We meet in front of Ethan’s grandparents’ house. It’s going to be a pretty night, clear sky, lots of moonlight, and even a soft breeze that makes you think there’s no better place to live than Arizona in the late springtime. For two whole months, it is kind of perfect.
At least I have the Kellys’ pool. I glance sideways at Ethan. Maybe that isn’t the only thing I’ll have this summer. If his mom stays gone.
That’s not a kind thought and I feel mostly bad for having it.
We’re walking through our neighborhood—well, he’s walking, I’m rolling—heading up toward the park where we always used to hang out without exchanging a word about our destination. I’ve long since abandoned the sidewalk—too many driveway dips and besides, the streets are as quiet as we are.
We don’t really start talking until we’re surrounded by grass and a few trees sprinkled between the playground and the pond, and even then there’s a moment of awkwardness when Ethan abandons the sidewalk and heads downhill toward the wide stretch of grass beneath what used to be our tree. He takes a few steps before realizing I’m no longer beside him.
My smile is stiff when I trail my gaze from him back up to the sidewalk. “My shoulders aren’t the biggest fan of wheeling up and down grass slopes.” It’s on the tip of my tongue to add a “sorry,” but I catch the apology and lock it behind my teeth, holding it squirming and wrestling to break free. It’s not an easy thing to suppress, that constant feeling that I’m holding people back or making things harder or less simply because I’m there. I don’t know that I’ll ever banish it completely, but I’ve been trying so hard not to voice it constantly. Instead, I nod toward a nearby bench. “This okay?” I wheel up to the side and lock my wheels. He doesn’t miss a beat before joining me and relaxing against the curved back.
“Way better than rough tree bark anyway.”
Maybe, but I can’t stop one last longing glance toward the tree, which he notices.
“If it’s not weird I could carry you over to sit on the grass sometime or push your chair or...” He lets his words trail off. “I don’t know. Is that stupid?”
The tightness in my face eases at the care I hear in his voice. “No, it’s sweet. And maybe. Sometime.” I miss the grass but I’m not sure how I’d feel about him carrying me. Right now it’s enough just sitting beside him again. I breathe in and let the warm, sunbaked air blow the lingering discomfort away. “How many days do you think we’ve spent out here?”
“Never enough,” he says too quickly, then ducks his head with a laugh. “It doesn’t feel completely real yet, does it? I mean I keep expecting to glance over and find you gone like I made you up or something.”
“Same,” I say, without a hint of the laughter lightening his voice.
He looks at me, a quicker but no less complete survey than the one he gave me at the pool yesterday, and once again it leaves a warmth in its wake. This time his attention catches on the ring on my right hand.
“Did you—Is this one of yours?”
“This used to be a hex nut.” I hold it up for him to see better.
That warmth inside sparks to life when he takes my hand and runs his fingers over the raw opal I’d set into the top. “Seriously, you made this?”
I lift my chin, more pleased than I expected that he’s impressed. “It’s one of my more recent pieces. Not bad, huh?”
“Bec, it’s amazing.” He kind of scoffs and releases my hand. “How’d you get into it?”
“It’s this whole thing with Voc Rehab—sorry, vocational rehabilitation. When I turned sixteen and wanted to get a job, my mom found out about the program and they helped connect me with Amelia and her amazingly accessible workshop.”
“And you love it,” he says, studying my face. “Your left dimple still digs into your cheek when you’re trying not to smile too big.”
“I kind of do.” I lose the fight with my dimple. I can feel him looking at me, as I tell him about my first awkward attempts in Amelia’s shop when it was still a daily battle not to focus on all the ways my disability made things harder, but how now I’m even starting to take my own commissions.
“Damn, I missed you.”
“Yeah?” I let my shoulders perk up. It’s a nice compliment and he should know that. “’Cause I didn’t miss you at all.”
His mouth lifts higher. “You did.”
That is very, very obvious.
But I need to remember that he’s not staying, he can’t.
“So,” I say, no longer fighting a smile that’s fading all on its own. “How do we find your mom?”
His smile vanishes too. “She could be anywhere.”
“Well, I guess we can start with calling the rehab center. Maybe she left some information? A forwarding address or something?”
Ethan doesn’t look optimistic. “I’ll call, but she wouldn’t have.”
“But somebody had to pick her up, right?”
His shoulders straighten ever so slightly. “Maybe. She was working at this secondhand clothing store, Buffalo Exchange on Melrose.”
“So a co-worker? Okay. That’s good. Ethan, it is,” I add, resting a hand on his arm when he doesn’t look up. “I’ll call them tomorrow and see what I can find out.”
He stays silent and my heart aches for him. I have my own issues with Joy, but I don’t want anything bad to happen to her. I don’t think Ethan could ever get past that.
“They don’t open until ten. Won’t you be in school?”
I shake my head. “I got all my credits in early so technically I graduated last semester. Nothing but an extra-long summer for me.”
His mouth quirks. “I think I got you beat. See they don’t actually care if you go to school after eleventh grade.” A flutter of distress beats through my chest, but he only shrugs. “It was never really my thing anyway. My grandparents are already on my case about getting my GED but...”
I seize onto those words and barely keep myself from seizing onto him too. “That’s a good idea, you should look into it. I can help you study too. There are practice tests and all kinds of guides we can get online. It’ll be just like Mr. Zabell’s English class and you got your best grade ever that semester.”
“Yeah maybe.” But Ethan’s smile is all surface. His mind is only half here with me and I think I understand why.
“And I’m gonna make sure you find your mom too.”
Ethan draws in a deep breath, so deep it stretches the fabric of his T-shirt. Then his gaze lowers to my wheelchair and my stomach drops realizing I was wrong about his train of thought. “When I heard you’d been hurt, and your dad—”
I suck in an involuntary breath and cut him off. “We don’t have to go into any of this.”
“But I need you to know—”
“I know, okay? And I’m sorry about getting mad by the pool yesterday.” Panic starts to hitch my breath faster. “Of course you couldn’t come. It was stupid of me to want something I couldn’t have.”
“I wanted that too, but we’re here now. If there are things you should know and things I should know...?” His voice drops lower and softer making me bristle in response.
“Why can’t we just skip over everything that happened while we were apart?”
“You’re the one who said we’re different. Shouldn’t we understand why?”
“Even though it’s ugly, and it hurts?” I shake my head. “’Cause I don’t want to be any of that to you.”
“You think I do? That I want you looking at me with pity ’cause I dropped out or disgust because I—” He chokes off whatever he was about to say, clenching his jaw tight. “I’m not proud of all of the things that I did.”
My gaze locks on his as flashing emergency lights and the piercing squeal of tires claw their way through my mind. “You didn’t do what I did.”
He stares right back. “Are you sure about that?”
I shudder, my insides raw and bleeding from memories that are never truly staunched. “Then why make either of us relive it?”
“Because I know some of it already,” he says. “And so do you.”
I bite my lip and flinch away because he’s right. Somehow knowing we each only have secondhand information about the other is worse. I can hear the unspoken question in his head when I finally meet his gaze again. What? Do you just want me to say it?
I try to remember the brave kid I used to be, the one who ran through the rain the first night I saw him and basically demanded he be my friend. I release my lip. “What do you know?”
“I know there was a party and you were drinking.”
Party. Drinking. Those two words shred through me. “A lot. I was drinking a lot. And...” I dig my teeth back into my lip, hard enough to change the reason behind the tears stinging my eyes. “There was an accident.”