I’m undressed and crawling into bed when my phone rings. Leah.
“Hello?” I say.
“Hi. Uh, it’s Jake.
I sit up, my heart instantly racing. “Jake?”
“Don’t hang up.”
“I wasn’t going to,” I say. “What is it?”
“Look. Uh, I just wanted to say sorry that I flipped out about you telling the cops about me.”
I don’t say anything for a few seconds. When I told Dad I thought Jake should apologize, I never in a million years thought he actually would.
“I get why you did it,” he says. “If I thought my mom was in danger, I’d probably have done the same thing.”
“Yeah.” I pull the covers up around my bare shoulders, shivering in the cold air. “I knew I was probably being crazy and paranoid, but—”
“You couldn’t risk not saying anything,” he says. “In case you were right.”
“Exactly.”
“Anyway,” he says, “that’s all I wanted to say.”
I think of what my dad said. “Um. I’m sorry too. That I suspected you of doing that stuff.”
He clears his throat. “I think it’s wrong. Abortion, I mean. But that guy showing up with a knife…that’s really twisted. Like, that’s way more wrong. It kind of freaked me out, actually. That someone would do that.”
I can’t make sense of Jake. I can’t figure out how the nice guy fits together with the guy who called my parents murderers. The guy who called me a crazy dyke. “Did you tell Leah?” I say. “That you understand why I told the police?”
“Nah.”
“I know you don’t like us being together,” I say. “But…would you tell her? Please?”
“I haven’t told her because she won’t speak to me.” There’s a pause. “She’s been in her room crying her eyes out all night.”
“I never meant to hurt her.”
“Yeah, well. Me neither.”
“It’s not the same,” I say. “She’ll always be your sister. But I’ve wrecked the best relationship I’ve ever had.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure.”
“Seriously? You think she might still…”
“Leah is the most loyal person I’ve ever known. That’s why she defended me.” Jake
sighs into the phone. “And that, unfortunately, probably means she’s not done with
you.”
I don’t hear from Leah that night.
Or the next day. I pick up my phone every hour or so, think about sending her a text, then put it back in my pocket.
I’m not sure if I’m just giving her space or if I’m scared to find out how she feels. Uncertainty sucks—but maybe it’s better than knowing for sure that it’s over between us.
After school I drive down to the Gibsons’. Buddy still needs me, even if Leah doesn’t.
I park my car, looking at the long line of trees that overhang the driveway and, behind them, the horses in the field. Buddy’s out there, grazing beside Snow, his blue blanket muddy from rolling on the rain-sodden ground.
I’ll have to move him somewhere else, I guess. Another stable.
Then the barn door opens and Leah steps out.
“You’re home already?” Then I notice she’s wearing jeans and a hoodie, not her uniform. “I skipped school today,” she says. “I needed to think.”
I take a deep breath.
Wait.
Hope…
“I needed to think about us,” she says.
“Us?” I say. “You and me?”
Leah steps toward me. Holds out her hands. Smiles in that way that lifts the corners of her lips and leaves deep dimples in her cheeks. “Yes,” she says. “You and me.”