I'd Give Anything(58)

“Liar,” I said.

“I took that fire, the fire that killed Gray’s father, the fire that Daniel set, and, God help me, it became my weapon, too. I used it to hurt Mom, and I ended up using it to hurt you and myself. And that was an atrocious thing to do. But I did not set that fire, Ginny.”

Trevor started to pace and to move his hands in the air while he talked.

“Okay, listen,” he said. “Are you listening? That night, the night of the game, I left at halftime. And I know that the fire was set at halftime or right after or something. But it wasn’t me. I was long gone. I felt weird being at the game, like a loser who hadn’t left town with everyone else after graduation, even though I guess that didn’t make sense, since a lot of people from my class came back for that game. But I felt out of place a lot back then. Anyway, I went to the hardware store to see Melanie. She was there late, doing inventory. We went down to the quarry and hung out and talked. We were there until morning.”

I felt dizzy and sat down in the green chair and held on to the armrests.

“You can ask Melanie, Gin. Or wait! You can ask her dad. He stopped by the store right after I got there. He didn’t think much of me. He didn’t understand that I really cared about Melanie. He thought I was just using her. We exchanged some pretty harsh words about the game and my snotty rich kid school. I’m sure he’d remember that.”

I held my face between my hands.

“You’re saying you didn’t set the fire,” I said. “Is that what you’re saying?”

“He still owns that hardware store,” said Trevor. “You can ask him. Please go ask him.”

But I knew that I didn’t need to ask Melanie’s father. I sat in that chair, crying, feeling empty and tired and dazed, and I looked at my brother and the years seemed to fall away until I was looking at the person I knew, knew as well as I had ever known anyone, Trevor of the Quaker burial ground and the quarry, my brother, and I understood, beyond any doubt, that he was speaking the truth.

“I believe you,” I said, hoarsely. “I do believe you.”

Trevor sat down on the rug. He looked as wrung out as I felt.

“That’s why you stopped talking to me,” said Trevor, sadly. “After Mom sent me away. I thought you were just taking her side. I couldn’t believe it.”

“That’s why,” I said.

“Why didn’t you ask me about what you overheard?”

I opened up my hands. “I heard you say the words. I heard you. I couldn’t believe that you would do something like that.”

“But you did. You believed it.”

“You hated her so much that it scared me sometimes. I thought you hated her enough to do it just to spite her. I couldn’t stand that you’d done it, so I tried to erase it. I told myself that it was possible to burn that conversation right out of existence so that it wouldn’t ruin everything.”

“It ruined everything anyway,” said Trevor.

“It came between me and my friends. And you, you left and never came back.”

“I needed to get away. From Mom, yes, but not just her. I got stuck being this person who was always reacting to her or trying to drive her insane. When I think about it now, I think I needed to smash it all, my relationship with Mom and my connection to this town. I had to make sure there was nothing to come back to. So I could start over.”

“Oh.”

“Gin, you thought I set the school on fire? How could you think I was capable of a thing like that? You knew me.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m so sorry.”

Then, Trevor said, “So you see why I got upset tonight, when I saw him here.”

“Him?” I said.

I had been so caught up in the revelation that Trevor hadn’t set the fire that I had forgotten all about how our conversation had started. But now I remembered.

Daniel.





Chapter Fifteen





Avery


Avery’s mother told her. She told her what those missing, erased (not missing, indelible) fifteen minutes had contained, the fifteen minutes that her mother had tried, when she was eighteen, to tear out and burn. She told her what she had thought was true for so long and what she knew to be true now. Her mother told Avery how she had lived for twenty years in the aftermath of a lie.

“It never happened,” said Avery, awed. “The terrible thing that changed your life never happened.”

“I know. I can hardly believe it. Trevor didn’t set the fire that killed Gray’s dad. He didn’t, didn’t, didn’t set the fire that killed Gray’s dad. I have to keep saying it to myself.”

They were sitting in their favorite Sunday breakfast restaurant, a tiny French corner café and bakery that served warm croissants; eggy, fairy-light crullers; savory Pop-Tart-shaped hand pies; and fishbowl-size hot chocolates adrift with whipped cream.

“You were just trying to protect Uncle Trevor. That’s why you didn’t want to tell.”

“That sounds noble, but it isn’t the only reason. I believed I was to blame, too.”

“How?”

“Trevor and I, we’d struck a deal with each other to be rule breakers. For Trev, a lot of the rule breaking had to do with showing my mom that she couldn’t control him, and he probably thought the same went for me. I might even have thought that, too.”