A nervous laugh shakes my chest and shoulders.

  “Yeah, umm.” I mash my lips together and kick myself inside over what I’m about to do. “No, I was just going to say I hope it’s okay that I stay, even though you already have Tory. I . . . I like it in here. It’s quiet enough.”

  He punches out a laugh and pushes off from the table, leaning forward to the stack of papers Tory left behind. He rolls them and slaps them against his other palm.

  “If you can find quiet with Tory in the room, then you have Zen secrets I need to learn.” He holds up the roll of papers. “The guy had one job today, to make sure he took these things home.”

  “I can give them to him,” I volunteer, clearly having some out-of-body experience.

  Mr. Newsome lowers his head and holds the roll out toward me, his head cocked to the side.

  “You sure? I don’t mind hassling him. It’s one of my favorite hobbies,” he jokes.

  I shake my head and smile. “No, really. I don’t mind.” Yes, yes! I do mind. What is this being that has inhabited my body and is making me do things I am loathe to do?

  “Great.”

  And in less than a minute, I go from fixing the debacle that is my last hour of the day to walking out of Mr. Newsome’s class with a sweaty stack of papers from teachers who probably don’t expect Tory to follow instructions anyhow.

  After I exit the building, I unbend Tory’s sheets and stack them with mine, noticing culinary on the top. At least I don’t have to cook with him.

  “What took you so long?” Abby swings her feet out and leaves the comfort of the short cement wall that weaves between the math building and library.

  “Overachiever,” I say, handing her the stack of papers. She scrunches up her face and taps on Tory’s name with her thumb.

  “You are? Or he is?” She’s joking, of course. I take the papers back and feel for my keys in my front pocket. Tomorrow, I’ll be bogged down with a heavy bag and folders.

  “I’m stuck being a TA with him in Newsome.” This is actually the first lie I’ve ever told Abby. I comfort myself with the logic that it’s a slight exaggeration. I’m not stuck. I just blew my chance to get unstuck.

  Abby lets out a slow laugh that starts like a trickle but becomes a fire hose of amusement as she crosses her arms and has to pause to catch her breath.

  “Holy shit, you have the worst luck! The only person worse to be stuck with is Ava.” I smile into the air while I press the unlock button on my key fob.

  “Yeah,” I hazily agree. Though that isn’t really true. There’s one person who would even top her on the list, and I can’t seem to get away from him. Even when we both try.

  Chapter Four

  This marks the second time I’ve been to the D’Angelo house in three days. That’s a record for me, one I had no intention of setting. I figured coming here now, though, during football practice, would spare me having to see the twins or any of their friends.

  Lucas.

  I’ve never prayed harder for my little beater of a car to not break down. It’s idling pretty high as I crawl along the D’Angelo’s street. My fifteen-year-old Honda may be approaching two-hundred-thousand miles, but it got me through a year of back-and-forth to my other school without fail. It was loyal by me, so I’m loyal by it.

  As if I could get a new car.

  The white brick home with black trim and fancy shutters comes into view as I slow at the side of the opposite curb. This place looks a lot different in the daylight. I’m pretty sure there were condoms hanging from the huge oak tree in the center of their front yard when I left Saturday night. I wonder whether the twins took care of the mess or if their parents deal with it, chalking it up to the price of having two popular teenagers in the house.

  I kill my engine and lean forward to kiss the top of my steering wheel, a superstitious gesture I started a month ago when the pinging sound became louder. I’m busy separating Tory’s papers from my own when I notice someone moving toward the back of the wide driveway that winds up the side of the property and to the infamous garage at the back of the twins’ house. A bolt flashes from the back of my neck straight to my gut, my heart pounding with a dose of adrenaline. I’m not even sure what I saw, but just being here after what happened in that garage two days ago puts me on edge. Without pause, I sink down below window level, my knees bent as far as they will so I practically rest my shins on the gas and brake pedals.

