* * *
“It’s my turn to pick,” I said that night as Josh groaned about the all-you-can-eat buffet I’d chosen.
“It’s a health hazard,” he muttered. He pulled into the parking lot anyway, which wasn’t crowded at this time on a Thursday. The buffet was notorious for serving the early-bird crowd, ages fifty-five-plus, and they closed at eight. We still had a good hour, and they’d let us take the extra desserts for only fifty cents if we stayed until closing.
“It is not.” I got out and zipped my coat up to my chin. “They have that carved roast beef you like.”
“If the skeezy guy with the goatee is wielding the knife, we walk out.” He paused several feet from the door. “Deal?”
“No deal.” I grabbed onto his arm and tugged him toward the entrance, tired of deal-making. “Come on. I ate sushi last week.”
Josh rolled his eyes but allowed me to lead him into the restaurant. The girl at the hostess stand put on a beaming smile and told us to sit anywhere. I waited until we had drinks and full plates before I said, “Tell me about Grayson’s mom.”
His eyes locked onto mine, a fair amount of panic in them. “That’s not for me to tell.”
“He said she’s an alcoholic. I’m worried about him.”
“He knows how to deal with her.”
I pushed my salad around my plate, coating the croutons in ranch dressing. “He said—”
“I don’t want to talk about Grayson’s mom,” Josh interrupted. “If you want to know something, you should ask him.”
The very idea sent fear straight into my heart. “He’s not the easiest guy to talk to, you know?”
“We seem to do just fine, but things aren’t all complicated by kissing.” Josh stuffed a giant bite of a honey-buttered roll into his mouth and cocked his eyebrow.
I scowled at him. “I don’t want to talk about Grayson at all.”
“Good,” Josh said around his food.
“I have…a dilemma.” I pushed my lettuce around my plate, the words I needed to say suddenly stuck.
Josh said nothing, just kept eating at the speed of sound even though he’d said he didn’t like the food here.
I swallowed and stuffed in a mouthful of salad. The food made my stomach riot, and I blurted, “JJ Ashcroft asked me to prom yesterday too, and I said yes to him too.” My fork clattered to the table as Josh’s eyes locked onto mine.
I forced out a half-laugh that sounded like a wild cat. “I wasn’t thinking, and it happened so fast, and now I don’t know what to do.” At least JJ had agreed not to say anything at school.
Josh leaned back in his seat and regarded me. “Who asked first?”
“Grayson.”
“Who do you want to go with?”
“Grayson.” Desperation rose through my throat. “I don’t want to hurt either one of them, but especially not Grayson.”
“So you’ll go with Grayson.” He wasn’t asking, and he exhaled as if he was thinking so hard that he’d used all his oxygen. “How did you keep JJ quiet today?”
“I told him I needed to talk to you first.” I shrugged, my lungs so tight. “It wasn’t entirely a lie.”
A few seconds passed and then he laughed. “Well, at least you’re not a total liar. All right. Let’s think through this.” He gazed over my shoulder for several moments while I forced another bite of salad down my throat.
“So you told JJ you needed to talk to me first. I’ll be the bad guy. Just tell him I said it wasn’t a good idea to go to prom with him.”
“But why wouldn’t it be a good idea?” I asked.
“You’ll have to figure that out.”
“You’re no help.” I gave him a disgruntled look.
He shook his head and gave another little chuckle. “I can’t believe you’ve said no to everyone for a year, and now have two dates to prom.” He started eating again, now punctuated with laughter.
“Stop it,” I said, a pit of helplessness opening up inside me. I thought he’d help me, and here he was, saying I’d have to figure it out. If I knew how to do that, I’d have done it already.
He swallowed and downed half his soda. The only waitress in the place appeared a few seconds later with a refill, and Josh gave her a smile. She wilted under the power of it and giggled as she backed away.
“Do you think she knows we’re related?” I asked as I started to eat.
“Sure,” Josh said. “That’s Jana Brown. She graduated a couple years ago.”
