The Way Back to Us Page 9

  “Is that where you got that scar from? From someone worse than Ben?”

  Her hand dropped immediately to cover it, but it was too late. The question was already out there and I had no plans of taking it back. She could keep shutting me down, but I wasn’t going to stop asking, finding out everything I possibly could about her.

  Deep down, in a tiny, dark part of myself, I let myself consider the fact that if I just knew what was going on with her that maybe I could fix it. That there might be an answer, a solution that I could give her that would let her stay with me. It was ridiculous of me to think that this kickass, self-sufficient woman wouldn’t have explored every possibility, but somehow I still let that little seed of hope take root.

  A muscle bunched in her jaw as she looked at me, the air between us sparking with tension. She flexed her hands. “You want to know about this scar?”

  I sat up, lacing my fingers together. “I want to know everything.”

  “Do you want to guess what it’s from?” She stepped closer. “No? Well this is what it looks like when you get shot and then stitched up in some fleabag motel.”

  My mouth dropped open. “Shot? When?” I struggled to form a coherent thought. “Where did—”

  “In Syracuse.”

  My mind whirled like the floor had just dropped out from underneath me. “When we were at SU together?”

  “About ten minutes after the last time you saw me.” She stared at me, unblinking. “I’d gotten so wrapped up in you, so careless, that I dropped my guard. You made me forget who I was and it almost got me killed.” Her lip trembled for half a second before she bit it. “So when you wonder why I won’t tell you things or why I won’t stay the night, this is why.” She gestured at her scar. “It’s not a game, Gav. It’s my life. It’s—”

  “Hey, hey, I’m sorry.” I was on my feet in a flash, gathering her into my arms. One of us was shaking. I was pretty sure it was me. “I didn’t know.”

  She slipped away from me, and I felt the loss everywhere. “I didn’t want you to know.”

  “I wish I had.” I rubbed a hand over my face. “Do you know how much time I spent hating you for the way you left? For making me feel like everything between us had been a one-way street? Thinking that everything had been in my damn head? God, if I’d known—”

  “You would have come looking for me. You would have kept thinking that I might come back.”

  “And you did.” I gestured to her, hands splayed wide.

  “I wanted you to be happy. I wanted you to move on with your life and fall in love and have all the things that I could never give you.” Her words reverberated around the room, ricocheting off the walls as she practically shouted at me. “I can’t stay. As much as I wish my life was different, it’s not and it’s never going to change.”

  I paced, my hand squeezing the back of my neck, afraid to voice the words I’d been thinking just moments ago but unable to stop myself. “Maybe I can help you. If you would just tell me—”

  “There’s nothing you can do.” Her eyebrows knitted together. “Don’t you think I’ve dissected the situation in a thousand different ways? If I had the choice—” Her eyes searched mine and she sighed. “But I don’t. There isn’t a choice to be made.” She looked at me with such an indescribable sadness that I could feel tiny pieces of my heart cracking. Her walls were down, every single one, and the truth of her heart was bare before me.

  “That’s why you never said it.” I took a step toward her and she took one back. It’d always been a sore spot, rubbed raw every time I thought of Dani. In all that time she’d never once told me she loved me, and now I finally understood why.

  She studied the floor. “Words have a power to them. You should know that.” Her shoulders drooped and suddenly she seemed so small, weaker and more fragile than I’d ever seen her. “I used to listen to the radio with my heart in my throat, just waiting for that one song. Waiting for your words to rip me to shreds.” She wouldn’t look at me, just turned and walked to the bathroom. She paused with her hand on the door and said quietly, “Sometimes I think you hating me is so much less painful than you loving me.”

  Chapter 18: Dani

  I wanted to stay in the shower for hours. Let the scalding hot water burn away all the ugly memories that lurked in every one of my thoughts. But hiding in the bathroom meant I only had those same thoughts for company and the last thing I wanted to do was to battle them. I wanted to escape them.

  I needed a distraction.

