A/N: Paper Houses Always Burn trailer above!! Any predictions based on it?
049. On the Outside
It's almost easy to pretend things have gone back to normal after that.
We're a happy little group of nine again. Sure, we don't all get along individually—I still hate Taylor and Celia so much it makes my insides squirm like a bucket of worms—but on the outside we look relaxed. Happy. Like any other group of teenagers on a beach vacation.
Part of this is because Taylor keeps to himself. Almost every morning, by the time I get downstairs, the couch is empty. His tasseled throw blanket is folded, unwrinkled, and draped over the arm. Then someone tells me he's either at the beach or going for a jog. He stays out of our way. It makes me wonder why he's even here to begin with.
He avoids Celia even more than I do, going so far as to leave a room the second she walks in. It makes me wonder what happened between them. My curiosity isn't invested interest—more like clamoring for the latest gossip. Wanting all the juicy details. And since talking to them about it would make it seem like I actually care, I don't ask.
While Taylor and Celia aren't the immediate problem, other things are. Spencer. Allison. I worry about them so much my shoulders become permanently tense and even one of Liam's expert massages can't ease away the soreness.
It's the Monday starting our second week of vacation—six days since I arrived at the house. Taylor breaks routine by helping Nathan and Brynn make breakfast in the kitchen. Watching his large, careful hands chop up fruit is too much for me, so I slip out onto the deck and fall into a pool chair. Then I shut my eyes, feeling heat on my lids, and figure I'll settle in for a nice long nap.
"Erika?"
The pool chair squishes under Allison's weight as she sits down next to me. "Can we talk?"
I crack open an eye. Under the rosy hue of my sunglass lenses, her cheeks look even more flushed than usual. Her lips are parted and her eyes are wide—urgent.
Sitting up, I ask, "What's up?
"I don't think I want to stay here anymore."
"What?"
She pulls her floral beach wrap tighter. "Every day finding my birth parents becomes more and more important. It's the most important thing in my life right now. Not roasting marshmallows at a bonfire or movie nights or getting a tan on the beach."
"But this is our last summer all together." I rip off my sunglasses, dropping them on the glass table beside me. "We're never going to all be in the same place again."
"You don't know that. Anyway, it might be a good thing. All nine of us together—it gets kind of intense. We don't all like each other that much."
"But Allison—"
"I've decided." She crosses her arms, the way she used to as a kid when she was being extra stubborn. No, I'm not eating my green beans. I refuse to leave until you say I won the board game.
"What about Taylor? You're the reason he's staying here. You can't just ditch us and leave us to deal with him."
"You're right, it would be unfair. He can come with me."
"You and Taylor alone? Tracking down two people it might take years to find? Come on, Allison."
"I'm serious."
And she looks so serious that my growing anger is replaced with sympathy. Almost pity. If I were her, would I be thinking the same thing? Even though she's adopted, it seems like we share the same DNA. Maybe if the roles were reversed she'd be trying to convince me not to go on this wild goose chase.
I take a deep breath. "Allison, I know you want answers. But why don't you wait until after the vacation? I'll go with you."
"Who's going where?"
Liam. He'll either make things better or make things worse.
He sits down beside Allison, at the foot of my chaise. I wonder how much weight this pool chair can withstand. Then he plops on his Central baseball cap to shield his eyes from the intense sun and asks, "No one's going anywhere, right? You guys are like the only reason I'm enjoying this vacation."
Allison purses her lips. I wait for her to explain—it seems like this should be her news to tell—but when the silence drags on I say, "Allison wants to leave the house and go looking for her birth parents now."
"That's crazy, Al. You can't go alone."
"Oh, that's another thing." Allison's still annoyingly silent. "She wants to take Taylor with her."
Liam's light eyebrows furrow, like he's trying hard to understand. I wait for the cogs in his brain to turn, for the machinery to connect. Finally, he clears his throat and says, "I know this isn't the tenth century anymore and whatnot. As the boyfriend I can't exactly ban you from doing things. That's not cool. But Allison, I'm really, really against this."
"You can't change my mind, Liam."
Her glare is stony—that stubborn look is back. I feel like she and Liam are about to start arguing. Maybe it's their first real fight ever. I stand, planning on giving them some space and heading back into the house, but Allison grabs my arm. Her sharp nails, painted bright white, dig into me, piercing the skin.
"Stay," she says.
I collapse back down the chaise, twirling the arm of my sunglasses between my index finger and my thumb.
