Suffer Love (27 page)

I tilt my head at him. “I don't think so, Henry. Sorry.”

His smile dims, but only for a moment before it reignites. “Hey, no problem. I get it.” He laughs and shakes some excess water out of his shaggy hair. “But there's always the supply closet.”

“Excuse me?”

He shrugs and grins wider. I can't tell if he's adorably nervous or ridiculously cocksure. “Lately, you seem a little . . . I don't know . . . down. More so than usual.” His eyes slide to my lips.

I back away from him into the wall. He follows me and hooks his finger in the hem of my fleece jacket, pulling at it gently.

“No big deal, Hadley. You just look like you could use a distraction.”

For a brief moment, I consider it. I could use a distraction. A barrelful. A closetful. A world full of Henry-shaped distractions. I could close my eyes while he kissed me and pretend he was Sam—a different Sam in a different world with a different Hadley.

And that would be okay. But it wouldn't be enough.

It'll never be enough, and I'm done playing these games with guys. Because no matter what I've told myself, that's not what I want. Maybe at some point it was. I don't know anymore. But everything's different now.

I push his hand away. “I need to go, Henry.”

His eyebrows pop up, like he's flabbergasted that St. Clair, the Patron Saint of Sluts, would turn down an offer to get freaky again in a closet that smells like mildew and rubber. He shrugs and moves back. “Sure. Offer stands, though.”

I watch him disappear into the guys' locker room, feeling a dizzying mix of anger and sadness and relief. I heave a breath and make my way outside. The late afternoon sky blurs into smears of copper and lavender and pink, and the air smells faintly of burning leaves.

When I get to my car, I stumble to a halt. Leaning against it is a familiar bright blue bike and a familiar blond head streaked with purple.

“Livy.”

Her head pops up. “Hi.”

“What are you doing here?” I rummage through my bag to find my keys. It's hard to look at Livy—her bleeding-heart, Sam-like features feel like little thorns in my skin.

“I wanted to bring you this.” She holds up a large tan envelope but makes no move to give it to me. She shifts from foot to foot. “Do you hate me?”

I sigh. “No, I don't hate you, Livy. I just don't know what to say.”

“I don't want you to hate Sam, either.”

The thought of hating Sam is so appealing. It would make everything so much easier. “You know I don't. But I don't trust him either.”

She takes a step closer, her eyes brimming. “You can trust him, Hadley. He's not . . . he didn't . . .” She swallows a gulp of air. I can almost see it sliding down into her lungs, steeling her as she squares her shoulders. “I think, in the beginning, keeping quiet was his way of protecting you . . . and me. Before you were together, he didn't see the point of telling you. He thought it would only hurt everyone.”

I shake my head. “And after?”

“He was going to tell you. He told me so. But come on, Hadley. Can you honestly say you don't know why it was hard for him? Why he was afraid to?”

I drop my gaze, choking on the knot in my throat. “Livy, I know you and Sam are still dealing with your dad being gone and what happened with our parents, but it's more than that for me. It's not only that he lied. I can't stop thinking about those papers on my door. You know about those, right?”

She doesn't respond. Just stares at me with huge eyes.

“You have no idea what it was like coming home to that. My dad and I were close. I thought I knew him inside and out. I thought he was the one person who would never, ever hurt me. Those notes, what they said, they were like a bullet in my heart. I understand that my dad's the one who had the affair and I understand that Sam didn't know me then, but I can't forget that he wrote them, that he would do something like that to someone's family, to my mom and me. We weren't the ones who hurt him.”

“Hadley.” Livy's crying now, but something in me balls up and closes.

“I don't want to talk about it anymore, Livy. Maybe I'll see you around.”

I fumble with the remote on my keys, hitting the lock button several times before finally landing on
unlock
. Behind me, I hear Livy take a giant, painful-sounding breath.

“Sam didn't write those notes.”

My car clicks unlocked. I don't get inside. I don't turn around. I freeze and her words flitter around in my head, trying to land.

