What Happens Now(78)

“Camden!” I said more loudly. “Stop! Look at me!”

His eyes popped open and it was like a spell had been broken. “What?” he said, his voice scratchy.

“Look at me, please.”

He did. And I knew.

“We can’t do this,” I said. “Not like this.”

Camden sighed and slowly pushed himself up, off, away from me. He knelt at my feet at the other end of the couch and I scrambled to sitting.

He clutched his chest. “You kill me.”

“Sorry.” God, that sounded so stupid. But what else could I say? “You stopped us the last time. We’re tied one-one.”

He huffed a half laugh, then fell serious again. “I don’t know how to do this.”

“This?”

“Be with someone, that is. Not sex. I could wing that part based on what I’ve seen and heard . . .”

“Right,” I said, holding up my hand for him to halt.

“The problem is, I have no examples to go by. How are we supposed to figure it out if we have nothing real to base it on?”

I shook my head. “No idea.”

I pulled my shirt down, and something in that made Camden look pained. Had I done the right thing, stopping him? Was I going to regret this?

“Please stay,” he said. “You can sleep in my mom’s room.”

I leaned forward and rested my forehead against his for a second. That was all I dared. Ninety-nine parts of me wanted to say yes and wrap my arms around him so hard they’d have to be pried away, eventually. But that one last, hundredth part. It had learned some things.

“It’ll be infinitely less awful for me if I go home now,” I said. “I’ll call Richard.”

Camden nodded, traced a circle on the back of my hand.

“I’m going to go into the house but I don’t want you to come with me,” I continued. “I want to think of you as being right here.”

He nodded again, closed his eyes.

I went inside and didn’t look back. I found my backpack, turned on my phone. There were no more new messages and that felt ominous.

I called Richard’s cell phone. He picked up instantly.

“Ari?” he asked.

“Hi.”

“Are you on your way home?”

“I’m actually at Camden’s. Can you come pick me up?”

He paused. “Yes, of course. I just need the address.”

It was the of course that got me. I found myself tearing up.

“I’m so sorry, Richard.”

“Save it for later,” he said, but kindly.

I went out onto the porch and waited for the next act to start.





20




Richard pulled into our driveway and put the car in park, but didn’t shut it off. We hadn’t said a word to each other since leaving the Barn. He turned to me now, and I got the sense he’d been so quiet on the drive because he’d been preparing for this moment.

“Ari,” he said, finally looking at me, and it was a damn good thing he hadn’t until now, because that was all it took for the tears.

“Richard . . . ,” I said, my voice shaking, with no idea of how I planned to finish that sentence.

“The only thing I’m going to tell you that’s not obvious, that you don’t already know, is that Dani had a great time with Mikayla.”

I smiled and let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding. “I’m glad.”

“Hold that thought,” said Richard, and turned the car off.

Danielle came running out the front door, her hair wet from a bath. I could feel my heart curl toward her.

“Hey, kiddo,” I said when I got out of the car. “What are you still doing up?”

She hugged me, her arms tight and desperate around my waist, then drew back and gave me a dirty look.

“Waiting for you. Duh.”

“I’m back now.”

Richard brushed past us and into the house. After the front door shut behind him, I leaned down close to her and said, “Me going away with my friends, and Mom and Dad getting mad. You know that had nothing to do with you, right?”

“Yes,” she said. Danielle stared hard at the ground, frowning. “I made Mom a card when she was crying. She said it was the best one she’s ever gotten.”

“She was crying?”

“Well, first she and Daddy got into a fight. Biggest one ever. Then she went into her bathroom and locked the door and I listened through the wall. She doesn’t know I did that.”

“Come inside,” I said and started walking, taking her hand. I thought of Camden’s question: How are we supposed to figure it out if we have nothing real to base it on? But the way Danielle’s hand felt warm and perfect in mine—that was real.

The thought of my mother crying in the bathroom. That was real, too.

When I came into the kitchen, Mom was sitting at the table, facing the other way, and didn’t turn around. I stood watching the back of her head for a few moments as she carefully flipped the page of the newspaper she was reading.

Then Dani said, “Mommy! Didn’t you see that Ari’s home?”

My mother dropped both hands to her side and sat quietly for a moment, then slowly swiveled in my direction.