Live Through This (18 page)

“That’s a really good point,” Piper says.

Noah gives me a sideways smirk and cuts his eyes toward his sister. I roll my eyes, because no, Piper couldn’t be any more irritatingly obvious.

Noah and I burst out laughing again.

“Apparently, the ‘cold coffee’ is going straight to both of your heads,” Piper says.

“Both of
my
heads?” Noah asks. “Now that you mention it—”

Piper socks his arm so hard that his eyes roll back. “Owwww,” he whimpers, holding his bicep.

From the neighbors’ dock, a firework goes off close over everyone below. They all duck and shriek, and suddenly I’m even gladder to be up here away from the group, even if there is only Noah and Piper separating me from the person who throws me off-balance more than anyone else ever could.

“Idiots,” Bryan says.

“They do that every year,” Piper says to him. “Hey, that reminds me. Do you remember that one New Year’s when we babysat these two and the triplets?”

“Yeah. Nightmare,” he says.

“I
know
,” she says. “I always think about how freaked out we were when we set off those bottle rockets in your front yard and one of them skidded across the street and exploded in the Taylors’ garage.”

Bryan says, “I remember that. I also remember when you lit that lotus flower on our porch and it spun itself around, flew into the dining room, and singed our rug.”

“That was Noah, not me!” Piper says.

“Listen up, everyone!” my mom calls out. “It’s almost midnight. Get ready to count it down.”

“Woooooooo!” Noah yells so loudly that people look up at us, laughing.

Mrs. Crowne leads the count. “Here we go. Ten! . . . Nine! . . . Eight! . . . Seven! . . .”

Noah and I scream out the numbers along with everyone else, and he grabs my hand. I set my empty cup on the railing and take hold of his other hand.

“. . . Three! . . . Two! . . . One!”

I pucker up, but just as I’m about to lift his hand to my face, he pulls me forward and gives me a peck that’s over and done with so quickly that I’m not entirely sure if what I thought happened really did happen.

“Was there something on my lips just now?” I ask.

“Yeah, sorry. It was the only thing I could think of to keep us from jinxing ourselves for another year.”

I want to laugh because there probably would have been more passion if we’d done our usual hand-kissing thing, but instead I say, “I hope it works!”

Noah covers his hand over his mouth and makes a choking sound.

“What?” I ask.

With amusement in his eyes, he jerks his head indicating that I should look beside us.

I turn and there’s Piper and Bryan: their lips connected, her arms around his neck, and his hands on her back, holding her body to his.

“Oh,” I say, standing frozen, as my brain tries to work out how this completely impossible thing could possibly be . . . possible.

Noah drags me into the house and slams the door behind us in a hurry. “Jeez, Coley! You should have seen your face.”

“
My
face? What about
their
faces?”

“Pretty horrific, huh?”

Noah doubles over with laughter. I join in, and it isn’t long before we’re both wheezing and coughing and struggling to catch our breath. Deep down, though, I’m not sure that what I saw on the porch is all that hilarious.

•    •    •

After the party’s over, Mom, Bryan, and I head out together—Tony’s coming home on his own—and when we get to the minivan, Mom stops suddenly. “Bryan, are you okay to drive?”

“Sure,” he says.

I’m not certain that I believe him. If he isn’t trashed, why was he kissing and then hanging all over the girl that he’s spent years insisting that he could never like in that way?

Mom pops open her bag, fishes out the keys, and hands them to Bryan. Then she looks at me. “How about if you and I walk home together?”

“Now?” I ask. “It’s forty degrees and I’m wearing high heels.”

“Come on.” She slips her own shoes off and dangles them in front of me. “Live a little, girl.”

Bryan gives me an our-mother-has-lost-it look. I could say the same for him. “Have fun with that,” he says, climbing in and starting the engine up.

As I bend to unfasten my shoes, Bryan drives off.

Mom sighs. “I know you never warmed to Heather, but I sure do miss the way your brother was when she was around. I imagine it was really hard for her sometimes, though, dealing with his mood swings.”

“Probably,” I mutter.