“That day we caught my mom . . . I was so confused,” she says to my back. “I felt like I was outside of my body. I went ballistic. I had a huge asthma attack, but afterward . . . I just remember feeling totally unhinged, and I couldn't settle down. Sam was really freaked and kept watching me and following me around the house, but he eventually fell asleep. It wasn't hard to find out your dad's name. I looked through my mom's phone after everyone else was in bed. She even had his address. I sat in my room, writing those notes all night long. I know it was a screwed-up thing to do.”

I turn to look at her now. The envelope is at her feet and she's gripping her elbows like she's trying to hold herself together.

“I skipped school the next day. Rode my bike to your house with a bag full of paper and tape. Sam had no idea until afterward.” Tears trail silently down her cheeks. “It was me, Hadley.”

“And Sam took the blame.”

She nods. “When your dad called my mom that night, I guess he broke it off pretty harshly. Mom was . . . God, she was such a mess. I've never seen her so hurt and angry. She found Sam and me in the kitchen and started yelling and crying.” She pauses, looks up at the darkening sky. “Sam didn't even look at me. He didn't even ask. He just said he did it. Mom slapped him. Hard, across the face. Dad came home later and Mom told him everything. I'll never forget the way he looked at her—at all of us. Like we were strangers or something. Sam took his reaction pretty hard. They were always close, with baseball and climbing and stuff, and I still don't think he's over it. Those notes changed the way my parents saw Sam.”

“But it wasn't the truth.”

“It was the truth to them, and they both pulled away from him. And I let them do it.”

“Oh, Livy,” I whisper. I try to gather up the anger I felt toward Sam for those notes, but it's like trying to grab a handful of water.

“I'm sorry, Hadley,” she cries. “I didn't mean to hurt you or your mom. I was just . . . I was so mad and all I could think about was hurting
them.
I didn't mean for Sam to take the blame. It just happened and I didn't know how to fix it. But it's been so hard on him. His relationship with Mom gets worse every day. She has no faith him. I don't think she even likes him. And now you. You're the only person who makes him really happy, and I couldn't let you believe that he did that to you. I know he still lied, but at least you know he didn't write those notes. You can hate me instead of him.”

Fresh tears spill out of her blue eyes. I reach out and pull her into my arms. She doesn't resist, but falls against me heavily.

“Shhh,” I tell her as she cries into my shoulder. “I don't hate you, Livy.” And I don't. How could I? She was only thirteen when all of this happened.
Thirteen.
She saw her own mother having . . . God. Having
sex
with another man and then watched her family fall apart because of it. That's punishment enough. With her tiny fingers pressed into my back, something starts thinning out inside of me.

When Livy finally pulls away, both of our faces soaked, she leans down and picks up the envelope. “This is for you.”

I take the thick package. “What is it?”

“Copies of the photographs I took for my project.” She wipes her thumbs through the dripping mascara under both eyes. “I thought you might like them.”

“Thanks. You okay?”

“I think so. It feels nice having someone other than me and Sam know the truth. Especially if that someone is you.”

I manage a smile. “I should go.”

“Will you talk to Sam now?”

“I don't know, Livy.” I swallow thickly. “I just don't know right now.”

Disappointment floods her features and she takes a drag on her inhaler.

“But thank you for telling me the truth.” I squeeze her hand. “That was really brave.”

She nods, scuffing her boots over the asphalt.

I hug her one more time and get in my car. She climbs onto her bike, feet poised to hurtle herself home.

“Hadley?”

“Yeah?”

She hesitates, and then nods toward the envelope. “I named my photography project
Absolution.
” Then, the hint of a smile shimmers across her lips. “It gave me some hope.”

At least a dozen photographs span the area on my bed. I stare at them, my SAT vocab book hanging limply in my hands. I knew what the word meant when Livy said it, but reading the black-and-white print, staring at the black-and-white photographs, it feels almost too fresh, like skin sloughed raw with a harsh scrub.

Absolution: formal release from guilt, blame, or punishment.

Livy's photos are beautiful.

