I know he’s spotted my wheelchair, and I hold my breath waiting for his reaction. It doesn’t bother me to look at the sleek, low-backed chair anymore, but it freaks some people out, especially people who knew me before it became my ever-present accessory. But Ethan doesn’t jerk away from me like I’m suddenly breakable. When his arms return to his sides, it’s only so he can look at my face.
“I called so many times. Why wouldn’t you talk to me?”
I wrap an arm tight around my waist, squeezing until the flicker of unease snuffs out. “Because we don’t do that. When you’re here, you’re here, and when you’re not...” We both just rely on his grandparents to fill us in on any major life changes. It’s how I heard about his mom’s overdose and that he’s staying here for the next three months while she’s in rehab.
“Yeah, but—”
“But what?” I squeeze tighter, needing to hold myself together when too-sharp edges begin to fracture under his prying. “You had to hear it from me about the accident and the fact that I’ll be a paraplegic for the rest of my life?” I shake my head thinking about everything else I can’t bring myself to say. Those months following the accident were the lowest of my life. I lost everything, far more than my ability to walk, and they expected me to just get up and keep going, to be happy about successful surgeries and strides in rehab, never mind that it was more than just my body that was broken. And when I finally came home, it was worse.
“I’m sorry,” he says.
My gaze, which had lost its focus, steadies on his. “I didn’t need you to be sorry, I needed you to be here.”
“That’s not fair,” he says, leaning even farther away from me. “You don’t know what I was dealing with back then.”
My face grows hot hearing that explanation and knowing how far short it falls. “You used to come every few months. Why didn’t you come back?” And then, in a smaller voice that bleeds with hurt, “Ethan, I waited for you.” So many nights I started at the sounds of cars and slamming doors outside, hoping and praying it would finally be him.
His gaze flickers, but I refuse to let him look away until he answers.
“She only brought me before when she knew she couldn’t take care of me.”
His mom is in rehab right now, and I’d gleaned enough from the Kellys over the years to know that she hadn’t been in recovery all this time. “You’re telling me she got better at that since you’ve been gone?”
“No, not better.” The tendons in his neck grow more pronounced, implying just how not better she got. “But I showed her I didn’t need looking after. I also learned how to make it harder for her to use, and when I couldn’t do that, I took care of her and all the things she couldn’t.” He falls silent before adding, “I tried to call you and tell you before. Way before. You didn’t answer then either.”
I break our stare, willing the heat to trickle away from my face as unexpected guilt splashes at me. Is it wrong that I didn’t want to settle for part of him? Just a nervous voice on the phone? “I thought it would be better just to wait until the next time you came back.”
He snorts. “And is it?”
Not when I’m forced to think about how hard these past years must have been for him too. I’m still raw inside, and knowing he is too doesn’t change that. But it does help me push the feelings back down and focus on him being here now, the way I always had to whenever he came back when we were kids.
“No,” I admit. “But I wasn’t exactly planning on yelling at you.”
“No?” He does a better job than me shaking off the feelings he doesn’t want and even manages a half smile. “And what were you planning?”
I force my lungs to empty all their air, pushing my residual anger out with it. “To be happy because my best friend was back.” For now.
“Best friend, huh?”
A different kind of heat flushes my cheeks. “Well, I mean, obviously it’s been a few years and we’ve both—”
“I’m messing with you, Bec. You’re still mine too.”
I face him, watching to see if his gaze will pull to my chair and then guiltily away as if he shouldn’t be looking at it, but it doesn’t. He just looks at it. Then me. “And you’re okay? I mean, you’re not in pain, like when I hugged you?”
“I’m good.” I know he wants to ask more though, so I take pity on him. “I mostly can’t feel my legs, but there are a few places like here.” I tap the top of my right knee, then a few inches to the side. “And here.”
His hand twitches toward my leg and I lift Ethan’s hand and lay his fingers on the side of my knee. His skin is warm, and I jump a little from the contact, laughing at myself and at him when he jumps too. “It’s okay,” I tell him. It’s actually kind of nice.
Ethan’s hand trails slightly higher, but I can’t help pushing him away when he reaches skin that I can no longer feel. Thankfully he doesn’t seem to notice why I stop him, and the shy-but-real smile he gives me relaxes my unease away.
“Oh, and did you notice these?” I lift my arms to flex my biceps, loving the way his smile grows and the fact that I’d been the one to grow it. “Pushing a wheelchair around all the time does have its benefits.”
He whistles. “Damn. You’re more jacked than I am.”
I’m clearly not, but I accept the compliment. “Hey, remember that time I beat you in that pull-up contest we had on Mr. Jimenez’s grapefruit tree?”
