19

“I think it’s great that you’re going to Derek’s party,” Mom says from the doorway as she slips on her dangling earrings.

“Really? Great?” I say. “Have you met Derek?”

She purses her lips. “Admittedly, he’s not my favorite of your friends. But I know how hard it’s been for you being apart from Megan, and growing apart from Matt. You only have a couple more weeks here before vacation, and then you’re pretty much off to Brown.” Mom looks wistful despite her best attempts at tranquility. The summer trip always has this effect on her. It’s the one time of year where everyone’s happy and connected and engaged simultaneously, and that’s because she carefully plans it that way. This year, with Brown looming, the trip feels different, like we’re planning one last hurrah before our family splinters. “You should take advantage of that time,” Mom says.

“You want me to get wasted.”

“Natalie,” Mom says, touching her hand to her chest. “That’s not what I’m saying.”

“Kidding,” I say.

“Will there be drinking at the party?” she says, suddenly worried.

“No,” I lie, trying to keep my eyes from flicking sideways.

Mom grabs a pump of hand lotion from the bottle on the top of my desk and rubs her palms together. “If you need a ride home, you know you can call, right? I’d always rather you were safe.”

“Okay, now you’re definitely telling me to get wasted.”

“I am not,” Mom protests. “I just recognize that you’re becoming an adult. You’re going to make your own decisions, and I know you’re a smart girl, but everyone makes some mistakes. I want you to know you’ve got me, no matter what. You can always count on your dad and me.”

“So you want me to get pregnant, or . . . ?”

Mom crosses her arms and gives me a stern look. “Be good,” she says, turning down the hallway.

Beau picks me up at nine, about an hour after Mom and Dad take off for their date night and twenty minutes after Abby’s mom picks up Jack and Coco to drop all of them off at the movies. He honks from the driveway, and I run out to find him looking unbearably good in worn-out jeans and an equally aged plaid shirt.

“Ready?” he asks when I climb in.

“As I’ll ever be.” Truthfully, just about the second we parted ways last night I started worrying that we’d get separated again, but now that we’re together that seems impossible. I feel like we’re anchored together.

We drive out past the high school to the Dillhorns’ fancy neighborhood of mini-mansions, with its own golf course and country club. The party’s already going full force, music blaring and cars parked all the way around the circular driveway at the top of the hill. “My version or yours?” I ask Beau. I felt that sinking sensation in my stomach awhile back, but it had been so subtle I’d thought I imagined it.

He closes his eyes for a second. “Mine.”

“How do you know?”

“I told you, you belong here more than anyone else,” he says softly.

“You did.”

“Your version of the world feels different,” he says. “It feels like you.”

I laugh. “When did it change?”

Beau shrugs. “They’re so alike sometimes it’s hard to tell.”

“I guess I’m holding up my end of the deal so far,” I say. “I came to your Union.”

“So I shouldn’t drink tonight?”

“Only beer,” I say. “Beer doesn’t count.”

I hop out of the car, following him around the expansive lawn to the glowing blue pool and patio behind the house. The back doors are open to the kitchen, people spilling from the keg on the counter inside all down either side of the pool to the deep backyard, moths fluttering around the mounted lights, their fragile wings vibrating with the music.

Beau’s hand slides around mine, and he leads the way through the crowd toward the patio furniture on the far side of the pool, where half the football team is crowded around, drinking and sharing joints, their girlfriends perched in their laps.

Beau clamps a hand on one of their shoulders, and my heart nearly stops when Matt turns around, the blond girl in his lap jumping up to let him stand. I’m doubly stunned when I recognize the blonde as Megan.

Oh my God. They’re together. In a parallel universe, my best friend and my ex are together. That had to have been who Matt was at the theater with that day.

“Hey, man,” Matt says, clapping Beau on the back, and I desperately fight to get my facial muscles, heart rate, and nausea under control. Seeing Matt with Rachel was one thing, but this is something else entirely.

“Wanted you to meet someone,” Beau says. Matt’s and Megan’s eyes both wander over to me. Megan’s hair is cut short, her eye makeup more generous than usual and her hoop earrings bigger, but she’s undeniably the double of the Megan I’ve known for years. And this Matt looks identical to the one who gave me a ride to NKU a few days ago.

“Hi,” I say, holding a shaky hand out to Megan first. “I’m Natalie.”