"Have you even found them yet?" asks Liam.
Allison shakes her head.
"Then what are you going to do when you leave? Go back to Hampton?"
"I don't know!" Her head is in her hands. "This just feels so unproductive."
"It's called a vacation. It's supposed to be unproductive."
"Well sorry if vacationing's a little difficult for me with other things on my mind."
Liam's jaw tightens. I've only seen him angry a handful of times, and it feels weird to see. Like watching a bird with clipped wings. "Look," he says, "you can do the same stuff here that you can do back in Hampton, okay? Spend the next few weeks talking to people. Do some research. Once you find them, I'm not gonna hold you back. Go meet them. But you have no leads, no names—nothing. It'd be stupid to run off right now."
"Liam's right," I cut in. "And the fact that he's saying all this means a lot. You know he isn't usually a planner. But even he knows this isn't something to be spontaneous about."
Liam scoffs, a half-chuckle deep in his throat. "Thanks for that, Erika."
"I know I sound unreasonable," admits Allison. "I hate sounding impractical. But this is so important to me. I can't idle here, sitting on my hands."
"Talk to Taylor," I say. "He's a resource. You guys can figure this out together—in a house with lots of other people, where the rest of us can keep an eye on him."
"Is Taylor ever going to not be on probation with us?"
"Not as far as I'm concerned. We can never trust him again."
"I'd be careful trusting what he says about this, even," Liam pipes up. "I think he gets off on lying."
Allison rolls her eyes. "Like we all haven't lived on a crumbling tower of lies at some point in our lives."
"Are you defending him?"
"Yeah, kind of. Don't you think he's been in the doghouse long enough? He's here, isn't he? He hasn't caused any trouble yet. What exactly do you think is going to happen?"
Pent-up anger bubbles up in my gut like seeping lava from an erupting volcano. I know now isn't the time to argue about Taylor—Allison needs our advice, not our criticism—but I can't help it. "I don't know what's going to happen," I snap. "That's why I don't trust him."
"Don't you think it's time he got a second chance?"
"Pretty sure this would be his fourth or fifth chance," interjects Liam. "Let it go, Ali. I get you need him to find your parents, but that's it. He's not our friend."
She sits up straighter. Leans towards him, narrows her baby-blue eyes. "You're threatened."
She says it simply, like it's everyday knowledge. A given, just like the fact that water is H2O and two plus two equals four. And Liam doesn't deny it—he just stares back, eyes stony. He's intimidating when he's mad. It's new, dark. Almost sexy.
"I am not threatened," manages Liam.
"Yes, you are. Taylor's made his way around this whole friend group and you're afraid he's going to circle back for round two."
"I'm not afraid. I know he'll try. And if you're alone it'll make it a lot easier."
"Look. I probably shouldn't have to explain myself, but I'm going to anyway." Pushing her curly blonde hair behind one ear, she says, "Taylor is kind of my brother. I know not officially, but it's still weird and twisted and screwed up. He feels like a brother to me. I'm not going back to him."
"I know you won't. But he might try."
The patio door opens and none other than Taylor emerges from the house. He sees us clustered on the pool chair, raises an eyebrow, and leans against the wall. Then he lights up a cigarette and stares into the horizon, the reflection of sparkling ocean waves dancing on his ebony eyes.
Allison stands. "I'm going to talk to him."
"Allison—"
But she ignores Liam. With a final swoosh of her wrap, she strides over to him, flip-flops smacking on the concrete. She snatches the cigarette out of his hand and grinds it into the pavement with the top of her shoe before crossing her arms. Her mouth moves a mile a minute but I can't hear what she's saying.
Liam groans, tipping his head against the back of his chair. I watch his chest rise and fall as he takes deep breaths. Then he whips off his baseball cap and tosses it onto the table beside us.
"You okay?" I ask.
He sucks the inside of his cheek, hollowing out the space beneath his cheekbone. "Should I be worried?"
"About which part?"
The corner of his mouth tips up into a smirk. "Touché."
"You guys are going to be okay, if that's what you mean," I say. "She really cares about you."
"I'm not worried about us. I'm worried about her. Taylor, her parents—there's so many chances for her to get hurt. The more she digs the more chances she's taking."
"Yeah." I exhale slowly, a puff of hot air. "I know."
