chapter twenty-one

I can’t sleep. Even two of Dr. Miller’s pills don’t do anything to help me calm down. After she came back from telling on us—apparently she walked all the way up to school and caught my dad coming out of the faculty meeting—Stephanie marched into our room to inform us that we were all supposed to be in the headmaster’s office before breakfast the following day.

I couldn’t care less about the cake. It will mean a couple of work details at the worst; Stephanie knows that. And now she knows about the baby, too. I can’t imagine what people will do if they find out. I’m sure that girls have gotten pregnant at Stonybrook before, but there haven’t been any that I’ve known about—and certainly none of them have been the headmaster’s daughter.

Above me, Franny snores softly, her concave belly full of cake, probably the fullest it’s been in months. It’s a little past one in the morning. It’s been a tense evening in our room, for sure, but before she fell asleep, Franny said to me, “Don’t worry so much, Emily. Everything will be okay in the morning. We’ll get in trouble and then it will be over.”

But for me, it feels like it will never be over. My baby would be seven months old now. What do seven-month-old babies do? A quick Google search told me more than I wanted to know. They sit up, roll over, and babble. They sleep through the night if you’re lucky. They start to get teeth. Some of them even start crawling. They begin to develop a preference for certain people, in particular their mothers.

I sit up in bed and kick the sheets off my legs. I’m wearing thick flannel pajamas that my parents bought me for Christmas. Outside, it’s so cold that there’s frost forming on the insides of the windows in our room. Digger rarely stays out this late when it’s this deep into winter.

I get up, still not knowing for sure what I’m going to do. All I know are facts. Fact one: my life is a mess. Fact two: I don’t want to lose Ethan. Fact three: if anyone will understand, maybe it’s him.

So I pull my boots and coat on over my pj’s, and I sneak quietly into Steph and Grace’s room. I retrieve the rope ladder from under Stephanie’s bed and am gone before she has a chance to wake up. Then I trek all the way over to Winchester, and knock at Ethan’s window with burning cold knuckles until he wakes up and lets me in.

It’s funny how you remember things. As I’m crawling through his window, I remember the night I came over here with Stephanie, the very first time I met Del Sugar. I remember the feeling of electric excitement when Ethan hugged me that night in the hallway. He’s told me since he liked me even then, and in hindsight, it was obvious. If I had realized, or even if Del hadn’t been up watching TV that night, everything might be different.

When I put my arms around him now, he slides his hands inside my coat and kisses me on the neck.

“Happy birthday,” I murmur, knowing I’m going to start crying any second now.

“It’s past midnight,” he says. “Not my birthday anymore.”

“Oh.”

“Why didn’t you come to dinner? Steph said you weren’t feeling well.”

I pull back and look at him. He was obviously asleep; his hair is disheveled, and he’s squinting in such a way that I know he’s not wearing his contact lenses.

He gazes down at my pj’s as I shrug off my coat and let it fall onto his floor. “If this is a striptease, you might want to reconsider your outfit.”

All he’s wearing is a pair of red boxer shorts. “Aren’t you cold?” I ask.

“I have a good blanket,” he says. “Come on, lie down with me.”

We crawl into his bed together. We lie there on our sides for a few minutes, quietly, before I start to cry.

“Emily,” he says, “something’s wrong. I can tell.”

Still on my side, I notice that Ethan is wearing his new watch—the one he got from his sister and mother.

“I like your watch,” I say, ignoring his worry.

“Do you? Steph and Mom bought it for me. It’s nice.”

“I bought you the same watch.”

He pauses. “You did?”

“Mm-hmm. When your sister found out, she smashed it into bits and told me I wasn’t allowed to go to dinner with you.”

Ethan sits up straight. “You’re kidding me. God, Stephanie did that?” He shakes his head. He’s getting angry. “She’s jealous, you know. She doesn’t want anyone else to have my attention. It’s all because of our parents’ divorce. Look, Emily, I’ll have a talk with her. I mean, it would have been enough for you to just take the watch back, you know?”

I pause. I literally stop breathing for a moment. Then, sitting up to look at him, I ask, “What do you mean?”