I don’t know what I’m expecting. Some flicker of recognition maybe, some sign that she’s aware we were born to be best friends, but I don’t get it, and I feel like my heart’s collapsing. Megan smiles politely. “Meg.”

I turn to Matt next, trying to compose myself. When our eyes meet, his soften immediately and his mouth drops open, a blush spreading rapidly up his neck as his gaze roves over me. “Hey,” he says, taking my hand.

When his eyes drift back up to me, I’m stunned by what I see in them: not recognition, exactly, but something that shouldn’t be there, not in this Matt Kincaid: softness, connection.

Beside me I’m aware of Beau’s eyes dropping to the ground, and I let go of Matt’s hand as fast I can. Megan’s noticed Matt eye-fondling me too: She crosses her arms and lifts her eyebrows as she looks out across the yard. “Excuse me,” she says. “I think I need to pee. Or take a shower. Puke. Something in the bathroom.”

I want to go after her, to apologize, but at the same time I feel betrayed, no matter how illogical that is. How could Matt and Megan be together? And why isn’t she at Georgetown? It shouldn’t matter—they’re not my Megan and Matt. It’s hypocritical and I know it. How can I tell Beau he doesn’t need to feel bad about what’s going on with us when I feel bad about what’s going on between them?

“How do you and Wilkes know each other?” Matt asks, his voice tight and awkward. This whole thing is too weird.

I open my mouth to answer, but I’m cut off by someone drunkenly shouting from across the pool.

“SCREW YOU, BEAU WILKES.” I turn to find Rachel and some of the dance team girls huddled together on a couple of Derek’s plastic chaise lounges, Solo cups in hand. She smiles aggressively and lifts her cup to wave at me. “Enjoy it while it lasts,” she calls.

The crowd sort of oohs, and Beau sets a hand on my back. “You want that beer yet?”

“Or fifteen consecutive tequila shots, whichever you find first.” Beau’s version of the world or not, tonight might be harder to get through than I had realized. I glance at Matt. “You want a drink too?” Beau stiffens beside me.

Matt just shakes his head. “Nah, I shouldn’t.”

Beau relaxes again. “Be right back, then.”

I watch him slip off into the crowded kitchen, until I feel Matt’s stare on me. “We’ve met before,” he says.

“We have?”

“At the movie theater. And at some point before that, right?”

“Oh.” I peel my hair off my neck and pull it over my shoulder. “That’s right. I think maybe we met at a party last summer, or something.”

“Huh.” Matt digs his hands into his pockets and looks down at his shoes. “Are you from around here?”

“Rhode Island,” I lie, as quickly as my brain allows. “I’m just here visiting family.”

Matt laughs. “Rhode Island? What’s in Rhode Island?”

“Brown University, for one thing.”

“You go to Brown?”

“I start in the fall.”

He glances over his shoulder to the kitchen, where Beau’s filling a couple of cups from the keg. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re not Wilkes’s usual type.”

“And what would that be?”

Matt looks back again. I follow his eyes to the girl leaning across the counter, death-glaring at Beau. “Rachel Hanson,” Matt says. “Crazy girls in general.”

“I wouldn’t call Rachel crazy,” I say. Matt looks confused, and I backtrack. “I mean, she doesn’t strike me as crazy. It’s sort of admirable how she just screams whatever she’s thinking at the top of her lungs.”

“Even if what she’s thinking is that she’d like to shave your head?”

“That would be her mistake,” I say. “I’d look great with a shaved head.”

“Probably so,” Matt says, blushing. The joking, the flirting, the feeling that it means something to be wanted by Matt Kincaid. God, this feels so familiar. But he’s also different from my Matt, more relaxed. Definitely less animated or affected, though just as friendly.

I look over his shoulder into the kitchen. Rachel’s gone, but Beau’s been hijacked by Derek and some of the other players. He’s leaned up against the pantry door, staring straight past everyone to me, and when I meet his gaze, he just barely smiles. It’s such a small, quiet expression, but it lights him up, makes me flood with heat until I have to look away.

“So is he any good?” I ask Matt.

“No, he’s pure evil,” Matt jokes.

“I mean at football,” I clarify.

“Yeah, he’s good. Really good, but lazy. He could be great if he wanted.”

“You don’t think he wants to be great?”

