Where the Staircase Ends (17 page)

When I turned to go back inside the house, Logan blocked the door. His face looked a little swollen, and dried blood crusted around a cut above his left eye.

“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 asshole. 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.

“It’s beautiful,” I admitted as I studied the wheeling stars. They were a million eyes blinking down from the blackened heavens, waiting and watching.

“Are you okay?” I could feel him studying me but I kept my chin tipped towards the sky, avoiding his gaze.

“Course,” I said. “Why wouldn’t I be?” So he wouldn’t have a chance to answer the question, I quickly added, “Does Sunny know you’re out here? She’ll be looking for you, you know.”

I said it in a way that made my voice sound strong and ample, so he would think I was a good supportive friend rather than some jealous girl staring at the sky with a guy she had a horrible unrequited crush on.

“Taylor,” he said, his voice low and serious. When I didn’t say anything he said, “Taylor, will you please look at me?”

I turned my face toward his. He was only a few inches from me, so close I could feel his breath on my cheeks when he let out a long exhale. He stared at me the same way he had all night: long and concerned.

“What are you doing? And don’t say you’re lying on the roof with me or looking at the stars or anything like that. You know that’s not what I mean. What are you
doing
?”

I forced my eyes to focus on the sky, afraid that if I kept looking at him with his mouth so close to mine I’d lose my resolve and kiss him.

“I don’t know what you mean.” I chewed on my bottom lip like it was a piece of Trident.

“You’re better than this. What are you doing with Logan?” He pulled himself up on his elbows and looked down on me.

“Logan is my boyfriend.”

“Logan is an asshole. What happened to his brother is sad, but it doesn’t give him an excuse to act like a jerk. How can you let someone treat you like that? He’s lucky I didn’t break his arm after I saw him shaking you up like that.”

“He’s just jealous. He didn’t mean anything by it. And I’m fine, really. No harm, no foul.” I added a smile when I said the last thing because I wanted him to think I meant it, but I avoided his eyes just in case.

“For someone so smart you sure do make some dumb choices.” He glared down at me with heavily lidded blue eyes.

I pushed myself up so we were eye level. My cheeks flared from fury, and my hands curled into fists.

“You’re one to talk,” I said, louder than I intended. But it felt good to yell. Especially at him. I was an egg cracked on the side of a pan, my anger spitting and hissing against the hot surface. “You act all smart and perfect all the time, like Justin can do no wrong. Then you invite me to The Fields and make it seem like
I’m the one you want to see, like you actually like me too, only it wasn’t me you wanted at all. What kind of person does something like that? I liked you, Justin. And I know you’re smart enough to have figured that out. I mean, I even pretended to like the same music as you so that we’d have something to talk about. My freaking iPod is filled with all that indie garbage you like just because I wanted to impress you! And what did you do? You strung me along, inviting me somewhere when all you really wanted to do was hook up with my friend. Don’t you dare lecture me. Don’t you
dare
. You’re the bad guy in this story, not me.”

I started to get up, but he put his hand on my shoulder to stop me. He was smiling, and that pissed me off even more.

“Oh, this is funny to you? You think I’m a joke now?” I wanted to push him off the roof, or slap him, or scratch the stupid smirk from his face. Anything to get him to stop looking at me like that.

“Calm down,” he said, his hand pressing down on my shoulder and his grin widening. “I’m not laughing at you. But you have to admit it’s pretty funny that you just admitted you were only pretending to like all of that music. I must have given you, like, what? Twenty bands? And you bought all of them! You even knew some of the words.” He laughed really hard, holding his stomach like it might split open from the hilarity of my confession. Then he mimicked me in a high-pitched voice: “I just love Ender’s Radio. I wish they would make a hundred albums.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “I’m so glad I could entertain you for the evening. That’s super. Glad you’re having so much fun.” I said it in the bitchiest tone I could muster. My fingers were numb from squeezing them against my palms.

