door?”

I buckle my seat belt. “Something wrong with that?”

“No. But you always go through the garage.”

“Needed a change of scenery,” I say. Then I close my eyes and pretend to sleep the whole way to school.

The day is made worse when Rosalinda goes home sick after second hour. She rushes out of the classroom with her hand clamped over her mouth. When she comes back, she looks pale and weak. A nasty case of the stomach flu has been going around, including some of the teachers, which means I get to watch movies put in by substitutes for two of my classes. But I still wish Rosalinda were here to distract me from my thoughts.

Since she’s not, my mind keeps drifting back to Nate. Being lied to still hurts. Worrying about his secrets sucks. Avoiding the garage isn’t going to make either of those better. Nate’s the one who taught me that avoiding problems doesn’t help.

He’s such a hypocrite. Making me face up to my problems, my pain, then walking away from his own. But he’ll be back. I’m sure of it. And instead of avoiding him, I’m going to give him a piece of my mind.

I spend most of the ride home from school gathering my courage. If Heather notices my distraction, she doesn’t say anything until we get home, and I don’t follow her to the garage. “Where are you going?” she asks.

“To check the mail. I bought a book. Online. For school.” It’s a lame excuse, but I need to do this alone.

“Whatever,” Heather mumbles before heading inside.

The mailbox is empty, and by the time I get back to the house, Heather is gone. I pause at the side door and take a deep breath. I turn the handle. Open the door. The “How dare you?” is on my lips, but it tumbles to the ground when I step inside.

The space between the car and the wall is empty. The tarp and the blankets are still hidden from sight. Nate’s not here. He didn’t come back.

The garage stays empty the next day. And the day after that. And the day after that. I check the garage every time I walk through, and every time I can’t sleep. With each trip, some of my anger chips away, replaced by worry. Sadness. Though Nate’s absence should become familiar, though it should be a little less unexpected, a little less sharp with each passing day, it’s not.

Everything seems slightly off without him. My bed feels a little colder. The neon sign outside Erma’s Café seems a little less bright. My desire to escape to parties is a little weaker, knowing he won’t be at my house when I get back. Nate had become a huge part of my life. I didn’t realize that living with his secrets would be easier than living without him.

Worse, it’s affecting my mood. Even little things hurt, like when they announce our school’s Valentine’s Day dance. It’s lame, and I probably wouldn’t even go if he were here, but the only person I’d
want
to go with is Nate.

After the announcement, Rosalinda and I are assigned to work on an in-class project. Instead, I doodle dramatic broken hearts in my notebook. Apparently, Rosalinda’s still not feeling well, because she keeps resting her head on her desk and moaning slightly.

“Have you heard about any plans for this weekend?” she asks, voice muffled by the desk.

“Not really. Why?”

“I’ve been trapped inside, sick, unable to do anything for three days. I need something to look forward to once I’m finally feeling better.”

“Why are you back if you’re not feeling better?”

“Mom made me. So really. I need a party. Friday. Saturday. I don’t care. When and where should we go?”

Having to face a party without Nate makes my mood sink even further. “I don’t know.”

“Why the bitch face?” Rosalinda asks, voice muffled by her arms.

“I don’t have a bitch face,” I counter. “And how would you know, anyway? You’ve either been asleep or moaning into your desk since we got to class.”

“Now you have a bitch face and a bitch voice to go along with it. Why are you all moody? Did something happen between you and Nate?”

I snort and keep doodling. “Like you’d want to talk about that.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Our teacher walks by, and we have to stop talking until she passes. “You know what it means,” I say once the coast is clear.

“No, actually I don’t. Why don’t you explain it to me?”

There’s a small part of me that knows now is not the time to talk about this. Not when I’m upset about Nate and stupid school dances. But the bigger part of me doesn’t care. “You want to talk about gossip and parties and drinking, but as soon as there’s something serious going on, you shut down. So if there was something going on with me and Nate, you wouldn’t want to know about it unless we were hooking up.”