“Nah, not really. I don’t think he’d know how to handle it if the world found out how good he was. He can barely handle having us rely on him, and most of us have played together since we were ten.” Matt pauses and scratches the back of his head anxiously. “It was the same way with Rachel, you know.”

“Oh.”

It feels like a slap in the face, and he must notice because he hurries to say, “Not as you and him. I mean, he was the same way with her that he is with football.”

“I don’t get it. What do you mean?”

“I don’t know. It’s hard to explain,” Matt says, staring out over the pool. “They only lasted as long as they did because she kept settling for less and less. She’d cheat on him and he wouldn’t even care, but every time she got in a fight with her mom or got pushed around by some other guy, he’d be there for her and they’d slip back into it.”

I find myself thinking about my Matt, how many times I let things drift on because I couldn’t parse out loving him from just wanting to be with him.

“When it comes down to it, Wilkes can’t help himself,” Matt says. “He’s a martyr. A self-sabotaging martyr, actually, which in my opinion is the worst kind.”

I laugh. “What a monster.”

“Exactly,” Matt says, smiling at the ground. “It’s probably what makes him so good at the game, but it’s also why he took all the blame when we both accidentally burned down my family’s barn when we were thirteen. And now I’m forever in that dick’s debt.”

“Do you want me to trip him or something so you can catch him?”

“Would you? That’d be great.” After a second he adds, “He’s a good guy. Remember that . . . if he starts to push you away.”

He holds my eyes, and a strange ache passes through me. This is more like the Matt I know than the Other Matt has been in weeks. This is what it would be like if we’d managed to stay friends instead of falling into a relationship. I miss him, I realize. I miss a Matt Kincaid I’ll never have again. “I should go save him from the team,” I say, tipping my head toward the kitchen, “before anyone needs anything from him.”

“Yeah.” Matt’s voice carries a hint of regret only someone who knows him well would catch. “Definitely.”

I squeeze between the Other Brian Walters and the Other Skylar Gunn and make my way inside. Beau straightens up as I approach him, setting his cup on the counter and sliding his arms around my waist to pull me in close to him. “No tequila shots?” I ask over the music.

He shakes his head.

“Who’s your friend, Wilkes?” Derek shouts. “You know her name, Four?”

“You better get it before Rachel assaults her and you have to make a statement to the police,” Other Luke Schwartz says.

“Four?” I stand on tiptoe so Beau can hear me.

“Football number,” he says.

“That’s Matt’s number,” I say. My birthday.

He shakes his head. “Kincaid’s nineteen.”

Giddiness and nostalgia flutter through me simultaneously. There’s a whole world where Matt didn’t build his life around me, didn’t plan a forever with me that I couldn’t give him, where no one thought we were headed down the aisle. Here’s a world where I am nothing but myself, where, by coincidence or chance or fate, Beau is number four.

My birthday.

Luke and Derek are still carrying on, trying to one-up each other in their game of making me uncomfortable, completely unaware that I’ve seen them get pantsed, hammered, dressed in Buzz Lightyear and Woody Halloween costumes, and spanked by their parents on field trips. Beau’s ignoring them completely, his eyes heavy on me.

“Let’s go outside,” I say.

He follows me back out to the patio. We walk along the illuminated pool and sit down at the edge, ignoring the flurry of mosquitos circling the warm surface. Rachel’s left the kitchen, but she and her friends aren’t out in the yard anymore either, and I feel a momentary flash of guilt that I might’ve chased her away, the same way seeing her and Matt together sent me running.

It occurs to me then that it wouldn’t matter. Just like Beau said, if we’d all been born into the same world—if Matt and Beau were best friends and Beau and Rachel were exes—it wouldn’t change anything for me. I can’t undo everything that’s happened between me and Matt; I can never go back to just being his friend, but I can move forward from the past I have.

“You okay?” Beau asks, bumping his shoulder into mine.

“Yeah,” I say, shaking my head clear. “Hey, guess what I heard.”

“What?”

“That you’re really good at football.”

He studies the electric blue glow of the pool, nods but doesn’t answer.

“Are you going to keep playing?”

He shakes his head then tips it back to look up at the stars. “Nah.”

“What—why not?”

“Where would I play, Natalie? You think the tire shop has a league?”

“Didn’t anyone scout you?” I ask. He’s silent for a beat. “They did, didn’t they?”

