The Last Time We Were Us (15 page)

“I don’t want that anyway,” I rush to the words, hoping to save face, beat him to the punch, because I don’t. It’s not even a lie—I want Innis. Through and through. I don’t want to want that, at least. What happened yesterday was a dalliance, as all the old-timey books would call it.

“Okay,” he says. “Good.”

“Okay, then.”

“So can I see you tomorrow? I have the day off, and we could hang out.”

“Why?”

“Like I said, you’re my friend.”

“You know, it’s not very flattering, being someone’s last resort.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“I have to babysit in the morning.”

“Good. I have a meeting with my parole officer. We’ll hang after.”

I try not to reveal how much the words “parole officer” have thrown me. Of course I know he has one, he’s mentioned her before, but the way he says it naturally is so weird. “I have to be back by dinner, or my mom will be asking . . .”

“No problem.”

I know I should say no. I promised Lyla, after all. But I think of MacKenzie, of how wrong she was about Veronica, of how supremely I effed that up, how quickly I let go of a friend. Could she be wrong about Jason, too? Could everyone?

“Please, Lizzie,” he says.

“We need to talk about your text, all ‘everything is not what you think it is.’”

A few seconds of silence, but then he says, “All right.”

“Okay, then,” I say, almost relieved. I need the truth from him. All of it. “Two. I’ll come over.”

“Awesome,” he says. “See you then.”

When I hang up, I’m surprised to see in the mirror my face is red. I touch my cheeks—they’re hot. Jason Sullivan, I scold myself. Jason freaking Sullivan.

It’s not ten minutes before my phone rings again. I jump to it, strangely eager to hear Jason’s voice. Maybe he’ll tell me he wasn’t sorry about the kiss. Maybe he won’t even wait until tomorrow. Maybe he’ll just come out and tell me whatever it is he’s been holding back.

But as I pick it up off my bed, I hold my breath. Innis.

MacKenzie’s words shake through me.
If you want to ruin everything, go ahead.

I let it ring one more time before answering.

We exchange the usual openers while I practice lies about what I’m doing tomorrow afternoon in my head. He tells me he has to drive Skip to Raleigh, for a check-in with his burn specialist at the research hospital there. The words make bile rise in the back of my throat. The boy I’ve liked for so long is taking his brother to the hospital, and it’s all Jason’s fault.

He asks if I’m free on Friday. His dad is taking everyone out on the boat. I say yes. Of course I say yes. Friday’s my day off. There’s absolutely no reason not to go.

Then he asks if I still want to come to the library fundraiser.

Another obvious yes.

I hang up feeling all kinds of bad. Innis is upping the ante, with family-meeting events, daylong outings, and here I am, spending time with the person who hurt his family more than anyone else.

I stare at the phone, wondering if I should call Jason and cancel. Tell him that even if he tells me the whole sordid truth it won’t be enough—that whatever he did is too much, far too much, to forgive.

But I don’t.

Chapter 14

A
S
I
PULL UP TO THE APARTMENT COMPLEX,
I
CAN
almost taste the kiss on my lips. It feels warm and good but desperate, like a second piece of chocolate cake.

This friendship is going to be tricky.

I honk twice, and Jason comes down in a few minutes. He opens the car door and hops inside. He’s clean-shaven, and I wonder if that’s for me.

“How’s it going?” He smiles nervously. His cheeks sport a hint of red, like he’s blushing.

For a brief, infinitesimal moment, I have the urge to run my hand through his hair, pull him close, kiss him again. But I can’t. And I can’t have thoughts like that, either. It’s not fair to Innis. “Where should we go?”

He shrugs. “What were you thinking?”

“I don’t know. I hadn’t really thought about it.”

He smiles awkwardly. “Me either.”

I let out a sigh. “You know, I’m risking a lot to be your friend. You’re going to have to come through on the planning, okay? We can’t very well go where anyone can see us.”

“All right, all right. I just hadn’t thought past this point.”

“Of course you haven’t.” I say it under my breath, but loud enough for him to hear. Just like he didn’t think what would happen if he attacked Skip. Or if he kissed me.

“Whoa.” He swallows hard. “Why did you come if you don’t want to be here?”