  Normally I’d lace up my sneakers and go for a run—the best, cheapest therapy I could possibly find. But with the monsoon going on outside that was absolutely out of the question. My next option would be my sketchbook, but staying holed up in my room didn’t seem like the best solution either.

  The lights dimmed in my bedroom as another roll of thunder cascaded through the atmosphere. I’d always loved storms. How wild they were. We’d sat through a rough one in Nashville where lightning sparked unendingly and the ground seemed to shake with the force of the thunder. I’d watched the whole thing from the porch, the wild wind whipping my hair and the cold spray of the rain soaking my cheeks. The whole time the only thing I could think was that I’d give anything to be that free. That untethered.

  I shook the thought from my head. Dreaming was as pointless as wishing. As my dad would say, both were just symptoms of a weak mind, an inability to face the reality that’d been dealt to us in life. I wasn’t a dreamer, I wasn’t a wisher, but I was a doer.

  After slipping on my shabby jeans and a well-worn T-shirt, I padded down the stairs barefoot. The sound of rain echoed through the living room, heavy on the roof and windows. But beyond that, the downstairs was silent.

  I bypassed the living room and made my way into the kitchen, trying not to stare at all the brand new stainless steel appliances, the honest to God granite, and the double oven. I’d become a master of making something from nothing, but with all this . . .

  The handle of the refrigerator was cold in my hand as I pulled it open. Someone’d had the foresight to stock it with food for the weekend. We had the basic grilling supplies—hot dogs, corn on the cob, beer, watermelon—but there were also steak and chicken and veggies galore. I wasn’t a chef by any stretch of the imagination, but I figured I could manage a simple meal for eight. It seemed the easiest thing I could do to extend an olive branch, to show Gavin I was making an effort with his friends.

  I’d barely gotten the olive oil in the skillet when the sound of feet on the stairs had me tensing. I was still unwinding from my last confrontation with Ben and Gavin; I wasn’t ready to go another round quite yet.

  The footsteps slowed. “Oh, hi.”

  I glanced over my shoulder to find the blonde with short hair. Gavin hadn’t mentioned it, but with the way her phone was always glued to her hand I assumed she had a pretty demanding job. Then again . . . I studied her for a second; there was something about her that seemed incredibly familiar.

  She smiled and reached for a cabinet. “Trying to figure out where you’ve seen me before?” She set a wine glass on the counter and held up another one in question. I shook my head. “I don’t think we’ve been officially introduced. I’m Bianca Easton and you might know my father as—”

  Click. “As the Republican presidential candidate.”

  The wine glugged a bit as she poured herself a glass. “That’s me.” She took a sip and sighed. “So, what is it you’re making here?”

  I wiped my hands on a dish towel, letting the chicken start to sauté. “I’m not sure there’s an official name for it? It’s chicken and garlic in a cream sauce with mushrooms and spinach and some sundried tomatoes over pasta.”

  “Well,” she said. “My cooking begins and ends with peeling the top off a yogurt container, but I’m happy to help if you’ve got something for me to do.”

  I pursed my lips. “How do you feel about some chopping?”

  “Chopping. I can do chopping.” She caught the look
on my face and laughed. “Don’t judge me. I know very well I play right into the rich girl stereotype.” A loud buzzing came from her pocket and she muttered under her breath. “Do me a favor and take this. And do not give it back to me. No matter what.”

  She held out her phone to me and it took me a second to realize she was actually serious. It gave out another insistent vibration as she handed it over and the look that passed across her face was almost panicked. I tucked it in my back pocket, but not before sneaking a quick glance at the screen—Dad flashed across it. “Out of sight, out of mind.”

  “God I hope so,” she mumbled under her breath.

  After handing over the appropriate knife and then showing her how not to slice off her fingers, the two of us fell into a comfortable rhythm. There was the sizzle of the chicken cooking in the pan and the soft, measured thunks of the knife hitting the cutting board. I added some garlic and the smell wafted into the air.

