Rebecca calls my name when I stand but falls silent as I stumble from the balcony into the tree house that isn’t tall enough or big enough or anything enough for what I’m feeling.
Right here. My mom was right here and Rebecca never said a word. They split a bottle of who-knows-what and then she left.
I stare down at the unfinished wood. This exact spot.
I remember that day. Rebecca had wanted me to ditch with her, but I was finally doing not horrible in school and I didn’t trust myself to miss a day and be able to catch up. It was one of the rare times I said no to her and I could tell it stung, enough that she did something so stupid afterward that I still get angry thinking about it now—I jerk my head up at her as the pieces all click together.
“Ethan,” Rebecca says again. The emotion in her voice is different now. She’s not worried I’m going to take off and leave her up here—I would never do that under any circumstances—but she’s still afraid that she’s damaged something between us.
There isn’t enough room to let me think.
“You should have told me,” I tell her. I hear a shift and I know without looking that Rebecca has brought her legs up and swung them around so she’s facing me. “All of it.”
“I didn’t want you to go away.”
I whirl on her. “That wasn’t your choice to make.”
She bites her lip then nods. “I know. I knew it then, but I still did it.”
“Damn it, Rebecca,” I whisper. “You’re not supposed to lie to me. Everybody else does, but not you.” I slump down to the floor.
It doesn’t matter that my mom came back a couple months later and took me away for good. It doesn’t matter that she stayed clean for longer than she ever had or even that the extra time here gave me the memories I’ve lived on for the past four years...
All this time I thought that it was for me. I thought my mom could see what was happening to me and it was finally enough for her to do what she hadn’t really tried to do my entire life. I even said it to her once; I thanked her.
Acid scalds up my throat and burns all the way back down.
It hadn’t been about me at all. It took messing up somebody else’s kid for her to make a go at staying clean, actually trying, and not just pausing.
But she’s not here and beneath the flare of hurt there’s mostly resignation. The deeper cut is the one I never thought to defend against.
Rebecca lied to me.
I never thought she’d do that, ever.
“I thought I was helping you,” she says, and it’s only the small note of panic in her voice that breaks through the pain slicing into each and every one of those clung-to memories.
“By lying when you of all people knew what that meant to me?” My face twists as I shake my head and new implications hit me.
My mom got her drunk. At twelve years old. And then she just left her alone.
I don’t have to ask if that was the first time Rebecca ever drank. And I know the last time was exactly two years ago.
And my mom was the beginning.
I glance up at her, meeting her gaze. She’s staring so intently at me, waiting to see what fate I decide for us.
She doesn’t seem to get the fact that she should be mad at me too.
I feel guilty and ashamed, but she lied to me about the most important thing in my life. I don’t know how to reconcile those feelings.
So I don’t. We sit there in silence, staring at each other from across the tree house we practically lived in growing up, wrestling with our own thoughts.
“I’m sorry.”
I flinch at her apology. I’m nowhere near ready to hear it. Or accept it. “So now my mom not only screwed up my life, but she gets to be the reason you ruined yours too. You get that, right?”
Her knuckles turn white around her ring. “I’m not doing this.”
I know I should back down, but I don’t, even as the blood drains from my face. “Just say it. I know you’re thinking it.”
She shakes her head, sending her curls flying. “Was it messed up that she got me drunk as a kid? Yeah, but I know she did worse to you, that’s why I did it!” Her eyes are flashing then and she’s breathing heavy from emotions held in too long. “That was the first time I ever drank anything, and yeah, it wasn’t the last. So what do you want me to say? It’s your mom’s fault that years later I got drunk at a party and got my dad killed? Does that make you feel better, give you one more thing to feel guilty for?”
“Shit,” I yell, ripping at my own hair. “Shit, shit, shit!” The word gets louder each time until I’m screaming it.
Her face is twisted and as angry as I’ve ever seen it. “You don’t get to feel guilty for something I did or for something your mom did.”
“Then what do I get?” That volcanic anger that used to rise up inside me is ready to erupt. I come so close to launching myself up and kicking the balcony railing down. The muscles in my thighs coil to the point of pain.
“Be mad at me!” Her face turns red as she yells back. “We keep avoiding things between us because we don’t want to waste our time being angry, but we are angry, and burying it doesn’t make it go away.”
“I don’t want to be mad at you!” My words start off like fire but when they’re out all I’m left with is ash. “Why’d you tell me this, huh?” My fingers curl remembering the warmth from her skin and the softness I touched only minutes before. “So I wouldn’t kiss you? Wouldn’t want to stay with you?” I don’t even blink when my voice cracks. “Was that all so much worse than this?”
Heat still flushes her cheeks, but her lips tremble too. “I couldn’t keep lying to you.”
I lean toward her, the tendons in my neck straining against the control I force into my words. “That’s bullshit.” She knows it too because she can’t hold my gaze for more than a heartbeat.
It’s worse when I lift her in my arms again to carry her down from the tree house. She holds me so close that I can feel her heart pounding. Mine struggles to beat at all.
“Please don’t leave like this,” is what she says once she’s in her wheelchair and I turn away. “Stay and yell, but don’t just leave.”
I still, my back half to her. “I’m not leaving Arizona until I find her.”
“I’m not talking about her. I’m talking about me, about—”
“I can’t talk about you right now!” My voice punches that word. “You lied, you. And I can’t let go of that or any of the rest of it just because you want me to.” I suck in a breath. “I need some time.”
“How mu—”
“I don’t know, but I don’t need you to help me look for her anymore.”
Rebecca’s chin clenches, trying to suppress a quiver.
“Bauer came up with some more names and I’ve talked to a couple of them. I’ll keep at it. There’s not much more you could do anyway.” I can’t keep looking at her after that and when I drop my gaze to my boots I hear Rebecca draw in a breath.
“For what it’s worth, I want her to be okay,” she says, in a voice that isn’t nearly as composed as her words. “I won’t lie and say I want that for her sake, but I want it for you. I’ve always wanted that.”
I nod, still unable to look up. “I know.” It hurts just to give her that small response, but when I try for more, my throat closes tight.
I wait a minute hoping the feeling will ease but it doesn’t.
There’s nothing more to say as I leave her there at the foot of our tree house.