“Well, if you both bought me the same watch, then one of you would have to take it back, right? You could always get me something else.”

“I got it engraved,” I say.

“Oh.” He lowers his gaze. “Emily … they’re my family. I don’t mean to be ungrateful, but—well, what does it matter? Steph overreacted, and I’m going to talk to her. I’ll get her to pay you back for the watch.”

I shake my head. “Don’t bother. That’s not why I came here.”

He gives me an awkward grin. “You didn’t come for a striptease either, did you? Because I’m not really into crying strippers.” And he puts his arm around me. “Just tell me what’s wrong, Em.”

I should know better than to say anything. I should break up with him, graduate and go to whatever college will have me, and forget that this entire nightmare ever happened.

But I have to tell someone. And I want it to be Ethan.

I close my eyes and force myself to say it. “Last year, when I was with Del, something happened.” I pause. “I got pregnant.”

He doesn’t say anything for a long time. I open my eyes to look at him. He reaches for his nightstand, picks up his glasses, and puts them on. There he is. Clark Kent.

“You got pregnant,” he repeats.

I nod. “Yes.”

“And what—what happened? Did you have an abortion?”

I shake my head. “I couldn’t have done that. I thought about it, but there was no way.”

“Then what did you do?”

“I got pregnant near the end of October. So during the school year, I didn’t show very much. I wore baggy clothes. People didn’t even notice.”

He stares at me. “Oh my God,” he whispers. “How could people not notice?”

“They didn’t know what they were looking for,” I say. “It was easier than you might think. After school was over, I spent the summer with Renee Graham. You know that. Del found out right before he got expelled. But nobody else knew, Ethan. Not my parents. Not any of my other friends. It was terrible keeping a secret like that—you can’t imagine how terrible. Anyway, Renee and I have been writing letters back and forth. When your sister was looking for your watch tonight—when she was going through my stuff—she found the letters and read them. And now she knows everything about last year, and about the baby. And she told me that if I didn’t break up with you, she’d tell you everything.”

We sit on the bed, both of us cross-legged and staring at each other. I’m crying.

Finally, Ethan asks, “Is that all?”

I wish it were. But for him, it’s enough. “Yes,” I say. “That’s all.”

For a long time, he appears to be thinking. Then he says, “So you came over here tonight to tell me that my sister broke the watch you bought me for my birthday. And you also came over to preemptively tell me that last year you got pregnant and kept it a secret from everyone.” He pauses. “Even me. Even after we started dating. You lied to everyone.” He shakes his head. “Even your parents.”

“Ethan, I didn’t lie. I just wanted you to know the truth before your sister—”

“If I don’t know the truth already, then it’s because you lied.”

“I didn’t think you’d understand! You don’t know what this has been like for me!”

“So what did you think? Let me guess, okay? You thought that I’d be so pissed off at Stephanie for breaking my stupid watch that I’d just forgive you for keeping such a huge secret from me?”

Never in a million years would I have expected a reaction like this.

“Ethan,” I say, wiping the tears from my face, “please understand.”

He is completely still. “I don’t know how to feel right now, Emily. You need to give me some time.”

“Some time? But what about … what about us?”

He bites his bottom lip. He straightens the glasses on his face. Then, like a punch to the stomach, he says, “I don’t want there to be an ‘us’ anymore. At least not right now.”

I’m sobbing. “But, Ethan, I love you—”

“I don’t even know who you are, Emily!”

Funny, I think, neither do I.

“Stephanie was right,” he says. “It was a mistake for us to get involved in the first place.”

“Stephanie,” I blurt, “is your sister. Did you ever think your relationship with her is a little bit, I don’t know, weird?”

He glares at me. “We’re twins. Twins are always close.”

“Uh-huh. Were you born holding hands or something? Because I’ve met other twins, and they’re not like you two.”

His glare turns into a scowl. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen Ethan this angry before.

“Get out,” he says. “Just leave my room, right now. We’ll talk later.”

I cry all the way back to my dorm. I crawl into bed with Franny—she never minds a bit—and stay close to her while I cry myself to sleep. If Stephanie is awake on the other side of the quad, I’m sure she’s quite pleased with herself.