“Please don’t go,” he said when I tried to leave again. “I don’t like Sunny. I’ve never liked Sunny. I don’t even know why you’re friends with her. She’s not even in your league.”

I stared at him for a moment, trying to make sense of what he’d said. “But I overheard Sunny talking about you to Jenny and Amber. And at the water tower you guys were chatting
forever
, and then I saw her grab on to you tonight—”

“You saw her
try
to grab me, but then you turned around and ran before you could see me push her off. And trust me when I say she was the one doing all the talking at the water tower. The only reason I even humor her is because she’s your friend.”

I sat back down and stared at him for a moment, relief and disbelief washing over me. How could he not like Sunny?
Everybody
liked Sunny, except for the people she chose not to like. The words didn’t sound right coming out of his mouth, especially because she wanted to be with him, and Sunny always got what she wanted.

“I asked you to meet me tonight because I wanted to see you. But you’re always with Logan.” He shook his head. “I don’t get it.”

I made a face. I wanted to say,
maybe if you had asked me out sooner I wouldn’t have had to date Logan,
but instead I said, “What don’t you get?”

“Why you’re with someone like that.” After a few seconds of quiet he added, “You’re better than that, Taylor. You’re better than all of this, don’t you know that?”

“You keep saying that—” I started, but he held up his hand and frowned.

“You’re smart. And you’re nice. At least, you are when you’re not hanging around Sunny. I don’t know why you waste so much energy trying to pretend to be someone you’re not. It seems like the only time you ever act
real
is when you’re in class, away from your friends.” He paused and glanced up at the sky, searching for the right words. “Someday high school is going to end. And when you get out of here, you have a chance to actually be something. You can do anything you want, go anywhere you want, hell, you could probably
be
anything you wanted to be if you’d just stop trying so hard to hide it from people. The rest of them—Sunny, Logan—they will have peaked in high school. This is all there is for them, as good as it’s going to get. Can’t you see that? Can’t you see that you have a shot at being something more than all of this?”

I blinked at him, unsure what to say or how to respond. More how? More of what? I must have looked confused, because he kept talking, and at some point while he spoke he put his hand on my cheek. It was warm and wonderful, and I could no longer hear the words coming out of his mouth because the feeling of his skin against mine was so loud it drowned out everything else.

Then just like that, I had this crazy thought. I didn’t know where the idea came from, but it struck me with so much certainty that I had to say it out loud.

“Maybe it’s like the Emily Dickinson poem,” I said, feeling the weight of his fingers as they traced the length of my jaw. “You know, the one I had to read in class about the interposing fly? Maybe Sunny is my fly, interposing and distracting me from whatever it is I’m supposed to be doing with my life. Or maybe we’re all each other’s flies. Maybe we’re all a bunch of big, buzzing distractions.”

I felt stupid after I said it. It was the kind of thing I’d never have said around Sunny. She would have laughed me right off the roof. But Justin looked right at me and smiled, like he totally got it.

He reached out and tucked a wandering strand of hair behind my ear, and I noticed for the first time that his eyes had tiny flecks of green mixed in with the blue. They were an ocean, blue and green and unending. I wanted to dive into those eyes. I wanted to swim around forever and never surface.

I didn’t know if I leaned into him or he leaned into me, but suddenly his mouth pressed against mine, and it felt even more warm and wonderful than his hand on my cheek. Something bloomed inside my stomach, heat and nervousness and excitement all at the same time. It was so much better than any kiss I’d ever had before. He kissed me slowly, softly, like it was enough. As if kissing me would always be enough. Not like Logan who made it seem like kissing was a means to an end.

He broke away from me when we heard the crash from inside the bedroom.

“What was that?” I asked, my eyelids fluttering open. He shrugged and climbed over me toward the window.

“Don’t go anywhere,” he said, smiling at me before climbing into the house to see what the noise was. He came back a moment later, putting one leg through the window followed by the other on his way back outside.