Brilliant (15 page)

O
LIVER OFFERED TO WALK
me in, but I asked him instead to drop me at the bottom of the driveway. I wanted to walk up myself. He insisted on lending me his flip-flops, but I left them in his car.

I walked barefoot in the waning dark up the long hill to my house.

I had a feeling my parents would be up, waiting for me, because, of course, when Mom went to pick me up at Ziva’s at eleven, I wasn’t there, and nobody there had seen me. It occurred to me that it would be good to have a plan of what to say, or how to behave, but nothing was coming to me, so I’d have to just wing it. I knew I was walking into fire.

I had no idea how huge the inferno was until I opened the back door.

Phoebe screamed. Allison said, “It’s her, it’s her. She’s here. She’s fine. She’s okay,” while Phoebe wrapped her
arms around me and cried.

I peeked around the corner to gauge my parents’ faces and saw there was a stranger in the kitchen with them—a stranger in a uniform. Or, no, not a stranger.

It was the police officer whose car I’d smashed into a few weeks earlier, the skinnier one, who’d spilled his soda. This was not a guy who was ever going to be happy to see me. “That her?” he asked.

Mom and Dad had both already jolted out of their chairs. They grabbed me. Dad’s eyes were red from crying, and Mom’s face was soaked with tears. I felt her fingers gripping me, hard.

“Sorry,” I managed.

“Sorry doesn’t begin to…” Mom held me away and stared at my face. “Quinn.” A tear tore down her cheek. She shook her head and set her jaw. “We thought you were dead.”

My heart pounded. I opened my mouth to object, to minimize—
I went to a different party! Can we not exaggerate? Allison sneaked out; did you call the cops on her, too?
But the lasers in Mom’s eyes stopped me. I said nothing.

“They crashed,” Allison whispered. “Mason and those guys. The cops were chasing them, and they went off the side of the road into a tree, and a bunch of the kids ran, but JD’s in jail and Mason is in the hospital and so is what’s her name, Adrienne?”

“Adriana?” My whole body went clammy. “Are they…”

“They’re going to be okay,” the police officer said. “Bumps and bruises—he’s got a broken clavicle. She’s got a concussion. They were lucky. You’re the last one missing.”

“Oh, my God.” I slumped down onto the floor. Phoebe, in her cast, thumped down beside me, her arm around my shoulder. I noticed my bag on the kitchen counter, my wallet and cell phone beside it. On the floor were my white cardigan and Keds.

Mom’s other shoe was standing glamorously in the center of the kitchen table.

“You caused us quite a bit of trouble, young lady,” the police officer continued, shutting his black book. “Four officers are combing the town for you, thinking you could be wandering around stoned or drunk or drugged, being attacked, raped, wandering into traffic. It may feel like fun and games to you, but let me assure you, this is no joke. You put your own life at risk, and others’ lives, too.”

“Thank you, Officer,” Dad said, thrusting his hand forward to shake with the cop. “We appreciate all you’ve done tonight.”

The cop nodded briskly. “These kids have no understanding of—”

“We’ll make sure she—” Dad started.

Mom interrupted: “Thank you, sir.”

He took a look at my parents, standing there like a fortress wall between him and the three of us girls huddled on the floor behind our parents’ legs. “All righty, then,”
he said, lifting his walkie-talkie from his belt. “I’ll call off the search.”

Allison whispered, “I’ll text Jelly. She’s a wreck.”

“Thank you,” I whispered. “Ziva, too?”

“Yeah, I think I have her number,” Allison mumbled, thumbs working her phone. “Yeah, got it.”

Phoebe hugged me again, lovingly, but also as a block so none of the adults would see Allison texting behind us.

“Let me get the door for you,” Dad was saying. Mom stood with her arms crossed in front of us while Dad opened the back door for the police officer and shook his hand again, over the static of the police discussing me.

None of us budged until Dad closed and locked the door and came back to the kitchen. Only then did Mom turn around and grab me off the floor.

She hugged me tight again, then held me away from her and looked into my face with a fury that bordered on hatred.

“What the hell were you thinking?” she demanded.

“I don’t know,” I mumbled.

“You don’t know? My brilliant daughter! You don’t know?”

“No,” I said. “I’m sorry. Obviously I am very far from brilliant. So hate me. I screwed up.”

“And that’s it?” she angry-whispered. “Three seconds of self-flagellation and it disappears now? Show’s over and we should all just head up to bed like, ‘Oops,
sorry, burned a piece of toast’?”

“I don’t know, Mom,” I answered, getting mad again in spite of myself. “Why don’t
you
tell
me
? You’re the master. What should a person do after she screws up and humiliates her family because of her bad judgment and makes an ass of herself?”

