Night Road (8 page)

Her boss, Mrs. Solter, was standing at the register when Lexi walked in. A bell tinkled over the door at her entrance.

“Hey, Lexi,” Mrs. Solter said brightly. “How was your dance?”

Lexi forced a smile. “Great. Here. I brought you some necklaces.” She held out the Mardi Gras beads from the dance. Mrs. Solter lit up at the sight of them and swooped in like a magpie for the shiny necklaces.

“Thank you, Lexi. That was thoughtful of you.” Mrs. Solter immediately put all the necklaces around her neck.

Lexi spent the rest of the day and into the evening waiting on customers. At nine o’clock, when business had slowed down to almost nothing, she set about cleaning the counters and getting ready to close up. She was coming out of the back room, carrying a container of Windex and a soggy rag, when Zach walked into the shop.

The bell tinkled gaily above him; she could barely hear it over the sudden acceleration of her heartbeat.

He
never
came here alone. Amanda was always with him, hanging on to him like that Louisiana moss you saw in horror flicks. Lexi slipped behind the counter so there was something between them.

“Hi,” he said, moving toward her.

“Hi. You … want ice cream?”

He looked at her intently. “Meet me at LaRiviere Park tonight.”

Before she could answer, the bell tinkled again and the door flew open. Amanda rushed into the shop and sidled up to Zach, putting her tentacle-arm around him. “Hey, Lexi. Thanks for keeping an eye on Zach for me. At the dance, I mean.”

Lexi couldn’t smile, even though she wanted to. “You want ice cream?”

“No way. It’s too fattening,” Amanda said. “Come on, Zach. Let’s go.” She moved toward the door.

Zach stayed where he was.
Ten o’clock,
he mouthed.
Please.

Lexi’s heart was pounding as she watched him follow his girlfriend out of the shop.

Ten.

She would be an idiot to think he really meant for her to meet him at the beach. He was dating Amanda, the human Post-it note. They were the most popular couple in school.

And it would hurt Mia if she found out. A kiss at the dance was one thing, almost understandable even, ordinary. This—sneaking out to be with him—would be something else. A bigger lie.

Lexi couldn’t do it. Shouldn’t do it.

She glanced over at her boss.
Don’t do it, Lexi.
“Uh, Mrs. Solter? I was wondering if I could leave a few minutes early. Maybe nine-fifty?”

“I’m sure I can handle closing up by myself,” she said. “Hot date?”

Lexi hoped her laughter didn’t sound as nervous as it felt. “When have you ever known me to have a hot date?”

“Those boys at your school must be blind, that’s all I’m saying.”

For the remainder of her shift, Lexi refused to think about the decision she’d made. She focused on her job and did it to the best of her ability. It wasn’t until later, when she left the shop, that nerves got the best of her.

She was an idiot to do this, but she kept walking.

Main Street was quiet on this chilly autumn night. Lights glowed through restaurant windows, but there were few patrons at this hour.

She passed the brightly lit Island Center grocery store and kept going, past the ferry terminal, past the Windermere Real Estate office and the Lil Ones Nursery School. In less than five minutes, she was out of town. Here, black stained the sky; a bright blue moon glowed above the towering treetops. There weren’t many houses out this way, and the few that were here were mostly summer homes for Seattleites, and their windows were dark.

At the entrance to LaRiviere Beach Park, she paused.

He wouldn’t be here.

Still, she followed the winding asphalt road down to the sandy stretch of beach. Moonlight shone on the tangle of giant driftwood piled up on the coarse gray sand.

There were no cars in the parking area.

Of course there weren’t.

She walked out to the beach. The pile of giant driftwood—whole trees washed up onto the shore and tangled together—lay like giant toothpicks on the sand. A brightly lit ferry chugged through the Sound, looking like a Chinese lantern against the black water. Behind it, the Seattle skyline was a tiara of colored lights.

“You’re here.”

She heard Zach’s voice and turned. “I didn’t see your car,” was all she could think to say.

“It’s at the end of the other lot.”

He took her by the hand and led her to a place where he had a blanket spread out on the sand.

“I guess you’ve brought a few girls here,” she said nervously. She needed to remember that. What was special for her was ordinary for him.

He sat down and pulled her gently down beside him. She immediately took her hand back. She couldn’t be smart when he was touching her, and she needed to be smart. This was her best friend’s brother.

He said, “Look at me, Lexi. Please,” and she was helpless to resist. He tucked a curly strand of hair behind her ear. It was the gentlest touch she’d ever felt, and it made her want to cry. “I know we shouldn’t be together. Do you want to be, though?”

