Between These Lines (A Young Adult Novel) (14 page)

She
startled me as she stepped out of the shadows and into the light. I immediately
noticed the messenger bag slung over her shoulder. She had her coat on and
looked ready to go.

“The
porch light’s deceiving. I would have gone around back to get you if I would
have known you were waiting for me.”

“I
just thought this would be easier.” She looked shy as she smiled back at me.

I
checked down both ends of the street, just in case Shane would pop out of
nowhere again, but the street was empty.

“Do
I get to meet your parents?”

“They’re
not home. My dad took me out to dinner, but he left to go back to the office.”
Her whisper was apologetic as she stepped forward, letting the shadow from the
weeping birch branches cover her face so I only saw her in fragments. Her
cheek. Her lip. The blonde of her hair was brushed with strokes of silver. She
stole my breath away. Before I knew what I was doing, my hand reached out for
hers, just like I had wanted to do the other night—only she took it one
step further and wrapped her arms around my waist, pressing her cheek to my
chest.

“Are
you okay?” she asked as I let my arms encircle her. “I thought for sure Shane
had something to do with you getting called to the office. He could have found
out everything I told you in the library. Then four o’clock came, and you never
showed up.”

A
few days ago I would have sworn this would never happen. That my life would
never, in a million years, collide with hers. But today was different.

Everything
was different
.

“I
was set up today.” I took a deep breath, then let it out, along with everything
else that happened while in our Headmaster’s office this afternoon.

“Are
you sure it was Shane?” she asked, biting her nails. I watched her eyes flicker
in the dark, absorbing it all. Truthfully, it sounded almost surreal now that I
was retelling it.

“Pretty
sure, but it could have been Ty. Headmaster Whitley reassured me that my
fingerprints weren’t on that bag, though he never said whose were.”

We
walked to the car, and once inside, Evie was silent.

“I
know what you’re thinking,” she said finally whispered. “They’re never home.”

“Where’s
your mom?”

“I’m
not sure.” Evie responded.

A
few seconds ticked by.

“I
think my mom is cheating on my dad,” she breathed. “No, I’m sure she is.”

I
looked at her for a moment, not quite sure what to say. “Evie . . .” nothing
else seemed to follow. At least nothing that sounded right. “I’m sorry.”

She
looked at me and sighed deeply.

“Does
your dad know?” I asked. The topic of her parents was as touchy for me as it
was for her, especially when I spent the last couple of years wishing I had my
own to talk about.

“I
think so. I think it’s why he stays away.”

She
was incredibly calm. Maybe she was used to having parental issues. Maybe she
was numb over what was going on between them. Either way, her quiet attitude
eased my own discomfort; I just couldn’t find the right words to offer to her.

“I’m
going to Jake’s tomorrow.” It was out now. “I don’t really have a choice about
it, considering I’ll have to make sure I create a link between Ty and Shane
that can be traced.”

Then
it hit me. “Tomorrow night, I’m going to ruin the lives of two kids, how does
that make me any better than Shane?”

She
looked at me with deep hazel eyes filled to the brim with reassurance. “You
are
better.”

I
shook my head. “It just feels wrong.”

“But
it isn’t. Tomorrow will help fix what Shane’s done to everyone, don’t you see
that?”

I
nodded back, but couldn’t tell her it didn’t seem to make it any easier on me.

“I
keep forgetting about the other project we’re doing together,” she whispered,
“the one that’s supposed to show us how alike we are.”

I
shifted closer to her. “And if you were to write it up right now, what would
you say?”

“I’d
say we’re cut from the same mold.”

I
gave a chuckle. “The popular girl and the nobody, huh? Who would’ve thought?”

“You’re
not a nobody. You’re . . .”

“I’m
what?” I asked her.

“You’re
a million times better than me.”

I
felt her fingers reach across the console. They settled softly on my own.

“That’s
Mr. Floyd’s point, isn’t it?” she whispered. “To prove there are no lines. As
soon as we all mixed together, we’d start seeing the truth; just like I didn’t
see it with Shane. I didn’t catch it.”

I
watched her face as she worked through the epiphany; the way her forehead
creased then smoothed; the way her lips parted, only to have her bite down on
them moments later in frustration and anger and disgust.

“Don’t
you see? It was so we could compare ourselves to each other, so we would see
how alike we are, how different. But Mr. Floyd knew all along it was so much
more than that.” She shook her head. “I’m not supposed to let you into my life
to involve you, or to make you feel more popular. I’m supposed to become part
of
yours
, to see how fake
mine
really is. The project is about
me
,
not you.” She sat shaking her head. “It’s opened my eyes—Shane used me
like he used everyone else.”

Her
words came crashing down, and then, there was silence. I held her hand as I
drove home to my house. I pulled the keys out of the ignition and played with
them in my hand. “Since we’re being honest tonight, I think you should come in.
There’s something I want to show you.”

Chapter Twenty

Evie

Mr. Floyd
was a freaking genius.

This
was about seeing how
real
Chase’s life was in comparison to mine. This
was about getting every student who felt they were on the other side of the
superior line to face reality, and to see they were as normal as the kids they
were assigned to.

I
couldn’t help feeling the incidences in my life lately were closely related to
the slap Shane had given me on my face; that Shane’s moment of rage was
actually a metaphorical premonition of what my life was to become.

Well,
thank you, Shane
,
I bitterly thought to myself.

On
the other side of the coin was the ever-widening rift between my parents,
thanks to my overly-dramatic mother. I couldn’t even remember the last time my
parents and I spent an evening together, much less an evening we actually
enjoyed. For months my mom made everything look like my dad’s fault—all
the badmouthing, the late nights at the office
. She
was neglected.
She
was lonely.