“You went first and weakened the branch—” I pretend to look affronted at his words “—so it broke on me after one!”
I grin. “How is that factually different from what I said?”
We take turns after that, tossing old memories back and forth as the setting sun turns the pool into molten gold.
I’m weary from laughing so hard and haven’t felt this alive in years, four to be exact.
He brushes the firework scar on my forearm, laughing again. “This was one of my favorites.”
His touch distracts me for long enough that he looks up at me to see why I’m silent. “I was so stupid.”
He turns his forearm over and holds it next to mine so our scars blend into each other. “I think of you every time I see it.”
I groan even though there’s a sweetness in his words that flutters inside me. “Let’s maybe try something less painful for the next memory.”
“I’m sure you’ll think of something.”
“Oh, I already have some ideas.”
He laughs loud and free like he was waiting for me to say something like that. “You’re the same, you know?” he says.
I quirk an eyebrow at him, unsure if I like the fact that he still sees me as a thirteen-year-old girl.
“I thought maybe you’d be different. Sad, maybe.”
“Sometimes I am.”
His gaze travels over my face. “But it’s not who you are. You’re not...” I can see him trying to think of the right word and finally settling on “...less.”
Later, I’d think about that word and how it wrapped itself so tightly around my heart that I feel like it’s carved into my bones, but for now, all I can do is wonder if he’d say the same thing about himself. “And you?”
He tries to lightly laugh off my question like it’s a joke, but we both know it’s not. “Same as I always was. Taller maybe.”
We may have lost these past four years, but a part of me still feels like I know him better than anyone, and I’ve learned not to push. “Much taller. You look good, Ethan.”
He falls quiet then, gazing back at me before delivering his own assessment. I’m painfully aware of wanting and dreading to know what he thinks. I preen and pose then, waiting for him to repay the compliment. He takes his time looking at me and I hate the way I subtly flinch when he glances at my legs. I know I don’t physically look that different, but it feels that way sometimes. A lot of the time.
“You look good too, Bec. All of you.”
I feel myself flinch again, but hope he doesn’t notice, and force myself to grin. “Taller and smoother.”
His mouth quirks up on one side. “So, tell me. What have—”
An alarm goes off on my phone and it’s like a cloud has swept in to cover the sun. If I could walk, I’d have leapt up; instead I settle for lowering myself back into the cool water and swimming to the side where my wheelchair is waiting. “Sorry, I have to go.” I hop back up onto the pool’s edge, transfer up to the lounger, and silence my phone before grabbing my towel.
“Do you need help or anything?”
I appreciate that he asked instead of assuming I did and trying to move my chair or something. I left everything lined up exactly the way I need it. “I’m good.”
“Yeah, I can see that,” he says. I think he sounds impressed. “You really have to go now?”
“I’m supposed to cook dinner, but maybe we can catch up more tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” Ethan laughs like I made a joke. “What’s wrong with later tonight?”
“My mom will be home.”
“Then meet me later. Sneak out if you have to. You used to know a dozen different ways to get out of your house undetected, don’t tell me you haven’t figured out a few new ones.”
I hang my head because he’s not wrong. Maybe I couldn’t climb out my window anymore with an empty hamster cage in my arms and a set of golf clubs on my back, but I still remember which floorboards creak in the hall and have unconsciously memorized the exact spots and speed to silently roll over them. But just because I theoretically have thought through one or two ways to sneak out doesn’t mean I will. Still avoiding his gaze, I say, “I don’t do that kind of stuff anymore.” I quickly finish drying off before transferring to my wheelchair, hurrying so that I don’t have to worry about what Ethan might be thinking watching me.
The smile on his face falters. “Wait, you’re serious?”
“Ethan.” I pause and exhale slowly, thinking how best to say this to him. “Things are different now. Way more than you know. Way more than you can see.”
“Yeah, but you’re—”
“Different too,” I say, more harshly than I mean. Of course I’m different, and not just in the obvious ways. “Aren’t you?”
His expression shuts down. His eyelids lower, his face goes slack, his jaw locks. I know this look from him; I’ve just never seen it directed at me. It feels like being robbed, like something valuable was just taken from me.
I soften my voice. “I have to go but I’m glad you’re back, Ethan.” I turn my chair toward the brick path connecting our yards that Mr. Kelly laid just for me. “I’ve missed you.”
His flat expression vanishes just as quickly as it appeared, replaced by a lazy smile that I can see right through. “Sure. Tomorrow, whenever.” He lifts his arms out. “It’s not like I’m going anywhere for the next ninety days.”
I wince at the reminder that this time with Ethan is no different from all the others: fleeting.