Tease(63)

Dylan runs his hands through his hair and I wonder if I’m messing things up right now. Emma’s the emotional mess—I’m the easy one, the one who doesn’t have problems. I’m the dramafree girlfriend, the girl he wants to be with.

I scoot over on the seat and lean my head on his shoulder. “I’m sorry you had to deal with all that,” I say, reaching for his hand. “But I’m glad things are better now.”

His whole body tenses up under me, his shoulder flinching out from under my cheek. “Uh, Sara, this—”

I lean back and smile at him, letting him see how happy I am. Somewhere in the pit of my stomach I can feel something bad coming, like when you first realize you’re going to have to puke, that glimmer of nausea before the retching starts. But I’m ignoring it. I’m fine. This is fine.

“This was a mistake,” he says. Whispers. “I’m really sorry.”

His voice is so soft and low, but it echoes in my head like he’s screaming. The nausea starts to rise.

“Are you—” I start to say, and then I have to stop. My voice is scratchy and there’s so much in my throat—vomit and tears and, like, a whole pile of giant, painful lumps—that I can’t get any other words out. I swallow and swallow again and he’s not looking me in the eye. By the time I open my mouth again my voice is barely a squeak, because I can’t get any air, but I sort of croak, “What are you saying?”

“I’m really sorry.” He’s still whispering. He’s sad. But he’s saying it anyway. “This can’t happen again. I’m sorry.”

I can’t move. I can’t feel my arms or legs or anything inside, either—I’m not frozen, because that would feel like something, that would feel solid. I’m heavy and limp. I’m speechless. I’m never going to be okay again.

“Hey, listen, do you need a ride home? Let me take you home.” Dylan fumbles in his pocket for a minute before smacking his palm to his forehead and going, “Duh, obviously my keys are in the car!” He makes a sound kind of like a laugh and looks over at me, but I’m still not moving. I am too humiliated to blink, much less look at him and laugh about his car keys.

“So . . . okay,” he says uncertainly. “You just . . . you can just stay back here if you want. I’ll . . . um . . . I’ll just . . .” He doesn’t try to explain anymore, he just gets out of the backseat and into the front. When the doors are open big gusts of cold air sweep into the car, and suddenly it smells damp and earthy, that early spring smell that tells you all the snow and ice is melting and someday the sun will come out again.

And maybe it will, for some other girl. Maybe for some girl who isn’t being driven home chauffeur-style by the boy who doesn’t love her, who doesn’t need her. The dramafree girl who isn’t exciting enough for anybody. The girl who tries to be a good friend and a good girlfriend and just isn’t quite good enough.

I guess the sun will shine on Emma Putnam’s pretty hair, and her life that’s so freaking difficult will be happy again. Dylan will make it happy.

But I’m the girl in the backseat, in the dark, with the tears coming down her face, crying about nothing, to no one.





September


“I WANT YOU to start cooking dinner one night a week.”

“What? Why? I have a million things to do! And I don’t know how to—”

“One night, Sara. Come on. And you do know how, you help me with the mushroom chicken all the time. Or you could make chili, or mac and cheese out of a box.”

“How nutritious.”

My mom stops chopping the onion on the cutting board and points the knife tip at me. “I’m serious. You come home, you disappear into your room. We don’t see you. I get that you’ve been upset by all of . . . what’s going on.” She waves the knife in a circle, then seems to realize she’s pointing a weapon at her only daughter and sets it down carefully on the counter.

“I have a lot to do,” I insist.

“Next week this will finally all be over,” she says. “We can go back to normal. But you need to help us go back to normal.”

“I didn’t normally cook before.”

“Tommy!” Mom yells over her shoulder, ignoring me. “Enough! Get your brother for dinner!”

“Why don’t they have to make dinner?” I ask. Now I’m just whining and I know it, but I can’t stop. I was just about to disappear into my room, exactly like she said, and I swear I’m going to go insane if I don’t get out of this kitchen in two seconds.

“They do. They will. That’s part of the plan,” Mom says, and she throws the onion bits into a hot, buttered pan, where they start to steam and sizzle. “Tom! I don’t hear you!”

Thump. Thump. Thump. “Okay, okay,” we hear Tommy saying. We don’t see him, but we hear his footsteps continue from the basement stairs around through the front of the house and up to the second floor.

“God, what did the stairs ever do to him?” my mom says. Her face breaks into a smile and for a second I don’t know why it looks so weird. And then I realize—she doesn’t smile anymore. Ever.

“I’m just gonna—” I say, starting to move away, but she stops me.