“Nisha gave me the keycard,” Emma said softly.
He inhaled sharply. “I thought we decided you weren’t going to pry into your mother’s private records.”
“No, you decided that. And you didn’t care about my mom’s privacy, you just didn’t want me to find out about your deep, dark secret. Isn’t that right?” Suddenly, Emma felt drained and hollow, the anger deflating. She blinked back tears. “Ethan, I love you. I shared everything with you. And now it feels like I don’t even know you at all.”
The muted sounds of the party drifted toward them on the cool night air. Crickets chirped hopefully around the car. But inside, everything was deathly silent.
“Did you read my file?” Ethan asked. His voice had gone low and calm. She looked sideways at him. He sat very still, his mouth pulled into a straight, stoic line.
She shook her head. “No. It didn’t feel right.”
The rigidity left his body, his shoulders collapsing helplessly. He shoved his shaggy hair back with one hand. “I should have told you,” he admitted, his lips crumpling miserably. “I wanted to tell you. But it’s not a part of my life I’m proud of, okay?” He slumped back into the driver’s seat, his face twisted in anguish.
Emma stared straight ahead, into the dark knot of mesquite in front of the car.
“This was a couple years ago.” Ethan’s voice was so quiet she had to hold her breath to hear him. “My dad came back to town after a long business trip. The house was a total mess. Mom was too sick to clean, and I was, like, fifteen, so I was kind of useless about housework. Dad flipped out about it. I mean … really flipped out. He started beating the hell out of my mom, pushing her from room to room, shoving laundry into her arms, and throwing dirty dishes at her. In the dining room he broke a broomstick across the backs of her legs, he hit her so hard. He was punishing her for being lazy, he said.” Ethan’s face tilted away into the shadows. “So I clocked him over the head with a beer bottle. I didn’t know what else to do. It didn’t break, but it knocked him down pretty hard. He was out cold for a few minutes. Woke up later with a concussion.”
“Oh my God,” Emma breathed. She reached her hand out and touched Ethan’s arm, but he didn’t move. She knew he was reliving that awful night, in some dark corner of his mind.
“That’s not the most screwed up part. My mom called the cops on me. When they got there I was upset, kind of incoherent about the whole thing, so instead of jail they took me to the hospital. I ended up spending a night strapped to a bed, pumped so full of haloperidol I couldn’t even remember my name. I guess I was lucky—jail would have been much worse. When they evaluated me the next day, they concluded I was acting to defend my mom, and because I was a minor they just dismissed the whole thing out of court. But I had to keep going in for counseling for a year or so.”
“Wait, your mom called the cops?” Emma asked, her chest tightening. “You were just trying to protect her.”
Ethan turned to look at her sadly. “That’s not how she saw it, I guess. No matter how bad things get with my dad, she always takes his side, says she deserves it or whatever.”
In the silence that descended between them, they could hear a crooning R&B ballad piping through the sound system up at the house. Emma took Ethan’s hand in hers and squeezed it hard. His fingers were limp and heavy in hers, as if he’d turned to wood and could not feel her touch.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “I should have let you tell me in your own time. I should have realized it must have been something that was … hard for you to talk about.” She swallowed. The first tendrils of relief unwound inside her. Ethan wasn’t crazy. He wasn’t like her mother. He was a victim, just like Emma. “I’ve been so scared, Ethan. Everything I thought I knew about my childhood, my family, is wrong. It feels like every day I find out some new, huge secret. I guess I just expected the worst when I saw that file. Because the worst keeps on happening.”
He nodded, looking down at his lap. “I don’t want to have secrets from you, Emma. I want to share everything.”
“So do I,” she said. She reached for his hand, but he gently disentangled his fingers from hers.
“Are you sure about that? That’s not what it looked like tonight.”
Emma shook her head. “Ethan, he kissed me. I drank too much at the party and wasn’t thinking clearly enough to stop him in time. It was a stupid mistake. I’m really sorry it happened, and I wish I could take it back. But you have to believe me—I’m not interested in Thayer. I love you.”
Ethan bit his lip. For a moment he looked so vulnerable, so heartsick, that it was all she could do not to pull him into her arms.
“I’m sorry for what I said,” he apologized. “About you, and about Sutton, too. It’s just … when I saw that piece of—when I saw him touching you, I flew off the handle.” His fists clenched against his thighs, and he sighed. “Thayer Vega has always gotten everything he ever wanted. He snaps his fingers and the world delivers it to him on a silver platter. And I still have trouble believing that someone like you could fall for someone like me, when you could have him.” He looked at her seriously. “Emma, no one’s ever cared about me before. And now, suddenly, the most beautiful, brilliant, amazing girl I’ve ever met is my girlfriend? I keep thinking you’re going to wake up one day soon and trade me in for someone else.”
His words cut painfully into her heart. She knew what it was like to feel unloved. She knew what it was like to live with that kind of doubt. She leaned across the gearshift and rested her head on his shoulder.