I glanced back to her, but she stood at the hostess stand now, chatting with the other girl there. “She likes you.”
“I don’t see anything happening there.”
“No?” I glanced at her again. “She’s cute.”
“I’m leaving town in three months.” He speared me with one of his big brother looks, his words holding more meaning than I liked. “Just like Grayson.”
I leaned away from the table, my appetite gone. “So you are mad about us going to prom.”
“I’m not upset about prom, no.” He set his half-full plate on the edge of the table and reached for a clean one. “Prom is an isolated event. I want you to go to that, although going with someone your own age would sit better with me. But whatever. Going to prom is good. Then I won’t have to worry constantly that you’re not dating once I go to Vegas.” He took a couple of steps away and turned back. “It’s everything else I don’t like.”
I watched him walk away, unrest slicing through my stomach. “I don’t know what to do,” I mumbled to myself. I liked Grayson. He made me feel something I hadn’t felt in a long time. I hadn’t quite been able to categorize what it was yet, but I didn’t feel so backward, so twisted, when we were together.
I didn’t obsess about Josh leaving me. I didn’t worry about being left out of my own family once he was gone. I didn’t have anxiety that I wouldn’t be able to survive my senior year—but that might have been because of Mona and me starting to make more friends.
But, that wouldn’t have happened without the skiing, the mountain, Grayson.
None of it made sense. Grayson was leaving too. Just because he held my hand and kissed me didn’t make my mother more attentive or the twins quieter. It didn’t mean I’d instantly have friends next year, or wouldn’t miss Josh like crazy.
My brother returned, and I grabbed a new plate and got up. I didn’t want to talk to him anymore, and every dish I passed seemed crustier and older than the last. By the time I got back to the table, I’d loaded my plate with more carbs than a person should eat in a week.
“I didn’t mean to make you mad,” Josh said. “It’s just, I know you didn’t react well when Sierra moved, and you’re freaking out about me leaving, and I just think a relationship with Grayson will complicate things even more.”
“Maybe.” I buttered my roll and then dipped it in ranch dressing. “But I’d rather live now than wish I’d lived.”
Josh peered at me, a line of confusion between his eyes. “I don’t know who you are, but I kinda like this new version of Eden.” He forked another bite of roast beef and mashed potatoes into his mouth, a smile playing with the corners of his lips. “What happened on that mountain?”
I just shrugged, because I wasn’t quite sure myself. I just knew that the girl who’d skied to the bottom of the mountain wasn’t the same one who’d arrived at the top.
* * *
My breath hung in the air as I pushed my blades against the ice. The cold air felt like knives in my lungs. Though the sun shone, it emitted very little warmth. Trish, my coach, called out, “Double, double,” the jump combination in my routine I couldn’t quite nail, and I looped around the end of the ice skating rink.
I mentally ran through the double axel jump that led into the double toe-loop. I could do each jump separately, no problem. But for some reason, grouping them together made my feet tangle. I couldn’t quite get up high enough to do a true double toe.
It didn’t help that Grayson had arrived ten minutes ago, mer
e seconds after I’d fallen. My tailbone still ached.
“Eden,” Trish called, and I lifted my hand to indicate that I was nearly ready. I increased my speed, searching for that perfect spot of ice—and finding it. I soared into it and clipped my left blade into the ice, pushing off and twisting, twisting around two and half times.
I landed, the adrenaline pouring through me when my right blade caught. My left leg lifted naturally, and I swung it down, jamming the jagged toe straight into the ice and launching myself into the second jump.
I spun—spun—and landed on that right foot again, leaning slightly back into it to get the blade to catch. I lifted my left leg like I performed such a perfect double-double on a daily basis, the width of my smile probably manic.
Trish cheered, her applause almost as loud as her voice. She gestured for me to come over to the fence where she stood. I did, leaning against the chain-link while my chest heaved and I tried to catch my breath.
