We were the last to show, and when we walked through the door of Tucker's, nobody hid their curiosity. Everyone's eyes followed us, full of questions. Suzie, Deryk, Mike, Raffy, and... Brenan. They had to be wondering why I was with Gabe. Why had I skipped class to be with him and what, exactly, had we been doing?
"Gabe, we need to talk," said Mike, the first to break through the quiet. He looked at everyone else and then added, "In private."
Gabe nodded and looked down at me with concern, as if asking if I'd be okay. Why wouldn't I be? Suzie and Deryk were my friends, and Brenan was the guy I was dating—for now. I couldn't think of him as my boyfriend. Meeting his eyes, I nodded, if only to stop him from asking the questions out loud.
"Let's go to the office," he told Mike and Raffy, but glared at Brenan. "That way we are just upstairs if anyone needs anything."
"Just go," Suzie said, rolling her eyes towards the stairs. "We are fine."
They paused as a trio, and then walked away to ascend the stairs and disappear from sight, though each took his turn looking over his shoulder as they left. My guess was that they were in the kitchen, well within hearing range, and taking turns peeking around the corner every few seconds to make sure all was still well.
"Where'd you guys go?" Suzie asked, turning to smile at me. It was fake but so was the lightness of my answer.
"Roller rink." Hopping up on the counter, I shrugged. "It was a last-minute thing. I was driving Gabe back over lunch and figured, since he had a spare and I've been on total house arrest, I deserved a little fun. My mom has been crazed since the accident, you know? She even tried taking my car keys so that I'd have to walk, like getting behind the wheel automatically means I'll be hurt."
"You could have asked us to come with you."
I looked Brenan in the eye and said, "I didn't think you guys would have any fun." It was a lie and I sucked at it. In truth, after seeing them prompted my absences, I hadn't thought I'd have any fun if they were there. If I'd been a crankpot, they certainly wouldn't have had fun, so I guessed it wasn't really a lie. Gabe was just a neutral party that I didn't feel obligated to and had been chosen simply because he'd been present when the decision to skip school had been made.
"Okay then," Deryk said with forced cheer.
Brenan didn't look away from me and I felt burdened to reciprocate.
"We're going to the movies. Do you want to come?" Suzie asked, darting her eyes between us.
"I have to get home before my mom realizes school is out," I said.
"Not me, either." Brenan tilted his head towards Suzie and Deryk, speaking out off the side of his mouth, but never looked away from me.
Then go home, I wanted to say, and rolled my eyes to the ceiling.
I knew he'd stay until we talked, and I mentally began preparing for what I wanted to say. Or rather, how I should say it so that it wouldn't sound callous. You couldn't just blurt these things out. To say that I just wanted to be friends was so cliché, yet true. I never should have allowed us to move past being friends in the first place. Why had I?
Suzie and Deryk left after saying they'd see us later, and Suzie's pointed look promised that she expected a better explanation later.
Once the door closed behind them, everything I'd practiced saying flew out of my head. This was so much harder than it seemed. I'd had one boyfriend and no practice with having to end a relationship because he'd died. How was I supposed to start? Without music and customers to drown out the silence between us, it was impossible to remain attached to my logic. The reality and gravity of the situation muted me despite my intentions. If he stopped looking at me, maybe I might be able to speak. I hoped that he would say what I wanted to, but couldn't, or that Mike, Gabe, and Raffy finished talking. Soon.
Any one of them would pay me to allow them to do what I suddenly couldn't.
"So, you're okay?" Brenan asked, looking down to the floor and sticking his hands deep inside the front pockets of his jeans. He was afraid of or too shy to look at me, and his inability to look up allowed me the chance to memorize the slight cowlick at the top of his head. "Nothing was broken?"
"Nope. Just bruises and a concussion." I shrugged, keeping my tone light, and held onto the edge of the counter as I swung my legs and searched the empty room, noting the games which needed lights replaced.
"That's good."
"You say it like it's not," I said, wondering aloud, and stopped swinging my legs to turn my gaze back to him, narrowing my eyes. "You sound surprised."
"I am. You... I saw you when you were brought in, Aly. Bruising doesn't cause someone to bleed like that." He looked up. "You were bleeding and puking... and bleeding in your puke? I don't know." He shrugged. "I just don't get it."
Neither did I.
"I'm fine. Sore, yeah, but not broken." Wiggling in spot, I raised my eyebrow, and then became completely still. "See? Maybe I just bit my tongue or something."
He took a step forward and I tensed. He stopped and sighed. "Do you want me to pick you up for your party?"
I shook my head and bit my cheek. That's my cue. God, it was like I could hear his heart breaking already and dreaded it. Don't be stupid, Aly. You had two dates, and the first didn't even count!
"Do you want to meet there?"
"No," I said, much more stable than I thought possible. "I mean, yeah, you should come, but as my friend. I, uh..." I looked down to my hands in my lap and swallowed before glancing back up. "I don't think we should date."
His eyes found mine but didn't look surprised. "Because of Gabe?"
I laughed, rolling my eyes towards the stairs. "No." This wasn't how I'd wanted to say it, but I couldn't regret that it had been said. But it had nothing to do with Gabe—not directly. "Because of me and you, and... I'm not ready for a relationship."
"And you just figured this out? After spending the afternoon with another guy?"
His implication and raised voice brought out my temper. "First of all, Gabe is like my brother." I jumped off the counter and began pacing in front of him, wishing this was over, but finding my mouth had other plans. "Secondly, I realized this before, right after I got home from the hospital, if you want the truth, but I couldn't say anything in front of the audience at school!"
"Right."
I blinked. "Right?" Scoffing, I shook my head. "Right, well, when you lied to me about why you were at the hospital, I knew for sure. I don't want to be your girlfriend."
"What lie? My Uncle—"
"You said it was your grandfather!" I raised my hands and let them drop again, looking back to the stairs. How weren't Mike, Gabe, and Raffy not hearing any of this? Seriously, the one time I wanted them to meddle, they didn't. Craptastic!
"Aly..." He shook his head. "My Uncle dropped me off to visit my grandfather right before you were brought in."
Coming to a complete stop, I stared at him. Just for a second, I wondered whether he could be telling the truth, but he refused to look me in the eyes. He was lying. I knew it. I didn't know how I knew, but I did, and my patience for pretenses and all of the desire I had to be kind was shot like I'd jumped from the warmth of a hot tub into the deep end of a pool. Every inch of my body tingled as though it had been shocked by the change in temperature.
With a final look to the top floor, I blew out the breath I had been holding and grabbed my keys as I headed out the front door. In all the ways I had pictured this conversation happening, not once had I imagined telling him that I knew he'd lied. If I had, perhaps I would have been able to avoid all the yelling. The best thing I could do now was leave, all notions of a possible friendship between us obliterated.
I didn't pause on the way to my car and walked through the rain that had begun without noticing my clothes getting soaked, sticking to my body so that no curve was left to the imagination. Through the pitter-patter of the falling drops, I didn't hear Brenan as he followed me until his hand cupped my shoulder and he pulled so that I would twirl around to face him.
My keys dropped from my hand and I swore, looking down.
"What do you want?" I stepped back towards my keys, just a few feet from my car. "I don't think we should talk anymore tonight, Brenan. Let's just cool off and then—"
"I don't want to talk anymore, either."
I stepped back again until my feet were parallel with my keys. All I'd have to do is reach down and pick them up, but in the few minutes since we'd been inside the arcade, Brenan—every single part of him—had changed. I sucked in a breath and swallowed, wondering if the rain would drown out my screams.