Jake
I race around to Em’s and pound on the front door. Her mother answers.
“Is Em here? Can I see her?” I ask, peering over her shoulder and up the stairs. I’m so impatient to see her that I almost barge my way inside the house and take the stairs three at a time.
“She’s not here, Jake,” her mom tells me.
“Where is she? Do you know?”
Em’s mom hesitates a beat, and I look at her suspiciously. “She’s gone to see Rob,” she admits.
“Rob?” I exclaim. What?
Em’s mom sighs loudly and shakes her head. “I don’t know why. She rushed out of here like she had the devil on her tail.”
I frown. Why would she go to Rob’s? What’s going on? The only thing I can come up with is that seeing Lauren and me has propelled her straight back into his arms. But no, that can’t be right—can it? She wouldn’t be so impulsive, would she? She hasn’t even given me a chance to explain. But maybe she drew a conclusion, and it would be just like Em to want to hit back. Oh shit. I stagger backward off the veranda.
“I’ll tell her you stopped by,” Em’s mom calls to me as I climb in my car.
I tear out of the drive, intending to go straight to Rob’s, but I stop myself. Instead, I pull over on the side of the road and try calling Em again. Still no answer. I hang up without leaving a message. I need to speak to her face-to-face. Fuck it. I put the car into drive and head over to Rob’s house.
There’s no sign of Em or her bike, which is a relief, but I decide to knock anyway just to be sure she isn’t there. Rob answers. He’s wearing blue sweats and a T-shirt with the police academy logo on it. He takes one look at me and says: “What the fuck are you doing here?”
“Is Em here?” I ask.
“No.” He grimaces like he’s chewing on something rancid and foul-tasting. “Emerson is not here.”
“Was she here?” I ask, trying to keep my tone even.
He narrows his eyes at me. “What’s it to you?”
I stare at him. God, there’s so much I want to say to him. Instead, I press my lips together and force it all to stay inside. I hate this guy. How could he be with a girl like Em and treat her the way he did? How could he let a girl like that slip through his fingers? The guy is the biggest jerk on the planet—after his brother, that is. But on the upside, I guess if he weren’t such a jerk, I’d have more of a challenge on my hands winning her back, so thank God for small mercies.
I turn and walk away.
“Hey, McCallister?”
I glance over my shoulder.
“Good luck,” Rob calls to me. “She’s as frigid as an iceberg. You’ll get more action from a corpse.”
I come to a standstill, my heart pounding in my temples. My brain warns me to hold fire, but I can’t. I’m already striding back up the drive. I’m so fast that Rob startles backward, but he isn’t fast enough. I grab him by the neck of his T-shirt and twist it hard. His hands scramble for purchase on mine, but I’m stronger and I’ve got a tight hold on him. “You say another word about her,” I hiss, “and it will be the last word out of your mouth with those teeth still in your head.”
I’m so close to him, I can see the filigree of red veins road-mapping his eyes, can smell his sour breath. I let him go, shoving him backward, already furious at myself for letting him get to me, for not keeping on walking. He’s not worth it. I know that. But I really want to tell him how wrong he is. I want him to know that it was not her. It was him.
“You know,” I say, the words rushing out before I can stop them, “that wasn’t my experience of Em at all. In fact, it was completely the opposite.”
I let him go and he stumbles back against the door frame, glaring at me.
I wish I could tell him more—about how many times I made her come last night and again this morning, and the way she looked when she did. I want to tell him how open she was with me, how trusting, how giving, how alive and fucking beautiful she was. About how damn amazing it was being with her—but I’m not giving him that.
Rob’s face crumples into a comical frown—all the parts rearranging themselves like a caveman cartoon, before clarity comes and his mouth drops open.
I smile at him, then swivel on my heel and walk off, laughing to myself. Let him stew on that.
* * *
I’m sitting on my deck the next morning at eight with a steaming cup of coffee. My phone sits beside me and I stare at it, willing it to ring. Em still hasn’t returned my calls, and I’m not sure what to do. She always did need space to cool off, but I’ve given her that, so why is she still ignoring me? I left a message explaining that Lauren is my ex-girlfriend, emphasis very much on the “ex,” but I need to explain to her face-to-face. And, as well as that, I need to tell her the whole truth about why I’m here.
“Hello, stranger.”
I look up and almost spill my coffee down my front. I stand up and set the mug down on the window ledge.
“Shay! What are you doing here?”
She jogs up the steps and we hug. I pull back and hold her by the tops of her arms just to get a good look at her, still trying to process that it’s Shay standing on my deck. She’s still rocking the same dark brown hair cut in a bob and the same thick bangs she had at thirteen. She’s updated her glasses, though, and is now wearing some tortoiseshell square-framed ones. She’s accessorizing as she did when she was younger, with a string of pearls and bright red lipstick.
“I just got back,” she says to me. Then she takes a step back and lets her gaze wander the length of me. “Wow,” she says, nodding to herself. “She really wasn’t lying.”
“What?” I ask.
She grins at me. “Nothing.”
“How’d you find me?” I ask.
She gives me an arch look. “Not difficult, Jake. I asked Toby.”
“Wait,” I say. “Does Em know you’re back?”
She nods. “I spoke to her yesterday.” She gives me a pointed look.
I take a deep breath. “So I guess she told you what happened?”
Shay nods. “Yeah.” She glances over at my coffee mug. “So, what does a girl have to do to get a coffee around here? I’m so jet-lagged I could die.”