  No matter who it is, I now have to stay here until I’m sure they’re gone. I won’t be able to climb out gracefully, and I’m not certain I didn’t just make a scene. My car sorta sticks out, what with the patch job on the driver’s side fender and the two-tone blue paint from years of enduring Indiana winters and salted roads. But from across the street I’m not immediately visible, and I intend to stay that way.

  I slow my breathing to hear what’s happening outside, but it’s no use. I’m basically panting like an overheated golden retriever. And my makeshift bun has fallen to shit yet again, so I’m swimming in a web of my own hair. When I hear what sounds like the rumbling of a nearby vehicle, I brave lifting my body just enough to see out my driver’s side window. A small trail of exhaust puffs out from behind the retaining wall. Someone is probably pulling out of the garage, which means if I wait another moment, I can drop these papers at the front door and put a rock on top of them, call it a day.

  I swallow and flinch when I see the chrome bumper, but hold steady, feeling pretty well-hidden. A deep gray truck rolls into view then pauses again, no more exhaust to obscure the details. For a moment, I think maybe someone forgot something inside, but even as I rationalize, I know better. I’m glued to the scene, and I don’t think I could not follow through, merely to confirm this awful gut feeling. I don’t want to be right, mostly because this is something I don’t want to be burdened knowing. It’s too late, though. Really, I knew it the second I saw the color of the truck. It’s too easy to put together.

  I know that truck.

  I see it every night.

  In the driveway next door to me.

  Still, even in the face of this blatant evidence, I hope there is something else happening, another explanation. The truck continues its path backward, the dark silhouette of the driver just vague enough that it could still be explained, could be anyone.

  But the license plate—I know that plate.

  The brake lights trigger more panic, and I tuck myself a little lower in the seat, ready to duck out of view, but the truck is idling again. Waiting.

  For someone padding down the driveway in bare feet.

  Mrs. D’Angelo isn’t wearing much. It’s mid-afternoon, and I don’t know whether she’s a stay-at-home mom or if she goes to an office every day, but I do know Lucas’s dad does. He works in Indy at a big law firm. And whatever he is doing at the D’Angelos’ house right now doesn’t look like business. It also doesn’t look neighborly. It looks like a secret, the kind I’m certain my dad had. The kind that rips families apart.

  Her T-shirt rises up the length of her thigh as she lifts up on her toes and reaches through the driver’s side window. They kiss. That much I can infer. She takes his hand and he lets her as she falls back down to her heels, the white sleeve of his dress shirt rolled up to his elbow. I wonder if he even bothered to tuck it in. A sourness coats my taste buds at the image, and whether I want to or not, I superimpose my dad in the same position, of leaving some woman’s house who isn’t my mom after having . . .

  They hold on to each other in the way people in love linger, only this . . . it isn’t love. It’s a scandal. It’s four in the afternoon, and I’ve seen way too much.

  The truck’s brake lights go dark again so I duck low in my seat, completely hidden. There’s nothing more to see. Now, it’s only time to wait. I’m tempted to sit up tall enough to catch Mr. Fuller’s face as he drives away, but I don’t know what I’d do if he saw me. I’m already sitting in a car he could recognize. If he sees me here, I’ll be living with more than knowing this secret, I’ll be living with knowing that he knows I know.

  That’s messy.

  Messier.

  I feel sick.

  The truck’s engine fades into the distance, the familiar turn up ahead signaled by the change in gears just before I hear nothing. I can’t fathom Tory’s mom hanging around the front of the house in the thinnest, shortest T-shirt in the world, but maybe she is, so I stay hunkered down for almost a full three minutes. I lift myself up slowly, my legs cramping from the awkward position, and I rub at my knees and thighs as I get up high enough to scan my surroundings.

  The street is quiet. The house is quiet. I glance to my right, to the seat where my school papers are splayed out with Tory’s on top. He doesn’t really care about any of this. And he won’t do anything with them if I give them to him. I promised Mr. Newsome, but really, what do I owe that guy?

