| photo by Toa Heftiba from Unsplash |
Noah's shoulders lift as Samantha and I approach the tiny table he's claimed for us. The glass storefront hums behind him, vibrating along with the thunder—like a bad omen. I drop my gaze to the vanilla milkshake, untouched and sweaty with condensation, because I don't have a response for the question in his eyes. Or at least, not the response he wants to hear. I am definitely not okay.
Maybe I shouldn't have been so quick to give in to Samantha's demand.
She sits, leaving me the chair that's been added—which is practically blocking the path to the counter. Noah reaches for my hand. The contact gives me goose bumps, but not necessarily in a good way. Samantha said I wasn't planning to keep this secret from him before my accident. But I'm finding that hard to believe, because some instinct is telling me to respect Noah's wishes—to bury the truth about Lindsay and the phone call and keep moving forward—but I don't know if it's the right thing to do. I can't tell which Allyson is sending the message.
"I have to be at work by noon," Samantha says, high-pitched and urgent. I flex my fingers. Noah takes the hint and releases my hand. I have to sever my connection to him. To close my eyes against Samantha's tight-lipped expectation. So I can think about what's best for my little sister.
My brain replays an image from yesterday in the school office: Lindsay, freezing like a statue when she saw Noah. Then shrinking away from his friendly greeting. She damaged both of us the day she answered my phone and she knows it. Samantha is right. Lindsay's going to need his forgiveness too.
So. "Yeah, um." I open my eyes and focus on Noah. "Remember how I told you I might've been lying when you called from Georgia?"
He nods, but his jaws are tight, like he's clenching his teeth. Bracing himself for something he doesn't want to hear.
"It was a lie," I say. "But it wasn't me. I never even knew about the phone call, because my sister..."
Noah's eyebrows go high with like, this split second of shock. But then he shakes his head. "I would've known I was talking to Lindsay."
"They sound a lot alike on the phone," Samantha says. "It used to drive Ally crazy, remember? Her dad couldn't even tell them apart."
"Okay-yeah, but..." His face contorts and his eyes close on a wince. I recognize the devastation, but it's tinged this time. He stands, hissing a curse, then half-turns to stare at the entrance. His hands are fisted and his body is... I don't know if I'm seeing actual movement, but I get the impression he's wavering. Like he's fighting an intense urge to walk out that door.
I scoot to the edge of my chair, wishing I'd never let go of his hand. I want so badly to reach out, to latch on and force him to stay.
Or to get up and go with him.
"Sit down, Dodge."
Samantha's tone is surprisingly calm—it kind of reminds me of Dr. Greene. But Noah brands her with a glare that is surely the visual equivalent of the foul words he yelled at me in the lunchroom that day. Then he looks at me and says, "Why now?"
I don't know exactly what he's asking, but I feel like I need to explain why I'm digging up all this ancient history. And so all the details I've been holding back erupt from my mouth—Lindsay's weed-smoking tunnel in the trees, her flask of wine and all the expert lies she's concocted to cover her tracks—and Noah just stands there with his mouth hanging open. Trapped in the path of this deluge of thought and frustration that can't possible make sense to him, because my words are rushing out so fast they're tripping over each other.
"Dodge," Samantha says, pointing to his chair. But her voice is different now, it's unsteady and there's a crevice in the skin between her eyebrows.
And the lady at the table next to ours is sneering right at me.
God, I can't believe I just said all that highly personal stuff in a coffee shop full of people.
"I'm sorry," I whisper. Noah blinks at me and slumps into his chair, taking a needy breath that makes me think he hasn't had one in awhile. "I don't expect you to forgive Lindsay or anything. I just...I couldn't let this stay in the past."
He shakes his head. Meaning...what? "No, you don't forgive her," I ask. "Or..."
"You don't owe me an apology."
"Well I do," Samantha says.
Noah's face goes almost blank for a moment. Like maybe he forgot she was there. "I went out of my way to be an ass to you," she adds and he frowns.
"Yeah. I noticed."
"I was pissed at you, Dodge. I spent months trying to convince Ally, and myself, that you were having some kind of angry grief-breakdown. But then all of a sudden you started consorting with all those girls and I couldn't make excuses for you anymore."
"Are you finished apologizing?"