Rosalinda sits up, and she looks so miserable that I can’t believe I didn’t notice before. “What the hell, Hanley? Since when is this friendship not good enough for you?”

There’s hurt in her expression, and guilt quickly replaces some of my anger. “Sorry. I’m in a shitty mood.”

“I can see that,” Rosalinda says. She clutches at her stomach. “God, you’re giving me a stomachache.”

“Sorry,” I say again.

“You want to talk about Nate? Or whatever other stick is taking up residence in your ass?”

Despite opening up to Nate, my default is still to shut down. I toss my pen on the desk. Rosalinda is getting paler by the second. “Are you going to be sick?”

She groans. “Maybe. I think I’m going to go home.”

“Feel better.”

“You, too,” she says.

I wonder which is harder to get over—the stomach flu or a boy you shouldn’t have fallen for but think you might have fallen for anyway.

…

That afternoon, Misty texts and asks if I want to go the mall. The mall is one of those places I started avoiding the night Nate took off. But now I’m avoiding it for a different reason. If Nate isn’t there, I’ll know he’s really gone, and I’m not sure if I’ m ready to face that fact yet. I won’t be able to stay away from the mall forever, though, so I text her back.

After school, I sit outside, my ears freezing and nose running until Misty’s van pulls up.

“Aren’t you still grounded?” she asks as I climb into the passenger seat.

“Yeah. But Heather’s staying after school today and I’m going to hope that my parents aren’t going to call home anytime soon. How was your day?”

“Shitty. You?”

“The same. You first. What happened?”

Misty sighs as she turns out of the school parking lot. “Someone broke into my locker and filled it with a couple of trailer hitches and the contents of a garbage can.”

I wince. “Don’t they realize that the ‘trailer trash’ insult has much less impact when you don’t live in a trailer?”

“I don’t think details like that bother them.”

“Do you know who did it?”

“No. It had to be Curtis and his disciples, but I can’t prove it. Hopefully, the banana peel smell will disappear after a few days. Oh, and then, this was on my bed when I got home.” As she reaches around and digs for something in the backseat, the van inches its way toward oncoming traffic. I grab the wheel and point us back into our lane. “Thanks,” she says, tossing a bag on my lap and taking control of the wheel.

Plastic rustles as I open the bag. The shirt I pull out is all delicate, form-fitting lace, which is about as far from Misty’s style as an article of clothing can get. Not only that, but it’s so small that it would barely fit me, let alone Misty.

“A gift from my mother,” she explains. “I guess it could be a gift for my left arm. You know, if I wanted a reason to cut that arm off.”

With a sigh, I toss the shirt back into the bag. “Are you positive that your mom has met you?”

“I’m pretty sure that when she looks at me, she sees the daughter she wants to see. Someone who is thin and likes tea parties, apparently.”

“Ouch. You really did have a shitty day.”

“What about you? Spill.”

Even though the root of my bad day is Nate’s continued disappearance, I skip over that information. “Rosalinda and I got into an argument.”

Misty’s forehead wrinkles. “Really? About what?”

“I don’t even know. I was in a bad mood, and she gave me crap about it. She was in a bad mood, too. She went home early. Think she’s got that stomach flu that’s going around.”

“Oh,” Misty says.

Something hiding behind that “oh” makes me curious. “What?”

“Nothing. Just oh. That’s all.”

“Bullshit.”

She glances at me as she turns down one of the streets leading to the mall. “It’s just…you don’t think she could be pregnant, do you?”

“No. She’s on the pill.”

Misty chews on her lower lip. “Well…if she’s on the pill…then why was she complaining about her period being late?”

“How should I know? I’m not a doctor. Besides, the only way a girl can get pregnant when she’s on the pill is if…” My heart drops when the puzzle pieces fit together. “…she’s on antibiotics.”

“No,” Misty says.

“She was on antibiotics when she had strep throat.”

“And that was right around the time she and Clinton started hooking up.”

“It’s probably just a fluke.” It has to be a fluke.

Misty nods. “Right. But do you think we should talk to her? Just in case?”

