White Rabbit(30)
It’s been about thirty-five minutes since April’s sobbing subsided enough for her to make the necessary phone calls. Lacking anywhere better to go, Sebastian drove us to the parking lot of Silverman’s, a twenty-four-hour diner that’s popular with his crowd, and we positioned ourselves in a remote corner while my sister phoned our father and told him she needed an attorney. As soon as she hung up, she dialed my number, and we left the line open for exactly eighty-six seconds before she terminated the call.
That was our own alibi. For all my talk about relying on the police, I’m not about to waltz in and volunteer the information that we’ve helped April abscond from a crime scene and spent the evening chasing after possible suspects—I’m not a fool, and I definitely can’t afford any “misunderstandings” between myself and the authorities. Our story will be that April woke up beside Fox, called Peter, and then called me; pursuant to Race and Peyton’s advice, Sebastian and I were already on our way out to South Hero when she reached me and I learned she was in trouble, and once we picked her up, we drove her straight back to town and the police.
I’ve got no idea if they’ll buy it, of course—if we can somehow talk our way out of all the snags and conflicts that our fuzzy timeline will show, if the cops think too hard about what time we left the Atwoods’ and what time we reached the police station—but it feels way safer than the truth. And I’m desperately hoping that it’s the right choice.
While we waited for Peter to call back, we sat and watched through the broad front windows of Silverman’s as the bleary-eyed late-night crowd shoved burgers and fries into their drunken, happy faces. All the while, resentment gradually consumed my gut like some kind of mold. It struck me that I’m always forgetting how, in spite of her occasional sweetness, April is still a Covington—and the Covingtons, to a one, think my mom and I are trashy, scheming lowlifes.
With the passion of a revivalist preacher, Peter has spent years spreading the gospel of my mother’s moral turpitude, calling her a grasping, conniving tramp—and me the fruit of the poisonous tree—until he has managed to convince himself it’s the truth. All my life I’ve had to deal with his relentless accusations, Hayden’s unrestrained sadism, and the surgical strikes of Isabel’s calculated, long-term vengeance. Only April has ever been willing to extend us the benefit of the doubt, but she is by no means immune to her father’s influence. Sooner or later, his words find their way into her mouth.
I was still cursing myself for letting the Covingtons trap me in their web when Peter finally called back with the news that their lawyer was en route; I was still brooding over it as we made that uncomfortable left turn into the Burlington Police Department parking lot. But by the time I see Peter Covington himself, leaning against his S-Class Mercedes, his fine-boned face drawn into a dishearteningly familiar scowl, I resign myself to the hell I invited into my life by answering April’s summons in the first place.
Before Sebastian even brings the Jeep to a standstill, April flings her door open and starts sprinting across the pavement toward our father, weeping like a hostage who’s just been released from a besieged bank. Sebastian shoots me an uneasy look, eyebrows tented with worry. “Are you … I mean, are you ready for this?”
I’m not exactly sure which “this” he’s talking about—dealing with Peter, or lying to the cops. Either way, my answer is the same. “Not even close. You?”
He doesn’t reply right away, and when he does, he can’t seem to look me in the face. “I didn’t find you by accident tonight, Rufus.”
My eyes widen and my stomach plunges. “Sebastian—”
“There’s stuff I need to say to you.”
“This is really not the time,” I fume, feeling my back against a wall—one that’s covered in spikes and slowly squeezing toward another wall, also covered in spikes. As if what he’s saying is some kind of huge surprise. As if it isn’t completely obvious that he didn’t find me by accident at Lucy’s party. He also invited himself along on this insane and borderline-criminal adventure, I noticed, without demanding any compensation for his trouble. Clearly there’s something on his mind tonight, and I am terrified that allowing him to bring it up will reopen every last one of the hastily sutured wounds in my heart. Choosing the fire over the frying pan, I shove open my door. “I’ve got one crisis to deal with already. Tell me about it if I’m still alive when this is all over.”
*
Four and a half weeks after Sebastian had surprised me at the Front Line meeting with my first ever Actual Kiss, my feet were only just starting to touch the ground again. We’d become expert at finding secret ways to spend time together, stealing kisses in hidden corners and scheduling “study dates” at my house, where we’d microwave pizza rolls and then make out in my room for entire lifetimes. My mom figured out pretty quickly what we were up to, but she also knew that Sebastian was terrified of being “out,” and so she walked the thin line of feigning ignorance while still finding excuses to insist I keep my bedroom door open whenever he came over.
On a brisk day in March, after an especially boring away game the Ethan Allen boys’ soccer team had played in Montpelier—which we’d covered for the Front Line—we delayed our return to Burlington in order to go see a movie in a city where no one knew us. It was a proper date, with popcorn and handholding and no terrified jolting apart whenever we heard a noise, and I loved it. It was situations like those where we could just be ourselves, just be together without having to think about it.