I know that Mom doesn’t mean any of this as an attack on me, but it almost feels like one.
Heather
made Bryan happy. For a time, she was able to change him;
she
could have saved him. Instead, she left him—broken worse than he’d been before. I can’t fix Bryan, but I’m here. I don’t have a choice. Still, shouldn’t it count for something?

Mom and I stroll barefoot under the streetlights toward home. The sidewalk is wet and cold, but definitely not as painful as when the boys locked Reece and me out at Whistler.

“Listen, Nicole,” Mom says, placing her hand on the slightly padded shoulder of Bryan’s jacket as if to keep her balance. “I know you’re mad at me—”

“I’m not mad.”

“Yes, you are. And, just so you know, Tony thinks I overreacted too. He says I shouldn’t have grounded you, that Reece was trying to do the right thing.”

I don’t answer. I already explained what happened with Reece and me that night—minus all the details about Bryan, obviously—but she didn’t care. It’s surprising to hear that Tony shares my feelings, though.

She goes on. “I know you think I’m unreasonable, but you have to remember that I wasn’t much older than you when I did that exchange-student program, met Patrick, and had my entire life derailed.”

I come to an abrupt stop and pull away from her. “Mom, Reece is not Patrick. Why are you punishing me just because over two decades ago,
you
chose a bad guy?”

“Don’t you get it?” She throws her hands up. “I’m trying to keep my little girl safe from making my mistakes.”

I soften my tone at her sad expression. “You don’t need to. And the only little girl in our household these days is Emma.”

“I know.” She reaches over and tucks my hair behind my ear. “But you were my first, and we went through a lot together. Thankfully, you’ve blocked it out, but I can’t forgive myself for failing you and your brother back then.”

My eyes well up at the realization that she’s tried so hard to protect me and has no idea that she still missed so much. I look away in a hurry, but it’s too late.

“Why are you crying?” she asks.

“I’m not,” I say with a sniff.

She spins me to face her. “Yes, you are. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” I choke out an embarrassed laugh. “It’s just . . . you didn’t fail, okay? And I love you.”

“Love you, too.” She wraps me in a hug, and then leans back a little to brush a tear from my bruised cheek. “Now that it’s a new year, I suppose you can be ungrounded. And maybe we should have Reece over for that
Star Wars
marathon one of these weekends?”

“Before I answer, are you even going to remember that we had this talk?”

She laughs. “I had a few glasses of wine, Nicole. I might be a bit tipsy, but I’m not
drunk
.”

We go back to walking and I hook my arm in hers. “Then, yes. Other than the twelve hours of
Star Wars
that I’ll have to sit through, I like that plan very much.”

CHAPTER 21

A
fter I’m out of the shower two mornings later, I get a text from Reece.

Reece: Is it okay if I pick you up 15 minutes early?

Me: Yes but that means it’s going to have to be a ponytail day for me.

His response comes back right away:

Reece: I like your ponytails. :)

His truck pulls up in front of my house several minutes later. He’s already standing on the sidewalk when I come skipping outside. I drop my bag, rush forward, and throw my arms around his waist. Almost a week has passed since we’ve seen
each other—a strange and lonely week for me—and I don’t ever want to let him go.

“I missed you,” I blurt out.

He strokes my hair. “Me too. More than a thousand soft blankets. Don’t ever get grounded again, okay?”

“As long as you don’t ever go to Portland again.”

“Deal,” he says with a laugh. “And now that we’ve both made promises that we can’t keep, ready to go?”

Reluctantly, I release him. He sets my bag under the jump seats and we climb into the truck beside each other. We’ve done all of this dozens of times, but now it’s different in all the best ways. Now he’s squeezing my hand and smiling his just-for-me smile, and I’m not wondering if or when something will happen with us; it’s happening right now.

“I got you a black-and-white mocha,” he says, nodding toward a Starbucks cup in the holder. “And for me, the same, but with a quadruple shot.”

“Wow! Let’s make sure not to mix those up.”

“I’ll guard mine with my life.”

I can’t stop looking at him while he drives. He’s done something weird with his hair again and he’s wearing some old-person corduroy jacket. It’s all so perfect that I want to pounce on him and squish him.

We pull into the parking lot at school. He cuts the engine but leaves the radio on.

“I’m glad we left early to come to
this
place,” I say, prodding his arm.