His tone is ugly now. Sarcastic and so angry. I shoot Samantha a look that means, "Just stop. Please." Because he's right, this isn't the apology I was expecting either.
But Samantha doesn't see me. She's too busy glaring at Noah. "You went through the entire girls' swim team."
"This is what I mean," he tells me. "I asked out a couple of girls right after you joined the team because I was, you know, trying to distract myself. That doesn't make me a man-whore."
"I may be exaggerating the number," Samantha says, "but the girls you asked out were the ones who were most likely to..." She glances at me and presses her lips together. "Let's just say they weren't shy about sharing certain details in the girl's locker room. You know," she adds, imitating Noah's deep voice, "right in front of Ally?"
He lifts both hands. I don't know if he's saying stop or I surrender, but his face is red and he's staring at the exit again. So.
"The point is," Samantha says, "I would never have treated you that way if I'd known the truth."
It takes me a moment to shift my thoughts from "certain details in the girl's locker room" to the point of Samantha's hostile apology. There were several days worth of IM conversations, after Noah came back from that trip to Georgia, where I kept begging Samantha to ask her boyfriend why Noah was avoiding me. She and I were the "everything" he was getting away from, the reason he spent all that time sleeping in the equipment room.
If we had all known about Lindsay's lie then, Noah wouldn't have thought I was messing with his head. I would've been there for him when he needed to talk about the shit that was happening with his grandpa—and he would've been there for me.
"I'm such a dumbass," he says, shifting his eyes to mine. "I didn't question it. Not even yesterday when you told me there wasn't anything about the phone call on your IM app."
"That's because you never asked her about the guy from New Jersey," Samantha says. "I warned Ally about this. I told her to talk to you—to explain her mistake and apologize. But neither of you said anything more about it, so that stupid kiss has always been there, festering under the surface. If you guys had talked about it—instead of just moving on like it never happened—then you wouldn't have been so quick to believe it had happened again."
Noah slumps back against his chair, looking more stunned than anything. Samantha turns to me and says, "Why haven't you told your parents that Lindsay is doing drugs?"
Her tone is softer, but there's still plenty of judgment. And I know she's right. "I was going to," I say. "But Lindsay told me our parents have been arguing—and then there was all this weird tension between her and Mom, and..."
Oh. Duh. This is the reason.
"My mom knows about the phone call," I say. "That's why she's been acting so weird, why she won't let me and Lindsay spend any time alone together. She's making Lindsay keep the secret because..."
Why would she do that?
The answer comes as soon as I open my mouth to ask the question out loud. It's obvious. Mom's trying to protect me. "She's always acting like she's afraid I'm going to break apart if she says or does anything that might upset me," I say. "But now it's my little sister who's falling apart and Mom can't see that because Lindsay hides it so well. I have to tell her—that's all I need to do, right? Once I tell everyone everything I know, my family can start getting back to normal."
My phone buzzes my purse. I dig it out, hoping it's Mom, checking up on me again, because I'm so ready to get this started.
But, no. The call is from... "Do I know someone named Drew?" I ask.
Samantha flinches. Her eyes dart to Noah and then drop to her fidgeting hands. I press the ignore button and drop my phone on the table. Like it's radioactive.
"Telling your family is a good idea," she says, but there's no trace of the confidence she had a moment ago. And she's still twisting and twisting the ring on her left pinky. "But I don't think you can honestly expect it to..."
My phone buzzes the table. This Drew person is texting me: Need help with your sister.
I get a sickening sense that Drew is the older guy who turns Lindsay's bones to oatmeal. And so my hand is a little shaky when I reach out to unlock my phone and slide it in front of Samantha. "Does this guy live on my street?"
She reads the message and says, "Shit." Meaning yes.
"Are we talking about Drew Watterson?" Noah asks.
And his tone is repugnant.
"Yeah," Samantha says, grimacing. "It sounds like Lindsay is with him."
They exchange a look that raises the hair on the back of my neck, and we stand in unison—all three chairs grinding the hardwood floor. "Is my sister in danger?" I ask. "How old is this guy?"
"Nineteen," Samantha says. "He graduated with my brother two years ago."
"He's not ax-murderer dangerous," Noah says. "But Drew's not someone a fourteen-year-old girl should be hanging out with."