“I shouldn’t,” she said quietly. She closed her eyes, unable to look at him. In the darkness, she heard his breath, felt it against her lips, and all she could think about was how often she’d been hurt. Lexi thought about her druggo mom, who’d told her all the time how much she loved her. She’d hold Lexi so tightly Lexi couldn’t breathe, and then suddenly it would be over. Her mom would get pissed and storm off and forget she even had a daughter. The only time Lexi remembered ever being happy before Pine Island was when her mother went to prison. Lexi had been with a nice family then, the Rexlers, and they’d tried to make her feel as if she belonged. Then her mother had come back.

Usually Lexi tried not to remember those last days with her mother, when Momma had been high all the time and pissed off and mean. Lexi had learned the truth about love then, how close it could be to hate, and how it could empty you out.

“Mia’s friendship means everything to me,” she said, finally looking at him. She saw how her words hurt him, and she understood at last. All that hostility of his, all that looking away; it had been an act. “You pretended not to like me because of Mia.”

“From the start,” he said with a sigh. “I wanted to ask you out, but you were already her friend. So I stayed away … or I tried to. I never could, though, not really. And then, when you tried to kiss me…”

Lexi’s heart felt like taking flight. How was it possible that she could be so happy and so sad at the same time? “We shouldn’t talk about this anymore. We should just forget about it. I couldn’t lose Mia or your family. I couldn’t. I’ve already been hurt enough, you know?”

“You think I haven’t already thought all of that?”

“Zach, please—”

“I can’t stop it anymore, Lex. I’ve been thinking about you for three years. Maybe if you hadn’t kissed me back…”

“I shouldn’t have.”

“But you did.”

“I had to,” she said quietly. It was impossible to lie to him. How could she? She had loved him from the second she first saw him. She started to smile and thought about her teeth and bit her lip.

“I love your smile,” he said, leaning toward her. She felt the distance between them closing, smelled the peppermint of his breath.

The kiss started slowly, gently. She felt his tongue touch hers, and her heart seemed to take flight. When he took her in his arms, she gave up, gave in. The kiss went on and on, deepening until she thought she couldn’t stand for it to end. Behind them, the waves whooshed along the shore, and it became a song. Their song. Their sound.

Desire came from somewhere deep inside of her, radiating outward, tingling, aching. She started to tremble so hard he drew back, looked at her. “Are you okay?”

No,
she wanted to say,
no I’m not,
but when she saw herself reflected in his eyes, she was ruined. She wanted him with a ferocity that terrified her. It was dangerous to want anything in this life, but his love maybe most of all. “I’m fine,” she lied. “Just cold.”

He pulled her into his arms. “Can we come here again tomorrow night?”

They were going down a bad road here; she should hit the brakes now, tell him it was too bad that they loved each other and let it go. Now, while she still could. She should tell him no, say she wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize her friendship with Mia, but when she looked at him, she had no strength to turn him away. He made everything inside of her stop hurting.

Dangerous, Lexi,
she thought,
say no
.
Think of your best friend and what matters
. But when he kissed her again, she whispered, “Okay.”

Six

Jude sat in bed with her husband, listening with half an ear to the late-night news. An expensive down comforter, covered by a custom silk duvet, floated like a cloud around them. In the past few days—since the dance, in fact—her mommy radar had been emitting a strong signal. Something was wrong with Zach, and she didn’t know what it was. Nothing bothered her more than being out of the loop in her kids’ lives. “Zach broke up with Amanda,” she said finally.

“Uh-huh,” Miles said.

She looked at him. How was it that no matter what drama unfolded in this house, he never seemed to worry? He accused her of being a helicopter parent, all noise and movement, hovering too close to her children, but if that were true, he was a satellite, positioned so far up in the sky he needed a high-powered telescope to track the goings-on in his own home. Maybe it was the medical school training. He’d learned how to suppress his emotions a little too well. “Is that all you have to say?”

“I could have said less, actually. It’s hardly an event.”

“Molly said Bryson said Zach was acting weird after football practice. I don’t think he’s handling the breakup as well as it appears. You should talk to him.”

“I’m a man. He’s a teenage boy. Talking is hardly our best sport.” Miles smiled at her. “Go ahead.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re dying to ask him what’s going on. You can’t help yourself. So, go. Just listen to the kid and believe him when he says Amanda doesn’t matter. He’s seventeen. When I was seventeen—”

“Your horndog past is not comforting.” She kissed him on the cheek and climbed over him to get out of bed. “I won’t be gone long.”

“Believe me, I know.”

Smiling, Jude left their bedroom.

The second floor was ablaze with light. As usual, neither of her intelligent children had mastered the incredibly complex hand-and-eye coordination necessary to turn off a light switch. She paused outside Mia’s door, listening. She could tell that her daughter was on the phone. No doubt she was talking to either Lexi or Tyler.

Jude made her way to Zach’s room. At his closed door, she paused. She would
not
batter him with questions or bury him under advice. This time she would just listen.

