Chapter 6

I had to work later that same afternoon. It took a pound of eye cream underneath my sunscreen to get me presentable, but I made it. I kept my eyes on the kids in the pool and my phone turned off. I tried to keep my brain on neutral topics, but that proved impossible. All I could think about was the fun times that were over. Ty and me. Ty, me, and Matt. Everything was ruined now. I thought I knew both guys, but I didn’t know either one of them. I was a gullible, naive fool.

My shift stretched on endlessly. When we finally finished closing up the pool that evening, I went home and straight to bed. My mother asked me if I was feeling all right, and I told her that Ty and I had broken up. That statement wasn’t entirely true, since I hadn’t even talked to the guy yet. But I wanted to get my mother’s sympathies out of the way. She had always liked Ty and I suspected she would be upset, which she was. But for my mom, “upset” consisted of her tragic face and a few mild questions along the lines of, “Are you sure that you can’t work things out?”

Yes, I assured her. I was quite sure.

I kept my phone off all that night, but the next morning, reality had to be faced. I turned the phone on and scanned my messages with dread. I didn’t want to deal with Ty’s excuses. Right now, later today, or ever again.

Then I saw he hadn’t sent me anything. Nothing.

Seriously? I flipped back through the last couple days and realized that the last time I’d heard from him at all was the day before yesterday. And that was only to tell me he didn’t know when we’d be able to get together next.

I threw the phone down on my bed. Could it be that Ty still didn’t realize the gig was up?

I paced back and forth, then grabbed my phone again. Matt had texted a couple times. More of the same. He was sorry, he hoped I wasn’t mad at him, yada-yada-yada.

I texted him back six words.

Does Ty know you told me?

He wrote back instantly.

Yeah. I texted him yesterday afternoon.

This time I threw my phone across the room. Then I got ready for work again.

All that day, as I taught swim lessons in the morning and then sat in the lifeguard chair through the afternoon, my phone was turned on in my bag. Not once, all day, did I get so much as a text from Ty, much less a phone call. So much for the theory that he had been trying to make contact when my phone was off. The verdict was in. The coward was avoiding me.

When my shift finally ended in the late afternoon, I decided I’d had enough. I told my mom I needed the car, and I drove to his house. If Ty wasn’t home, I would drive until I found him.

Ty’s car was in the carport when I parked on the street outside. He was home all right, most likely playing video games. Maybe alone, maybe not. Either way, we were doing this thing.

I didn’t bother with the front door, since I knew he would ignore the bell. I walked right up to his window, as was my custom, and looked through the open louvered-glass panes. Ty’s skinny back was hunched over his gaming controller. Swishing noises, screeches, groans, and splatters filled the air as his avatar bloodied up some giant dragon-beast with three heads. I knocked on the window frame.

He jumped and whirled around. His eyes widened. “Lacey,” he said breathlessly.

I glared at him a second, then stepped away toward the front door. I figured he knew better than to not let me in.

He did. When I reached the door he was already standing there, holding it open. He was barefoot, dressed in a tee and shorts, and his hair was all over the place. He looked like he hadn’t been awake very long, which was likely, since he worked late shifts delivering pizza. I walked past him and on into the house. After he’d shut the door, I stood still and stared at him.

His giant brown eyes were liquid pools of remorse and fear. He was one big adorable cocker spaniel puppy, and he was ever so sorry he had peed on the carpet and ever so afraid he was about to get spanked. But I could forgive him, couldn’t I?

He looked like he expected me to say something. But I didn’t. I just stood there and stared at him until he couldn’t take it anymore. “I never meant to hurt you, Lace,” he said finally.

I will admit, at that precise moment, that I was as close as I’ve ever come to wanting to smack somebody in the face. Not because what he said was untrue. But because it was so damn unoriginal. He was a poet, for God’s sake. And in that most critical moment, when words from his heart might actually have mattered, the best he could do for me was a flippin’ cliché?

The dude was lucky I disapprove of violence.

He reached out his arms for me, but I took a step back. His brown eyes watered, and he tilted his head as he gazed at me mournfully. If he had a tail, it would be tucked between his legs. “I’m really sorry,” he choked out, his voice cracking. “It was a mistake. But I don’t want us to break up over this. I love you, Lace. You know I do.”

Ty made a very good cocker spaniel. But I was glad that he’d started out with the cliché. No matter what he said now, he had already showed me where his head was at. Out of sight, out of mind. Of course he hadn’t meant to hurt me. He hadn’t thought about me at all. He was thinking of me now only because I was standing right in front of him. When he looked at me, he remembered everything we’d shared in the past, and he felt guilty. But all yesterday afternoon, last night, this morning, and this afternoon up until now, he had known that I had known, and that I was bound to be hurting. His response was no response. His response was to wake up and cut the heads off virtual dragon beasts, hoping the whole problem with me would magically go away without his having to face up to it.