It isn’t even light outside when I feel someone shaking me awake, softly. Before I open my eyes, I know. I’ve been waiting for so long. Finally, he’s here. I can smell him. He doesn’t smell like kerosene anymore, but it’s still unmistakably Del.

I open my eyes a little bit. “There you are,” I whisper.

Franny is still snoring softly. I have no idea how Del got into the dorm. I get the feeling he can do just about anything he puts his mind to.

“What are you doing here?” I ask, still whispering.

He smiles. “I’m here for you.”

“What will we do?”

“Leave,” he says.

“Why?”

“Why not?” His hand is on my arm. His fingers feel rough and callused. He looks dirty.

And as much as I want to resist him—as angry as I still am, as much as I want to hate him, to leave him behind—his blue eyes still pierce right through me.

“I found her,” he says, keeping his voice low and calm.

I sit up. “You what?”

“I found our baby. She’s a little girl.”

So I was right. I knew it.

“A family in New Hampshire adopted her.” He pauses. “I want to take you with me. I have to see her. I have to make sure she’s all right.”

“Del, we aren’t allowed to do that. It’s a closed adoption. It’s illegal.”

“They never saw you, did they? They won’t know it’s you. Emily, come on. I have to know she’s okay.”

I know exactly how he feels.

“I should pack,” I tell him, still whispering.

“I’ve got a green pickup parked in the off-campus lot,” he says. “You’ll see it. Why don’t you get ready and meet me there before this place starts to wake up?”

I shake my head. “Del, I don’t know. You’re talking about running away.”

“Why not?” he demands. “What do you have that’s keeping you here?”

I think about it for a second. I think about Stephanie and Ethan, my parents and the whole mess that life has become. There is no normal anymore. He’s right; there’s no reason for me to stay.

“Okay,” I tell him. “Give me fifteen minutes.”

He squeezes my arm. “I can’t wait.” Then he leans forward and kisses me on the forehead. I close my eyes and remember everything: how it felt to be with him, how I loved him, how devastated I was when I lost him. And now he’s back. Deep down, I always knew he would be.

I hurry up and get dressed, stuffing as much as I can into my backpack. I gather up the money I have, put on my coat and gloves, and am about to leave the room when I realize I should probably leave a note.

What is there to say? Nothing. I’m leaving, and I don’t know when I’m coming back. I’m leaving because I have no other choice; I have to see my baby.

I find a piece of paper and a black felt-tipped pen. On my desk, I leave a note that says:

GOTTA GO

—EMILY

I know my parents will be horrified when they find out that I’m gone, but I don’t care. In fact, there’s a part of me that feels satisfied they’ll be so upset. They’ve lied to me and hidden so much; they deserve to be upset.

I tiptoe out of the dark room, into Stephanie’s room again, down the rope ladder again, where the dark is waiting for me. I hurry off campus to the parking lot. Del is waiting in an old green pickup truck.

“Where did you get this?” I ask. God, I hope he didn’t steal it.

“I borrowed it,” he says, starting the truck, “from my sister.”

“Your sister?”

“That’s right. I went to find her. And then I came for you.”

He reaches over and squeezes my hand. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

I nod, flinching a little bit at his touch. I realize I don’t feel much of anything for him. But I have to go.

“Del, it’s freezing in here. Turn on the heat.”

“I can’t. The heat doesn’t work.”

I stare at him. “How are we supposed to drive all the way to New Hampshire, in the middle of the winter, with no heat? We’ll freeze.”

“No, we won’t. I brought you something.” And he reaches behind my seat.

It’s the same red blanket we used to lie on together all the time. Carefully, Del unfolds it and spreads it out across my body. It smells like him. He pulls it all the way to my chin. “There,” he says. “Now you’ll be warm.”

I don’t say anything. I only nod.

“Okay, then. Ready?” He puts the truck into drive.

I take a deep breath, stare at the morning sunlight that’s beginning to illuminate campus. “Ready.”

And we pull out of the parking lot, down the road and onto the highway, heading north.