She was supposed to be in class. But she wasn’t.
She was supposed to be surrounded by friends. But most days she spent alone, trying to think of new ways to occupy her time that didn’t involve her friends or her minions.
And Garrett wasn’t supposed to be at her house, sitting next to her on a couch in the loft, drinking the weird espresso that he always had, smelling the way he did, like spicy deodorant and just a hint of patchouli.
But he was.
He was finally, finally, with Ivy, and her heart was beating a Crazy Hummingbird-Wing Rhythm, and she had a tiny tic of her eyelid that wouldn’t go away.
But he was here.
Ivy wasn’t sure who was happier: her, or her mother, who fluttered around them, offering them homemade toffee-chocolate balls and even alcohol before Ivy had finally shooed her into the backyard.
Mrs. McWhellen clearly thought she was getting her daughter back. Her real daughter, not the sullen homebody who’d shown up this summer.
“I’m glad you suggested this,” Ivy said. Garrett raised an eyebrow. “Coming to the house,” she amended. “It’s much more . . . personal than a coffee shop.” She sipped on the latte she’d made with her mother’s Keurig. It wasn’t as good as Starbucks, but she didn’t care.
“Well, I wanted it to be personal,” Garrett said slowly. His left foot was tapping on the hardwood floor super fast—tap, tap, tap, tap. It was a nervous habit, and Ivy was dying to know what Garrett had to be nervous about.
“You did?” Ivy asked, her breath catching. “Why?”
He took another sip out of the tiny cup of espresso. “Because I think I owe you an apology.”
“Do you?”
“Don’t I?”
Ivy’s hands felt sweaty, like they had the first time she and Garrett kissed.
“Why don’t you try it, and I’ll tell you how much I deserved it after?” Ivy asked sweetly.
Garrett laughed. He set his espresso on the side table and rubbed his hands over his jeans. “I’m sorry for what I did to you. I kind of ruined your life, didn’t I?”
Ivy tilted her head. She wanted to say yes, to agree, but she wasn’t sure. In some weird way she felt better now, like she wasn’t expending all her energy on nastiness and hate.
Instead, she was plotting all her energy on getting away with being part of a murder pact. Which was arguably worse and more stressful.
But nothing had made Ivy reevaluate her entire life like giving CPR to a dead man.
And stuffing his body in a trunk.
And proceeding to throw said body in a river.
“I’m . . . okay,” Ivy managed. “Really. I am.”
It was a lie. But it needed to be.
Garrett took her hands in his. “It’s not okay, though. What I did wasn’t okay. You were the first girl who really took the time to look past my exterior and really like the real me, you know?”
Ivy nodded.
“I didn’t do the same for you, Ivy girl. I thought you were gorgeous, and you are. I thought you were perfect, and you are. But I realized . . . I realized that I never once tried to look past your exterior like you did mine. You looked past Garrett the hipster dork, and you liked him. But all I could ever see of you was a pretty, popular girl who I could never identify with.”
His words left tiny lacerations on her heart. Ivy stared at Garrett. She stared at his messy hair and his unshaven chin and the lips that had belonged to her. She stared at his band T-shirt and his un-ironic Converse sneakers.
“What are you saying?” she said finally. “Garrett, what are you trying to get across here?”
He took a deep breath, and squeezed her hands a little harder. “I’m going to try. I want to try. I want you to give me a chance to give you a chance.”
Ivy leaped into his arms, hugging him. She hugged him so tight she thought she might disappear into him. She held him like she’d never held anyone before.
And Garrett held her back, his arms encircling her, and he turned to kiss the side of her face.
That’s when she heard it. A rough, rumbling sound, like a chain saw drawn across concrete.
She knew that sound.
Ivy pulled out of her ex-boyfriend (current boyfriend’s?) arms, and rushed to the window that looked out over the street, where the sound was coming from.
It was the rusted car from the school.
The one that had entered the lot as they left in Kinley’s car.
The one that had stopped Ivy and Mattie outside the school.
“Who’s the old lady?” Garrett asked from behind her. He put his chin on her shoulder and peered out.
It was Mrs. Stratford. Her window was down, and her elbow rested on the door.
And now she was sitting outside. Watching. She put a hand above her brow and peered up toward the window, like she knew Ivy was there.
“I don’t know,” Ivy lied.
Another car pulled up. An older black Explorer, boxy and too big to be good for the environment.
Daniel.
“Shit!” Ivy said.
“What?” Garrett asked. He grabbed her arm and leaned over her from behind. He felt too close, and Ivy wanted to shake him off.
Daniel got out of his truck and frowned at the car parked at the curb.
Did he recognize her? Ivy’s mind whirled. He had to, didn’t he? This was his case. Of course he would know who Mrs. Stratford was.
She watched as his head moved, as he followed Mrs. Stratford’s line of vision to their house.
“Your brother will take care of it,” Garrett said, squeezing Ivy’s shoulder. “Good thing he’s a cop.”
Ivy shrugged out of his hands and watched while Daniel leaned over the car and addressed Mrs. Stratford. She opened the window, just a crack, but their voices were far away and muffled.
“Ivy—”
“Give me a minute, Garrett, okay?” she said. She felt, rather than saw, Garrett step back. But it didn’t matter. Daniel was already waving as Mrs. Stratford drove away. Shit. Shit, shit, shit. Ivy put her hands on her forehead. What the hell was she even doing here?
She turned her back to the window.
“Do you even want me here?” Garrett’s voice was small and hurt.
Ivy put his hands on the back of his neck and pulled his mouth to her lips. She kissed him hard and deep and with all the passion she could muster. She drew all of the pain and hurt she’d experienced since they’d broken up, and all the love she had for him, and every emotion she thought she’d forfeited since she lost him, and she kissed him, and he kissed her and his hands were on her small of her back and in her hair and everywhere.
“I love you,” Garrett whispered in her ear. “Let’s try again. Please.”
Ivy clung to him, feeling his body against hers and trying to remember the way it used to warm her.
But even Garrett, who she thought she had wanted more than anything in the world, could not push all of the horror out of her mind. It could not remove the rusted car. The way Dr. Stratford looked in the trunk. His half-open eye that watched them as they moved his body.
Garrett was a complication.
An unnecessary one, no matter how much she had loved him.
She buried her face in his shoulder. It took all of her strength to stay there, for just another minute.
But she pulled away. And she felt like she was peeling off her mask, the one distant shadow of her Former Self that she had been clinging to.
She touched his shoulders, her fingers barely brushing his shirt. “I think I need more time, Gar,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”
When she saw the hurt in his eyes, she added it to her Chest of Horrible Memories. The ones that weighed on her, that made her feel like she was dragging the whole world behind her with every step she took.
Horrible memories, she had learned, always outlast the good ones.