  “You know,” Bianca said, her face screwed up with concentration. “It wasn’t too long ago that I was in your shoes.”

  I used the spatula to nudge the chicken breasts, waiting for a bit more elaboration. Clearly she wasn’t talking about my actual shoes, but I wasn’t sure which metaphorical ones she meant exactly. Either way, it was hard to imagine there was anyone, let alone her, who could understand what it was like to be me.

  “I never really made friends easily, and then I started dating Ian.” She widened her eyes. “We spent Thanksgiving with his family and the guys and it was . . .”

  I added some heavy cream to the skillet.

  “Well, for someone whose family was very . . .” Again she hesitated. “I didn’t have a bad childhood, but it was never what Ian had. It wasn’t homemade cookies and handmade Mother’s Day cards, if you know what I mean.” She lifted an eyebrow in my direction.

  I knew what she meant.

  “And being around all of them and seeing this crazy-perfect family was exhilarating and overwhelming and exhausting. Mainly because it was so hard to see something so vividly that I never thought I’d get to have myself.” Her gaze went back to studying the tomatoes. “See, when Ian and I started dating, I had no plans of staying. I was destined to go back to Texas and fulfill my ultimate destiny. But then I fell in love with him and—” She shrugged.

  Bianca’s mini monologue finally made sense. She thought Gavin and I were like her and Ian. If only it were that easy. I thought about letting her comment pass unrecognized, but more than anything I wanted to put everyone’s wishful thinking to bed. “Staying isn’t an option for me.”

  She paused, mid-cut, to look at me. Suddenly, I had no problem seeing her for the hardcore attorney she probably was. “I get that, and it’s not my intent to prod. So, I’ll just say, if you are ever in need of legal assistance, I am more than happy to offer you my services.” She squinted back down at the half-mangled tomato. “Are these slices too thick?”

  This time I didn’t try to stop my grin. “Just a tad.”

  “Oh God. Who let Bianca in the kitchen?”

  We both whipped around and Rachel scrunched her nose up at us. She pointed at Bianca. “Seriously, I’m not even kidding. The last time we let her cook we all got food poisoning.”

  Bianca’s cheeks flushed red. “How was I supposed to know the eggs were bad?” Her gaze darted between the two of us, humor warring with humiliation. She held up her knife. “I’m just chopping things!”

  Rachel chuckled. “So, what’re we making?”

  “Some garlic chicken pasta thing.” Bianca brushed her hair back with her forearm, unintentionally waving the knife through the air.

  “Garlic bread?” Rachel turned to me. “You look like you’ve got that under control, but I can handle the garlic bread. With cheese or without?”

  “With,” Bianca and I both said at the same time.

  All three of us burst out laughing.

  “What is so funny?” a voice asked from behind us.

  The other blonde, the actress—Jules—stared at us, hands on her hips.

  “Cheese,” Bianca spluttered, a handful of shredded mozzarella halfway to her mouth. Her lips quivered, and she looked my way. Her barely contained laughter spread to me. My nostrils flared trying to hold back the wave of hilarity. When we both looked at Rachel, she just lost it and the whole room devolved into a chorus of laughter.

  I hadn’t laughed like that in the longest time—side-splitting, can’t breathe, nearly crying—laughter. In all the things I tried to deny, there was one thing that was irrevocably true: I was happy. Gavin made me happy. Being here made me happy. Later I’d let myself analyze what that meant, but for then I just let myself be.

  I considered maybe that was the trick to it. To let myself revel in the happiness when I found it, to live in the moment without considerations for the future. Perhaps the trick wasn’t to not let myself feel, but to let myself feel everything. To savor it while I could.

  Jules shook her head at us and peeked at the stove. “Pasta, chicken.” She made a face at Bianca’s tomatoes, then gently stepped away from Bianca and her cutlery. “Garlic bread.” She pointed to Rachel’s beginning efforts. “I guess that means I’ve got salad.” Her hair flipped over her shoulder as she turned back to look at Bianca. “I’ll cut my own tomatoes, thanks.”