I grasp the wheel, then let go again. “I do want to be here. I just need you to take charge. I don’t know a thing about secret friendships.”

“Me either.” He laughs a relieved laugh, then cranks his seat back almost all the way. His hands rest on his knees as he thinks. It’s the same thing he used to do when he was a kid.

“You know where I haven’t been in years?” he asks.

“Where?”

“Wellesley’s Grove.”

It was our spot for a year or two. It makes as much sense as any.

“That’s fine,” I say.

He looks out the window, and I head back to the main road, towards a small highway that doesn’t go much of anywhere. Tobacco fields stretch out on either side of us, speckled by the occasional diner or gas station.

Fiveish minutes of silence pass before I speak.

“So are you going to tell me your side?” I ask.

The trees disappear, and the cars thin out, and it’s just me and him on the open road.

He flinches. “Do we really have to talk about this right now?”

Trees pop up ahead, and I turn onto a small windy drive.

“Why did you say you would then?” I ask. The drive leads to a parking lot, and I pray there aren’t any cars here. Luckily, there aren’t.

“I didn’t say within the first five minutes. Give me a break.”

“What’s the difference?” I turn off the car and pull the emergency brake with a jolt. “Why even bring it up if you don’t want to tell me?”

His head snaps towards me. “Because I knew you wouldn’t talk to me if I didn’t say it.”

It hits like a load of bricks, right on my chest. “Are you just screwing with me? Just making everything up?”

“No, I’m not.” He rubs his hand across his eyes. “But can we have this afternoon?”

He looks, suddenly, so very sad, and my anger fades as quickly as it comes, because all I see is him as a little kid, eyes red-rimmed and bleary in the days after his mom left. And I feel deep shame for making him focus on what he did, on the darkest part of himself.

“Please?” he asks.

“You keep saying that,” I say.

“Saying what?”

“Please.”

His breath is deep and slow, like he’s counting in his head. Finally: “I never used to ask for help. Even when I needed it. That’s one of the things I learned, these last couple of years.”

“So now you want it from me?”

He shrugs. “I want you to be my friend, and for us to not talk about all the bad things—not even think about them—for an afternoon. I need it, Lizzie. I wouldn’t ask you if I didn’t need it.”

I pause, adjust my bag in my lap. He looks so helpless, but it’s different from when we were kids. Because when you’re a kid, you’re supposed to be helpless. You don’t have to put on the tough face. You’re allowed to cry, whether it’s because you skinned your knee or you missed your favorite TV show or that mouthwatering scoop of strawberry ice cream just plopped on your sandal. But he’s not a kid anymore. He’s a teenage boy, six feet tall with stubble and a chipped tooth and all the clues that say,
I’m supposed to hold it together for 99 percent of the world.
But I’m not that 99 percent. Not for him.

“Okay,” I say, finally. “But none of this is going to go away, not if we keep seeing each other. I’m not going to just forget about what you said.”

“I know.”

“You have to explain it all eventually.”

“I know.” His smile is a mix of relief and gratefulness, like I’ve offered him a big fat umbrella, the kind that takes up the whole sidewalk, in a downpour.

“Well, what are we waiting for?” I open the door and head towards the grove. When we get to the small path, Jason takes the lead. Trees taller than you’d believe rise up in front of us, green and lush.

Dirt and rocks slip beneath my feet, making a dusty trickling sound as I lose purchase. Jason turns around, but not quick enough to help me. I fall back, catching myself with my hands.

“Christ, are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” I check myself for scrapes and brush the dirt off. “Chill.” He leans down and takes my hands, pulling me up. My skin burns hot where he’s touched it, and my whole body thrums.

I steady my feet, let go of his hands. “Thanks.”

I sidestep the rest of the way down, between dogwood bushes and wildflowers and weeds that are too pretty to even be called weeds, and then finally we reach the clearing, a grassy circle surrounded by trees and climbing ivy. There’s a mass of crumbling bricks on one end that used to be one of those huge barbecues no one makes or uses anymore. I look up, and all I see is sky, a blue, clear ceiling. I look back down, and there’s Jason, looking at me.

