Tease(71)

The other guy looks like he wants to argue, but Dylan’s already walking toward me, untying his apron, running a hand through his hair. For another minute I just stand there, letting Dylan walk right past me and through the sliding doors. Then I turn and follow.

Yep, still cold outside. Brisk, my mom would say. Dylan has found a bench to sit on, one of the ones that line the outside walls of Albertsons and the half-dozen other stores in the strip mall. There’s an overflowing ashtray/garbage can at the end of the bench, and between that and the cold I want to suggest we go sit in my car, but instead I sit down, still shivering.

“What’s up,” he says dully. His apron is crumpled in his hands, one escaped string dangling down as he rolls the fabric into a tighter and tighter ball.

Now that I’m here I can’t remember what I wanted to say. If there was anything at all. So I go with the truth, or part of it.

“I just wanted to see you,” I tell him. We don’t look at each other—we’re both staring out at the parking lot, or down at the cigarette butts crushed on the ground.

“Good timing, then,” he says. “I’m moving to Lincoln next week.”

“Really?” I’m surprised it’s so soon. And—suddenly—really disappointed.

“Yeah, you know, with Rob and them, they have an apartment.”

“Oh, right. That sounds good.”

“Yep.”

We’re silent for a minute, staring off some more.

“So,” Dylan says finally. “You guys got a plea.”

“Not as good as you,” I say without thinking. “You’re off the hook completely.”

His head snaps around fast and suddenly we’re looking eye to eye, but it’s awful. He looks so mad. Betrayed.

“I didn’t do anything,” he says.

I think of those times this summer, those days I’d visit him on the other side of this same building, those pointless hookups. It had felt so good to hang on to each other in the middle of everything falling apart—or maybe it hadn’t felt good, but it had been a little raft of not-awful in the freaking ocean of very-awful. And we’d been together. We were the wrongfully accused, the innocent.

And now I can tell from his eyes that it wasn’t that way at all. He’d been innocent, and I’d been . . . not.

“Did you ever even like me?” I ask him.

“C’mon, Sara, what kind of question is that?” He shakes his head a little, then sits back on the bench and faces forward again with a big sigh. The apron drops out of his hands, onto his lap, one big blue wrinkle. “Not everything is about you.”

“I know . . . ,” I say, but my stomach is twisting itself into another knot, and the pain makes me just angry enough to defend myself. “But it’s partly about me. I mean, I’m on trial too—or making a deal, or whatever—and I was the one you . . .” I trail off, unsure again of what to say. Dylan is innocent. Or at least, he hasn’t done anything you can put on paper, and that’s basically the same thing.

There’s a long pause while we go back to staring forward, like we’re in a car, like the view in front of us is important, like it’s going to change. A few people pass by on their way into the store, ignoring us. I don’t see them, either.

Finally Dylan says, “I’m glad you guys aren’t going to trial. That would’ve been really hard.”

“I wasn’t exactly looking forward to it,” I say honestly.

“Yeah, well, I kind of meant, you know, Emma’s parents. It was gonna be really hard on them.”

I frown. “They’re the ones who wanted a trial, though. They started this whole thing.”

He turns to me, his eyes locked onto mine. His hair got longer over the summer but now it’s freshly cut, leaving his ears a little too exposed. He has a little nick on his chin from shaving. He smells like the aftershave he always uses, a sharp, boyish scent mixed with that other smell that’s just . . . him. He shifts on the bench and his shoulders are like a swinging door, blocking everything else out, closing me in. I want to lean on them. I can’t.

But I see his face clearly, like it’s the first time. Except I’m pretty sure it’s the last time.

“Nobody wanted this,” he says slowly, evenly. “Nobody.”

Then he stands up and walks away.





March


WHEN I WAKE up Sunday morning—not late, like I wanted to, but insanely early, before it’s even eight, because my nerves are still wired—the first thing I do is go online and find that the Emma Twitter is still active. There are lots of “I’m pathetic”–type posts, and lots of followers and replies. Who’s online that much on a Saturday night? Everyone, apparently.

And on Facebook, a bunch of people are talking about how cute Dylan and I are together, how we make a better couple than he and Emma do. There are even a few “Good for you, bro” posts on his wall, though I have no idea what that means exactly. That they’re happy he’s back with me (or that it looks like he is, anyway)? Or that they think he’s a stud for having two girlfriends at the same time?

It’s still the weekend. The boys have more sports stuff. Mom is still mad at me for being out late Friday and then all day yesterday and probably won’t let me go anywhere. But there’s got to be a way to see Dylan again. If I see him I can explain that I’m not doing this, that everything I said yesterday is still true. If I can see him we can . . . I don’t know. I just want to see him.