He takes a deep breath, and his eyes fall down to me. “I don’t wanna talk about football.”

I struggle for a moment, caught between my need to understand him and my desire to clear away that look in his eyes. “Okay,” I say.

He leans over to kiss me, but before he can, someone shoves him hard from behind. He drops forward into the pool, surprised shrieks rising up all around the patio as water splashes up onto legs and feet. I look back in time to see Rachel smugly storming away, and when I turn back to Beau, he’s laughing in disbelief, pushing his wet hair back and wading toward me. I can’t help laughing too as I grab the sides of his dripping face.

“You think that’s funny, Natalie Cleary?” he says, smiling.

“I’m so sorry,” I say, but I can’t stop laughing. “That’s awful.”

“Yeah, I can tell you feel real bad.”

“I do. I feel terrible.”

“Me too.” He slips his arms around my waist and kisses me, then pulls me off the ledge and into the heated water, my dress trying to rise around my thighs and sandals trying to swim clear of my feet.

“Beau,” I chastise him halfheartedly. More screams erupt as Derek and Luke and Lauren Peterson jump into the pool around us. “I can’t believe you did that.”

“I’m so sorry,” Beau parrots. I splash him and he grabs my arms, pins them to my sides, and kisses me, my stomach fluttering. He eases back enough to look into my eyes. “Do you forgive me?”

I’m about to answer when I see Matt over Beau’s shoulder. He’s standing at the edge of the patio staring at me, slack-jawed, drunk, and devastated. Not Beau’s Matt.

My Matt. I’m sure of it.

“I need to talk to you,” he shouts over the noise.

Everything’s exactly as it was a second and ago, and yet completely different. The dance team are gathered on the chaise lounges, Rachel among them as if she never left, her hair its usual glossy brown. We’re back in my world now.

Beau turns to look at Matt and must make the same realization because he doesn’t say anything. He looks back to me. “I’ll just be a minute,” I tell him, surprising myself with my decision.

He nods once. I make my way to the steps and climb out of the pool, dripping and shivering in the slight hint of breeze. Matt takes off toward the driveway without a word, and I follow him, my face hot from embarrassment and anxiety.

The Dillhorns’ floodlights are on out front, illuminating the elaborate planter-covered mound in the center of the grandiose driveway. Matt stalks halfway to the street before he turns back to me. He opens his mouth but no sound comes out, and he angrily spins away again. When he faces me again, his eyes are watery, and my chest clenches with guilt. “Why are you doing this?” he says.

I take a deep breath and try to stay calm, unemotional. “Doing what?”

He thrusts an arm out in the direction of the backyard. “Who is that guy? Why would you bring him here, when you knew I was going to be here? Why would you—” He cuts himself off and takes a few more stumbling steps down the slope toward his car.

“I thought you were going to stop drinking,” I say quietly.

“I thought you loved me,” he throws back.

“Really?” I shout. “Did you also think you loved me?”

“I do love you,” he growls. “I love you, and you’re ruining my life. You threw me out like trash, and I still don’t even know why. Do you even know why? Because one day you loved me, and the next you didn’t want me anymore, and you’ve never given me a straight answer why. And you know the worst part? I’ve still loved you this whole time, even though it’s killing me, and then you show up here with some random guy and kiss him right in front of me.”

“Matt, please,” I sob, lunging for his hand. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were going to be here, I swear. I wouldn’t do that to you.”

“It’s my best friend’s party!”

“I know, but—”

“Stop!” he yells, shaking me off. “You were all I wanted. You’re all I’ve ever wanted, and I’m nothing to you.”

I shake my head. “That’s not true.” The tears are breaking loose harder, faster, warping my voice worse with each syllable. “I love you, Matt. You know I love you.”

“I don’t know that,” he says, shaking his head. He turns and heads for his car, throwing the door open.

I chase after him. “Matt, I’ll leave. You shouldn’t drive right now.”

I almost scream when he grabs my upper arms and shoves me against the side of the car. “Stop pretending you care what I do.”

“You don’t have to leave,” I say, breathless, trying to touch his shoulders, to calm him, though he keeps knocking my hands away. “I’ll go. I’ll leave. I’m sorry.”

His fingers dig in deeper, and his eyes are unfocused as he slams my back against the car door again. “How could you do this to me?” he shouts. “Tell me why you ruined us.”

