Never Have I Ever (11 page)

They were quiet as they moved to the next set of photographs. It was a collage of Polaroids, each depicting different body parts: eyes, noses, feet, ears. “I love Polaroids,” Ethan said.

“Me, too,” Emma answered, relieved at the change in subject. “My mom gave me a Polaroid camera when I was little, before she took off.”

“Do you miss her?” Ethan asked.

Emma fingered the stem of her champagne glass. “It’s been so long,” she said vaguely. “I hardly remember what there is to miss.”

“What do you think happened to her?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” Emma sighed and moved past a clump of patrons talking loudly about how they’d all been friends with Andy Warhol back in the glory days of the art scene. “A long time ago, I used to think she was still nearby, watching me. Following me from home to home, staying close to make sure I was okay. But I know now how stupid that was.”

“It’s not stupid.”

Emma stared intently at the price list on the wall as though she were thinking of making a purchase. “No, it is. Becky left me. She made a choice; I can’t change that.”

“Hey.” Ethan turned Emma to face him. For a moment, he just stared at her, which sent a thousand butterflies flapping through Emma’s stomach. Then, he reached out and tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear. “She made the wrong choice. You know that, right?”

A swell of emotions washed over Emma. “Thank you,” she said quietly, staring into his round blue eyes.

“
Kiss him
,” I whispered, feeling like the singing hermit crab in
The Little Mermaid
. I was all out of my own first kisses, so I had to root for Emma now.

A woman in a magenta dress bumped into Emma. “Sorry,” she slurred, her eyes glazed and her cheeks a boozy red. And Emma pulled away, giggling.

“So how do you know so much about crashing art openings?” Emma said, smoothing the front of Sutton’s dress. “I thought you were anti-party.”

Ethan strolled to a bank of windows at the back of the gallery that overlooked a stone terrace festooned with Christmas lights. “I’m not. I’m just against the kind of party with spiked punch and body shots. It’s so . . .”

“Juvenile?” Emma filled in for him. “But sometimes that’s a part of having a social life. Sometimes you just have to grin and bear it to have friends.”

Ethan drained his glass of champagne and set it on a side table. “If that’s the price I have to pay, then I’d rather be alone.”

“What about girlfriends?” she asked nervously. She’d wracked her brain for days, thinking of how to ask him this.

A tiny smile danced across Ethan’s lips. “Yeah, I’ve had a few of those.”

“Anyone I know?”

Ethan just shrugged and sank into one of the angular leather chairs that could’ve been an art exhibit themselves.

“Were any of them serious?” Emma pressed as she settled next to him and cradled a soft, overstuffed pillow.

“One was. But it’s over now. What about you?” His gaze canvassed her face. “Did you leave anyone behind in Vegas?”

“Not exactly.” Emma stared at her lap. “I had some boyfriends, but nothing was too serious. And then there was this one guy, but . . .”

“But what?”

Emma’s throat tightened. “It ended up being nothing.”

She hated lying, but she didn’t want to get into her embarrassing fiasco with Russ Brewer, whom she’d made the mistake of liking. After he’d asked her out, she’d prepared for the date, borrowing a dress from Alex, wearing the last-season Kate Spade shoes she’d scored at Goodwill, rewashing and restyling her hair three times to get it right. But when she’d gone to the mall entrance, Russ wasn’t there. Instead it was his ex-girlfriend, Addison Westerberg, and her posse, their laughs high, horrible cackles.
As if Russ would date the foster girl?
they’d teased. It had been a setup. Not, in fact, unlike a Lying Game prank.

Ethan opened his mouth, perhaps to say more, but suddenly his eyes widened at something behind them. “Shit.” He leaned forward and clamped down on Emma’s arm.

Emma swung around and stared. Nisha Banerjee, dressed in a high-neck black dress and snakeskin heels, stood by a huge photograph of a mostly naked man. Her father was next to her, glancing around with a blank look on his face.

“Oh my God,” Emma whispered. Just then, Nisha turned and stared right at her and Ethan. A chicken satay skewer dangled from her fingers, forgotten.