She knocked and got no answer. Knocking again, she announced herself and opened the door.

He was in his game chair, wielding the black remote as if he were a fighter pilot, which, on-screen, he was.

“Hey you,” she said, coming up beside him. “What are you doing?”

“Trying to beat this level.”

She sat down on the black shag rug beside him. This room had been decorated once by a professional and redone over the years by Zach. Expensive chocolate-colored wallpaper had been covered by movie posters. The bookshelves were an archaeological display of his childhood: a graveyard of action figures, a tangled heap of plastic dinosaurs, stacks of video game cases, a dog-eared copy of
Captain Underpants,
and the five Harry Potter novels.

She wanted to say,
Can we talk?
but to a teenage boy (or most any male), one might as well say,
May I please rip out your spleen?

“Let me guess,” Zach said. “You think I’m doing drugs? Or spraying graffiti? Maybe you’re worried that I’m a girl trapped in a dude’s body.”

She couldn’t help smiling at that. “I am so misunderstood.”

“You
do
worry about the weirdest shit. I mean stuff.”

“Do you want to talk about Amanda? Or how you feel? I’ve been through a few broken hearts in my time. Keith Corcoran in high school almost ruined me.”

He put down the controller and looked at her. “How did you know you loved Dad?”

Jude was pleasantly surprised by the question. Usually she had to pry this kind of conversation out of her son. But maybe he was growing up, or maybe he’d actually been hurt by Amanda.

There were so many things she could say, memories she could share, and if she were talking to Mia, she might have done just that. But this was Zach. She didn’t want to ruin this moment by talking too much.

“The first time I saw him, I knew. I know it sounds crazy, but it’s true. When he said he loved me, I believed him, and I hadn’t believed anyone since my dad. Until Miles … and you kids, I used to worry that I was like my mother. Your dad reminded me what love felt like, I guess, and when he kissed me for the first time, I cried. I didn’t know why then, but now I do. It was love and it scared the bejesus out of me. I knew I’d never be the same again.” She smiled at her son, who for once was soaking up every word. “Someday you’ll meet the right girl, Zach. I promise. Only you’ll be grown up and she’ll be a woman, and when you kiss her, you’ll know you belong with her.”

“And she’ll cry.”

“If you’re lucky she will.”

*

In the next two weeks, Lexi learned about keeping secrets. When she was with Zach, her love for him was overpowering, a wave that knocked her sideways so hard she couldn’t tell which way was up. Later, when she was with Mia, guilt smacked her just as hard. Mia knew something was up with Zach, but it never occurred to her to look to Lexi for answers.

That was the worst of it, the broken trust. More than once Lexi had almost blurted out the truth, desperate for absolution, but she hadn’t done it, hadn’t opened her heart to her best friend. And why not?

Love. She couldn’t deny Zach anything, it seemed, and he wasn’t ready to tell his sister about them. Lexi wasn’t even completely sure why; she just knew that Zach was afraid to tell Mia, and if Zach was afraid, Lexi was more so.

Every night, he picked Lexi up from work and drove them out to “their” beach. There, they lay on a blue plaid woolen blanket, talking. Lexi told him about her early years, what it had been like with her mother, how it felt to be forgotten and abandoned; Zach listened and held her hand and told her she was the strongest person he knew. He told her about his dreams for medical school and the expectations of success that sometimes crushed his spirit.

The stars overhead became their private universe. Zach pointed out the constellations and told her the stories that went along with each one: tales of gods and monsters, love and tragedy. His voice in the cold darkness became the home port she’d never known; in his arms, she discovered peace. She saw a side of him she’d never imagined. He felt things so deeply that sometimes he was afraid of his own emotions, and he worried that he would disappoint his parents. His surprising insecurities only made her love him more.

Tonight, they lay together, looking up at the giant universe. He took her in his arms and rolled over, covering her body with his own. She kissed him deeply, pouring every piece of her heart into the kiss, as if she could somehow meld their souls with the sheer force of her love. When his hand slid inside her shirt, up her bare back, she let him go. It felt so good to be touched like that by him.

He unhooked her bra. She felt the soft cups slip away from her breasts, and then he was touching her there.

She dragged herself sideways, slipped out from underneath him. Breathing hard, aching for his touch, she lay there.

“Lex? Did I do something wrong?”

She refastened her bra and then rolled over to face him. In the moonlight, he was so handsome she could hardly breathe for wanting him. But she’d seen her mother give her body away too many times to be reckless with her own. She sat up, back on her heels, and bowed her head. Was this what love did to a person, twisted them up and emptied them out until there was nothing left but need? If so, how would she survive it? “What are you doing with me, Zach?”

“What do you mean?”