Allison throws up her hands and takes a step closer to Taylor. He rakes a hand through his hair and snaps something back. He looks like he'd been planning on taking a dip in the pool—he's tanned and shirtless, and his swim trunks ride low on his hips. No doubt he hadn't been in the mood for this confrontation.
"Speaking of relationships," says Liam, angling his head away from the pair, "how about yours?"
"Don't go there."
"No, seriously." Liam fluffs the pillow behind him and reclines back on it. "You and Spencer have barely spoken the last few days."
"Well what do you suggest I do about it?"
He snorts. "Well here's a revolutionary piece of advice. Break up with him."
"Spencer and I are two of your best friends. How can it be that easy for you to say?"
"Simple. It's not much of a relationship when there's no talking, much less making out or vomit-worthy PDA or yearning sidelong glances."
I chew my lip and don't say anything.
"Do you even care about him anymore?"
I know what I'm thinking makes me a horrible person, but I say it anyway. Liam's my best friend—he won't judge. He can't. "Not really," I say. "In fact, he gets on my last nerve most of the time. You know that squeezing you get in your stomach when someone you really dislike says something? It doesn't have to be anything particularly annoying or controversial or anything. It's just, they open their mouth and in your head you go, 'here they go again'."
Liam nods sagely. "Every freaking time Celia is near me. I know the feeling exactly."
"Well that's how I feel anytime Spencer talks. He could literally just walk up to me and say hello and the voice inside my head screams 'why did you even come over here at all'?"
"Sweetie, you've got to break up with him."
"I just don't want to cause a scene."
"So I'll make it easy. Take him to a nice dinner tonight—your treat, okay? Some revolutionary twenty-first century shit. Try to get through the salad and main course without clawing his eyes out. Then, over some dessert—tiramisu, maybe—break the news. He'll have the drive back to process."
"The drive back trapped with me."
Liam's nose wrinkles. "Didn't think about that part."
"No, but it's a good idea," I say. "Almost worth the awkward drive back. Maybe I'll see if he wants to go tonight."
"You'll have to claim one of the cars pretty far in advance. Celia's going downtown and I know Nathan wanted to use the other one. But he can probably pick you up afterwards."
"I'll figure it out." It feels better, having a plan. It always does. And the prospect of breaking up with Spencer is like a huge chunk of relief. I know for a fact this time: after we break up, there's no more on-and-off. No more uncertainty about our feelings for each other. When we break it off this time, it'll be for good.
I turn back to Allison and Taylor and watch them. They're still talking, but it looks like the attitude has toned down a little. Taylor actually smiles at something Allison says. I'm trying to read his lips to get some indication of what they're talking about when Liam taps me on the shoulder.
"Hey," he says when I turn around, "I know I don't give you a ton of credit but you deserve an award for putting up with me all the time. You're literally my best friend, Erika. I'm not trying to turn all sappy on your but thank you for being there. For talking to me. For letting me know when I'm being stupid."
I smile. "Same to you. I don't know what I'd do without you, honestly. Probably self-destruct. Blow up as a giant fireball of stress. Wreak havoc wherever I go."
"We're a good team."
"Yeah."
Allison and Taylor break apart. Sure enough, he jumps into the pool. As he flicks his hair, sending drops of water flying, I avert my eyes. Instead of heading back towards us, Allison disappears into the house.
"Yikes," says Liam, standing. "I'd better go talk to her. Hopefully she didn't do anything rash."
"You know her. She's shockingly spontaneous sometimes."
He grits his teeth and heads back into the house. Then it's just me and Taylor outside. I wait a few seconds to give Liam a head start on finding Allison, then scurry off after him. I'm not interested in any more one-on-one time with the devil.
In the kitchen, breakfast is over. Spencer's scrubbing dishes while Cassidy sits on the counter, texting. Occasionally she reads something out loud and Spencer laughs. But even that bothers me. His laugh is too loud, too forced. It rattles me, and not in the good way, either.
How did we even manage to last this long?
"Hey, Spencer." I sidle up beside him.
He turns off the sink and puts a yellow plate in the dishwasher. "What's up?"
"You want to do dinner tonight? Just you and me? We can go out somewhere."
"Yeah, I guess that's fine." He doesn't sound overly enthused. It works out because neither am I.
Just so I have something to do, I help him with the dishes. I focus on taking all of my nasty, pent-up feelings out on the plates, which have sticky residue from last night's ribs. Soon my fingers hurt from pressing so hard, but I keep going. That really is my biggest problem. Never knowing when to stop, even when it hurts. Even when it burns.