  I might be tipping the scale in the direction I want, but who cares? I crank the engine, thank every god I’m aware of that it starts, and drive home the long way so I don’t have to turn around and risk being noticed.

  I told Abby I would be over today, but all I want to do is hide and figure out how to emotionally sort this new baggage. I want to donate this baggage; give it away. It’s not mine, yet here it is, taking up my mental space!

  I can’t stop diving into my life of two years ago, my dad explaining to me that sometimes people grow apart while my mother sobbed and slammed doors upstairs. His quick departure. His quick engagement. How young the other woman is. How disappointing my father had become. How much it hurt to go through. It would hurt Lucas, learning this. He wouldn’t believe me because, well, we don’t talk. But eventually, he would have to.

  I . . . could hurt him with this.

  I shake my head, hating the satisfying feeling that thought leaves etched in my chest. This is not the person I am.

  My trip home isn’t long enough, and the punk music I turn up loud enough that my nearly dead speakers buzz doesn’t do shit to distract me from processing all of this. I’m not stupid—people cheat on other people all the time. My father included. But that was my life crisis. I had no choice but to suck it up and push through to the other side. Seeing Lucas’s dad having an affair forces a choice on me like a ton of falling bricks. It’s this heavy wet blanket that suffocates me. I have a choice: tell Lucas, or keep this to myself and try to simply forget. It’s that I know why I would be telling him that eats at me. I would be telling him to watch him go through everything I did. And then I’d step back and watch him do it alone.

  He and I aren’t friends. We don’t talk, though I will see him every day for the next several months. If I tell him, he probably won’t believe me, and he’ll hate me for being the bearer of the news.

  Nobody knows what I saw. I’m the only one who has to live with this. If it ever comes out some other way, the fact I kept this secret won’t be relevant. Nobody will care, because I am nothing to Lucas Fuller. He said as much. He has his life, and I have mine.

  Resolved, I pull into my driveway and put my car in park without even a glance at the house to the left. Kicking the drip pan under my car, I purposely walk sideways, avoiding any temptation to check the other driveway, to inspect the garage, or to change my mind. I move to my passenger side and grab my papers from the seat, taking Tory’s too. I’ll just buy two of everything and set him up with supplies for the semester. I’ll pick up a shift at the bowling alley to cover the cost.

  I make it to our garage door, to the keypad, type in my birthday followed by my mom’s, and duck to get inside faster. Mom is out with the van, so I halt for a moment in the center of the garage, giving myself one more chance to weigh my options. My gaze lands on the extra remote taped to the wall with Velcro. The higher the garage door rises, the more defined the remote becomes thanks to the light. What are the odds? Me and the D’Angelos have the same goddamn garage opener.

  I blink at it once then curl my right hand into a fist, the memory of the one Lucas handed me vivid in my memory—that night, the look on his face, playing in my head like a hi-def movie. I push aside the temptation to retaliate, hurt for hurt, and leave the burden of what I witnessed behind me on the garage floor. Then I march forward and slap my hand on the remote to close it off behind me. I push through the door and head straight to the stairs, not bothering to stop in my room before stripping away my clothes and turning on the hot water for a shower. I’m numb as I step under the falling spray, and don’t really want to clean anything. I just want to stand here for a while and think, or rather try not to think. It’s inevitable, though. As small as my world feels sometimes, right now, the box is closing in. I heave a sob—just one—and press my palms into my eyes. I tilt my head back to let the water wash away any evidence along with the renewed rage I have for my dad. Opening my mouth to let water fill the space, I test my voice in case I need to scream. The urge is gone, so I right my head and spit the warm water out.

  Football practice isn’t over until 6:30. I could go out for my supplies and be back without ever having to see anyone from that house about a hundred feet to the west of me. My body is listless, though, so with a towel wrapped around my hair and another wrapped around my body, I pad out the door, leaving steamy footprints on the wood floor.

  There’s this strange pain in my heart that holds me to the bed. I want to see him. Both of them—Lucas and his dad. I’m not sure why. Whatever the reason, I don’t think it says anything good about me.