If I had any doubts before, his behavior now erased them completely. He and I really were finished. And not because he’d made some one-time mistake I couldn’t forgive. This wasn’t about forgiveness. It was about the fact that he’d genuinely seemed like a happier person while he was cheating on me! Like it or not, that said something. And as much as it irked me to admit it, the situation wasn’t all his fault. I knew how distant we’d become, but I didn’t do anything about it. And I had no excuse for that beyond not caring enough to bother.

Crap. We were already over, weren’t we? We’d been over for a long time. We just hadn’t wanted to face it. Either of us.

“Lacey, come on,” Ty crooned as a tear dropped from his left eye. “Say something, will you? I’m dying, here. We can get through this.”

I decided to end the charade. I shook my head. “Maybe we could if we wanted to, but I don’t want to and neither do you. Think about it, Ty. We’ve been holding on to us for old times’ sake, because it’s comfortable. But it’s not working anymore. Neither one of us are happy and it’s stupid to keep trying. Especially now.”

“Lace!” he cried desperately, more tears falling. “You don’t mean that!” He reached out for me again, but I dodged him and made a break for it. I was determined, but I wasn’t made of iron. A part of me wanted to sink into his familiar arms and let him hold me, even now, despite everything, because the thought of being without him was just plain scary. I would be a ragged half… hanging out in the cold, alone. I wasn’t used to that feeling. I could barely even remember it! But, I reminded myself, this Ty wasn’t my safe haven. He couldn’t be anymore; he never would be again. Even if I did eventually forgive him — and for all my mature-sounding words, I assure you I was a long way from doing that — we could never go back to the way things used to be. We had grown up, and we had grown apart. We were different people now.

“Let it go, Tyler,” I ordered as I darted to the door. “It’s over, and we both know it. We don’t want the same things anymore.” It occurred to me as I spun around to leave that I had never actually yelled at him for cheating on me — called him names, told him where to go, did the vengeance dance that was my right as the victim. I thought about patting myself on the back for that, because sparing him really did seem very evolved of me. But then I realized it was more of a timing thing. If I’d confronted him yesterday I probably would have torn him a new one. But having more than a day to think things over had made me weirdly philosophical.

I was still mad at him. I wasn’t over being lied to and betrayed and humiliated. But at that moment I didn’t feel like yelling at him. I just wanted to end things and be done with him. And although I wouldn’t rule out our being friends ever again, that wasn’t happening anytime soon. I didn’t even want to think about it.

“We’re done,” I repeated, my voice as decisive as I could make it. “Finito. Through. Don’t call me. Don’t text me. No hard feelings, I just want some space, okay? I’ll see you in the fall.”

I walked out the door and shut it behind me, quietly. I didn’t even slam it.

I was proud of myself for that, too. I was less proud of myself for the miserable funk I fell into in the days afterward. I snapped at my mother, cried myself to sleep at night, and continued to ignore any and all “how are you doing” texts from Matt. He was no better than Ty. Both those jerks had betrayed me!

Exactly how Matt had figured into Ty’s deception wasn’t clear in my mind then, because I couldn’t bear to think about it long enough to process the details. I gave no thought to how or why Matt had been the one to tell me the truth in the first place. When I thought about that horrible morning in the cafe all I could hear in my head was Matt’s guilty voice when he confessed that he’d known for a month already. I heard those words over and over, and every time they fired off pain receptors as effectively as a thumb screw. I had trusted Matt. Really, truly, trusted him, as a friend. My friend! I believed he actually understood me, cared about me. And he had the nerve to keep acting like he cared, still, with all his stupid texts. Why did he even bother? Maybe Ty was trying to use him as a go-between.

It did occur to me, once or twice, that I was spending almost as much emotional energy obsessing over Matt’s betrayal as I was my boyfriend’s. But I told myself that was reasonable, because whereas my relationship with Ty was on ice indefinitely, I was keeping Matt in my life, dammit.

I had just gotten home from work and was in the middle of mentally drafting the burning, cutting rant with which I planned to answer Matt’s steady stream of apologetic nonsense when I got a text from Kali saying she was waiting outside my gate with a gallon of ice cream and two spoons and wondered if I had an hour.

You can guess my answer to that. Five minutes later, she and I were curled up on deck chairs by the Zhaos’ pool, enjoying their sweeping view of the lush valley between Halawa, where Kali and I lived, and 'Aiea Heights, the community on the next ridge over. Military families like mine couldn’t afford a spread like this in a million years, but the Zhaos were gazillionaires who owned not only this place but a penthouse in Hong Kong and a condo in Switzerland besides. The rooms my mother and I rented had been designed for a live-in housekeeper or cook, but since neither the preferred housekeeper or cook wanted to live in, Mrs. Zhao had offered the space to my mother, whom she’d met through her charitable work with the art gallery. Mr. Zhao was almost never here and Mrs. Zhao was an angel who was perfectly happy to let us use the pool and grounds whenever she wasn’t partaking of them herself, so what can I say? I was pretty much the luckiest ex-military brat in Honolulu, even if my mother did sleep on a sofa bed and we had to share the house kitchen.

