So much made sense now. Like that time I ran into them at Starbucks—they had probably snuck out to be alone together. No wonder she had acted so weird and couldn’t wait to get away: she was probably freaked out that I’d seen them, afraid I’d guess what was going on.
But all I’d seen was a kid being dragged out to a coffee shop by his stepmother. It hadn’t occurred to me for a second to look at it any other way. Which maybe meant I was incredibly naive.
And the way she had acted so cold to me—almost rude . . . she probably felt like I was some kind of rival. Aaron had flirted shamelessly with me in public—so much so that even I thought he was in love with me. Crystal must have known that he was trying to mislead everyone, but maybe it still bugged her to see the two of us walking around together, openly teasing each other and holding hands, when she had to keep her distance and be all stepmotherly.
“I get it,” I said. “Really. And I’m not judging you, but I still feel bad for your father.”
“You should have seen him half an hour ago,” Aaron said. “You wouldn’t have felt bad for him. You would have been terrified of him. I know I was.”
“Did he find out? Is that what was going on tonight?”
He nodded, sinking down low in his chair and staring at his own knees. “Crystal told him. It was crazy. I—you know how I had plans with you tonight? She was upset. She’s sort of jealous of you—”
“I can’t imagine why,” I said. “It’s not like you were all over me at the Halloween party or anything. It’s not like you bent me over backward and gave me a steamy kiss in front of the entire guest list. Oh, wait, my bad, it was exactly like that.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I knew my dad wanted us to go out, and I thought that if he saw us together a lot, he’d assume we were and . . .” He trailed off.
“It’s great,” I said. “I can take being someone’s beard off my bucket list.”
“Are you mad at me?” He sat up so he could reach across the table and touch my arm. “I didn’t think you’d mind. I honestly thought you knew what was going on.”
“You’re just lucky I didn’t buy into all the flirting. I could have been really hurt right now.”
“You’re not, though, right?” he asked, studying my face anxiously. “You’re not heartbroken or angry or anything, are you?” I rolled my eyes and he gave a short, mirthless laugh. “Right. No. Good.”
“But I might have been.” I didn’t want to let him off the hook too easily. It was only luck that had kept him from hurting me—I had completely misread the situation.
“But you aren’t.”
“But I might have been.” I let it drop. “So why did Crystal tell your dad tonight?”
“God knows. She’d been a wreck all week, kept saying she was sick of hiding things, that she couldn’t stand to sneak around anymore.”
“Did you feel the same way?”
“Not really. I mean, I didn’t like sneaking around either, but it’s not like we could run off together. I’m eighteen. She has a baby. Realistically . . .” He stopped.
Yeah, it was absurd.
“Anyway, she’d had a lot of wine tonight, and got mad at my dad about something and started going on about how he was never home and I was more of a husband to her than he was and then he was like, ‘What are you talking about?’ and then . . .” He flinched. “And then she told him exactly what she was talking about. While I just stood there like an idiot, not knowing what to say or do until he turned on me and scared the hell out of me.”
“He threw you out?”
“Sort of—he told me to get out of his sight.”
“What happens now?”
“Hold on. Text.” He pulled his phone out of his pocket and looked at it. “Crystal,” he said. “But my dad could be looking over her shoulder, for all I know. I’d better be careful.” His thumbs started moving over the screen.
“A little late for careful,” I said as I watched him. “Don’t you feel bad for him? At all?”
He put down his phone. “If he had been a decent husband, this wouldn’t have happened.”
“Don’t pretend this is all his fault and you’re some kind of innocent bystander.”
“I’m not saying that.”
“Michael’s Luke’s best friend. He’s like my uncle.”
He held his hands out and said simply, “I do love him, you know. He’s my dad. It kills me that I’ve hurt him this much. But I don’t know what to do about it.”
I relented. He was my friend and he was in pain. “You can stay here until you figure it out.”
“Don’t tell Luke or your mom, okay? You can say my dad and I had a fight, but don’t tell them about Crystal and me. Please?”
I wasn’t crazy about hiding things from them, but I also wanted to respect Michael’s privacy and let him decide whether or not he wanted to tell his friends, so I agreed.
twenty-seven
I put Aaron in Jacob’s room for the night. (Grandma was in the guest room near me, and the other guest room was downstairs, which felt too far away.) “There are teddy bears,” I pointed out. “Feel free to hold one if it will help get you through the night.”
“I will.” He soberly picked out a chubby little blue guy from the pile of stuffed animals and clutched it against his chest. “Thanks, Ellie. You’re a good friend.”
I said good night, but I couldn’t fall asleep for a long time. I was too freaked out, not only by what Aaron had told me, but also by my own stupidity. I’d misread every signal he’d sent me over the past couple of months. All he had wanted to do was confide in me about this ridiculous affair he was having, but I’d assumed the big secret was that he was in love with me. God, I was an idiot. And a narcissist.
At least no one knew. That was the one thing that made it endurable: I’d kept my assumptions to myself. It was an argument for never telling anyone anything ever.