“That was beautiful,” she said. “One thing. Make sure you tuck that right elbow in the axel. It’s still sticking out. But it didn’t throw you off like it has in the past. Still, get it in. It’ll make it look like you’re more straight up and down.”
I nodded, my attention on her singular though I could somehow sense how close Grayson loitered.
“Competition next Saturday,” she said. “You’re still good for that?”
“Yes,” I said. “My mom’s fixing my costume.”
“Great. We’ll meet at the rink at eight-thirty.” She beamed at me. “You’re going to do great.”
I returned her smile and stepped off the ice to pay her for the lesson. Once that was done, Trish left, her blonde ponytail swinging as she walked down the trail to the parking lot.
“So, I brought my brothers.” Grayson hooked his thumb over his shoulder in the direction Trish had gone.
“How romantic.” I collapsed onto the bench and began unlacing my skates. I threw him a smile so he’d know I was kidding.
He joined me on the bench, no smile in sight. “They needed—I didn’t want to leave them home alone.” His arm settled across my shoulders. “And you know, I ate lunch with your friends, and there were a lot more than three of them.”
I glanced up at him, my eyes barely making contact with his face before rebounding back to my laces. Not only had he eaten with Mona and Thea and Lyla, but JJ had sat only three seats down, and he hadn’t looked happy about Grayson’s sudden appearance at the table. I should’ve said something about prom by now—the past two days had felt like two years. How did people carry secrets for very long—but every time I thought about doing so, fear took hold of my heart and squeezed. Squeezed with iron fingers.
I needed friends after Josh and Grayson left. JJ was already part of Mona’s group. If I messed things up with him, I’d be out. I was barely in as it was. So I hadn’t said anything, though the words ran on a constant loop in my mind.
“Is your mom out of town?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he said, his voice sounded a smidge false.
“Where’d she go?”
“She went to visit my aunt in Seattle for a few days.”
“Dad working?”
“He didn’t go to work yesterday, so yeah.”
I hadn’t heard Grayson talk a whole lot about his parents. I knew he ate dinner with us some nights, and Josh had mentioned once a few years ago that just because Grayson had money didn’t mean he had everything. At the time, I wasn’t sure what he’d meant. I was starting to understand a little bit more now.
“So lunch yesterday was fun, right?” I asked as I slipped on regular shoes. “Mona was nice. Lyla too. Thea was a little clingy.”
“She does know we’re together, right?” Grayson picked up my bag for me and we started toward his truck.
“Are we?”
“Eden.” His reproving tone was actually comforting. “You must think I’m a horrible guy.”
“Why would I think that?”
“Well, if I’m kissing you and we’re not together, I must be kissing every girl I see. Maybe Thea tonight, after I drop you off.”
I thought he’d laugh, show he was just teasing. He didn’t. He glared at me with those dark, dangerous, delightful eyes.
“All right,” I said. “Point taken.”
“Good.” He slipped his hand into mine and glanced toward the parking lot. “Maybe I better kiss you right here. There might not be a chance later.”
“Smooth.” I laughed, because it felt so good to be going out, to have him at my side, to be living my life. In that moment, I realized that the past eight years I’d been living in a shell. Too scared to come out and see what the world had to offer. Too worried to break free of what my dad thought I should be.
I pressed myself into Grayson and tilted my head back. I smiled up at him, and in the single second before he returned the gesture, I saw that edge of worry in his eyes. He was very good at hiding it—but I was very good at finding it.
After all, I’d spent the last eight years concealing how I really felt, what was really going on, what I really wanted to do. Right now, I wanted to ease Grayson’s concern over his mother. But I knew better than anyone that some things couldn’t be soothed so simply.
* * *
Half an hour later, I pushed through the front door. “Mom,” I called. “Grayson and his brothers can stay for dinner, right?”
She twisted from her position at the stove. “Of course.”