Lexi steeled herself. If she’d learned anything from her mother, it was that nothing good grows in the dark. “I’m not going to be your secret, Zach. If you’re ashamed of me—”

“Ashamed? Is that what you think?”

“You don’t want to tell Mia about us … or your family.”

He shook his head. “Ah, Lex … I love you. Don’t you know that?”

“You do?”

He sighed, and something in the sound reminded her how damaged she was, how certain she was that no one could love her. “You don’t know what it’s like being a twin. I love Mia, but I want you to be mine. And my mom jumps into my life like it’s a swimming pool. She’ll have an opinion on this, believe me.”

“I love you, too, Zach. So much I can’t believe it. But I can’t be just yours. Mia’s my best friend. We have to tell her. And your parents are important to me, too. I need them to like me.”

“I know. But I don’t want to hurt Mia. If she thinks I stole you…”

“I can belong to both of you,” Lexi said solemnly. “I already do.”

He kissed her one more time and took her by the hand, pulling her to her feet. In a silence that suddenly felt ominous, they gathered up the blanket and stood beneath the stars, facing each other. The burden of their decision felt unbearably heavy, and Lexi almost wanted to take it back, to say,
let’s keep it secret a little longer
. What if she lost him because of it? She didn’t fool herself. It was possible. If Zach had to choose between Lexi and his family, it would be no contest. He would always choose Mia, who was as much a part of him as the green of his eyes. The bond that connected the twins ran deep. Last year, Zach had been hurt on the football field, and Mia had known instantly; she’d felt her brother’s pain.

“Tomorrow,” he said.

“What if—”

“Don’t say it. She’ll understand. She has to.”

*

The next day, as Lexi sat in one class after another, supposedly listening to her teachers drone on about this or that, all she could think about was telling Mia the truth. She imagined the conversation over and over, polishing each remorseful word like an agate. And still, when the last bell rang, she had the urge to just run away.

What if Mia didn’t forgive her? Lexi could lose everything that mattered.

If only she’d done the right thing the first time and told the truth. She, of all people, should have known better. She’d grown up on a diet of lies; she knew the bitter taste they left in your mouth.

After class, she joined the throng of kids in the hallway. On either side of her, lockers clanged open and shut; students were laughing, talking, shoving one another. Mia met her outside of her last-period class, and together they walked toward the flagpole.

Zach came up alongside Lexi and slung an arm around her as if it meant nothing, but at his touch, her whole body came alive. She was attuned to his smallest movement; the breath he took, the hair that fell across his eyes, the finger that stroked her upper arm.

She pulled away. It was meant to be a casual move, but she overdid it and stumbled into Mia.

“Hey,” Mia said, laughing. “You new to walking?”

Lexi looked at her best friend. “I need to talk to you.” She didn’t dare look at Zach, but she felt his gaze on her, hot as a touch. “Privately.”

“Me, too,” Zach said.

Mia shrugged. No hint of worry crossed her face. Why would it? She trusted these two more than anyone else in the world. Mia led the way to a grassy spot by the admin building, not far from the tree where she and Lexi had met on the first day of school. “Okay,” Mia said. “What’s up?”

Lexi couldn’t speak. She felt exposed suddenly, a liar. She would lose her best friend now. And maybe the boy she loved.

Zach reached out, took hold of Lexi’s hand. “We wanted to tell you we’re together.”

“Uh. Duh. I can see that.” Mia looked back at the row of buses. “Do you see Ty?”

“We’re
together,
” Zach said again.

Mia slowly turned, looked at them, frowning now. “Together? As in hooked up? You two?”

Lexi nodded.

The color drained from Mia’s face. “Since when?”

“She almost kissed me after the party at the Eisners’ cabin,” Zach said.

“That was weeks ago,” Mia said. “Lexi would have told me. Right, Lexster? You tell me everything.”

“Everything but this,” Lexi admitted. “I didn’t think it would ever happen. I met Zach on the first day of high school—before I met you, even—and I thought … no, that isn’t what I want to say. I always liked him, that’s the point, but I never thought he’d like me back. I mean … he’s Zach and I’m … me. And I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you to think … I was one of those girls who’d use you to get to him. Like Haley. It isn’t like that.”

“It isn’t?” Mia said, her mouth trembling. “Why isn’t it?”

“I love her, Me-my,” Zach said. “And we love you.”

“L-love? So all this time, you’ve been sneaking around behind my back? I kept asking Zach what was wrong, and he said nothing. Neither of you said anything. Were you laughing at me the whole time?” Mia said, stricken.

“No,” Zach said. “Come on, you know us better than that.”

“Do I? You’re both liars.” Mia’s eyes filled with tears. She spun on her heels and ran for the row of school buses, climbing aboard just as the doors closed.

Lexi saw Mia on the bus, staring at them through the cloudy window, her pale face streaked with tears, her hand pressed to the glass.