CHAPTER TWENTY
“Are you and Eric going to prom together?” Angie flopped on her bed and lifted the remote control to silence her television.
I had come over for their Thursday Family Night dinner. Karen made enough to feed sixty people and Angie made me come over every Thursday night since Thanksgiving. Their home had become a second home to me, and in some ways, as I recalled the emptiness at my house, I preferred their home to mine.
I plopped on the small couch she kept in the corner and pulled a blanket over my lap. I shrugged. “I think so, but I’m not sure.”
She sat up straight, giving me a meaningful look. “Are you serious? You two have been attached at the hip since last Friday. Everyone’s saying you two are dating. I know you’re not, not yet, but really, Alex. Call him right now and ask him.”
“No,” I squealed. Then I started laughing at that. I couldn’t believe I had squealed. “Oh, my gosh. I haven’t done that in forever.”
Angie smirked. “About damn time too.”
I giggled into the blanket and fell over. More laughter came from me. Oh god. It felt good to laugh.
“Come on, you nut.” But Angie couldn’t hold back a grin. “Call him.”
“No.”
“Come on.”
“No.” I shook my head. I was stubborn.
She groaned and fell back on her bed. “You drive me crazy. Can I call him, at least?”
“No.”
At her glare, my shoulders shook some more in silent laughter. But then I changed the topic. I wasn’t ready to deal with the possibility if Eric was taking me to prom or not. It felt surreal to me, for some reason. What she said had been true. We had spent time together every day since Friday night, and that night we sat up and talked until morning. At six, we went to the diner with a few others for breakfast and he took me for coffee when everyone went to their own homes. When I had gone home, there was a text from him after I woke up. He wanted to take me to dinner and we went to the movies afterwards. Every day was something new. Sunday had been a walk in the park. He picked me up for school on Monday and drove me home after his baseball practice. I cooked dinner Tuesday night for him. Wednesday night had been movies at my place. It was Thursday now and I was excited for the taco place he promised was the best in town. I had never heard of it, but I wasn’t the best source for anything.
As a dramatic sigh left her, Karen hollered for us to come down for dinner.
Angie muttered as we went downstairs, “I can’t believe you’re not staying. You always have dinner with us these nights.”
“I know.” I hopped off the bottom step and grabbed my purse by the doorway. I poked my head in the kitchen. “I’m off, Karen. I’ll see you next week!”
“What? You’re not staying?”
Angie’s mom was tall and willowy like her daughter. She had the same blonde hair, almost white, that ended in the middle of her back. While Angie’s eyes were a smoky blue color, her mother’s was a bright sea blue. She was golden tan and the wrinkles around her eyes were the only indication of her older age. Then she gave me a radiant and loving smile.
“I already told you, Mom. She’s got a date. She stopped by to say hello because she feels guilty if she doesn’t come over now.”
“Oh, come now.” Angie’s mom waved at me and winked. “I’ll package some food up and you can take it with you on your date. I’m sure whoever he is will be hungry too.”
“They’re going out for food, Mom.”
“Oh, well—” But her words were cut off short as Angie’s little brothers and little sister raced into the kitchen at the same time. Soon chaos ensued. Plates were dropped on the floor, spoons were flung across the room, and someone started crying. Angie collapsed on one of the chairs and lifted pleading eyes to me. “Can I come with?”
I gave her a farewell wave and left before Karen had time to bag up any food for me. I still had the leftovers from last week in the refrigerator. But when I got to my car, Angie yelled at me from the door. She had a bag in hand and was rolling her eyes as she hurried towards me. “My mom made me do this. Sorry. Have fun on your date. Ask him to prom.” Then she turned and darted back inside.
I groaned. It wasn’t that easy. A person didn’t open their mouth and ask someone to prom, even if you had been spending every day together for a week. A week. That wasn’t very long. Not at all. Oh, who was I kidding? I was terrified when it came to my love life. No, I was petrified. That was more accurate, but when Eric picked me up, there was a whole host of butterflies in my stomach and I didn’t think that was a bad thing.
“Hey.” He smiled warmly at me.
“Was I supposed to dress up?” His crisp buttoned-down blue shirt was tucked inside black jeans that looked more like dress pants. Glancing at my shirt and jeans, I felt dowdy.
“No, no. I had a thing today. I came straight from that, but you’re good. You look gorgeous, like always.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.” He pressed a kiss to my cheek and urged me towards his truck. “You ready?”
“I am, if I’m dressed okay?”
“You are, I promise.”
“Okay.” I smoothed out the front of my shirt and my pants as we went to his truck. After we climbed in and he pulled out of the driveway, I asked, “What thing did you have today?”
“Huh? Oh.” He frowned. “Um, just nothing really.”
“What was it?”
He shrugged and reached for the radio. When a popular song came over the speakers, loud enough to drown out conversation, the same old dread started in my gut again. It had doubled and tripled by the time we got to the taco place, and when we pulled into the parking lot, I felt ready to burst.