Kali and I had pushed two reclining chairs close together and we were eating the ice cream straight out of the carton, which we took turns holding. She’d brought black raspberry, which was my favorite. “This tastes amazing,” I moaned. “How did you know what kind I like? I don’t remember telling you.”

Kali smiled at me. She had a beautiful smile, but this one looked like it might be hiding something. “I asked Matt if he knew.”

I felt suddenly sick to my stomach.

“What is that look for?” she asked, distressed.

“I don’t want to talk about Matt,” I said shortly.

“Oo-kay,” she agreed. “We can talk about whatever you w—”

“He knew for an entire month! Can you freakin’ believe that?” I practically shouted at her. I guess it was pretty clear I did want to talk about Matt, because before I knew what was happening, I had told her the whole story. Or at least some convoluted version of it. I’m not sure what I told her, because sometimes I was yelling and sometimes I was crying and sometimes I was trying to talk with ice cream in my mouth. But Kali sat there and listened to me, patient as a saint, and she hardly interrupted me at all, except once when she thought I was choking to death. A couple times I thought I was done and she started to say something, but before long I would get mad again and break in and go off on another tangent. I have no idea how long I babbled before I finally got tired of hearing myself. All I can tell you is that the ice cream was gone.

“Anyway, I’m done with both of them,” I said wearily. “In fact, I’m done with guys in general. That’s it. Nada. Forever.”

Kali laughed a little. Her voice was so pretty. Low and musical. “Sorry, but I don’t believe that. You don’t even sound like you believe yourself!”

I sighed. “You’re right. That was bullcrap. I’m just tired. But I am still mad at Matt.”

Kali looked troubled. She sat up in her chair and swiveled toward me. “I have a confession to make, Lacey. If you’re going to be mad at Matt, you’ll have to be mad at me, too.”

I stared at her. Was she saying that she knew that Ty was cheating? I didn’t see how she could, but even if she did, her case was different. She and I were only just getting to know each other.

“You know that Matt came to see me in Cheyenne when he visited the Air Force Academy?” she asked.

I nodded. Matt had made the trip to the mainland in May. I’d been jealous of his getting to see Colorado and Wyoming. I’d even missed him while he was gone. The jerk!

“We didn’t get to talk very long,” Kali continued. “I asked how you were doing and he said you were fine. But I didn’t believe him, because I could tell he was upset. He was upset about you.”

My brain attempted a reset. I was confused. This was before Matt told me anything about Ty. But he had known for weeks before that, even!

“He wasn’t going to tell me what was going on, but I kind of forced it out him. I wanted to see if I could help,” Kali admitted. “So he told me about Ty’s confession. Matt was really angry at him, Lace. He told Ty to cut it out.”

My heart started to beat faster, even as I scoffed. “Sure he did.”

“Matt’s main concern was what was best for you,” Kali stressed. “He didn’t know whether telling you himself was the right thing to do or not. He thought it would be better if Ty told you.”

I studied Kali’s eyes. I didn’t have much history to draw on, but it seemed like she was telling the truth. “Well, Ty didn’t tell me, did he?”

“I know,” Kali said sympathetically. “But Matt didn’t know that for sure until a couple days ago. Zane and I saw him on the North Shore the same day we first ran into you at the pool. Matt asked me if it looked like Ty had told you yet, and I said no.”

The same day we first ran into you. My heart beat faster still. Matt had asked me to meet him at the coffee shop the very next morning.

“He knew you weren’t going to take it well, and he knew you’d be mad at him for not telling you sooner,” Kali explained. “But he did it anyway because he does really care about you.”

A wave of heat coursed through me, and although I could swear I had no tears left, hot water started pooling behind my eyes. I let out a curse word and swiped at my face with my hands.

“I’d probably better get going,” Kali said softly, collecting the soggy carton and our spoons. We both stood up, and she gave me a one-armed hug, which I returned gratefully. I wanted to thank her for coming, but I was having trouble talking. She seemed to know that, because she didn’t bother to say anything else, just waved me a goodbye and saw herself to the gate.

She wasn’t even out of earshot before I broke into full-blown boohoos again. I didn’t know why I was crying. I felt relieved somehow, and at the same time, weirdly guilty. But when the tears dried up, I felt an overwhelming desire to go find Matt.

I wanted to talk to him. Right away.