The Past and Other Things That Should Stay Buried(32)



Rafi, thankfully, does. “Hey, why don’t we give Dino a minute alone with his cousin?” When no one moves, he says, “Or you can go home?” Dafne takes off, but Kandis scowls at me before heading downstairs.

“You good?” Rafi asks. I nod.

As soon as they’re gone, I rap my knuckles on the door. “It’s me. Dino. Open up.”

A few seconds later, the door cracks open. July’s eye peers out to make certain I’m alone before fully opening the door. I’m about to ask what’s going on when she grabs my arm, yanks me into the bathroom, and slams the door shut again.

“What did you do?” I ask, though I’m half-joking.

Rafi’s bathroom is nearly the size of his bedroom, but it’s got the original hardware from the 1920s and it’s always kind of reminded me of a grandma’s bathroom. Not either of my grandmas—they have better taste than this—but somewhere out in the wide world is a grandma with questionable taste and a bathroom exactly like this one.

July sits on the edge of the tub and buries her face in her hands. I expect her to immediately lay into me for assuming she screwed up, even though I wasn’t entirely serious. I sit beside her and wrap my arm around her.

“You must’ve done something right if you won over Kandis. She was looking feistier than a Balrog.”

“Nerd,” July says through her hands.

“Rafi told me he loves me.” I don’t actually want to talk about it—the words haven’t settled into me and I haven’t decided how I feel about them—but at this point, I’d sing July’s favorite song while juggling knives to get her talking. “Specifically, he said he loves me and that I deserve to be loved. Which, thanks for telling me something I already know. Obviously I deserve to be loved. Right? Everyone does.”

“Even serial killers?” July mumbles.

“Maybe not once they’ve started killing people. But definitely before that.”

“What about people who drive slow in the fast lane and don’t use their blinkers?”

“Of course—” I stop. “Nope. Changed my mind. Those people can die lonely and alone.”

July laughs a little. Not much, but I’ll take it. “What’d you say?” she asks. “When Rafi told you he loves you?”

“Cool?”

“For real? The guy opens his heart to you and you respond with ‘cool’?”

“He caught me by surprise! What else was I supposed to say?”

“Do you love him?”

I shrug. “I don’t know. I know that I don’t not love him, but I refuse to be the kind of person who says it back when he doesn’t mean it. Rafi deserves it to be real. He deserves better.”

“Better than what?”

“Better than me.”

July peeks between her fingers at me. “No argument here. Seriously, where’d you find that guy? He dances ballet? He writes better than me? He volunteers?”

“How did you—? Did you snoop in his room?”

“It was Roxy!” She sits up completely now. “Did you expect me not to?”

“Yes!”

“I’m beginning to doubt how well you actually know me.”

“Knowing the worst about you doesn’t mean I can’t hope for the best.” I can’t rewind time and keep July from violating Rafi’s privacy, so I sigh and let it go.

July wrinkles her nose and raises her eyebrows, making a face that basically says she doesn’t care either way. “You should talk to him.”

“And tell him what?”

“The truth is a good place to start.”

“Except I don’t know what the truth is.”

“Yes you do,” July says. “You’re just afraid to say it. Like always.”

I purse my lips. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Tell your parents you hate the idea of becoming a mortician yet?”

“No, but—”

July throws on a self-satisfied smirk. “Exactly. And you never will because you’re incapable of dealing with shit. All you have to do is be honest with Rafi.”

I didn’t want to discuss him in the first place and only brought him up to get July to talk, and since I’ve accomplished my goal, I decide to change the subject. “So, are you going to tell me what happened, or are we going to hide in the bathroom for the rest of the night?”

July tenses. Her back and shoulders go rigid and I worry that I pushed too soon.

“I farted.”

I scoot to the side a little.

July slaps my arm. “Not now!”

“Oh.”

The tension leaves her body, and she deflates. “Outside,” she says. “I was talking to everyone—I might have told them about the time you were playing Robin Hood and you fell off the stage during the rescue scene and gave yourself a concussion—”

“Really?”

She ignores me. “And then this blast of gas tore out of me. It was so loud.”

“Was it more like a high-pitched squeak? You know, the kind that sneaks out and goes on forever? Or did it come out in blasts like the rat-tat-tat of a machine gun?”

July’s mouth goes tight, and she stares at me like she’s seriously considering the many painful ways she can murder me. But she says, “Like a sad, never-ending trumpet,” and I bust up laughing.

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