“Come on.” Before she could think, Emma grabbed Ethan’s hand and pulled him through the crowd. She ditched her champagne flute in a big trash barrel and wound around the guests, nearly upending a waitress’s tray of cheese puffs. A man in a blue ruffled suit and a teal cowboy hat sneered at them over his martini, as though they were two children escaping the scene of a schoolyard scuffle. But Mr. Tuxedo opened the double doors for them placidly, as though he saw people fleeing from art openings all the time. They scurried down the stairs into the twinkling Tucson night.

Only when Emma had safely reached the street did she turn around to see if Nisha had followed them. There was no one at the entrance.

Ethan straightened his jacket and wiped a bead of sweat off his brow. All of a sudden, Emma burst into giggles. Ethan chuckled, too.

After a moment, she grew serious. “Nisha definitely saw us.” Emma flopped on a green city bench and heaved a sigh.

“Who cares?” Ethan asked. He sat down, too.

“
I
care,” Emma answered. “She’ll tell my parents I snuck out.”

“Are you sure that’s all that’s bothering you?” Ethan glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. “You wouldn’t mind if she saw us . . . together?”

Emma’s stomach flipped over. “No, of course not. Would you?”

Ethan stared at her without blinking. “What do you think?”

Jazz music drifted out from the party. Across the street, a stray cat darted between the tires of a parked car. Ethan moved a little closer so that their legs touched. Emma wanted so badly to kiss him, but her body trembled with nerves.

“Ethan . . .” She turned away.

Ethan laid his hands in his lap. “Okay, am I misinterpreting things?” He sounded both sheepish and annoyed. “Because sometimes it seems like you really want to . . . you know. But then you always pull back.”

“It’s . . . complicated,” Emma said, trying to keep her voice steady.

“How?”

Emma bit her fingernail. She’d always wanted a serious boyfriend. Back in Vegas, she’d even named a star in the sky the Boyfriend Star, hoping it was a sign that she’d finally meet the person with whom she was meant to be. But now she was torn.

“It’s this life I’m living right now,” Emma started hesitantly, a lump hardening in her throat. “I love being with you. You make me laugh, and you’re the only person I can be myself with—my
real
self. I’m Sutton to everyone else.”

Ethan glanced up to meet Emma’s gaze. His eyes were huge and imploring, but he waited for her to go on. “I’m pretending to be a dead girl, Ethan,” she said. “And I’m being threatened, and you’re the only person who knows about it. I don’t have my own life right now, which makes this . . . bad timing.” She’d always thought excuses like “bad timing” were made up, occupying the same file as “It’s not you, it’s me.” But this was real. She did have feelings for Ethan, strong ones, but she didn’t know how to be with him when her life was in such upheaval. “And what if we start something and it ends badly? What if we get in a fight? Then I’ll have no one again.” She wrung her hands in her lap. “Maybe, when I’m finally free of all this we can . . .” She trailed off.

Finally, Ethan exhaled loudly. A frown marred his lips. “Are you saying that if we got into a fight, if we broke up, I’d abandon you? Do you really think I’d do that?”

Emma raised her palms to the air. “Breakups can be ugly.” Then she sighed. “I like you so much. But there are so few people I can trust—and you’re the only one I can rely on. I can’t jeopardize that. Not now.”

Ethan turned away, saying nothing. Emma stared at the parked cars across the street. A cleaning service called Clean Machine had stuck flyers under each of the windshields. A convertible cruised by with its radio blasting hip-hop.

“I think we need to keep it as friends,” Emma whispered into the darkness, afraid to look at Ethan head-on. “At least until I can figure out this mess and live my own life again.”

Next to her, Emma felt Ethan’s body slump from the weight of her words. “If you think that’s best,” he said slowly.

“I do,” Emma insisted in the strongest voice she could manage.

Without answering, Ethan rose and reached into his pocket for his car keys. Emma followed behind him to the Honda, feeling like someone had scooped out her insides with a big ladle. Had she just ruined everything?