If only that were a viable way to live one’s life.
I was also relieved that Heather hadn’t ever come on too strong with him. She didn’t have anything to be publicly embarrassed about either. I felt bad though. I never should have encouraged her to like him. But at least he didn’t know she did, and I’d tell her the truth about him and Crystal as soon as possible—I had promised not to tell Mom and Luke, but I hadn’t promised not to tell her. She might be disappointed but it was no huge tragedy—they’d never even kissed.
I fell asleep eventually, and woke up early the next morning to the terrifying sight of Grandma’s face near mine. “There’s someone moving around in Jacob’s room!” she hissed in my ear, and I sat up with my heart pounding before I remembered that I knew who was in there.
I explained the bare minimum—that Aaron had come over and we’d talked until it had gotten so late that he’d just stayed over.
“I don’t know if your mother would approve of boys sleeping over on school nights,” Grandma said.
“Which part is the problem?” I asked. “The boy part or the school-night part?”
“You tell me,” she said with a broad wink.
“Aaron and I are just friends. Really.” There were few things I could say with as much sincerity and certainty.
“Well, at least you put him in a different room.” She winked conspiratorially. “I don’t think I have to tell your mother about this.” Then she went downstairs to scramble some eggs before Aaron and I left for school.
I never ate much in the morning—I just wasn’t all that hungry—but for her sake I forced down a couple of forkfuls before I pleaded lack of time and raced out the door. Aaron didn’t even pretend to eat anything, just told Grandma he was sorry but he couldn’t face any food right then. He looked pretty exhausted, and I doubted he had slept much, if at all. He promised to let me know what his plans were later that day, and then we took off in our separate cars to go to our separate schools.
I ran into Ben on the way to my car at the end of the day. We were talking about whether we should cap the amou
nt people could spend on gifts for the holiday donations, when Arianna appeared and pounced on us.
“You look so cute!” she said to me, shaking my arm in a friendly way. “I love love that outfit! You have to take me shopping—I’m such a clothing loser.”
“You always look good,” I said.
“That was so much fun the other day,” she said. “Going to your house. It’s such a great house. Ben was just saying we should wrap the donated gifts there.”
“It’s a good location for everyone,” Ben explained.
“Let’s just meet here at school,” I said. “Keep it easy.”
“But then we can’t do it on a weekend,” Arianna said. “And weekdays are so busy. Oh, there’s Lulu! She still has my bio notes—be right back.” She darted off across the parking lot.
I turned to Ben and lowered my voice. “Look, I don’t want to sound mean or anything, but Arianna kind of snooped around my house, taking photos and looking at stuff, and I’d rather she didn’t come over again. It’s fine for just the two of us to meet there, but not if she’s coming. Okay?”
Ben’s jaw tightened. He said icily, “Yeah, okay, whatever. We can just do everything at school from now on.” He took a step away and turned his back on me.
Ugh. I was hoping he would agree that Arianna had been pushy and inappropriate, but I guess he felt some kind of loyalty to her since he’d brought her onto the committee in the first place. Now I wished I hadn’t said anything. I tried to backpedal. “It’s not a big deal or anything.” I forced a smile even though he wasn’t even looking at me. “I mean, maybe she just got lost in the house.” Yeah, so lost she confused upstairs and downstairs. Happens all the time. “But actually it probably is easiest to just meet at school anyway.”
“Whatever.”
Arianna pranced back to us. “They’re in her locker. She’s going to get them. So . . . what did I miss?”
“Nothing.” Ben bit off the word like he was going to chew it for a while. “Good-bye, Ellie.”
I scurried to my car, relieved to get away and annoyed at myself for confiding in him. I glanced back at them as I got in my car. Their heads were together and they were both looking in my direction. This was Not Good.
I felt unnerved enough to call Riley from the car and tell her the whole story. I needed someone to reassure me that I hadn’t done anything wrong. But as soon as I said, “So I said something to Ben about how she’d snooped around—” she cut me off and said, laughing, “Oh, shit, Ellie, why did you do that? You know they’re going out, right?”
I almost crashed the car. “What? Are you serious? Of course I didn’t know. Neither of them ever said. No one told me!”
“It’s been all over her Instagram recently—tons of photos of the two of them together, kissing and stuff. It’s only been official for like a week, but she’d been working on him for a while.”
“Crap,” I said. “No wonder he took her side.”
“Don’t worry. She’s desperate to be friends with you. She’ll probably let it go.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Someone who’s desperate to be friends with me won’t mind at all that I said I never wanted her in my house again.”
Riley laughed like I’d said something funny.
twenty-eight
The second I got home from school, Grandma was on top of me, asking me to tell her all about my day, pushing some pockmarked quinoa cookies on me—“no eggs, no gluten, no sugar, just a bit of agave!”—and asking me what we should do for fun. I said I needed to get some homework done before I did anything else. She told me I was a good girl and let me escape to my room, where I had every intention of keeping my word and doing homework . . . as soon as I had talked to Heather and flushed the cookies down the toilet.