Four are scenes from her own world. Cora standing outside Sam's closed bedroom door, her hand on the doorknob with her head resting against the frame. A photo of a photo— the Bennett family, whole and intact, in front of Turner Field at a ball game in Atlanta. Sam's dad, a dark-headed version of his son, smiles out from the picture like a ghost. The original photo is torn in one corner and coffee-stained in another. There's one of Livy standing in front of a mirror, shot from an upward angle with the camera poised at her hip. She's dressed all in black, hair color-free and pushed away from her face. Her eyes are heavily lined and wide as she considers her reflection. Her blank expression is so hauntingly beautiful, it makes my chest hurt. There's another of Sam handing a cup of tea to his mother, her arm outstretched, their fingers mere millimeters from touching, eyes on each other, waiting for the other to speak.

Seven photos are of Sam and me.

I remember when Livy took the one from Fido. Our heads are bent close together over half-eaten cheesecake, clear I'm-obnoxiously-into-you grins on both of our faces. God, was I really that obvious?

In another, we're standing in his open front door, the streetlight throwing us into a gray shadow. His forehead is pressed to mine, our eyes closed, my fingers bunched into the hem of his T-shirt, his hands soft on either side of my neck. I stare at this one for a long time before moving on to the others.

Me grinning broadly while Sam cooks in that ridiculous green and white apron.

Me cuddled under Sam's arm while we watch a movie.

Me on a swing at the park after a picnic with Livy and Ajay, laughing while Sam pushes me, our hands and feet blurred colors in the setting sun.

Me and Sam asleep, tangled in an intimate knot on his couch.

I can't tear my eyes away from my own face, the way I look when Sam touches me and interacts with me. I'm almost unrecognizable. Laughing. Happy. Hopeful. It's all there in glossy black-and-white. I know it's me. I know it's Sam. But we're not
us.
In those pictures, we're something else entirely—we're the excitement of a moment and the possibility of a future.

The last photograph brings me back to reality.

It's my dad.

He's sitting alone at a table by the window in the Green-Eyed Girl. The angle is from within the café, somewhere in the vicinity of the Green-Eyed photographs. His favorite Montblanc pen is poised in his hand, but he's not writing. His chin is cupped in his hand and his eyes are distant and a little glassy, the way they get when he's trying to rearrange a sentence in his head before he writes it down. Something about his expression reveals a deep loneliness.

Or maybe that's just me, hoping that's how he feels.

Then I notice the notebook on the table, its fraying edges, and a familiar feather lying next to it. I pull the photo closer, squinting through the black-and-white to the hidden color.

Yes. It's the same snow-white feather I found in the backyard and gave my dad when I was five. The one he used as a bookmark in the red-covered journal he started writing to me when I was born. The one he said he planned to give to me when I turned eighteen.

What are you writing, Daddy?

I'm writing about you, sweetheart.

I had convinced myself that it had drifted into the background of his life like everything else after his affair. My mind and heart revolt. This photograph is old. Years old. It has to be. But Livy took this picture.
Livy,
who's only been in town for a few months. Posted on the wall to Dad's right is a flyer for Woodmont Elementary's Fall Festival, dated this year. Dad's jaw is peppered with the scruff I'd become accustomed to while Mom was gone but that would never have been allowed to flourish in the past.

The photograph is slick under my sweaty fingers as I grip it, wondering what he wrote down that day, what he wrote down for a thousand days before that. A desperation blooms in my chest. My eyes glide back to the pictures of me and Sam, and a raw sob chokes me.

Before I can set my tears free, a knock sounds on my door. I swallow hard.

“Hadley?” Dad calls when I don't respond. The door creaks open and he sticks his head inside, keeping his body in the hallway. He looks nervous. I've sniped at him to get out so many times, I guess I don't blame him.

“Had?” His eyes scan my face and he frowns. “Your mother and I are going out for dinner. Would you like to come?”

I shake my head.

He opens the door wider, his expression drenched in concern, but he dries it up quickly with a blank look. “You sure? You'll be okay on your own?”