Tell Me Three Things(66)
I hug the sticker to my chest, take it as an omen, the only way forward. I will stop being afraid of everything. Of hurt and rejection. Of my father’s ambivalence about me. Of hurting Dri’s feelings. Of facing Liam and Gem too. Of meeting SN in person, face to face. Of venturing forth, day by day, naked and unprotected into the bright, bright sun.
CHAPTER 31
Theo is wearing a charcoal-gray pin-striped blazer with matching shorts and a chauffeur’s cap, and is holding up a handwritten sign with my name on it. Not for the first time, I wonder how he has a costume for every occasion. Was he able to pull this together from the vast selection in his closet, or did he shop for the perfect pick-Jessie-up-from-the-airport outfit? Either way, I love the effort, even if he didn’t do it for my benefit.
“Hello, my lady. Your chariot awaits,” Theo says, and grabs my duffel bag and throws it over his shoulder. “This is all you brought? What about shoes?”
I point to the Vans on my feet.
“You’re a lost cause,” he says, and leads me out of the air-conditioned terminal into the soft, warm Los Angeles evening. “So I only offered to do this because I thought you were going to spill. So…spill it.”
“Ah, so you offered? I thought you said my dad made you.”
“Whatever. Sometimes I’m nice. Don’t tell anyone. Now spill.”
“Spill what? I’ve got nothing,” I say, and avoid his eyes, even though it’s the truth. Liam breaking up with Gem to be with me is just rumor. Liam has not called or texted or asked me out. I have never given him any reason to think we should be together, and I intend to keep it that way. The whys of their breakup are as much a mystery to me as whatever brought them together in the first place. And it’s not like Liam and I even have a relationship outside of work. Unless he’s SN. Which he’s not, regardless of Scar’s big theory.
“Okay, then I’ll tell you what I know. Apparently, Mr. Liam has it bad for you. Like a serious case of the hots. Apparently, he thinks you are ‘a very good listener,’?” Theo says, using air quotes, and leads me across the congested median into the parking lot, even putting his arm out to protect me from the traffic. I’ll give him this: Theo is gallant.
“That makes no sense,” I say. “I mean, he had the most attractive girl in school. Literally. I saw the sophomore superlatives. She won most attractive in last year’s yearbook. There’s a picture.”
“The world is a wondrous and mysterious place. And there’s no accounting for taste.” He takes another pointed look at my Vans. I scratch my chin with my middle finger.
“I don’t want Liam to ask me out.” Theo leads me to his car and even opens his passenger-side door for me with a little bow. Sees his performance all the way through, except he doesn’t make me sit in the back. The interior of his car is pristine, so different from Scar’s parents’ Honda, which is filled with candy wrappers and gas receipts. “Even if I should be, you know, flattered.”
“Why not? He’s a cool guy. Maybe not the brightest, but still—” Theo swings out of the parking spot and navigates easily out of the lot and onto the freeway. He’s a more comfortable driver than I am, moving in and out of lanes as if he owns the road and he’s just being kind by letting the other cars share it. “Oh shit, don’t tell me it’s because of Ethan.”
“It’s not because of Ethan. And he’s not who you think he is,” I say, hating the obvious defensiveness in my voice.
“You totally have a girlie boner for him.”
“He’s my friend.”
“You weren’t here.” Theo’s face turns dark, and at first, I think he’s just acting. Trying out a new role: troubled. “Trust me when I say you don’t want to go there.”
“What do you mean I wasn’t here?”
“When Xander died. I mean, we all knew he was using, but heroin? That stuff is crazy dangerous. And he was like a god at school, before. Because of Oville.” Theo cuts off a mom in a minivan, ignores her honks. “They were going to start playing real gigs, like on Sunset. We were all shocked when he OD’d. But not really, you know what I mean?”
“What does that have to do with Ethan? I mean, yeah, so they were in a band together, but that doesn’t mean Ethan’s an addict too.” I wonder what that must have been like for Ethan, watching one of his bandmates slowly kill himself. Whether he felt as helpless as I did when I watched my mom fight against an invisible army of spreading cancer cells.
“Xander was Ethan’s older brother.”
“What?” I ask, even though of course I heard him the first time. It’s just that I never put a name to what I recognized of myself in Ethan’s eyes—that look on his face when he stares out the window, the shell shock, the insomnia. Grief. “Ethan’s brother died? From a heroin overdose?”
I say it out loud, just so it seeps in and starts to make sense. Because a thought is forming in my mind, and if I’m right, it will change everything. I am a ninja, and I’ll be stealthy and slow and deliberate. Fight for what I want. But I am not a ninja, and I am confused and spinning. It’s starting to come together too fast, and my heart is barely beating, too slow, and I whip out my phone because I want to ask SN outright, not wait until our big meeting.