Boys Like You(22)

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Juliana Ston e

“Good, that boy needs to talk to someone. What happened that night was an awful shame, but it’s in the past.” She glanced at me sharply. “And the past can’t be undone but we can surely do our best to move forward and learn from our mistakes.”

My cheeks smarted at her meaning because I knew she was talking about me as well. I tucked a long piece of hair behind my ear and tried to think of something else besides the pathetic past I’d left in New York.

“Nathan’s a good boy who made a bad decision, but he’ll be fine. He’s just hit a rough patch.”

Huh. I thought of the scene I’d witnessed the night before, and in my mind, Nathan Everets had hit more than just a rough patch.

For a moment, the only sound I heard was the faraway drone of a plane crossing the sky above me. I glanced up and saw a trail of white cotton, but I couldn’t see its source. The sun was too bright. Too hot.

It was going to be nasty today.

“He’ll be here a lot over the next few weeks. His uncle told me that most of the work I’ve contracted will be done by Nathan.”

I didn’t say anything though my heart began to beat faster.

Blowing out a long breath, I sank deeper into my chair, eyes still searching for the elusive plane, mostly because it gave me something to do.

Mostly because I could avoid Gram’s eyes.

“I’m glad the two of you are getting on.”

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BOYS LIKE YOU

Oh God. My cheeks flushed. Getting on? That got my atten-tion, and I glanced at her.

“He has a girlfriend, you know.” What the hell was Gram up to?

“Does he now?”

I nodded. “Yes. Her name is Rachel.”

Gram didn’t have to say anything. I could tell from the way her mouth pinched at the corners as she took another sip of tea that she wasn’t a fan of his girlfriend.

“How was the festival?” she asked instead, and I smiled.

Gram was as good as me when it came to deflecting.

“It was…cute.”

For a few moments, the silence of the morning enveloped us, broken only when Gram said something very unladylike and rose to her feet. She was late.

“Are you coming with me to service, Monroe?”

Shit.

“No?”

My answer came out more like a question, and for a moment, I was afraid she was going to make me go with her. I tugged on the edge of my T-shirt and exhaled, trying to stem the panic that I knew was there beneath my skin, just waiting to explode.

I hadn’t stepped inside a church since Malcolm’s funeral, and my throat was already closing up at the thought of going.

I couldn’t. Not yet. Maybe never.

“You go and I’ll clean up the dishes from breakfast and call Mom and Dad.”

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Juliana Ston e

Gram wiped an invisible crumb from her forearm, her silky white hair brushing her shoulders. She grabbed her teacup, turned toward the door, and spoke softly, her voice catching a bit and making me feel worse than I already did. “You’re going to have to face all of this sooner than later, Monroe. All of it.

And that means opening up to your parents and letting them in.”

“I know, Gram,” I whispered. “But not today…okay?”

Gram bent and kissed me as she walked by and then disappeared inside, leaving me alone with the bees and the honeysuckle.

Twenty minutes later, she pulled away in the Matlock, and I was washing up the few dishes we’d used for breakfast. My cell vibrated on the counter and I ignored it, drying the frying pan instead, but when it vibrated again, I tossed my towel aside, glaring at the phone.

I really didn’t want to talk to my parents— not today. Not after the Malcolm dream when things were way too fresh in my mind, because I knew exactly what would happen. Dad would be polite, afraid that if he said the wrong thing it would trigger a relapse and send me back into the darkness. Back to before. And I got it. Before hadn’t been pretty.

Before had been hell.

But what he didn’t realize was that I didn’t want polite. I didn’t want the robot he’d become, because when I got the robot, it made me feel as if my dad was gone forever. And I’d already lost so much, the thought of never getting him back was more than I could handle right now.

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And Mom would be all in my business, wanting to know every single boring thing I’d done. And then she would ask how I was feeling— if I was happy— which was stupid. We both knew I would never be happy again. Not really. So why ask?

And when I lied? When I told her that Gram and I were bonding over iced tea and kumbaya and that I was freaking A-okay? She would get emotional because she wanted to believe it so badly, and I would shut down because it was all a lie. And even though I knew my mom needed to believe things were going to be okay in order for her to survive, I hated that she could slide things under the rug and forget.

Or maybe I was jealous because I couldn’t.

The cell phone blipped instead of buzzing and I grabbed it.