“Don’t you dare,” Mom growled. “Don’t you dare try to turn this around, miss. This isn’t about me, as much as you might wish it were. This is about you, your choices, your behavior, the fact that I went to pick you up three goddamn hours ago but you were gone, were never there, and now you are standing in front of us like a pouty brat at two in the morning, stinking like a brewery and bleeding from the kneecaps.”

“I thought we’re the Avery Women,” I muttered. “We just move the hell on. No?”

She stared at me.

Nobody moved.

“No,” she said finally.

I blinked, twice. I wasn’t sure what she meant. We don’t move on? I don’t get forgiven? She doesn’t get forgiven either? Ever? We’re not the Avery Women?

“No,” she repeated, her voice hoarse. “We don’t just move the hell on. That would be lovely, Quinn, but we don’t. We can’t. There’s a price to be paid for bad judgment, for disappointing the people who trusted you.”

“I know that,” I said.

She nodded. “It’s not easy to regain trust that’s been shattered.”

“True,” I said.

“Contrary to what you may think, Quinn, neither Daddy nor I was ever under the illusion that you would be the first person to walk this earth error-free. You are a flawed person. We know that. Your sisters are flawed; Daddy and I, goodness knows, are rife with flaws—and you are, too.”

“Obviously,” I said.

“We’re proud of you, Quinn,” Dad interrupted. “We love all that you accomplish, and your quick, deep mind, your talents, your drive. But we love you beyond all that, too. We love you no matter what.”

“This is how she gets in trouble?” Allison muttered.

“Allison,” Dad warned.

“What, I’m just…” Allison put on a mocking voice. “‘We love you, you’re great, we love you….’”

“We love all of you,” Mom said. “No matter how impossible you make it sometimes. We love you. All. We love you so much it makes our hearts explode. It makes us want to die when we think you might be hurt, when we don’t know where you are, when you take terrible risks. It makes us want to kill you.”

“Sorry,” I muttered.

“Good,” Mom said. “You’d better be sorry. I never want to go through another night like this. We’ll figure
out how long you two are going to be grounded in the morning, after we hear every detail, but rest assured it will be for a long time.”

I could hear Allison groaning beside me. I didn’t budge. Mom looked at my face and sighed. “Listen,” she said. “I know losing this house is hard. None of us wants to move, but we have to. I know you’re angry at me, and disappointed in me. All of you.”

“No,” Phoebe started to object. “Mom, we love you—”

“I know you do.” Mom cut her off. “But yes, you are angry, and embarrassed, and more. If you’re not right now, you’re going to be, and moving in with your grandparents is going to be really rough on us all. I did some things I’m proud of but also some that I’m ashamed of. I can’t change what happened. Just like you can’t change what you did. I have to live with myself, and at least for a while longer, you have to live with me, too. Not every day is going to be easy, or fun. But my failures are not excuses for yours.”

She turned to me.

“Quinn, I want you to understand this. We are beyond angry at you. I am honestly furious about your lack of judgment and your piss-poor choices, not to mention you wrecked my favorite new shoes.”

“Sorry,” I said again.

“Damn straight. You’ll replace them, for starters, and trust me, they do not come cheap.” She clenched her jaw
tight. “It’s been our job for seventeen years to try to keep you safe, but also to let you find your own way. From the moment you left my body I’ve been saying good-bye to you. It’s hard to let you fly, especially on nights like this. I want to stay in this house I love and lock you in your room and keep you safe there forever. But fly you will.”

“I promise I’ll never—”

“Sure you will,” Dad interrupted, smiling sadly, tired lines notching the corners of his eyes. “You’ll make mistakes, and you’ll stumble, and you’ll make a fool of yourself. We all will. You’d just better never pull anything like this again. Any of you. You hear me? Keep the disasters small, please, and non-life-threatening. I think that police officer has us on a special watch list of problem families.”

“Great,” Phoebe said. “Way for me to start.”

“We’re disappointed in you, Quinn,” Dad said.

“I know.”

“But we don’t hate you. Despite how clueless you think we are, it honestly doesn’t shock us that you are going to act less than brilliant sometimes.”

“Or even,” Mom added, “that you’d choose to binge on the whole damn buffet of supremely stupid things in one night.”

“Actually that did shock me,” Dad said.

I had to smile a little at him.

“All right, me too,” Mom admitted.

“Okay…” I started. “So then…”

“So then,” Mom echoed, “when you screw up, we’ll be angry and disappointed, and we’ll love you anyway.”