I ducked back outside and waved to let Grayson know that he should kill the engine and bring everyone in. All the arguing about where to go still bounced around in my brain, and I’d finally suggested we just go to Casa Loca and see what Mom had made.
“Smells like tacos,” I said as the Young brothers walked up the sidewalk. “You’re lucky. Sometimes, in the winter, she makes these weird soups with like, kale and stuff.”
“I like kale,” Darren said as he mounted the steps. “Is Josh here?”
“He’s working tonight,” I said. “But my little brothers are here.” They always were. Always making noise. Always dripping something from somewhere.
We piled into the house, and the twins started arguing about who got to sit by Darren at the huge dining room table. He broke up their fight by saying, “I’ll sit in the middle, guys,” and pulled out the chair between Benji and Henry.
Mom placed a plate in front of Darren while Terry brought in two more folding chairs from the garage. Grayson waited for me to sit and then he took the spot next to me. Luke sat next to him, both of them easily joining the fray and cray-cray.
“It’s a taco bar,” Mom said. “We’re informal around here. So there’s the beef. All the toppings. Sour cream and ranch dressing.” She forced out a chuckle. “You know how to make a taco. Grab your plates.”
The twins acted like they hadn’t eaten in weeks, practically leaping from the table and elbowing each other to get to the front of the line.
I sighed, sucking in a sharp breath when Grayson put his hand on my knee under the table. Our eyes met, and our smiles inched upward simultaneously. I tried not to think about how he’d look if he ever found out I’d said I’d go to the prom with JJ.
I had to take care of this problem before I hurt Grayson.
Found in Grayson’s locker after school on Friday:
Grayson,
Thanks for sitting with me at lunch. Mona promises that Thea will calm down, and besides, you don’t have to eat with us every day. I think Josh is going through some sort of Grayson withdrawals. You better spend some bro time with him soon, because I don’t know how to explain anything to him.
~Eden
22
Grayson
Even though silverware clanked against glassware, and Terry had to practically yell over the noise the boys made to help the girls get what they wanted on their tacos, and Eden’s mom was chatting with Luke about his grades, a keen sense of contentment settled over me.
Dinner was messy, and loud, and
absolutely everything I wished I had at my house on a Friday night. Any night. My house lived in sterile silence.
Eden’s house pulsed with life, with laughter, with love. Luke spoke more than a few words at a time, and he promised Eden’s mom that he’d cut his hair soon. Darren didn’t seem to mind getting splashed with salsa as Henry and Benji hadn’t quite mastered the use of their forks.
Terry told stories and Eden’s mom even brought out dessert.
“It’s frozen dough,” Eden said when I complimented her mom on the white chocolate macadamia nut cookies. “They come out of a box.”
“Still.” I bit into another one. “I can’t remember the last time I had a home-baked cookie.”
“Frozen,” Eden said again as if I hadn’t heard her the first time.
“Did you bake these here, at home?” I looked pointedly at Eden and then her mom.
“I helped!” Jilly said.
“Me too,” Lily chimed in.
“The girls are very good helpers in the kitchen.” Eden’s mom pushed the plate of cookies closer to me. I didn’t need any more encouragement. I picked up two more treats and leaned back in my chair.
“Dinner was excellent,” I said. “Thank you, Mrs. Myers.”
I wasn’t sure what to do next. What did Eden’s family do on Friday nights? What did she do? When would Josh be home? I needed to talk to him about dating his sister. I was sure that wasn’t what Eden meant by “bro time,” but I didn’t want to mess anything up between me and her, or me and Josh.
It’s a very thin line, I thought as Terry stood and began clearing the table.
“Everyone puts something away,” he said. The boys started to argue immediately, but he cut them off with, “Someone better choose the lettuce. All you have to do with that one is put a lid on it.”
I thought he would’ve been better off keeping that information to himself, because Henry and Benji practically knocked the table over in their haste to get to the lettuce bowl first. Eden’s mom plucked the bowl from the counter before either one of them could, and said, “Nope. You two are on dishes this week, remember?”