  Bianca’s eyes narrowed and she lobbed a handful of cheese at Jules.

  At least it wasn’t the tomatoes.

  Chapter 19: Gavin

  I balanced the pie tin across my knees, shoveling forkfuls of apple pie into my mouth. Rachel was going to kill me for stealing her dessert, but I’d been desperate. And starving. Mostly desperate though.

  I stretched forward to reach my glass of milk and took a long sip. Cold and crisp, it slid down my throat, but it did nothing to ease the gnawing in my stomach. The feeling wasn’t at all food related. But if pie, the answer to life’s biggest problems, couldn’t touch this issue I was in a shitload of trouble.

  Died. Dani almost died. She’d been shot. In fucking Syracuse. Not even the length of one damn TMZ episode since I’d last seen her. Surely, we would have heard about a student getting shot at our college, wouldn’t we? I wracked my brain, but I knew for a fact we’d never heard that on the news. And if it didn’t make the news, what did that mean? What did it all mean?

  I glanced down at my full fork, overloaded with cinnamon apples, and let it drop back in the pan. Shoving it onto the dresser, I dropped my head in my hands and threaded my fingers through my hair.

  Across the bedspread my phone started to ring. It’d been doing that nearly non-stop since this morning, but I had to get through the weekend and get home before I could get the damn number changed.

  I scooped up the phone, prepared to shut it off, when I realized that, this time, I actually knew the caller. “Evening, Daph. What can I do for you?”

  No hello, just a “You still haven’t talked to Mom.”

  “Umm . . .” I pinched the bridge of my nose. I’d completely forgotten whatever conversation I was supposed to have with her. Typically, I was an A+ big brother, but this whole Dani situation was completely pulling my focus.

  “About Darlene.”

  The lightbulb didn’t come on. I grimaced.

  “This summer, me spending a month with Darlene. You said you’d talk to Mom, convince her it was a good idea.” Exasperation dripped from every word.

  Oh, right. Honestly, I wasn’t sure sending my little sister off to spend an entire month with my middle sister really was a good idea. Which was probably why I’d scooted the favor off my mental to-do list. Darlene and Daph were like me in that they were both creatively inclined. But where Darlene was a painter, a wanderlusting hippie at heart, Daph was more like my type A oldest sister, Lilah. Except where Lilah had headed for law, Daphne was an extraordinary cellist.

  “Gavin,” she groaned. “It’s just one month. A timeout before I go to college. You remember, right? That I got into the best music program in the entire country? The
Indiana University Jacobs School of Music? I need a break.” She huffed. “I know what you’re thinking—that I’ll die of the plague from Darlene’s biohazard apartment, or I’ll starve to death because she only remembers to restock the fridge once a month. But I just want to go and chill out, visit the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, see a few art galleries, go to the opera, sit on the beach. I promise I have no ulterior motives. No machinations of smoking up or getting completely wasted or anything like that. So please, please just talk to Mom. I’m almost out of time to convince her.”

  I massaged my forehead. While I didn’t doubt Daphne was responsible to the extreme, sending her to the other side of the country for an entire month with absolutely no supervision still gave me a substantial flicker of anxiety. Then again, she’d be going to college at the end of the summer and if she did half the things I did in college—I violently shook that thought right out of my head. No, nope, no way. In my mind she would always be the little kid I had tea parties with, definitely not anything like me in college.

  “Fine,” I said, giving in. “I will talk to Mom. On one condition.”

  “Anything.” Her answer was so immediate I could practically see her bouncing up and down in excitement.

  “You have to promise me you’re not going to do anything stupid.” I sucked in a breath. “Or crazy. Nothing crazy or stupid or—”

  “Gav, I never even went to the shitty high school keggers we have.”

  “Exactly. This could be just the opportunity you need to have a rebellious phase.”

  “Rebellion is switching to an electric cello.”