Underwater(20)

I take a step back. What does he mean? How much does he know? Does he know the things I don’t tell Brenda?

“Connor told me about you, okay? Because he liked you.”

“Oh, my god.” I feel like my knees might buckle out from under me.

“Sorry. I didn’t want to weird you out.”

“It’s not that.” I shuffle. “I feel like a terrible person for not knowing him.”

He shrugs. “You can’t know everybody.”

“But I should’ve known someone who liked me.”

“Nah, he never gave you a clue, I bet.” He laughs at that thought, like remembering how good Connor could be at keeping a crush secret is funny. “But he liked you. A lot. Since freshman year. We were tight, and he talked about you all the time. Every summer and spring break when he visited. Every Skype session. He had it bad.”

“But how did you know I was the same Morgan?”

“I put it together when I moved your car. I mean, how many girls at your school drive old-school Bel Airs? I figured you had to be the one he’d told me about. And that kind of made me want to know you in real life. Like, you were somehow a part of him. But I should’ve told you that first day. I’m sorry I didn’t.”

“Wow.” I shake my head, trying to take it all in. “All this time, you’ve known so much about me. That makes me feel really stupid. Or like I’m a liar or something.”

“Not even.” He looks down at the ground and up again, studying me thoughtfully. “I guess there was a part of me that wanted to see what you were like on my own. I wanted to see what Connor saw. And I thought of telling you a bunch of times, but whenever I brought up school or my cousin, you shut down.” He shrugs. I stand there, feeling like he’s pointing out everything wrong about me. Like he sees how messed up I am. “And to be honest, hanging out with you kind of bummed me out. That’s why I stopped coming by. Because I thought of how much Connor would’ve wanted to be me. It almost makes me feel guilty, you know?”

“So hanging out with me is a total bummer?”

“That’s not what I said.”

“Look, I just told you I never leave my apartment. I get it if you have better things to do than spend time here.”

“Well, I don’t want to hang out inside all the time, but what’s the big deal if we hang out when I’m home anyway?”

“Oh.”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“Hanging out with you is better than sitting in my apartment by myself.”

He’s so matter-of-fact. Like I should get this. Like it’s a compliment. But it doesn’t feel like one. It feels like I’m only good enough to bother with when there’s nothing better to do.

“I sit in my apartment by myself every day,” I say.

“But you said you’re trying. So it won’t be forever, right?”

“You make it sound so easy.”

“My aunt, Connor’s mom, stays inside a lot. Because she’s sad.” He sighs. “That’s why my mom’s running the restaurant. It’s her sister. We had to move. We had to help. And since we got here, my aunt is doing better. My mom even got her to come help out with the dinner rush last weekend. So see?”

He looks at me hopefully. Like he’s waiting for me to walk right out the door and down the stairs with him because his aunt did it.

“But I’m not like her. I don’t stay inside because I’m sad. I stay inside because I’m scared.”

“I’m sorry you’re scared,” he says.

“Please don’t pity me.”

“I don’t.” He sounds annoyed that I’d accuse him of that.

“Fine.”

He simply smiles. “Okay.”

Evan is nice enough. But now I can see he might not be talking to me at all if Connor hadn’t liked me. And now that I know that, I wish I could tell him I’d known his cousin so I had something to make knowing me worthwhile. I want to have a story that’s heartwarming and original that Evan can carry with him forever. I want him to be able to tell his mom the story so she can tell his aunt. Maybe it would make her day. But the truth is, Connor was someone I had never talked to and never will. And now he’s one of the names on the memorial wall.





chapter thirteen

“Do you want to come in?” I ask Evan while he’s still standing on my welcome mat with my letter in his hand. “We can do homework.”

I step aside and hold the door open all the way. Even if hanging out here is only a matter of convenience for him, it’s everything to me.

“Uh, sure.” He hoists his backpack onto his shoulder and comes inside. “Wait. You still have homework?”

That makes me laugh. “Of course. Online school is still school. I have to do all the same assignments and stuff.”

“How does it work exactly?”

“I have to put in five instructional hours a day, but I can do them whenever I want as long as it’s over a twenty-four-hour period. And then I e-mail all my homework and assignments to my teachers.”

“Oh. That’s actually pretty cool.”

I shrug. “It’s okay. Are you hungry?” I ask.