“Okay, we’re here. Sammy’s Tacos. You’ve really never heard of this place?”
He sounded so carefree and nice. The stone in my gut told me otherwise, and I sat there without a word. My chest started to heave up and down and I already knew my heart was pounding like crazy. But I sat there with my arms folded into my lap and my hands twisted around each other. What was I supposed to do? But then it didn’t matter. We weren’t dating. We were hanging out. He had said that he wanted us to be friends again, but this Eric felt different from the one before. He had more confidence at his party and now he didn’t seem so genuine anymore. I remembered the nice Eric, the one that would never lie to me or turn the radio on so I wouldn’t talk.
“Alex?”
I shook my head.
“What? No, what?”
I couldn’t believe I asked myself this, but what would Angie do? What would Jesse do? I knew both of them wouldn’t stand for what he had done, at how he had dismissed me. So I swallowed hard and looked up. This was going to be hard, maybe harder than I would ever realize.
“Alex.” His eyes were now flat and impatient.
“Screw it.”
“Excuse me?”
I had said that softly, but I said it louder this time. “Screw it.”
“Screw what?”
“You.”
“Me?” His eyes widened. “What did I do?”
“You hushed me.”
“I hushed you?”
“Yes, with the radio.” I turned to squarely face him and tucked my hand under my legs. My heart was still pounding, but my voice had gotten stronger. I could do this. I could express to him what I was feeling.
“What?” He frowned and scratched his head. “Are you sure?”
“Yes. I asked you a question. You didn’t want to answer it so you turned the radio on after I asked you again. You did that so I wouldn’t ask you again. You hushed me.”
“Oh.”
He was still struggling to figure out what he had done. A pang of sympathy went through me. He had no idea he’d done it. That meant he had done it before, maybe with Brianna. I tried a different way. “You never talked to me about Brianna.”
“I was supposed to?” His eyebrows went high and alarm crossed his features.
“No, I meant maybe you did that to her or she did that to you or something?” The confusion on his face doubled and I sighed. Maybe I wasn’t saying it right, but then I started to wonder what I was even saying in the first place. “Never mind. I’m hungry.”
“Great.” He was visibly relieved as we got out and headed into the taco place.
It was a small, but quaint restaurant. Large Mexican hats and sombreros were on the wall, along with newspaper clippings of bull riding events. Fake cactuses were set in the corners of the room, along with stuffed snakes and one armadillo.
As we slid into a window booth in the front, raised laughter from the back caught my attention. The sound of a toilet flushing filled the room and as I glanced at the table, my heart stopped.
A rail thin girl stared back at me. Her eyeliner was smudged and the lipstick had been rubbed from her lips. She sat up straight and flipped her dirty blonde hair over her shoulder as she narrowed her eyes to see me better. Then the bathroom door swung open and closed. Jeremy Benson walked through as he scratched his chest idly with a big yawn on his face. He wore the same military style buzz cut and he looked tired. But as he saw Barbie’s scrutiny, he looked also and I gulped. Surprise and delight flared in his depths, replaced with something darker.
“What’s wrong?”
Eric was frowning at me with a menu in hand. The waitress was beside him, both looked concerned.
“Nothing.”
“Oh. Do you know what you want to drink?”
“Oh. I don’t care. Diet soda.”
Eric’s frown deepened, but I couldn’t help it. I was speaking fast and I wanted to be gone from there. The old knots formed in my gut again and I had an intense desire to call Jesse, but then a hand was slapped down in the middle of our table.
“Well, lookey here.” Jeremy grinned at me and twisted around to study Eric with the same smile. “Who is this, Jesse’s Girl?”
“That’s Eric Nathan.” My voice came out as a squeak. I swallowed again and came out stronger. “His dad is a cop.”
Eric’s eyebrows shot up as he looked from Jeremy to me. “Who are you?”
“It don’t matter,” Jeremy said smoothly before he turned and leaned against the table with his back to Eric. He scooted closer to me and dropped his voice to an intimate whisper. “Are you trying to scare me away, Jesse’s Girl? Or aren’t you Jesse’s girl anymore? He seemed real protective of you at my place. Did that change? I’d sure like to know what happened to change that.”
My eyes were firmly attached to my lap. I couldn’t say anything. I couldn’t move, but when I felt his finger touch my arm, I jerked upright. I almost jumped out of my seat and Jeremy placed his hand on my shoulder as he laughed. “Well, steady there, Jesse’s Girl. I was only asking you a question. You don’t have to get all spirited like an old horse or something. I ain’t cornering you with ill intent. We’re all friends here.” His smirk deepened and something dark flashed in his eyes as he included Eric in his last statement.
Eric had tensed up. His eyes were hard and his jaw was firm, but his gaze lingered on me for a moment before he slid off his stool.
