The Newcomer (Thunder Point #2)(46)

“You’ve had other things to think about,” he said, pulling her along to class.

Indeed. She’d thought of no one but Downy for longer than she could remember. She was confident it hadn’t kept her from being a good friend to Eve, but there was probably a lot going on in school that she had been too distracted to notice.

They were almost to class when some boy she didn’t even know very well said, “Hey, Ash, nice tits!”

In a flash, Frank was on him like a hound and shoved him against the lockers. Frank’s forearm pushed against the kid’s neck. Frank had muscles on his arms. From the look on the kid’s face, this was a surprise maneuver. “Apologize,” Frank ordered.

“Sorry,” he said. “Just kidding.”

“No more kidding,” Frank warned, releasing him.

Ashley was rooted to her spot, stunned. When had Frank developed shoulders?

“Um...thanks,” she said.

“No problem. Let’s go,” he said, steering her down the hall, around the corner to their class.

When she went to her group therapy later that week, she briefly wondered if all teenage support groups looked the same. Someone was having problems with their parents, there was a substance abuse in someone’s situation, another kept getting in trouble in and out of school and was in danger of being expelled, one was being bullied, another girl’s boyfriend dumped her, rather cruelly. Mostly it was social issues these kids couldn’t cope with any better than she had. But no one in her current outpatient group had spent time in the hospital and they were all anxious to hear everything.

The one thing she wanted to tell them that seemed even more important was what she discovered when she went back to school. The fact that Downy’s younger brother, so gentlemanly and protective, had been completely invisible to her before her breakdown, and suddenly she saw a new Frank. Somewhere in the past year or two he’d grown up, grown tall and strong. “If I stop to think about it, Frank has always been a good friend. I’ve had to call him about homework and he talks me through it. He’s so patient and never gets tired of explaining things—he’s nice to everyone. He used to get picked on, but Downy was a great bodyguard so people left him alone. But he’s not one of the jocks—he’s going to be our valedictorian, everyone knows it. He’s the smartest guy in our class. Maybe in the county.”

“Is he a nerd?” someone asked. In fact, that was Bradley, who was a thick-glasses nerd.

“I used to think so, but he’s all grown up now and I think maybe he’s a Bill Gates.”

“Bill Gates is a nerd.”

“Okay, but nerd or not, any girl would date Bill Gates because of his huge brain. And Frank is confident. He doesn’t care what anyone thinks of him—they’ll all eventually ask him for help on their calculus.”

“But he’s the ass**le’s brother!”

As if she needed reminding. “Well, I’m sure he loves his brother, but he doesn’t seem to be a big fan of Downy right now,” she said. “The thing is—I still cry. I’m not going to make a fool of myself by calling Downy and I think he’s a total jerk, but if he came crawling back all sweet and sorry, I’d probably give him another chance.”

“May I ask a question?” Burt, Simone Ross’s associate and the group leader, asked. Burt was a lot younger than Simone, a man in his late twenties or early thirties. Talk about a nerd. He was kind of on the homely side, very thin with heavy dark brows. Ichabod Crane-ish. Aside from keeping them on track and maybe asking a question or two to get them started, he didn’t say much. Sometimes he took notes, but she saw the page of his steno pad once and it was filled with doodles. That gave Ashley more peace of mind—at least he wasn’t writing “this one is crazy as a loon.” Burt was growing on her. In the same way she finally noticed Frank, she was starting to see handsomeness in kindness and intelligence.

“Sure,” she said.

“If your best friend’s boyfriend did to her what was done to you, would you advise her to take him back?”

“Of course not. I know it’s not smart,” Ashley said. “I know I shouldn’t, but it’s just a fact.”

“When you were his steady girl, he never acted like that, did he?”

“Never!”

“And neither did you,” Burt said. “Because you’re a nice person who can think about the feelings of others. Is it possible you want the Downy you once knew to come back? But not the Downy you know now?”

“Yes. Of course, yes.”

“If he came back now, would you worry every time he didn’t take a call or answer a text?”

She looked down. “It’s just that what he did still hurts so much.”

“It does. The pain can feel unbearable and I’m so sorry, Ashley. I say this a lot in our teen groups, but I’ll say it again, anyway. This time in life especially, you’re designed to fall in love. It’s part of your developmental cycle. It’s emotions and hormones and a struggle to create an independent adult life for yourself—one that meets all your needs. Also, this process of falling in and out of love, sometimes very painfully, helps you to identify the kind of life partner you fit with best. Some people never do, I’m sorry to say. Some people will be unsuccessful at relationships with the right people. In fact, some people are inexplicably drawn to people who will hurt them. But others will learn valuable lessons and graduate to positive, long-term relationships with people who won’t let them down or betray them. I’m not saying perfect relationships—I’m afraid there’s no such thing. I’m saying positive, growing, healthy relationships that can get back on track after something derails them.