As she swung into the passenger seat, a crackling sound made her turn. Her eyes scanned the dark road. Then, she spied something moving in the bushes across the street near the bench where they’d been sitting. The cherry-red tip of a lit cigarette glowed in the darkness. It dangled, disembodied, as though held by a ghost.

“Ethan,” she whispered, grabbing his arm. But as soon as Ethan twisted around to look, the spooky burning cigarette vanished.

Chapter 16
An A for Effort

After tennis practice the following day, Emma threw her gear into the hatchback of Laurel’s VW. “
Ahem
,” Laurel whispered, nudging Emma’s side. “Looks like you have an anti–fan club.”

Emma swung around, and her stomach dropped. Two figures stared from the gym doorway, their mouths angry red slashes. It was Nisha . . . and
Garrett
.

“Do you think she’s still pissed about you sneaking into her room?” Laurel asked.

“I doubt it,” Emma said slowly. It more likely had to do with Nisha seeing Emma and Ethan at the art opening last night. Thankfully, Nisha hadn’t called up the Mercer parents to rat her out, but it seemed she’d just spilled the beans to Garrett. Why else would he look at Emma with such fury?

“Let’s get out of here,” Emma mumbled, slamming the car door.

As Laurel plopped into the driver’s seat, her phone screen flashed. “It’s Mads,” she said, checking the message. “Looks like Operation
Titanic
is good to go. I told the other girls on the court about the
real
outfits. I also told them not to discuss their outfits with anyone—that we were planning to prank two of the court members.”

Emma’s stomach turned, thinking about her discussion with Ethan last night. “Are you
sure
this is a good idea? Maybe we should lay off the Twitter Twins for a while.”

Laurel’s eyebrows made a
V
. “Of course it’s a good idea. We can’t back out now. Besides,” Laurel went on, “I can guarantee you no one’s gonna talk. They’re all eager to see someone else go down. Everyone loves a big embarrassing social disaster.”

Way to go, court girls, banding together in solidarity
, Emma thought. An itchy feeling reminded her that she was once the girl on the receiving end of the prank. When this was all over, she would extricate herself from the Lying Game as fast as she could.

The car jostled over the hump of the curb into the Mercers’ driveway. “Is that . . . Dad?” Laurel asked, frowning at the open garage door.

Sure enough, Mr. Mercer stood next to the motorcycle. He waved as they pulled in.

“What’s
he
doing home?” Emma murmured. Typically, Mr. Mercer didn’t return from the hospital until early evening—unless he was on call, and then sometimes he didn’t get home until the middle of the night.

Laurel cut the engine, and the girls got out of the car. “Sutton, I have to talk to you,” Mr. Mercer said, wiping his hands on a dingy green towel.

Immediately, Emma tensed. Maybe Nisha
had
told the Mercers after all. “I’m sorry,” she said preemptively.

“You don’t even know what I’m going to say yet.” Mr. Mercer chuckled. “Your mom got a call from Josephine Fenstermacher. She said you got a ninety-nine on your German test last week. The highest grade in the class.”

Heat rose to Emma’s cheeks. Laurel swung around and stared at her in disbelief. “
You?
”

Mr. Mercer grinned. “She said you’ve improved dramatically since last year. I know German is a tough subject for you. Mom and I are so proud.”

Emma ran a hand over her hair. Truthfully, the chapter test had been fairly easy, but she forced a humble look on her face. “Thank you.”

Mr. Mercer leaned against the back bumper of Laurel’s VW. “I convinced your mom to make you a deal: As a reward for doing so well, we’re going to break your grounding for Homecoming night and let you go to the dance. And we’re giving you phone privileges back,” he said, handing over Sutton’s iPhone.

“Seriously?” Laurel’s eyes lit up. “Dad, that’s amazing!”

Emma squeezed Laurel’s arm and let out a squeal, too, knowing it was the right reaction for Sutton. But Homecoming was the last thing that mattered to her right now.