“I just found out that three other kids from my school applied early to Elton,” Heather moaned the second we could see each other’s faces on our laptop screens. “And they’re all smarter than me.”
“Don’t let it worry you. It’ll be fine. Plus I have something really important to tell you.”
“Something good?”
“Not really. But it’s intense. You have to promise not to tell anyone else.”
“What is it?”
“Seriously. No one can know. This isn’t one of those Tell everyone you tell not to tell anyone else kinds of situations. This is a You will never be my friend again if you tell anyone deal.”
“I promise,” she said. “Seriously. No one hears anything from me. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. I’m more worried about you.”
Her eyes grew big. “Why? What?”
I took a deep breath and ripped off the Band-Aid quickly. “Aaron Marquand is having an affair with his stepmother. His father found out last night.”
Her mouth dropped open. She snapped it shut. “Are you serious? Oh my God!”
“Crazy, right? I had no idea. I mean, obviously or I would have told you.”
“Wow,” she said. “You hear about these things but you don’t think they happen in real life.”
“I guess they do.” I studied her face, relieved to see that she looked more bemused than upset. “So you’re okay? I was nervous about telling you.”
“Why? Am I that big a prude?”
“No. I just meant . . . you know. Because you liked him and I kind of encouraged you. I swear I had no idea about this.”
She blinked. “What are you talking about? When did I ever say I liked Aaron? He’s cute and nice and all but I’ve never thought about him all that much. He’s a little manic for me.”
“You don’t have to feel embarrassed about it. You had no way of knowing.”
“I’m not embarrassed,” she said, almost irritably. “I just never said I liked him.”
“Yes, you did! In my kitchen! We were talking about Aaron like a week ago and you asked me whether I liked him and when I said I didn’t, you said you did but you were worried he was too sophisticated for you. Remember? And I said—” I stopped. “Why are you laughing?”
“Because you totally misunderstood me!” She was almost helpless with giggles. “That’s so funny. We had that whole conversation and we were talking about completely different people. I meant George. Did you seriously think I meant Aaron?”
“You said something about how cute he was, and he’d just left the room—”
“So had George,” she said. “That must have been why you got confused! That’s so funny.”
“You said he was cute,” I repeated. “So I thought—”
“I happen to think George is cute, even if you don’t. I like nerdy guys. I thought you knew that about me.”
“I guess.” I was too bewildered to argue. I was having trouble processing this.
“Why would I ever say that Aaron was too sophisticated for me?”
“I don’t know.” I tried to collect my thoughts. “I guess it does make more sense the other way. George probably is too sophisticated for you. He’s definitely too old for you.”
“He’s only a couple of years older. My dad is six years older than my mom.”
“It’s different when you’re middle-aged.”
“But they were like eighteen and twenty-four when they met!”
“Oh. Right.”
“A lot of girls date older guys,” she added. “I feel the same way you do about high school boys. They’re lame. George is like a real person—that sounds stupid, but you know what I mean. And he’s so nice. We text sometimes, you know.”
I shook my head slowly. “No, I didn’t know that.”
“You were the one who told me I should text him!” She put her hand to her mouth, laughing. “Oh, wait—I guess you meant I should text Aaron. Well, I thought you meant I should text George, so I did. Just a couple of times, telling him how worried I felt about college stuff and how my college counselor is totally burned-out and overwhelmed.” She grinned and her dimple carved a comma into her right cheek. “So he said he’d help me figure out some new
choices if Elton doesn’t work out. I didn’t even ask him to. It was totally his idea.”
“Has he asked you out?” My body tensed up as I waited for the answer. Heather could easily end up hurt—George was way out of her league, even if they could surmount the age difference. He was smarter, funnier, and . . . I didn’t even know what the word was, but he understood people in a way she didn’t.
“Well . . . he did say we should get together once I hear from Elton, either to celebrate or to figure out my next step. I think he feels like he needs an excuse to see me, like he can’t just show up at my house. Which I get.” She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “There’s my mom for one thing . . . but also it’s probably weird for him that I’m still in high school. We’re really alike, though.”
Heather’s cheerful obtuseness had never annoyed me so much before. “Really? I wouldn’t have said that at all. You guys seem really different to me.”
She opened her big blue eyes wide. “Are you kidding me? Haven’t you noticed when we’re all together how he and I agree about almost everything? You’re the one who’s always on the other side of arguments. And we work so well together—he never makes me feel stupid.” She shot me a sideways look. “Unlike other people I could name.”
“Is that directed at me?”
She flung her hand out. “You’re doing it right now—making me feel like I’m too stupid for someone like George to even notice.”
“I didn’t say you were too stupid. I said you were too young.”
“And unsophisticated, which is just another way of saying stupid!”
“No, actually, it’s another way of saying young.”
“I don’t see what your problem is. If he likes me and I like him—” She stopped. “Unless you like him, too? Is that what the problem is here?”