“Ethan, I’ve never felt this way about anyone,” she whispered. He wrapped an arm around her, and she snuggled closer to his side. The gearshift pressed into her rib cage, but she didn’t care. “From here on out, let’s trust each other. Deal?”
“Deal.” He looked down into her eyes, his heavy lashes drooping with emotion. “I didn’t even get a chance to tell you that you look amazing.”
She self-consciously tugged her short dress further down her thighs. “So do you.” He’d worn a light gray V-neck sweater, the white collar of the button-down beneath jutting up around his neck. She liked his usual eclectic look, but Ethan definitely cleaned up well, too.
He touched her cheek, placing a tentative, lingering kiss on her lips. A soft sound of pleasure escaped from the back of her throat. She arched her body toward him.
Ethan pulled back and studied her face, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear. “Want to drive farther up the mountain to see if there’s a place to stargaze?” he asked.
Emma nodded, surprised at her boldness.
They didn’t speak as he turned the ignition and guided the car out through the Chamberlains’ high iron gates. Emma watched the curving lines of the mountain road appear and disappear again in the headlights. Ethan’s retro Cure CD crooned out dreamy, sad music as the car climbed higher. Ethan kept his eyes on the road and both hands on the wheel, but she could feel the magnetic pull between them, heavy and urgent.
Finally, high on the mountain, Ethan parked in a shallow lookout at the side of the road.
The lights of Tucson twinkled far below them, as though it were a small toy town. The moon had risen in the sky and paled to a yellow crescent. Emma unbuckled her seat belt, and without a word climbed over the console into the backseat. She kicked a battered paperback copy of On the Road to the floor and curled her legs up under her while Ethan climbed back to join her. Without hesitation they reached for each other, one kiss blurring into the next, their hearts seeming to beat in perfect sync.
Emma put a hand on Ethan’s chest, pushing him gently away. She sat up and slowly reached behind her head to untie the knot of her halter. The silk tumbled down around her waist, as soft as flower petals on her skin. A flush swept her cheeks, but she looked up shyly to meet his gaze. His eyes were full of a tenderness that took her breath away. He pulled her to him, running his hands slowly over her shoulders and then her back, tracing the lines of her body one by one. Outside the car, the stars burned bright against the dark sky.
29
ARTS AND CRAFTS TIME
When Emma woke the next day, the late-morning sun poured through the sheer curtains of Sutton’s room. She blinked in the light, stretching across the bed. She’d been blissfully nightmare free for the first time in weeks.
Her memories of the night before came back to her in a flood, and she flushed with pleasure, wiggling her toes down under the covers. Ethan had been amazing—tender and thoughtful, sweetly awkward at first, and then passionate as their inhibitions faded one by one. It was perfect. She lay across the bed, smiling, for a long while, not ready to break the memory’s spell.
I tried to remember my first time. Had I even had one? Garrett had seemed to think we were going to lose our virginities together, but I hoped I’d been with Thayer before I died. I hoped we had had a perfect moment together, somewhere in the middle of our tumultuous relationship.
A high peal of laughter from Laurel’s room broke through Emma’s reverie. It sounded like Madeline. She cocked her head and listened. Then she remembered—the Lying Game girls were there to work on the prank.
Emma rolled out of bed and pulled on a pair of yoga pants, then padded through the bathroom and opened Laurel’s door.
All the girls were scattered around Laurel’s room in T-shirts and jeans. Lili and Gabby lay sprawled across Laurel’s bed, both typing rapidly on their iPhones. Laurel sat at her desk, applying mascara in a magnifying mirror, while Madeline and Charlotte organized art supplies on the floor. Nisha was there, too, setting up a microphone and an old-fashioned audio recorder. Emma was glad to see that the other girls seemed to have accepted Nisha so easily.
“Good morning, Cinderella,” Charlotte said. “I brought you your glass slipper. And sustenance.” She pointed to the desk, where Emma’s gold heels—the ones she’d abandoned on Charlotte’s driveway in order to run barefoot after Ethan—sat next to a steaming coffee. Emma picked up the cup gratefully, blowing at the steam. She sat down on the floor and hugged Charlotte tight.
“Char, I’m so sorry about last night,” she said. “I hope the fight didn’t ruin your party.”
“Are you kidding? Everyone’s talking about it on Twitter,” Lili said without looking up from her phone. “Between that and my totally newsworthy conquest of Danny Catalano, this is the party of the year.”
Madeline snorted. “No one is talking about Danny Catalano but you. He’s been untouchable since that awful haircut.”
“It’s growing back,” Lili protested. “Plus, he’s an awesome kisser.”
Char turned to Emma. “It’s okay, Sutton. I know that craziness wasn’t your fault. But Twitter-Dumb is right—it did liven things up. Before Ethan went all Incredible Hulk on Thayer’s ass, the most exciting thing to happen was a spray-cheese fight some of the morons from the wrestling team got into on the back patio.”