Mr. Mercer raised an eyebrow. “You can go, but the very next day it’s back to being grounded. Got it?”

“What about the post-dance camping trip?” Laurel chirped. “Can Sutton come to that, too?”

A conflicted look passed over Mr. Mercer’s face. “Well, I suppose so.”

“Yes!” Laurel cried. She looked at Emma. “Maybe you’ll let me borrow your Miu Miu heels for the dance as a thank-you.” Then she turned and skipped toward the house.

Emma moved to follow her inside, but Mr. Mercer cleared his throat. “Sutton, will you help me for a moment?” He turned toward the motorcycle. “Can you hold this steady while I look at the tires?”

“Of course.” Emma followed him into the garage and gripped the handlebars.

Mr. Mercer leaned down and examined the fine tread on the front wheel. “So. Happy about Homecoming?”

“Uh, definitely,” Emma answered, trying to sound enthused. “Thank you so much. But . . . I don’t really deserve it.” She mentally ticked off the number of times she’d snuck out while she was grounded.

“You earned it, Sutton. Thank yourself for your test score—and thank your sister, for begging us to let you go.” Mr. Mercer stood from the tire and crossed his arms over his chest. “You should call Garrett and tell him the good news.”

Emma let out a short, sarcastic laugh, staring at her warped reflection in the bike’s shiny frame. “I don’t think Garrett will care.”

Mr. Mercer frowned. “Why not?”

Emma turned toward the shelves of rags, T-shirts, and bottles of motor oil and brake fluid. “We broke up,” she admitted softly. “And I sort of like someone else,” she added, surprised by her own words. She thought this would be another thing to add to the Things That Are Awkward list, but she actually felt almost relieved to admit the truth aloud. Opening up to adults wasn’t something she’d ever done before, and by the cautious look on Mr. Mercer’s face, it wasn’t usual for Sutton either.

“Does this someone else know?” Mr. Mercer sounded intrigued.

“Sort of.” Emma’s voice cracked, wincing at the memory of the art museum date. It had been so . . .
perfect
. But then she remembered the look on Ethan’s face when he told her how he felt about her, and the utter disappointment in his eyes when she said they should just be friends. The tight feeling that had formed in her chest the moment those words had spilled out of her mouth still hadn’t gone away.

“Are you and this new guy . . . going out?” Mr. Mercer used the term tentatively, as though he wasn’t sure if it was the right lingo.

Emma reached for a clean rag from the metal garage shelves and twisted it into a knot. When she untied it and spread it out, she saw a faded silkscreened image of a crab and a clam dancing the tango. It advertised either a restaurant or a fish market; the lettering was too worn away to tell which.

“No,” Emma answered in a tired voice. “Things are . . . complicated.”

“Why is that?”

She shut her eyes. “I’m having a hard time trusting people, I guess.”

A pained look Emma couldn’t quite gauge crossed Mr. Mercer’s face. “You should trust people, Sutton. You shouldn’t let . . .”

Emma waited for him to finish, but Mr. Mercer just twisted his mouth and looked away. “Let what?” she finally asked.

“I just mean . . .” He fumbled through his tools. They made loud clanging noises as they banged together. “I only want what’s best for you. If it’s meant to be, honey, it’s meant to be.”

“Maybe,” Emma said thoughtfully. His wording made her think of the Boyfriend Star, burning brightly in the sky.
Fate.

Then, placing the rag back on the shelf, she padded over to Mr. Mercer and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. Mr. Mercer held her tentatively for a moment, as if he wasn’t sure the gesture was genuine. But then, slowly, he squeezed her hard. He smelled like cologne, black pepper, and motor oil.

It was a smell I knew so, so well. A wave of grief pounded my body until I felt like I would wash away. What I wouldn’t give to hug my dad one more time. As I watched their embrace, a dark image surfaced in my mind. My dad’s eyes widening when he turned and spotted me. Betrayal surging through me like he’d driven a stake through my heart. But before I could delve deeper into the memory, it submerged once more.