He jerks the coffee shop door open and the bouncing bell startles me—in an odd, postponed kind of way—because I don't remember walking away from the table. But my phone is in my hand. And Samantha is holding my botanical purse.
The rain is still coming down, steady and hard. We file out, huddling together on a thin strip of sidewalk sheltered by a forest green awning. "There's no reason for all of us go over there," Noah says, focused on Samantha like "all of us" means her specifically. "If you can take Ally home, I'll grab Lindsay and bring her straight over."
"Thanks, but I don't see how that's going to work. Right?" Samantha asks, turning to me. "Dodge is the last person Lindsay wants to see right now."
"Um, yeah. That's probably...yes."
"I honestly don't have a problem going to the Wattersons' house," she tells him. "But if you're not ready to deal, then you can go home and I'll take Ally."
Ready to deal?
It's on my mind to ask what she means. But then I remember. When I asked Samantha if I knew someone named Drew, her unspoken answer was almost identical to the one in the bathroom—when I asked her not to talk about the thing I was hiding from her before my accident. So does that mean the lie I told her about skipping school had something to do with Drew?
"Wait here," Noah says, digging his keys out of his pocket. "Text Drew and tell him we're on our way."
He darts into the parking lot, leaping over the small river of rainwater rushing toward the storm drain. I unlock my phone. It didn't register before, but now I see that Drew's name and number have been stored in my contacts. Obviously. But I don't think that disturbing detail has escaped Noah's attention.
"There's another text," Samantha says. "It's from the day of your accident."
What? No. There wasn't...
Oh god. There definitely is. How did I not see this before? The grey bubble hovering above the text about my sister says: You coming over? And it's time-stamped at 10:45 p.m. on June 10, the day of my accident.
I didn't answer, of course, because I was in a coma. But I was supposed to go out with Noah that night. So. Was Drew inviting me to come over after my date? And more importantly... "Would I have gone?"
"I honestly don't know," Samantha says. With a hint of an attitude that seems to contradict the statement. "You wouldn't confirm or deny that you were doing anything with him. You just kept telling me it was under control." She makes air quotes around the last two words. And her attitude is less of hint now, more like a full-blown accusation.
"So if my connection, or whatever, to this guy is the thing that was scaring the crap out of you, then you must have some idea. Right?"
"My family has a history with the Wattersons. My brother got into trouble his senior year because he was hanging out with Drew. The guy's a drug dealer, Ally."
Noah's car stops at the curb. He leans across the seat to shove the passenger door open and Samantha pulls me into a hug so tight, she must be able to feel my heart, flopping around inside my chest like a dying fish. "Whatever this is we'll deal with it, okay Owl? We'll get everything out in the open, and we'll find a solution." She releases me, extending her arm, and I take my purse out of her hand. "I have to bring my car in case I can't find someone to work my shift," she says, loud enough for Noah to hear. "But I'll be right behind you."
She's gone, ducking into the rain and leaping puddles, before I can think to ask if I can ride with her instead. But I guess—yes, I'm sure it was intentional. This is Samantha's way of forcing me and Noah to talk about what's going on. Because what if this is like...a misunderstanding. Or. Couldn't this whole thing be another one of Lindsay's elaborate lies?
I jump into Noah's car and buckle my seatbelt. "Samantha doesn't know why Drew's number is in my phone," I blurt. "Do you?"
"No," he says. But his wrinkled forehead says he has ideas of his own—questions that will always be there, festering under the surface.
"What if it was Lindsay?" I ask. "She could easily have put Drew's number in my contacts to make it look like I was doing something with him—right? She could've sent that text from his phone."
Noah shifts the car into drive and navigates the parking lot in silence. But whatever he's thinking has his mouth set in a straight line. "What are you not saying?" I ask him. "You don't think it's even a possibility—considering what we know about her now? And all the things we didn't talk about before my accident?"
He reaches for my hand, but it's more of a supportive gesture than a romantic one. Which makes sense, because my voice is quivery and there are tears pooling in my eyes. I know exactly what he's not saying. I'm the one who convinced him that Lindsay was in trouble, that she needs my help. My little sister has a bone-dissolving—possibly reciprocated—crush on a nineteen-year-old drug dealer and apparently, I'm the idiot who introduced them.