Chasing River (Burying Water #3)(37)
“Three weeks into my sophomore year, in a new high school, in a town we had just moved to, and I was dubbed ‘the crazy girl who might stab you.’ Great reputation to have, right? I spent a lot of time at home, hanging out with my little brothers, that first year.” She keeps her eyes on our empty shot glasses as she balances them on top of each other. “When those rumors started, Jesse gave me some lame excuse and broke it off. Just like that.” She snaps her fingers, her short nails painted with black lacquer. “I know we’d only been seeing each other for a few weeks, but it still hurt . . .”
I groan out loud. Why does everything in my life somehow lead back to my brother? Of course Ivy’s heart would fall casualty to his good looks and poor judgment calls. And, of course the blowback would land on me. I sigh. “For what it’s worth, I never knew you two were ever a thing in high school.” Jesse had a lot of “things” with a lot of girls and got bored easily. I could never keep up, and by our junior year, I didn’t want to. “And I can’t make excuses for my brother except to say that he was an idiot back then.”
“An idiot who didn’t want a girlfriend that apparently sets houses on fire and tortures small animals. I don’t blame him. I would have stayed away from me, too. I figured your dad demanded as much.”
I snort. “Please! If my dad told him to not date you, he would have proposed.” A quick replay of my words in my head makes me cringe, realizing that hearing that isn’t going to help heal Ivy’s deep wounds. “I’m sorry someone started saying those things about you. But it wasn’t me.”
Ivy’s lips purse. “And are you gonna try and convince me that you didn’t accuse me of spray-painting the side of Poppa’s Diner?”
There it is. I knew this would come up. I knew that Ivy figured out I was the one who reported her to the Sheriff. “No. That, I did do. Poppa showed up at our ranch in his El Camino in tears. Do you know how awful it is to see an old man cry?”
“Funny, because when your dad hauled me into the station for spray-painting the side of the diner, I did cry. Your dad scared the shit out of me.”
“What did you expect? You can’t cover walls with racial slurs and swastikas and get away with it.”
She simply stares at me for a long moment, as if in shock that I would even suggest it. “I didn’t do it, Amber. You did!”
My jaw hangs open as I stare into those accusing black eyes, looking for the joke in them. There isn’t one. She’s serious. “What?! You are insane!”
“Okay, fine . . . maybe you didn’t actually paint the wall, but I know you were in on it. Don’t sit here and lie to me, now. After all these years. You and your little posse of mean girls and dickhead boyfriends.”
I roll my eyes and start laughing now. “Oh come on! Everyone in school knew you did it. You practically lived behind Decker’s with that big box of spray paint.”
“That’s because Sue and Roger let me.” The owners of the bowling alley were known to be really nice, fine with letting kids cover the massive brick wall in graffiti, as long as there was no profanity or gang symbols, or any sort of hate speech.
“Your tag was on the bottom right corner, Ivy. I know what your tag looks like because every new thing you added to Decker’s wall had that little pink squiggly line.” Her brow quirks sharply and I shrug. “What? So I admired your work. You’re good.”
She shakes her head in disbelief. “First of all, whoever did that to Poppa’s was an idiot and a complete amateur. I’m better than that. I was better than that when I was seven years old. Second, do you really think I’d be stupid enough to vandalize a store and tag it?”
“Maybe you wanted people to know that you did it.” I shrug. “You did seem kind of angry back then.”
She throws her arms up in the air in a rare bout of melodrama. “I was kind of angry back then! Because high school sucked! But it had nothing to do with the Jews or the Middle East. I was set up!”
I give a furtive glance around, hoping no one’s paying too much attention to us. My gaze catches River’s and a distracting blip of excitement flutters inside my stomach. He frowns and nods toward Ivy, then mouths, “Everything okay?”
With a quick nod, I turn back to her, not wanting her to accuse me of ignoring her for a guy. “Why on earth would I go to all the trouble to do that to you, Ivy? We weren’t even in the same grade. We didn’t have a single class together!”
She exhales heavily and her scowl softens. “Do you remember that big party in Piper’s Mill Park in the spring? The one where Ashley Johnson tripped over a case of beer and broke her nose?”
“Yeah.” I chuckle. She ended up needing two rounds of plastic surgery to fix it. I was at home, sick with the stomach flu that night.
“Well, Jesse and I had just started talking again, after breaking up the September before. He invited me to go, so I did. Anyways, that night we got really drunk and broke into the park office.”
My eyes widen. “That was you? Man, my dad was pissed . . .”
“Yeah, well . . . young and stupid and drunk, right? Anyway, Bonnie barged in on us . . . you know.”
I groan, seeing where this is going. At least she isn’t trying to give me details, as Bonnie has tried to do on more than one occasion.