Wicked Restless (Harper Boys #2)(72)

Every new piece he shares from his life fills these missing gaps in my world of Andrew Harper. Some of the things he says erase what I thought, strike out the story I’d believed and replace it with something sadder. He’s careful when he shares, too—like he’s testing me a little each time to see how I react. I think he’s wondering if I care. He has no idea how much I do.

I care. I care, and it feels so dangerous to let myself, like caring about him could topple over so many other things that lay in the balance. This is how it’s always been with us—our feelings on a teeter-totter.

“When did you move there? To Iowa?” I ask, hoping he says it was only a few weeks after the accident, that he wasn’t at Lake Crest for long. I don’t want my parents to have lied to me.

“Junior year,” he says. His eyes are hard, almost stoic. His foot slides away, and I’m tempted to chase it. Instead, I bring my legs up to the booth, folding them under me.

A test.

“So you were at Lake Crest…for a year?” My eyes sting, but I hold in my cry. My mind races through memories of my mom, how she told me my dad went to look for Andrew, how they were told he was with family in another state. So. Many. Lies.

“Ten months, really. I came home at the end of spring, sophomore year,” he says, pulling one of my empty sugar packets from the center of the table and folding the small paper into a fan pattern.

“Sophomore year,” I repeat. He was home. And he never came to see me. My parents lied. And Andrew gave up too quickly. I shudder in the booth, and I know he sees it. His eyes flinch and his gaze lowers as he continues to study me; he’s waiting to see if I’m pretending. “Why didn’t you visit me? Before you left.”

He shrugs quickly and pushes the small folded paper off to the side, running his palms over the table, clearing the few grains of sugar away that had spilled out.

“You’d moved on,” he says, his eyes moving up to meet mine briefly. I gaze at him, my forehead low, not understanding. His teeth hold on to his top lip for a second. “You never wrote back,” he finally adds.

I breathe in hard, holding my words while our waitress delivers our breakfasts. When she leaves, I let myself move beyond that silent barrier that’s been making everything this morning so difficult, that wall that’s been keeping us both from saying things.

“I never got your letters. Not once. I didn’t know, Andrew. I didn’t know. If I had known…”

He shakes his head, turning his attention to his pancakes, pouring syrup, cutting vigorously, stuffing a bite in his mouth. “It wouldn’t have mattered,” he shrugs.

How can he say that? It would have mattered. I wondered about him, worried about him, wanted to see his face for so long. I wanted his hand in mine when I was scared. I wanted him there—in the hospital when they cut me open.

Feeling brave, I reach over to his side of the table and put my hand on his, stopping him from lifting another bite.

“It would have,” I say, staring at him, begging him to look back at me. He keeps his eyes trained on his plate in front of him, his muscles flexed and his arm still beneath the weight of my hand. I don’t know why he’s so against believing me.

“I drove by your house,” he says, his lips paused open. His eyes finally move up to meet mine. “At the start of our junior year. You were getting ready for some dance, your parents were taking pictures. You were wearing this really nice dress. You had a date—some guy who looked like the kind of guy you should be going to a dance with. I’m just a f*ck up.”

“Don’t say that,” I swallow.

Our eyes remain on one another.

“Why not?” he asks.

“Because…” I start, not knowing how to explain everything Andrew has been in my life. He vanished, but the mark he left was a forever kind. His sacrifice for me so big, he has no idea how enormous. And now that I know what he went through…

“How many times did you write to me?” I ask instead.

He shakes his head and goes back to his breakfast, shrugging once.

“How many?” I repeat. My voice is more forceful the second time, and maybe a bit desperate.

His lips purse and he puts down his fork, pulling his napkin from the table to wipe his lips. “I don’t know. Twenty maybe. Maybe more.”

I gasp, pushing my plate away, holding my napkin to my mouth to hide my reaction from him.

He sighs, closing his eyes for a second, then he slides from the booth, stepping around to my side where he moves in next to me. My breathing stops with the feel of his body next to mine. And then his arm reaches around me, and everything strong inside collapses as I give in and lean into him to cry.

“I didn’t know,” I say again. It’s all I have to give. I didn’t know. He must hate me.

Andrew doesn’t respond, but the feel of his hand as it cups my shoulder then slides up to reach into my hair, his fingers on the side of my head, threading my hair and sliding it from my instant-tear-strewn face, is enough.

“I didn’t know,” I whisper once more.

The waitress comes after a few minutes, and Andrew reaches into his pocket, pulling out his wallet and sliding a twenty on the table. His arm never leaves its hold around me.

“We’re good. Keep the change,” he says.

She walks away, and he remains in the spot next to me, his breathing slow and regular, his hand tender against me.