THE REST OF RACHEL’S STAY IS UNEVENTFUL, AT LEAST compared to the trip to Sutton. She cooks healthy meals for us. We spend a day at the beach, and Dad and I come home with sunburns. We go out to dinner twice, once just the three of us and once with Eli, who Rachel immediately takes to. We play board games and watch movies and laugh.
We don’t talk about Mom or what happened during our visit. At least I don’t. Any time Rachel or Dad or even Eli brings it up, I change the subject. I just want to forget it ever happened.
After dinner on Friday, Dad takes Rachel to the airport to catch her eight thirty flight, and I have the apartment to myself for the first time all week. I immediately text Eli.
I’m alone for the next two hours. Want to come over?
My phone dings almost instantly. Hell yes.
We head straight to my bedroom when he arrives, not wanting to waste any time. After, I set my phone alarm to go off at eight—a half hour before my father is due home—and snuggle against Eli for a few extra moments of warmth.
“Are you sure he’s not going to come home unexpectedly?” Eli asks, lifting his head off my pillow and peering at my closed bedroom door. “Do you have a fire escape?”
I laugh and pull the sheet over us. “He was going to hang out with Rachel until she had to go to her gate, and the airport is a thirty-minute drive from here. So I think we’re good.”
He relaxes a bit and drops his head back down on the pillow. “Why didn’t you go? To the airport?”
“There was no need. Rachel and I said our good-byes here.” I think about how tightly she hugged me, the words she whispered in my ear as she pulled away. Three words phrased like a promise: You’ll be okay. The certainty in her voice ignited a tiny spark of hope in my chest. Out of everyone in my life, Rachel’s opinion of me seems to carry the most weight.
Eli and I lounge in bed until my alarm goes off, then get dressed and head out to the living room to watch TV. That’s what we’re doing when Dad arrives home at twenty to nine. He doesn’t even blink when he walks in and sees us. As far as he knows, we’ve been sitting here all evening, a foot of space between us as we watch a sitcom rerun. Dad usually sees what he wants to see when it comes to his daughters’ love lives.
Later, when there’s nothing left to watch on TV and Dad has gone to bed, I walk Eli down to his Jeep. Before he gets in, he holds me against him and rests his chin on the top of my head.
“Your phone has been awfully quiet lately.”
“Huh?” I say into his chest. Those aren’t the words I was expecting.
“Usually, when we’re together, you’re getting texts and messages from your friends the whole time, but that hasn’t happened for like two weeks now. And we haven’t done anything with them for a while either.” He pulls back to look at me. “Did you guys have a fight or something?”
Damn it. I was hoping he wouldn’t notice, but how could he not? Things have been awkward with Sophie and Zach since the night I walked out of his basement, and we haven’t hung out or texted much since. Dawson’s around, but lately our schedules have been conflicting, so I haven’t seen much of him either. As for Alyssa, she’s still not talking to me, even though I’ve sent her several messages, begging for a chance to explain.
“Kind of,” I say vaguely.
There are times, like right now, when I want to tell him so badly. When the truth scratches against my tongue, just waiting for me to open my mouth and let it spill. I think of how liberating it would feel, even if he ended up hating me. At least I’d be free.
I press my face into his T-shirt again. “Eli . . .”
“Yeah?”
His heartbeat echoes in my ear just like it did earlier, when I rested my head against his chest as we lay together in my bed, savoring our last few minutes. Thinking of it makes my throat ache. I’m not ready to let go of that. I’m not ready to let go of him. The truth would probably be easier if our relationship were just a light summer romance, like I intended it to be at the start. But at some point over the past few weeks, we’d become something else. Something I don’t want to risk losing.
So rather than tell him about the shoplifting, as I know I should, I confess a different kind of truth instead.
“I love you.”
His arms tighten around me. “I love you too,” he says, and I can hear the smile in his voice. “I’ve wanted to tell you a million times, but . . . I don’t know. I think my last relationship affected me more than I thought.”
I wish I could promise him that I’ll be different, that I’ll never hurt him like she did, but I can’t. At least not yet. All I can do is press my lips to his and hope it’ll be good enough for now.
“Last day, huh?”
I glance up from my oatmeal and look at my father, who’s leaning against the counter and holding a glass of pineapple juice. “What?”
“At the thrift shop,” he says, smoothing down his tie. “Today’s your last shift.”
“Oh. Yeah.”
He puts his glass in the sink. “Do you have plans tonight? Now that Rachel’s gone, I think you and I should have a talk.”
