One of Us is Lying(91)
But it’ll make Pop happy to talk with Josh Langley. We’ve gotten back on tentative father-son footing since the good baseball news started pouring in. He still doesn’t talk to me about Kris, and clams up when anyone else mentions him. He doesn’t bolt out of the room anymore, though. And he’s looking me in the eye again.
It’s a start.
Addy
Saturday, November 17, 2:15 p.m.
I can’t ride my bike because of the skull fracture and my sprained ankle, so Ashton drives me to my follow-up doctor’s appointment. Everything’s healing the way it should, although I still get instant headaches if I move my head too fast.
The emotional stuff will take longer. Half the time I feel like Jake died, and the other half I want to kill him. I can admit, now, that Ashton and TJ weren’t wrong about how things were between Jake and me. He ran everything, and I let him. But I never would have believed he could be capable of what he did in the woods. My heart feels like my skull did right after Jake attacked me—as though it’s been split in two with a dull ax.
I don’t know how to feel about Simon, either. Sometimes I get really sad when I think about how he planned to ruin four people because he thought we’d taken away from him things that everybody wants: to be successful, to have friends, to be loved. To be seen.
But most of the time I just wish I’d never met him.
Nate visited me in the hospital and I’ve seen him a few times since I’ve been out. I’m worried about him. He’s not one to open up, but he said enough that I could tell getting arrested made him feel pretty useless. I’ve been trying to convince him otherwise, but I don’t think it’s sinking in. I wish he’d listen, because if anyone knows how badly you can screw up your life when you decide you’re not good enough, it’s me.
TJ’s texted a few times since I was discharged a couple of days ago. He kept dropping hints about asking me out, so I finally had to tell him it’s not happening. There’s no way I can hook up with the person who helped me set off this whole chain reaction. It’s too bad, because there might’ve been potential if we’d gone about things differently. But I’m starting to realize there are some things you can’t undo, no matter how good your intentions are.
It’s all right, though. I don’t agree with my mother that TJ was my last, best hope to avoid premature spinsterhood. She’s not the expert she thinks she is on relationships.
I’d rather take my cues from Ashton, who’s getting a kick out of Eli’s sudden infatuation. He tracked her down after things settled with Nate and asked her out. She told him she’s not ready to date yet, so he keeps interrupting his insane workload to take her on elaborate, carefully planned not-dates. Which, she has to admit, she’s enjoying.
“I’m not sure I can take him seriously, though,” she tells me as I hobble to the car on crutches after my checkup. “I mean, the hair alone.”
“I like the hair. It has character. Plus, it looks soft, like a cloud.”
Ashton grins and brushes a stray lock of mine off my forehead. “I like yours. Grow it a little more and we’ll be twins.”
That’s my secret plan. I’ve been coveting Ashton’s hair all along.
“I have something to show you,” she says as she pulls away from the hospital. “Some good news.”
“Really? What?” Sometimes it’s hard to remember what good news feels like.
Ashton shakes her head and smiles. “It’s a show, not a tell.”
She pulls up in front of a new apartment building in the closest thing Bayview has to a trendy neighborhood. Ashton matches my slow pace as we step into a bright atrium, and guides me to a bench in the lobby. “Wait here,” she says, propping my crutches next to the bench. She disappears around the corner, and when she returns ten minutes later she leads me to an elevator and we head for the third floor.
Ashton fits a key into a door marked 302 and pushes it open to a large apartment with soaring, loftlike ceilings. It’s all windows and exposed brick and polished wood floors, and I love it instantly. “What do you think?” she asks.
I lean my crutches against the wall and hop into the open kitchen, admiring the mosaic tile backsplash. Who knew Bayview had something like this? “It’s beautiful. Are you, um, thinking of renting it?” I try to sound enthusiastic and not terrified of Ashton leaving me alone with Mom. Ashton hasn’t been home all that long, but I’ve gotten kind of attached to having her there.
“I already did,” she says with a grin, spinning around a little on the hardwood floors. “Charlie and I got an offer on the condo while you were in the hospital. It still has to close, but once it does, we’ll make a pretty good profit. He’s agreed to take on all his student loans as part of the divorce settlement. My design work’s still slow, but I’ll have enough of a cushion that it won’t be a stretch. And Bayview’s so much more affordable than San Diego. This apartment downtown would cost three times as much.”
“That’s fantastic!” I hope I’m doing a good job of acting excited. I am excited for her, truly. I’ll just miss her. “You’d better have a spare room so I can visit.”
“I do have a spare room,” Ashton says. “I don’t want you to visit, though.”