But
tonight at dinner, I saw a totally different side to it all. I saw a man
struggling to keep up, a man spending time away from his family because he’s
felt displaced, forgotten . . . blamed.

The
sorrow in my dad’s eyes was almost too much to bear and so, at dinner, I spent
half of the meal with my head down, staring into my napkin, and the other half
trying to look up because I didn’t want to appear like I was avoiding him.

I
looked over at Chase and wondered whose situation was worse. Mine: who had
parents who couldn’t stand each other? Or his: with no parents at all?

“Ready?”
Chase asked. He had a way of breaking the spinning thoughts that threatened to
do me in the longer I let them fester.

Chase’s
house looked lived in. Lights glowed warmly from the windows, a broom rested
against the porch railing, an opened bag of potting soil had a handle of a
trowel sticking out of it. It was obvious they took the time to care for their
home, because it meant something to them. My house, on the other hand, was
whipped into impeccable shape by a man my mom hired once a month.

“Evie,
you okay?” Chase asked me.

I
nodded. I would be if I could only remember how to breathe. I didn’t want to
tell him I was nervous, because I suddenly didn’t know who I was anymore. Would
his aunt see me as a stuck up girl from school? Did I look like one?

“What
is it?”

What
is it?
My brain repeated back to me.
It’s everything . . .
 
 

“Nothing,”
I said with a tiny smile. I looked into his eyes. Chase was nothing but gentle
and smart and giving—despite what life had offered him. He was the
complete opposite of the one I thought I loved—who I thought loved me
back.

Chapter Twenty-One

Chase

I fumbled
with my key in the backdoor lock and opened it, and stepped into the best room
of the house. The kitchen was Aunt Claudie’s lair. The hub of our home. It was
where she baked cookies and breads and made soups. It was where we congregated
every evening, providing a normal life for me so I would believe surviving the
accident that took my parents happened for a reason. It was a room full of hope
that miraculously fed my dreams and filled every space inside me to capacity.

This
was where Evie needed to be right now, I could feel it.

She
was so starved on the inside, not from lack of food, but of not knowing where
anything in her life fit anymore—Shane, her parents.

“Your
house smells delicious,” she exclaimed the second her foot stepped into the
kitchen, and I couldn’t have agreed more. We both seemed intoxicated by the
exquisite aroma that greeted us, as if a combination of every sweet delectable
ever baked had been trapped in this one room, assaulting our senses. I was so
used to the wonders Aunt Claudie whipped up that Evie’s reaction took me by
surprise, making me step back and appreciate my aunt’s culinary abilities.

A
smile crept to my mouth. “Cinnamon buns,” I pointed to the glass dome on the
counter, a few feet from where we stood, taking our coats off.

Evie
looked at me wide-eyed. “Cinnamon buns?” she asked. “
Homemade?
Because
my mom’s cinnamon buns usually smell like the box they came in.”

I
gave a shrug and laughed.

Shuffling
slippers sounded from the living room, and soon, Aunt Claudie padded her way in
to greet us. I shot a quick look at Evie, knowing my aunt’s peculiar,
deliberate smile blooming across her face could mean only one thing: that the
universe had finally spoken—but I didn’t say anything.

“No
library tonight?” she asked as she fluffed her hair, which must have flattened
while falling asleep on the sofa.
   

“This
is Evie Cunningham. We have English together.”

Evie
waved a little hello to my aunt, who responded in turn with a warm squeeze to
her hand. It was obvious Evie instantly liked her. Aunt Claudie had an
infectious smile and a way about her that was pretty hard to resist.

“I
thought we’d work here since the library’s closing soon. You can’t use the
copier after eight thirty.”

“That’s
fine. Would you two like some tea?” Aunt Claudie asked over her shoulder, and I
watched with amusement as my aunt shuffled her way over to the stove to grab
the kettle, as if having a girl in our kitchen was an everyday occurrence. If I
knew Aunt Claudie, she was beaming on the inside and would probably pop from
excitement at any moment. This was the first time I had ever brought a girl
back to our house. Heck, it was the first time I brought anyone home.

I
was about to grab two orange Powerades from the fridge when Evie’s soft-spoken
voice agreed to Aunt Claudie’s offer.
A tea-drinker.
Aunt Claudie has
a new best friend.
With a promise to come down when the kettle sang, I
lifted the dome, placed two cinnamon buns on a stack of napkins, and motioned
for Evie to follow me upstairs.

My
room was dark, but warm, full of deep woods and blues. It was a typical guy’s
room as far as I was concerned. I had a shelf of books, a desk, and a laptop.

“Your
aunt is very sweet,” Evie said, as she stood looking around my space.

“She
can be a bit overprotective.”

My
nerves had the best of me, so I began reorganizing the trinkets on my desk to
make room for our snack, and for working on the timeline. The fact that Evie
was in my bedroom made me dizzy and I needed to busy myself, which she noticed.
Before I could prepare for what I knew would eventually happen, she was
standing beside me, reading the newspaper cutouts hanging on my wall.

I
watched the side of her face as she slowly read the clippings; how her
expression changed as she digested it all—the ruined car, the headlines
about a boy who was a survivor. I had read them over and over, so many times
that I had become desensitized by the words—reading about a boy who
couldn’t possibly be me. When I noticed the tear falling from the corner of her
eye, it finally sank in how much I’d been hiding away from the world—how
I’d been hiding from my own self. Her reaction was entirely opposite of what
Shane’s had been years ago, and the one I needed all those years ago.