I stood in front of my disappointed mother and didn’t disintegrate into crumbs and blow away. I was a mess, dirt-smudged and reeking of beer, and she, that fallen colossus of my childhood, was my height in her bare feet, with chaotic hair and eyeliner smudges under her normally flawless eyes. She didn’t look perfect or stunning or even particularly strong.

She was just Mom.

And when I leaned forward, she gathered me in her arms and held me until I stopped crying.

O
N OUR WAY UP THE STAIRS,
my sisters flanked me. Halfway up, Phoebe said, “I don’t know how I got lumped in with all you flawed people. I was home watching TV.”

“You’d better be grounded longer than I am,” Allison told me. “I totally could have snuck in and not gotten caught if it hadn’t been for worrying about you, you dork.”

“Thanks, you guys,” I said to them.

“Jelly texted back,” Allison whispered, looking down at her phone. “‘Hallelujah with sprinkles on top,’ she said.”

I smiled. Oh, Jelly. “I owe her a huge apology tomorrow, too.”

“Yeah,” Allison said. “But she’s a good friend. She’ll accept it. She says…Here, you can read it: She says she’s glad you made it home.”

“Home,” I said, at the top of the stairs. The white room was ahead and to my right, all gleaming and spotless. “Me too,” I whispered. “It’s good to be home.”

“Were you in the car when it crashed?” Phoebe whispered.

“No,” I said. “I made them let me out, and they drove off with my stuff.”

“So where did you go, then? Have you just been walking?” Phoebe’s face was puckered with worry.

“No.” I dragged them toward my room. We huddled in the doorway, against the doorjamb. “I went to Oliver’s.”

Their eyes widened.

“Don’t say anything,” I whispered.

They swore they wouldn’t. We heard Mom and Dad coming up, so they scattered to their rooms. I stepped through the doorway and closed the door behind me.

Okay, I told myself. This is the room I live in, for tonight, my room. Mine, but not mine. My room in my mind is a place I can’t get back to. I miss it. It doesn’t exist anymore. I’ll keep it. I’ll move, I’ll move on, I’ll keep moving.

There were open boxes empty in the middle of my floor, awaiting my stuff, which was stacked in piles. I went past them all, taking off my clothes as I went, and slipped naked between the cool white sheets.

I lay there thinking about what had happened and watching the sky slowly change colors until, just as the first hints of red appeared, I heard something tapping on my window.

O
LIVER.

He was standing under my window, pitching pebbles up to it.

I grabbed a sweatshirt and a pair of boxers, crouching on my floor until I had them on. Then I opened the window and knelt on the bed.

“Hi,” he said.

“Hi,” I answered. “It’s not even dawn.”

“I know.”

I looked at him, standing there beneath my window, his hair still all sleep-tousled, the new day dawning around him as he tilted his face up to look at me, as if I was all he needed to see.

Me.

I yanked my old Chucks onto my feet and climbed out my window. I sat on the ledge, balanced there on the precipice, Juliet in high-tops.

“You okay?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” I answered honestly.

“Good place to begin,” he said.

“Yeah,” I agreed. “It is.”

He blinked slowly and gave me that half smile I’ve loved all my life.

Feeling a smile spread across my own face to mirror his, I breathed in the unmistakable scent of morning.

W
ITH MUCH APPRECIATION
, I
THANK:

Amy Berkower, my guru, advisor, partner, agent, and friend.

Elise Howard and Rachel Abrams, who hear the heartbeats and see the footprints of these Avery sisters, and ensure it all makes sense.

The whole team at HarperTeen, for bringing it all together, including the fab shoes.

The booksellers, librarians, and teachers who champion books that tackle the real deal about growing up, and thereby quietly pry open the floodgates to new worlds of empathy every day.

Mark Mandarano, for the invaluable insights into the longings and life of a young musician, and for confiding, among other things, the secret joke within Beethoven’s Quartet in F Major, Opus 135.

My friends, including Meg Cabot, Carolyn Mackler, Wendy Mass, Judy Blume, Avi, Carin Berger, Mary Egan, Lauren Lese, Bea Niv, and Chris Scherer—whose humor and solidarity are my oxygen.

My cousins, nieces, and sisters-in-law—a phenomenal collection of strong, kind, funny women the Avery girls would love to hang with.

Magda Lendzion, my friend, support system, and sister-of-the-heart.

My parents, who taught me and are still teaching me how to love wholehearted and full-out joyously, through screwups and triumphs alike.

And Mitch and our sons, whom I love so much it knocks me sideways. How I got lumped in with you brilliant people I have no idea, but because of you, I spend every day of my life knowing I am, as Jed Avery says, rich beyond measure.