I smile. I haven’t seen Shay in years, but she’s still the same: forthright, direct as a missile, smart as a whip too. I go inside and make her coffee, wondering what the real purpose of her visit is and feeling a little nervous, I have to admit. After it happened, Shay sent me a couple of e-mails basically bawling me out and telling me what a shit I was and that I had better never show my face in Bainbridge again. I never replied.
She follows me inside and I catch her glancing surreptitiously around.
“She’s not here.”
Shay gives me an innocent look, like butter wouldn’t melt.
“That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?” I ask. “To check that I’m not hiding a girlfriend in my closet?”
Shay shrugs and gives me a half grin. “Okay, maybe that’s part of the reason I’m here. I told Em that she needed to hear you out, but I want to check that what she’s going to hear isn’t going to hurt her.”
I turn to face her. “I’m not going to hurt her, Shay. I promise.”
“So who’s Lauren, then?” she asks.
“My ex-girlfriend,” I say, handing her a mug of coffee. I lead us back outside to the deck.
“Definitely ex?” she asks.
“Yeah, definitely ex.”
“So what was she doing here, then?”
“She thought we were on a break.”
“And are you?”
“No. We were never on a break. We broke up before the summer. And I made it clear to her that I’m not available anymore.”
Shay sneaks a smile in my direction. “Well, Emerson needs to know that too.”
“I know,” I say. “I’ve been trying to call her. She’s not picking up and doesn’t seem to be checking her messages, either.”
“Go see her,” Shay says.
“I’m going to. I tried yesterday, but she was out. At Rob’s.”
Shay looks up in alarm. “Seriously? She told me she wasn’t going to do anything stupid.”
“I don’t think she has,” I say. I put my coffee down and rest my head in my hands, sighing loudly. “What the hell did she ever see in him, Shay? Why did she date him?”
“Because I think she thought that was the best she could do.”
I look up at Shay in disbelief. That’s insane. But it also echoes what her father told me and the little that Em has mentioned too.
Shay shrugs at me. “And when she started dating Rob, people stopped saying shit about her.”
“How bad was it?” I ask, bracing myself. I haven’t wanted to press Em for details, but I need to know.
“How bad was what?”
“After I left. What was it like for her? She’s told me a little, not much. I want to know.”
Shay puts her coffee mug down and pushes her glasses up her nose. “It was awful, Jake. You know what school is like. Kids are fucking horrible. I’m amazed she didn’t drop out, to be honest. People accused her of all sorts of stuff: of coming onto your uncle, of making it all up, of being a slut, of screwing the entire hockey team. They called her every name you can think of and then some. The bathrooms were a no-go zone—the graffiti was . . . inventive, shall we say. And when she wouldn’t back down or change her story, it got worse. It’s why she won’t go near social media. The trolling was so vicious.”
I stand up and kick the veranda post hard. Shit. I fucking hate myself for not being there for her. And more than that, I fucking hate my uncle. If he were still alive, I think I’d kill him. I kick the post again, pretending it’s his head.
“No one stood up for her?”
Shay gives me a pointed look. “I did. Denton did.”
“I would have if I were here.”
There’s a long pause while I try to imagine what it must have been like. I never knew it was that bad.
I turn to look at Shay. “I didn’t want to leave—you know that, right?”
Shay doesn’t say anything in reply.
“My grandmother had a stroke.” I laugh quietly under my breath. “You know, I never put the two things together.”
Shay cocks her head at me, not understanding.
“The stroke. It happened after she heard the news about my uncle. I never realized that’s what caused it until years later.”
Shay puts her hand on my arm and squeezes. “I’m sorry.”
“You think it would have been any different if I’d been around?”
Shay gives a small shrug. Yes. I know that’s what she’s thinking. “Maybe,” she answers. “Who knows? She really missed you, Jake, even though she wouldn’t admit it.”
“I missed her too. So much. I thought you all hated me.”
Shay squeezes my arm again. “You’re here now. You get to make it up to her.”
We stand there for a moment, listening to the sounds of the forest.
“When she told me she broke up with Rob for good, I was so goddamn happy, Jake, I can’t even tell you.”
I glance over at Shay, who is now staring out at the trees.
“He’s such an asshole to her. And she just puts up with it and takes him back every time. When she told me you were back and that Rob was out of the picture, I actually started to hope that maybe she’d seen the light. Finally.” She turns to me. “So, please, I’m begging you, as her best friend, don’t mess things up.” She pauses. “Or I swear to God I will hunt you down and kill you with my bare hands. She’s been through enough.”
I give her a wry smile. “Can I ask you something?” I say after a moment has passed.
Shay nods.
“Why do you and everyone else call her Emerson now? Why isn’t she Em anymore?”
Shay sets her coffee cup down, her expression solemn. “She made everyone stop calling her Em after it happened.”
“Why?” I ask.
“Because she said it reminded her of him. He kept saying her name. While he was . . . you know . . .” She grimaces tightly and looks away.
My mug slips, splashing scalding coffee over my hands. “Shit,” I whisper. I’ve been calling her Em this whole time without even thinking about it. I squeeze my eyes shut. I want to go back in time, change everything, stop what happened from happening. Why didn’t I go into the goddamn locker room?
I’m so fucking frustrated that I kick the post again. Shit. I hop on one foot. I think I broke my toe.
Shay puts her arm around my waist. “Stop kicking the post, Jake, and make things right.”