Crash into You (Pushing the Limits, #3)(29)

Once more, I focus on my lap and again smooth out my dress. I was myself with Isaiah, and look where that got me. “This is me.”

“You hate attention...I get it. But I hate how everyone sees you. If it bothers me then I know it’s got to bother you.”

The back of my neck bristles and my spine straightens. Ethan’s never been so blunt and I don’t care for it. “Sorry I can’t be perfect like you.” Lead scorer on the lacrosse team, voted onto the student council, popular...not me. Just like the rest of my fabulous brothers.

“Come on,” he says. “Don’t be like that. I’m only pointing out what you already know. Everyone thinks you’re quiet, shy, a little off because of your anxiety attacks in middle school and...” He trails off and picks at the label on his beer. “And they think you’re sick.”

My gaze jumps to his. “I am not sick.” I am not Colleen.

There’s an anger building in his eyes that I’m unfamiliar with. “I thought you weren’t either, but then I was the one holding your hair back a few days ago when you vomited in a toilet. So if you weren’t sick, what were you?”

“I wasn’t sick.”

“And yet you claim you’re over the panic attacks. So which rumor is true? Are you the girl who spent time in the hospital our freshman year because you’re sickly, or are you the girl who spent time in the hospital because you had panic attacks?”

I hate that word: sick. I also hate the words panic, fear and coward. A lump forms in my throat, and I can’t decide if I’m angry or hurt or both. “That is low.”

“Lying to me is low.”

My mouth pops open and no words come out. Part of me is dying to tell him. To let someone into my personal nightmare, but I’ve gone this long hiding my secret and if he knows, will he tell Mom? “One panic attack. That’s it.”

“You’re lying, Rachel.”

“I’m not.”

He leans forward. “You are.”

Because of our relationship, he can read my poker face like no one else. What’s surprising is that, after two years, he’s just catching on to the lie.

“You can convince Mom that you aren’t the girl who obsesses over Cobras, reads Motor Trend, sneaks out after dinner to bathe in axle grease and skips curfew so she can drive her car. If you can do that, I think you’re capable of lying to me about being over the panic attacks.”

I slam my hand on the table and people at a nearby table gawk. Ethan waves at them while I lower my head, embarrassed.

“You really want the truth?” I whisper.

“I’m sorry, Rachel. I never knew the two of us stopped telling each other the truth.”

Hypocrite. “What do you do on twin amnesty night?”

A muscle near his eye flinches. “Lying and withholding information are different.”

“Fine. Truth? You and I both know that I can’t be me. She isn’t who Mom wants.”

“This isn’t about Mom,” he harshly whispers back. “This is about you and me.”

My lower lip trembles. I made my brother, my best friend, my only friend, mad at me. Ethan squeezes my hand, then lets me and the subject go. “Don’t cry. I hate it when you cry.”

He finishes his beer in two gulps. “Do you ever wonder what it would have been like if we’d been born to anyone else?”

My stomach aches from the raw truth of his question. “All the time.”

“Rachel!” my mother calls. When she’s sure she’s caught my attention, she motions for me to join her.

I force my practiced smile on my lips. “This is why I can’t be me. Can you imagine how her friends would react if I discussed air shifters and turbochargers? These events...this is why she had another daughter. This is why I’m alive.”

Gathering my gown, I stand. Ethan pulls on my hand and I know he wants me to look at him, but I refuse. “You make her happy, Rach. And we thank you for that. No one likes it when Mom’s sad.”

I release a breath, searching for my nonexistent happy place. “I get tired of playing the role.”

“I know.” He tugs on my hand again, and this time I give in. He flashes his playful smile. “Even I don’t know what an air shifter is.”

I smack his arm, and my smile becomes relaxed as I hear his laughter.

My mother is gorgeous in her slim-fitting red sequined dress and slicked-back blond hair. Like always, Mom is the center of a group. People are naturally drawn to her, and she naturally loves the attention.

The band has progressed onto jazz, and my mother’s movements seem to flow with the beat. I need to go to the bathroom, and I’ve waited too long in the hopes Mom would maneuver her social networking away from the front of the tent. It never happened, so here I am—standing with a full bladder, in a golden gown, being gawked at by a group of aging women. The smile becomes harder to hold.

“Hi, Mom,” I half whisper, half choke. There are way too many eyes on me.

“These are the ladies from the Leukemia Foundation. Ladies, you remember my youngest daughter, Rachel.” My mother graces me with a smile I thought was reserved only for my brothers: one of pride.

They all comment on how it’s nice to see me and how beautiful I look and ask Mom where we bought my dress. I move like a bobblehead while my clammy fingers twist behind my back.