“I wanted you with me while I try to wake up before jazz band. I hardly slept last night.
Because.
I couldn’t wait . . .” He sings his next words, “To see you again.”

I clap my hands. “Someone’s been listening to Miley Cyrus.”

“Someone definitely has. And he thinks that the song ‘See You Again’ might be the corniest thing he’s ever heard.”

“What? I like it!”

“And that’s what I like about you,” he says. “That you can admit to that. You’re fearless.”

“Okay, let’s talk about no fear.” I tug his lapel. “What about you, going out in public in this jacket?”

“What?” he says, imitating my tone. “I like it. My grandpa gave it to me.”

I rub my fingertips over the textured sleeve. “Grandpa. That is exactly the statement it makes.”

“Yet you’re still willing to be seen with me?” He leans in and kisses my cheek. “You really are the most courageous girl I know.”

We’re totally kidding around, but there’s something in his eyes; he
does
think I’m brave. He’s wrong, because if I were, I’d confront Bryan instead of waiting around for whatever might happen next. I can’t do it, though. I can’t face the awkwardness and humiliation. And the worst part is that deep down, I know that the next time Bryan tries something with me, I’ll freeze up like always. I’ll let him do whatever he wants. And I will
hate
myself for it. I hate myself more and more every time I don’t stop him.

“You okay?” Reece touches my arm. “You look kind of bummed all of a sudden.”

“I’m really tired. I was up most of the night too.”

“I think we’re kind of bad for each other’s sleep patterns.”

I rest my head on his shoulder. “I think you’re right.”

•    •    •

When I get to Gym B at the end of the day, the partition is closed, so I start my warm-up laps right away. Sometimes I have five minutes alone here in this big, echoey space, and sometimes only five seconds. Today it’s something in between before two guys from the wrestling team push through the doors and head to their half of the gym. Next, Rachel S., Rachel J., and Jessica from my team come in, talking loudly. They set their things next to mine and begin
their laps. Over the next several minutes, the coaches and remaining wrestlers and dancers trickle in: one by one, two by two. The louder it gets, the quicker my heart beats.

All I’ve been thinking about for most of the afternoon is Coach Laine and whether she’ll follow through on the threats she made before vacation started. The Day of Repentance was a failure for Alejandra and me; we didn’t apologize or forgive each other. In fact, I saw Alejandra in the halls a few times today, and she was always either pretending that I didn’t exist or glaring at me like she wished that I didn’t.

Piper drops off her stuff and runs to catch up with me. “Hi!”

Noah already warned me that Piper’s been going around singing to herself like a Disney princess for the past couple of days. I brace myself for questions about Bryan. “Hi.”

“I was wondering,” she says, “when is your brother going back to school again?”

Without even having to pause to think about it, I say, “In five days. Saturday.”

“Oh, okay.”

“Why?” I ask.

“No real reason. I sent him a few texts, but I didn’t hear back. He’s probably busy, though. It’s all right.”

I clench my jaw. Piper can keep telling herself that it’s
‘all right’ if she wants to, but that won’t make it true. Bryan’s known forever how she feels about him. He had to know that kissing her was going to turn into this
thing
, but he didn’t let that stop him.

“Anyway,” Piper says with a little shrug. “I don’t suppose you’ve talked to Alejandra?”

I don’t want to be another disappointment in her week, so I flat-out lie: “We sort of talked.”

“And?”

“And . . . I don’t know exactly what’s going on.”

I look across the gym at Alejandra, Hannah, and Liz, who are walking in together. All three of them glance up and wave. I check over my shoulder, but there’s no one there.

With big smiles and swinging ponytails, they rush over to us.

“See,
that’s
what Coach was hoping for,” Piper says, smiling at me. “I knew you had it in you, Future Captain.”

“Hi, Coley!” Alejandra says, as if the past three months never happened and she’s totally happy to see me.

I’m too confused to respond.

“How was your trip?” asks Liz, jogging beside me.

“You’re really going out with Reece Kinsey?” Hannah asks from Liz’s other side.

“Whistler was great,” I say, partially recovering. “Although
we were maybe there for a little too long. And, yes, I really am with Reece.”