  She started calling about forty minutes ago, and eighty-one missed calls means I probably slept through a lot of vibrations on my phone. Amazing, since it’s stuck to my face. My head aches from the pull of the towel still wrapped around my damp hair. The towel on my body is still loosely held in place. I catch Abby’s current call right before she hangs up (no doubt only to try again).

  “Yeah, I know. Sorry.” I’ve learned that it’s better to head her lectures off at the pass. I sit up and unwrap my hair to relieve the pressure and see what kind of mess I’ve made.

  “You know, I thought you were dead.” She’s exaggerating—by a lot. She must need something.

  “Surprise! I’m not,” I say, clutching my towel together at my chest while I drag my body and the discarded wet one from my head back to the bathroom. “I think I figured out how to make beachy waves, though.”

  Combing through my hair with my fingertips, I wait for the big ask that has to be coming any minute now. After several seconds of silence, I stop noodling with my head and hold my phone out to see if Abby hung up.

  “You there?”

  “Yeah, I’m waiting. Beachy waves,” she says, annoyed I haven’t told her yet.

  I cough out a short laugh and go back to pushing around loose hairs. My head is still super wet, but maybe an entire night in the towel would do the trick.

  “I was kidding, sort of. I slept in a towel,” I say.

  “Oh. Well that’s not a very big breakthrough. Look, I need you to do me a favor.” And there it is.

  “Sure,” I agree. This is a mistake.

  “Awesome. So Friday, after the game, we’re going to this place off the Interstate about fifteen miles or so. The road is dirt, so if your mom will let you take the van—”

  “Hold up,” I break in, snapping out of the beachy waves trance to realize the details of what she’s signing me up for. “No more parties. I did a party.”

  “June, you barely did a party. And senior year is not a single-item checklist,” she says.

  “Yes, it is.” I’m quick. “And that last party was pretty close to a low point.”

  “Ha, no way,” she says. “I refuse to let you diminish what you achieved.”

  My friend is moving around while she talks, and sometimes her face muffles her words, but I get the gist of her argument from a few keywords—“stood up to her” and “made friends.”

  “I made some enemies too,” I argue. I’m being contrary, but I also just woke up and everything from a few hours ago is resurfacing in my thought pool.

  “You already had those enemies, so nothing new. Now, Friday. Do you want to pick me up and drive us to the game? Naomi and Lola are in too, and there’s a lot of room in the van. That way we can go right to the creek—”

  “Abby!” As if shouting her name has ever gotten her to give up a fight.

  The line is silent for a few seconds. I finally accept that she is not going to give in and I am going to another party.

  “You know minivans aren’t off-road vehicles, right?” I wait through more silence from her, finally giving in with a sigh. “Yeah . . . I’ll pick you up before the game.”

  “Stellar. Okay, see you in the morning.” She ends the call without giving me a chance to reverse course.

  The smell of burnt tomato is carrying upstairs, which means my mom must be home and attempting to cook. My dad was a griller. He still is, I guess, for another woman and kid in Florida. When he left, he took everything remotely culinary with him, which was fine because mom and I really only know how to make sandwiches and heat things up. Over the last year, though, Mom has been ambitious, with little to no improvement on her cooking skills.

  I drop my towel and slide into my favorite sweats and long-sleeved T-shirt, then stop in my room to put on some flipflops and grab my keys and wallet. I have my supplies list memorized, so I leave the papers behind and rush down the stairs in time to move the pot from the burner before marinara sauce bubbles through the lid.

  “Mom! You ruined dinner . . . again!” It’s not a mean thing to say. It’s a common thing to say.

  “Damn it! Sorry!” My mom’s voice is faint through the garage door.

  I turn the burner off and note the still water in the pot she never turned on, curling my lips on the right side in amusement as I shake my head. A thud against the garage door pulls my attention away, so I leave the burnt sauce to cool and open the door for my mom, her arms weighed down with two cases of water. I take one from her and plop it on the counter just inside.