I stand up and grab my car keys. “I’m probably going out with Eli. Maybe tomorrow.” I know exactly what he wants to talk about. Rachel obviously told him her version of what happened at Mom’s, and now he wants mine.
“Okay. Well, have a good day.”
“You too.”
As I drive into the city, I try to figure out why I’ve been feeling slightly uneasy around my father since my visit with Mom. All week, certain things she said kept popping into my head, triggering bursts of memories I didn’t even know were there. Quiet arguments between my parents, their tones carefully controlled. Dismissive remarks. Loaded silences. They never really yelled—at least not in front of Rachel and me—but sometimes there was this undercurrent of tension that even I, as a child, could sense.
My mother said she was unhappy. Looking back, there were signs. A few times I walked in on her sniffling as she did the dishes. Or I’d hear her muffled crying through the bathroom door. Or I’d hear the frustration in her voice when she was talking to my father and he didn’t want to see her point of view. But he was my father. He might not have been the perfect husband, but he also wasn’t the one who had the affair, so I’ve always taken his side.
So why do I feel mildly pissed off whenever I’m in the same room with him?
Rita’s Reruns is looming on my right, so I vow to put it out of my mind for now. Maybe I will take Dad up on his offer to talk later. Before I tell him my version of events, maybe I’ll ask him to tell me his.
“Morgan!” Rita trills when I enter the thrift shop. “I’m glad you’re here a few minutes early, because today is going to be wild.”
I look around. The store is liberally plastered with handmade signs, each one spelling out Fill a Bag for $10! Beside the entrance is a towering stack of large paper bags. I’ve never seen this before.
“Fill a bag for ten dollars?” I ask, peering at the sign closest to me. The letters are ornate and curly—clearly Rita’s work.
“That’s right.” She strides around the store, bracelets jangling. “Customers pay a flat ten dollars for as much as they can stuff in one of those bags. Clothes, books, toys, dishes . . . anything that fits without falling out or ripping the bag open. Fun, right? I do this a few times a year, and it’s always a smash.”
“Fun,” I agree, picturing swarms of people grabbing anything they can get their hands on, like Walmart on Black Friday. “Where’s Eli?”
“Oh, he had to drive his sister somewhere this morning. He’ll be in a little later.”
I nod and move behind the register, where I assume she’ll need me today. And I’m right. As soon as the doors open at nine, the customers start piling in. For the next three hours we’re flat-out busy, me on cash and Rita on the floor, trying to prevent the place from getting ransacked. When an older lady comes in with a shopping cart and tries to fill five different bags (the limit is two), I start feeling less sentimental about today being my last day. By the time noon and the end of my shift rolls around, I’m completely exhausted. I wish I could lean against Eli’s sturdy body and go to sleep for a while, but he never did show up. He must have known it’s Fill a Bag for $10 day and decided to stay away. Smart.
“Well, I guess this is it,” Rita says when I approach her at the back of the store during a lull in customers. The place is empty save for a guy flipping through what’s left of the men’s outerwear rack.
“Yeah.” Pushing down a twinge of sadness, I hold out my hand. “Thank you for the opportunity. It was great working with you.”
She waves my hand away and folds me into a long, rib-crushing hug instead. “Remember what I told you,” she says as she releases me. “You’re a good girl, Morgan, and someday you’re going to believe it. Don’t let those bad decisions define you, because they don’t. Okay?”
“Okay,” I say, feeling suddenly awkward. “Thanks for, um, keeping things between us. You didn’t have to, and I appreciate it.”
She shrugs lightly. “Not my story to tell.”
“Oh, that reminds me.” I reach into my back pocket and bring out a folded sheet of paper, which lists all the hours I worked. “You need to sign this time sheet for the diversion coordinator so they can give it to the judge. It just shows that I completed all thirty of my community service hours.”
“Of course.” She takes the paper and carries it up to the counter. I follow her and watch as she signs it with a flourish. “Here you go,” she says, handing it back to me.
I fold the paper back up and return it to my pocket. “Thanks. I’ll come back and visit soon. And I’ll probably see you around Eli’s house too, I guess.”
Rita smiles. “You bet.”
I wave at her and leave, holding the door open for a couple pushing twins in a double stroller as I go. When I get in my car, I put the signed paper in my glove compartment and send a text to Eli.
Where are you?
Five minutes pass without a response, which isn’t like him. He’s probably still chauffeuring his sister around. I still have a six-hour shift at Royal Smoothie ahead of me, so it’s not like I’ll be able to spend any time with him anyway. I drive away from Rita’s Reruns for possibly the last time and head home to change.