Where the Staircase Ends(40)

“Taylor,” he said. He gave me a long look, heavy with meaning. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere. I was afraid you went home. Look, can we talk? Please?”

He looked down at me with desperation, the anger from earlier in the night absent from his face. I wondered if he’d stopped drinking and sobered up, not that it mattered. I still had no interest in talking to him.

“I’m so sorry,” he started when he saw me cross my arms and look away from him. “I’m so, so sorry. I don’t know what got into me. I thought you and Justin … ” He shook his head and stared down at his shoes. “I just like you so much, and it made me a little crazy. I was stupid, and I’m really, really sorry.”

“It was stupid,” I agreed, looking over his head and into the house so I wouldn’t have to meet his eyes. “You’re an *. What happened to your face?”

He shook his head and touched the cut over his eye, like he’d completely forgotten it was there. “Do you forgive me?” he asked, tipping his head back so I could see the pleading look hiding under his mop of hair. “Please say you’ll forgive me. I’ll do anything. Anything at all. I don’t want to lose you.”

“I don’t know, Logan,” I answered with an irritated shrug. “It’s late, and I’m tired.”

“I promise it will never happen again. Let me make it up to you. Maybe at Spring Formal? Will you still go with me? Please?”


I didn’t have the energy to argue with him, and he did look really sorry. But in that moment the only thing I wanted to do was find a bed, lie down, and fall asleep.

“I’ll think about it and talk to you later.” I pushed past him before he could say anything else. My head ached, maybe from the drinks or maybe from the drama.

Outside there were shrieks of laughter as people splashed around in the pool. Sunny was perched on top of Mark Schroen’s shoulders. The pool lights made the tanned skin around her pink bikini look blue and silver from the water’s reflection. She pulled her wet hair back from her face and pointed at Jenny, eyes gleaming with challenge.

“Chicken fight!” she shouted, motioning for Jenny to get on someone else’s shoulders. Only Sunny would challenge a girl with a broken arm to a chicken fight. And of course Jenny (being Jenny) didn’t hesitate to climb onto the first available guy’s back, waving her cast at Sunny like a club. The crowd hooted and cheered.

I turned my back on the party and climbed the stairs, the peals of laughter fading as I reached the landing and walked back to one of the guest bedrooms. The bed dipped under my weight when I sat down and started pulling off my shoes.

Like most of the rooms in Sunny’s house, this one had a theme. The bookshelves were stuffed with African travel guides held upright with carved wooden jungle cat bookends. Animal-printed comforters covered both of the twin beds, and even the lamp was made to look like it was purchased from an outdoor African market. Her father’s decorator had gone all out trying to make the rooms in the house look unique and lived in, but somehow every room except for Sunny’s looked like it was pulled straight from the pages of a catalog. I was pretty sure the only time anyone used this room was on nights like this, when Sunny had her parties and everyone splintered off to find a bed to crash in. Or when they snuck off to check in with their parents and reassure them that they were sleeping at whatever made-up home they claimed to be sleeping at.

I didn’t notice the window was open or the screen pulled out until someone called to me from outside.

“Hey, Taylor.” Justin’s head poked out from behind the cheetah-printed curtains. “Sorry, I didn’t think anyone was up here.”

“What are you doing out there?” I asked, walking over to the window to look at him. He lay against a corner section of the roof, where two ends met to make a ledge large enough to lie on.

“I didn’t feel much like swimming,” he answered. “Is it okay that I’m out here?”

“Sure.” I shrugged. “I was just going to lie down, but I can grab another room.”

“Wait,” he said. I leaned out the window to look at him, fighting the urge to roll my eyes. “Come out here for a minute. You should see this.”

I made a face. “See what?” I asked, not feeling much like doing things that people wanted me to do.

“The sky. Come here.” He scooted farther out onto the roof to make space for me, and motioned for me to join him, patting the empty space beside him for emphasis. “Come on, just for a second. Then I promise I’ll leave you alone.”

Against my better judgment, I crawled out onto the roof and sat next to him. The space wasn’t as big as I thought, and I had to lay back against the angled roof with my arm touching his to fit. On the upside, it was probably the one place in the whole house where Sunny couldn’t find a way to wedge herself between us. On the down side, being that close to him made my skin all warm and melty, reminding me that he liked Sunny and not me.

He pointed at the sky, and I saw what he was so eager to show me. It really was something. Without the glare of the pool lights we could see the stars clearly, making the night look like someone had cut holes into a swatch of black fabric and stretched it across a sunlit sky. The moon was a grin, thin and smiling down at us. It made me think of Justin, always grinning his sly unreadable smile.