Saugatuck Summer (Saugatuck, #1)(27)

If he’d ever given me a moment’s thought outside the context of his daughter’s friend and a kid he liked and wanted to help, he’d kept it so under wraps I never got so much as a whiff of it. I didn’t believe he had, I really didn’t. I was pretty good at picking up the vibes of sexual interest, no matter how well disguised, and he had never put any off. But after that moment, when he realized what people might think of us, it was clear he couldn’t consign me to that safe, neat, mental box anymore. Suddenly I was something else. Something dirty and scandalous, something he needed to avoid.

At first I didn’t get it. I resented the hell out of that evil-minded bitch for soiling our easy camaraderie and so, in a gesture of defiance, I tried to act like nothing had changed. Like we were still pals, harmless and platonic. But Brendan couldn’t do it. Once you’re made aware of something, you can never become unaware, no matter how hard you try. Over the next few days, everything began to unravel. He wouldn’t talk to me, would barely acknowledge me. He skirted around me whenever we were in proximity to one another as though I had some contagious illness he didn’t want to catch by accidentally brushing against me.

That’s when I began to feel unclean, and I hated it. I hadn’t done anything wrong! I’d behaved myself. I wanted to throw an epic tantrum and rail at the injustice of it. It was like it had been with my family all over again. Just because I was who I was, everything I did had to be wrong or dirty by default, right? But all I had done was indulged, in the privacy of my own mind, a benign crush that I knew would never, ever go anywhere. I hadn’t set out to seduce him, or even to tease him into the sort of awareness that dried up old cunt with her prurient mind and salacious gaze had forced on him. But now I was losing someone I’d begun to feel close to, someone I’d begun to trust. Someone who seemed to care.

With a single speculative look, she’d stolen a friend from me.

Once I realized Brendan couldn’t shake it off and be comfortable around me anymore, I began avoiding meals when he was in the kitchen, and tried to stay out of the house or up in my room as much as possible. At least Mo got her way. I spent a lot of time at the coffeehouse. Aubrey said the owners would consider paying me a wage if I appeared to have an impact on business, otherwise I was just welcome to whatever tips I made. It wasn’t much, but I didn’t care about the money, so long as it got me out of the house.

We went nearly a week without speaking a word to one another beyond the barest civilities. I admit I spent a good few hours in my room—not to mention the lake or my car or wherever—crying and feeling sorry for myself. I was mourning, as though something had died.

Perhaps something had.

After listening to Brendan pace restlessly around the house for four nights in a row, I admitted defeat.

“Brendan?” I caught him at the top of the stairs, apparently heading back to his room.

“Yes, Topher, what is it?” His voice sounded tense. Strained. I could barely see his face in the darkened hallway, but he sounded reluctant even to speak with me. I decided to get this done with as quickly as possible.

“I have some friends who live off-campus up in Allendale,” I lied. “I think I’ll see if they can let me crash out on their couch. Maybe I can find a job around there, near campus. I’ll call them tomorrow and leave this weekend.”

He hung his head. “You don’t have to do that.”

“Yeah, I do.” My voice cracked and I swallowed hard. And under the hurt, I was so f*cking angry. Was it really too much to ask to be left in peace so I could benignly co-opt my best friend’s family for the summer because my own sucked? It might be pathetic, but who was I harming? “Look, it was really generous of you and Mo to offer me a place to stay, but I don’t want to make trouble for you or give people the wrong idea. Small town gossip and all that. So I should go somewhere else. If I can’t stay with my friends, maybe I’ll go over to Flint, score some brownie points with my family by helping to take care of my mom for a while.”

“Topher . . .” That seemed to shock him out of his numbed detachment. I’d told him weeks ago about my mom’s (theoretical) suicide attempt and the resulting decision to cut her out of my life. “Don’t do that. Don’t go back into a situation that’s not healthy for you just because people are foolish. Because I’m foolish.”

“You’re not.” I shook my head in reflexive denial, trying to figure out how to reassure him. “You can’t help it if it bothers you to know people think things about you that aren’t true. Hell, it bothers me no matter how hard I try to convince myself it doesn’t.”

I stepped closer to him, putting on a brave smile. He smelled like red wine, and I wondered just how heavily he’d been drinking, though he didn’t seem drunk. I reached out to pat his shoulder encouragingly, like he’d done for me many times since we’d gotten to know each other.

“It’s okay to mind what other people think. I don’t blame you. At least you and I know what’s true. We haven’t done anything wrong. So—”

Brendan’s head came up at that, his eyes glittering in the thin moonlight coming in from the massive window in his bedroom just a few steps down the hall. His gaze riveted me, pinned me down, even as I staggered a step backward.

Everything I’d sworn he didn’t—couldn’t—feel for me was in his eyes.