I see him, no more than eleven, the first time we came here on our bikes. The night before, I’d peeked out my window to see Lyla and one of the boys she dated before Skip, one of the ones who didn’t ever matter, leaning in close beneath the back porch light, lips locked together. I remember standing in this same spot, wondering what it would be like to kiss Jason like that.

Now I know.

“Come on.” Jason grabs my hand.

When he gets to the old barbecue, he lets me go, starts to hoist himself up.

“What are you doing?” I ask.

“Climbing.”

“Why?”

He’s at the top now, and he turns back to me. “Do I need a reason to climb?”

I shrug, but I follow him anyway.

“It’s been years since I climbed something,” he says.

“Me, too.”

“Come on.” He jumps down a level and reaches his hand out to me. “We used to climb lots of things together.”

I wonder if Innis would ever reach out to me like that, ask me to join him on a mini-adventure.

Jason’s hand clasps mine, and I pull myself up. The air is cooler, breezier, as I follow the steps to the top. We’re standing together, right where we used to. I stare down at my tan feet and toenails with chipped paint.

“You have no idea how good it feels,” he says.

“What?”

“Being free to do whatever you want in the world.”

I’m about to ask him what it was like, being in there for a year and a half, when my phone dings. It’s Innis. Instinctively, I cover the screen so Jason can’t see.

He’s sent me a photo of a street, must be in downtown Raleigh, focused on a page torn out of a book. I zoom in on the photo, look at the top line.

“‘I am in love,’ he said, not to her however, but to some one raised up in the dark so that you could not touch her but must lay your garland down on the grass.”

My hands tingle as I look closer at the picture, see what it’s from.
Mrs. Dalloway
, one of my favorites.

I scan Innis’s words at the bottom.

something for your collection

Veronica and I started the game a couple of years ago. We’d seen all these pages torn out of a book on the street in front of school, and we thought it was such a waste. So now, whenever we see a page somewhere, we take a picture and add the first line to a running story. It’s amazing how many you find once you start looking. Last summer, we were up to a full page. Usually, the lines are from random books, cheesy mystery novels, bodice-rippers. But
Mrs. Dalloway
, that’s a gem.

And, Innis remembered. I’d embarrassingly mentioned it one of the times he’d walked me to my car after chemistry, after I saw a page in the parking lot. It was the first time I’d said anything nerdy to him. And from the look on his face, I decided I wouldn’t say anything nerdy ever again.

But he remembered.

My heart beats at the words
I am in love
, and right now I’m not even sure what or who it beats for, it just beats.

“You okay?”

I look up quickly, slip the phone back into my pocket.

Jason’s face is stern and tight, and I wonder if he saw the text. He suddenly looks a lot less like the Jason I knew as a kid and a lot more like the other Jason, the one who hurt Skip, Innis, the whole family. The one who hurt me.

All the compassion I felt moments ago in the car, it disappears, just like that. “We can’t just keep doing this,” I say, surprising myself.

“Doing what?” He sits down, dangles his feet over the ledge, leans back on his palms. I stoop down to join him. My hands are scratched and raw from my earlier fall.

“Not talking about what we’re both thinking about.”

His voice is questioning, betrayed. “But you just said—”

“I don’t care.” I spit the words out before I lose my nerve. “We need to talk about what you did to Skip.”

He hops down, walks away from me.

“What?” I rush to keep up with his long, lanky legs. “What?”

I grab his arm, and he whips around, glaring at me.

“What about what you
just
promised me in the car? Did you completely forget about that?”

“What about all the promises you broke to me?” My voice wavers with anger. It’s not just what he did to Skip, even though that’s plenty. It’s what he did to me, before.

He wiggles out of my grasp. “I thought you were the one person who believed in me.”

“How can I believe in you when you don’t tell me anything?” The shakiness leaves my voice, because now only anger is left. “Go ahead. Enlighten me.”

“You said we didn’t have to talk about it.”

“Well, I changed my mind. Did you attack him or not?”

He opens his mouth to speak, then shuts it again. “Lizzie, you have to trust me. I’m not a bad person. I’m the same person I always was.”

“You can’t even say no, can you?”

He turns his palms up like he’s searched for words and come up empty.