My mind flashes back to the earlier conversation with Rosalinda. Getting called bitchy was bad enough. I don’t even want to think about what I’d get called if I brought up something like potential pregnancy. “We might want to wait until she’s feeling better. In a better mood.”

“
If
she feels better. If she does, maybe we’re wrong.”

“I’m sure we’re wrong.”

Misty nods, but we’re doing a shitty job of convincing ourselves or each other. “So, anything you need at the mall?”

“I need to get my mom a birthday present,” I say, even though Mom’s birthday isn’t until the middle of the summer.

“Ugh,” Misty groans. “That’s the worst. I hate spending money to buy my parents shit they don’t even use. Once I tried giving my mom cash. Saved me a trip to the store and her from having to find a corner of her closet to shove whatever I would have bought her. She threw it back at me and told me it was impersonal.”

“Nice.”

“This year she’s not getting anything. I swear.”

We talk for the rest of the ride to the mall, discussing terrible birthday presents we’ve given or received. My worst gift? Boys’ Power Ranger underwear for my twelfth birthday. Apparently, my grandma forgot that I was older than five and also a
girl
. Misty’s worst gift? Tickets to the ballet. Front row. Which her mom actually thought she would enjoy.

When we get to the mall, my nerves are like weeds, growing no matter how hard I try to stop them. If Nate’s here, we’re going to have to talk. To finish the conversation that ended so poorly before he left. But if he’s not here…

“Hanley? Hello?”

“Huh? Sorry.”

Misty parks and grabs the bag with the shirt. “I’m going to return this monstrosity. Do you want me to text you when I’m done? Then we can shop at stores that don’t sell anything remotely resembling this.”

“That sounds good.”

We get out of the van and walk toward the entrance. “Candles,” Misty says.

“Huh?” I ask.

“Every time I come over, your mom is burning a different candle. Might be a good birthday present for her.”

It’s ridiculous how quickly anything non-Nate-related can slip from my mind. “Oh. Good idea. Thanks.”

Inside the mall, Misty turns toward one of the department stores while I head down the corridor leading to the miracle face lotion guy. Delaying this longer won’t make it any easier. I shove my sweaty-palmed hands into the pockets of my fleece.

As I make the final turn, the face lotion kiosk is in sight. So are the Truly Michigan store and the bench. The
empty
bench. I’m torn between relief and heartbreak. As I approach the kiosk, I force a smile onto my face. “Hi.”

Today, the guy is wearing a tight pair of jeans and a button-down blue shirt that matches the color of his contacts perfectly. The shirt is perfectly pressed, and his hair is perfectly gelled, and he’s still perfectly tan. The perfect advertisement for this company. “I don’t know if you remember me, but…”

“Hanley, right?” he says.

“Yeah,” I say, impressed.

“I told you I wouldn’t forget a beautiful name for a beautiful girl.”

My cheeks warm. “Thanks.”

“So, what can I do for you this afternoon? Here for some of this wonderful lotion?” He picks up one of the small tubs, but he must be able to read in my expression that lotion is far from the reason I’m here. “Or are you looking for someone again? Our friend with the backpack?”

I nod once.

The guy leans against the kiosk. “Ah, yes. Young love. Well, I’m afraid to break your heart, young lady, but I haven’t seen him in a while. A week. Maybe two.”

Some of my relief disappears as this sinks in. He’s really gone. “Oh. Okay. Thanks.”

He nods, sympathy in his expression. “Why is this guy so important to you? You could get any guy you want with eyes and skin like that. Don’t even get me started on those hips.”

The fact that he’s obviously not into girls is the only reason I don’t slap him in the face. Well, that and the fact that he’s helpful. “Thanks, but I’m not sure that’s true.”

“Well, if I see him, I’ll tell him you were looking for him. If that helps.”

“It does,” I say, even though I’m not sure it’s true. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Now, are you sure I can’t interest you in any of this lotion? Broken-heart special. Buy one, get one free.”

I start to say no, but then I remember my mom’s birthday and the wrinkles she has from frowning at me all the time. “Maybe I could get some for my mom.”