First & Then(62)

“It’s fine,” I said, as we motored down the sidewalk.

“It’s not. I’m sorry.”

I wrenched my car door open.

“Are you mad at me?” Foster said.

“No.” Once inside the car, the sense of urgency in me began to subside. “No, I’m not mad at you.”

I had lost Cas and Ezra in the same night. I stood up to Stanton Perkins, I feared for my life, I ruined my party dress. All at once, I was too tired to cry. So I just rested my forehead against the steering wheel and squeezed my eyes shut.

Foster touched his head to my shoulder, a strange sort of hug. And I was comforted, somewhat.





32


A night like that warranted nothing but sleep—a heavy, all-consuming sleep that would wash away the immediacy of it all. But it wasn’t as refreshing as I had hoped, and when I saw Foster’s face the next morning, it read as if his sleep had been as restless as mine.

We sat on the couch for most of the day, playing video games and watching crappy TV. I looked over at Foster at one point and wondered who I would’ve spent a day like this with before he was here. Cas, maybe. But not even Cas could be pinned down for this long. Foster was content to hang out with me for any amount of time. It was kind of funny—the thing that had annoyed me so much about him in the beginning was what I dearly appreciated now.

Gaming and marathoning reruns were a pretty decent distraction, but I couldn’t keep last night out forever, and eventually it began to slip in. Cas came first. Fresh indignation welled up in me at the thought of his expression as we stood outside the gym, but there was also embarrassment, and some kind of hurt. There’s no way to break up if you never dated someone in the first place, but that’s a little how it felt. Maybe not necessarily as final as a breakup, but something had changed between us, intrinsically. I didn’t want to think about it too much, didn’t want to pick it apart, because it made me sad.

But pushing Cas to the back of my mind just drew Ezra into the forefront. Ezra, with that inexplicable look of concern. Ezra, who was patient with Foster, who didn’t question it when we needed him. Yet I wrote him off immediately when he probably needed us.

What did he say on the bleachers that day? You’re easy to talk to. It was an offshoot of what Rachel had told me: You’re good at talking to people. I mean, that was a patent untruth right there. If I were so good at talking to people, I would’ve just talked to Ezra after the Lake Falls game. I would’ve talked to Lindsay about Homecoming.

Lindsay, golden last night in that gorgeous dress. I realized that she had extended the offer that day at the mall, the offer for us to room together, even knowing that I was planning to go out with the guy that she liked. She had treated me better than I had ever treated her, never holding her feelings against me, never begrudging me her regard.

Each revelation made me want to sink deeper into the cushions of the couch. Eventually I would soak right into the fiberfill, a puddle of regret.

It could have been avoided. This couch misery spiral, this … loss … I could’ve avoided the bulk of it simply by doing more. I could’ve given a shit, like Rachel said. Put the effort in.

But what was there to do about it? What could I do now but play Super Mario Kart with Foster?

I was quite possibly the worst.

Foster and I stirred from our spots on the couch only for dinner, and that’s when my mom and dad broke the news to us—over a meal of Foster’s favorite foods.

They were going to California to “finish the process”—finalizing the adoption. It had to be done in the state of Foster’s original residence, my mom said. Legal stuff.

“We’ll leave Thursday morning and be back late Friday. Do you think you’ll be okay, or should we ask Mrs. Patterson to stay over?”

“No!” Mrs. Patterson was our elderly neighbor, and my childhood babysitter. Not that I didn’t mind spending the occasional evening with her back in the day, but I was way too old to be “minded,” as Mrs. Patterson always put it.

“We’re going to be fine,” I said, taking the volume down a little. “We can look after ourselves for one night.” I looked emphatically at Foster. “Right?”

His eyes were on his plate. “Sure.”

It was quiet for a moment. “Foster, I know this is all happening really fast,” my mom said. “We haven’t talked to Elizabeth personally about this, but we thought maybe you’d like to come with us and see her?”

Foster didn’t skip a beat. Not a moment’s hesitation. “I don’t want to miss the game.”

“But—”

“He doesn’t want to miss the game, Kath.” My dad twirled some pasta around his fork and then looked at Foster. “It’s a big one, right, bud?”

Foster nodded. “Districts.”

“Districts,” my dad repeated, and then gave my mom the same kind of emphatic look that I had just given Foster.

We went back to the couch after dinner, only this time Foster set up the Monopoly board on the coffee table. I watched as he arranged the brightly colored bills. He was always banker.

“How come you don’t want to see your mom?” I couldn’t think of a good preamble, so I just went for it.

“She doesn’t want to see me,” Foster answered simply.