“Oh, whoa, hey.” Jeremy made a show of backing away from the table with his hands up in surrender. “I’m not here to start anything.”
“You’re making her uncomfortable.”
“Yeah, well, I can see why she might be.” He winked at me as he regarded Eric again. Jeremy swayed his body around. He was loose and having fun, while Eric stood as rigid as a statue. “Oh, come on. Like this ain’t funny. She’s Jesse’s girl, man. You have to know about that. He damn ripped my head off last time I saw this little bitty—”
“Come on, Jer.” Barbie stepped forward and grabbed his arm. “We’re already late.”
“I’m having fun.”
“Let’s go,” she snapped at him. “We’re real sorry, but we have to be going.”
“Oh, come on.” Jeremy was heard protesting as she dragged him out the door, but we heard her snap again, “She’s Ethan’s sister. Leave her alone.”
Anything else Jeremy was going to say was cut short. And then the door swung shut behind them. The table was quiet; I couldn’t get her words out of my head. A longing filled me now. It was so deeply rooted in me that I gasped. I hadn’t known it was there; it didn’t make sense. I thought I was getting better. Then I shot out of my chair. I needed to know about Ethan. I had to know.
“Alex!”
I ignored Eric and shoved through the doors. Barbie had gotten Jeremy in her rusty truck and as she was rounding to her side, she saw me coming. She froze in place. Her eyes widened and fear flashed over her before she tried to hurry to the drivers’ side.
“Wait!” I called out. She didn’t so I sprinted after her. “Wait!” I slapped a hand on her door as she tried to pull it closed.
“Let it go, little girl.” Her eyes held a soft warning in them. “Let us go in peace and we’ll leave you alone.”
“You knew my brother,” I spat out.
Jeremy was laughing so hard, his body was jerking in spasms.
“We did.” Barbie lost her fight, but turned to Jeremy. He quieted his laughs so they were more silent, but he wiped the tears from his eyes. His shoulders kept shaking forward. His laughing continued, but he struggled to keep it under control.
She turned back, disgusted, and slid out of the truck. “Come on, let’s walk.” As she shut the door, she gave him a stern warning. “You stay, Jeremy. I don’t want any bullshit.”
“I won’t. Promise.” His hands lifted again in surrender, but the giggles that escaped him didn’t lend him credibility.
She took a deep breath and then turned towards me. “Come on.”
I followed her at a cautious pace as she went back to the taco place and sat down at a picnic table. There were four more, but all were empty and her truck was far enough away so I knew Jeremy Benson wouldn’t be listening to us. I was relieved at that, but the wariness that came over Barbie had my stomach twisting again.
Would it ever end?
She sighed and hung her head. Her hands fell in her lap and she seemed defeated as she sat across from me. “I’m real sorry about Jeremy. He can be an asshole sometimes, and I think he likes to torment you because it’s his way of sticking it to Jesse. Him and Hunt aren’t real friendly, but they put up with each other. I guess.”
“How do you know Ethan?”
She looked up with tears in her eyes. The sorrow in them had me gasping for breath. It was unexpected and so sincere; I didn’t know what to say. So I didn’t. She started again. Her voice was raw from the memories. “Ethan became friends with us at the end of his senior year. He never said anything, but something was going on with him. We all knew he wasn’t happy. We didn’t know if something was going on at home or with his girl. We thought it was his girl because he took up with me.”
I couldn’t breathe and my chest was starting to hurt, but I was on the edge of understanding something important. She was Ethan’s girl?
“We messed around a few times. Hunt wasn’t real happy. He never said why, but him and Ethan seemed to be fighting a bunch at the end. I mean, don’t get me wrong, they were always tight. Those two were so damn close. I knew it pissed Jeremy off. Jer liked Ethan. He liked him a lot, but Jesse always came around looking for Ethan, and Jer and him just got to become enemies.” She wiped at her eyes, but her head hung down again. Her blonde hair was in clumps as it cascaded around her. I could barely see her anymore.
She continued, but I heard the tremor in her voice. “Anyways, Ethan was hanging out with us all the time. It was nice. He was a gentleman. He never did drugs like the rest of them. The only thing he ever did was drink, but not a lot. He was always cautious about not getting drunk. He was rare, you know.” She sniffled. “There are so many dirt bags out there and he was always real nice to me. He even told me about you once.” Her head lifted and she gave me a soft smile. Her lip quivered. “He loved you lots. I could tell. Him and Jesse would fight about you, too.”
“What?” My eyes went wide.
She shrugged. A faraway distant look came over her. “No one knows what they fought about that had to do with you; just that they did. Ethan didn’t like something and Jesse did, that’s all we could tell, but then it didn’t matter. The night he died, he was with us.”
I couldn’t breathe. Oh god.
“He’d been with me that night. He was always so gentle. I felt loved, like one of those types who get their prince in the end. It