“Matt, please.” His hands are shaking, or I’m shaking, or both, and tears blur my vision. “You’re hurting me.”

“Tell me why.” He slams me backward again. Hard, too hard. Stars swirl behind my eyelids. I’m not hurt, but I’m shocked, scared, shivering madly. His mouth is an inch from mine, and I’m terrified he might try to kiss me, when suddenly someone rips him backward into the street.

He staggers to gain his balance and moves toward Beau, who throws a punch to Matt’s cheek and sends him reeling back again. Next thing I know, there’s an all-out brawl in the middle of the street, and kids come running down the side of the lawn to see. “Stop!” I shriek, but they ignore me.

Beau has his arms locked around Matt’s neck, and then he’s kneeing him in the stomach. I try to haul Beau off Matt, screaming all the time. “Beau, stop,” I’m sobbing over and over again. Matt trips backward and lands on the ground, breathing hard as Beau advances on him. “Beau,” I plead.

He stops, turns to face me, and wipes the back of his hand across his mouth.

Matt scrambles up, blood dripping from his lips and the split across his check, and stumbles toward his car. The whole time he’s staring at me, furious, shaking his head. He gets in his car and pulls away, his tires squealing.

I don’t know how long I stand there. I don’t know which version I’m in anymore. Does it even matter?

I finally turn to head back, finding Beau and a hushed crowd of my classmates watching me.

“Take me home.”

Beau walks over to his truck and gets in without a word. I follow, my legs wobbling like Jell-O in an earthquake and my eyes desperately avoiding everyone staring after us as we back down the driveway.

“You didn’t have to do that,” I say.

“Yes, I did.” His voice is low and he’s driving fast, won’t look at me.

“You should’ve stayed out of it.” He laughs harshly. “I’m serious, Beau. You really hurt him.”

He shakes his head. “You mean like he was gonna do to you?”

“He wouldn’t have hurt me,” I insist, though I’m still shaking, still seeing the unfocused, almost bloodthirsty look in Matt’s eye.

“Natalie, you really don’t get it, do you?”

“Get what?”

“Forget it,” he says. Neither of us speaks for the rest of the drive, and when we pull up in front of my house, he turns the car off, and we continue to sit in silence. Finally, Beau speaks, without looking up from the steering wheel. “I may drink too much and get into fights now and then, but I would never hurt you, or anyone else I care about. You don’t deserve that. No one does. You shouldn’t be scared of someone you love, Natalie.”

“I have to go.” I get out of the car and run inside before he can see the tears really start to fall.

I wake up in the middle of the night again, and this time I know right away: I’m not alone. My eyes focus on the rocking chair.

Grandmother is there, but for once she’s wearing different clothes: an open pink robe over a faded blue nightgown. Her skin is less wrinkled, her hair swept into a neat bun.

“Grandmother,” I say, sitting up.

She seems blind, the way her eyes move across the room. “Don’t be afraid, Natalie,” she says, and then she’s gone.

“Grandmother,” I say into the night. “Grandmother.”

No response. I try to think about the song Beau played in the band room that night, the feeling it gave me. I try to tune in to my own anxiety. That part’s easy—there’s a lump in my chest and a weight in my stomach, that indescribable feeling that something’s wrong.

I hear Gus whining at the door. I get out of bed to let him into the hall, and he trots right to the stairs, thumping clumsily down to the foyer. A light from down in the kitchen reaches the fringes of the stairs, and hushed voices drift along it.

I creep down the steps and follow the hallway to the kitchen. Mom and Dad are sitting at the table across from one another, and when Mom notices me standing in the doorway I see that her eyes are red and puffy. Dad turns around and looks at me, revealing his own sunken and dark gaze. “Hey, sugar cube,” he says softly.

“What’s wrong?”

They exchange a look and Mom starts to cry, covering her mouth with her thin hand. Dad tips his head toward the yellow wooden chair beside him, but I can’t move. My feet weigh a thousand pounds, and my heartrate’s like I’m in the middle of a sprint. “Dad?” I urge, my voice little more than a squeak.

He sighs and stands, setting a hand on Mom’s shoulder as her slim frame shakes with silent tears. “Honey, he’s alive,” Dad starts, “but Matt Kincaid’s been in a car accident.”