“Hey,” I said, slowing as I reached her.
“What?” she snapped.
I ignored the fact that she clearly didn’t want me here and joined her at the wall. We didn’t speak for a while, until I got the courage back up. “You can kiss whoever the fuck you want,” I said finally. “And it’s no one’s business but yours.”
She turned around, surprised. “You don’t think she actually got to me, do you?” she asked with a scoff. “Please. Like I give a crap what anyone thinks about what I do.”
The show was convincing. Except … “I think everyone cares what people think, a little. Even if they don’t want to.”
Suddenly, I was staring at her back again. “Well, you don’t know me very well, then.”
“Guess not. If you really don’t care, then I envy you.”
“Good. You should.”
“If you ever need to talk, though …”
“I don’t.”
“Good,” I said. Well, at least I tried. Maybe I was wrong. For all I knew, Lara hadn’t liked kissing that Renee girl the way I thought she had. It was possible I’d misread her expression at the lunch table just now. But if I hadn’t, then, well … lf I’d had no one to talk to when I was thinking about coming out, I would’ve gone crazy. I didn’t want anyone to go through that if I could help it. Not even Medusa’s distant relative over here.
I got halfway down the hallway when I looked back at Lara. Just in time to see her peeking right back at me.
10
Aunt Linda was taking bad turn after bad turn these days. She seemed to be living in a permanent bad turn, if you asked me. Not that anyone did. They’d stopped telling me things, too. Mostly, I just got ordered to babysit Crista and Dylan while the adults went to sort out adult things. I guessed they thought I couldn’t handle hearing what was going on. Or maybe they thought the less I knew, the less chance I’d accidentally let on to the kids how serious things were. Who knows? Either way, it didn’t matter how much I pressed my parents, they kept me firmly in the dark.
In a weird way, it was a good thing. If no one told me how bad things were, I could still kid myself it was temporary. Just a blip.
Anyway, with my newly contracted role as Crista and Dylan’s guardian from after school until bedtime, I didn’t have much chance to practice bass. Not seriously, anyway. And the guys in Absolution of the Chained were as serious as it came. The others didn’t make mistakes. They didn’t shame me if I slipped up in practice and threw everyone else off, but it was pretty obvious I was the only one who ever did. So I started ditching lunch altogether and holing up in the music room instead, repeating the trickier lines over and over until they became second nature.
One of these lunches in early October, I was so focused on what I was doing that I didn’t hear the door open. It wasn’t until I caught something move out of the corner of my eye that I noticed Will. Seeing someone at all, let alone Will, when I didn’t expect it gave me such a shock I jumped in my seat and swore.
Will raised his eyebrows, amused. “Sorry. I thought you heard me come in.”
Eurgh. He looked particularly good today, and the bar was set high to begin with. He wore this figure-hugging long-sleeved shirt that was somewhere between maroon and plum, with equally tight khaki chinos. On top of that, the sweet, musky smell of his cologne reached me from across the room. The same one he’d worn all summer. If only smells didn’t trigger memories, I might’ve been able to keep my feelings off my face.
I gave my head a little shake like I was an Etch A Sketch and—my face a blank slate again—returned to my bass playing. “What are you doing here?” I asked.
“Juliette told me you were here.”
That traitor. “I can’t imagine why she thought that’s something you should know.”
“I asked her where you’ve been. You disappeared.”
Just keep playing. The instrument is way more interesting than Will could ever be.
He cleared his throat. “I wasn’t sure if it had something to do with me. I can ask the guys to stay away from your table, if it helps.”
I stopped playing. “It has nothing to do with you,” I snapped. “I haven’t been able to practice at home, so I had to get it in somewhere.”
Will dragged over a chair from the wall and sat on it backward, folding his arms on the back. Right. He was settling in, then. Good thing he hadn’t asked for an invitation, because I wouldn’t have given one.
“How come you can’t practice at home?” he asked.
“Crista and Dylan are around every night. Don’t get a chance.”
His face went all soft. “How are they? I miss those kids.”
“They’re fine.” I started playing again. If anything would make it clear I was too busy to talk, this would.
“How’s your aunt?” he asked gently.
I didn’t expect it, but my throat closed over, and my heart started thudding like it was trying to break out of my chest. I could taste bile. My fingers stopped moving on the bass.
Will looked stricken. “Is she … ?”
“She’s alive,” I croaked.
Will studied me. He tended to hold stares a bit longer than most people to begin with, but now it was like he was afraid to blink. He seemed to be cataloguing every one of my skin cells. Like they were telling him what I wouldn’t. “I’m sorry,” he said. He sounded like he meant it.
For a second I thought he was going to get up. To come over to me? Or to leave? He didn’t, though.
I wanted to thank him for caring. I wanted to tell him I hadn’t really told anyone else here about Aunt Linda, because I didn’t want them to feel uncomfortable. I wanted to ask him to hug me and convince me it’d be okay. “Be careful,” I said instead. “Someone might see you in here alone with me. Who knows what they’d think.”
Will shrugged one shoulder. “I doubt it. No one ever comes down here. We’ll be fine.”
Wrong answer. My skin prickled cold again, and I returned to the guitar.
Will sighed. “I can’t stand how things have been between us. I’m sorry for how I acted at the party that night. I am. Tell me how I can make it up to you and I’ll do it.” Honestly, if he thought I was still angry about the party, he was too far behind to get why I was pissed now. Besides, I shouldn’t have to ask him to stop being ashamed of me. If I had to beg for him to acknowledge me in the hallways, it wouldn’t mean shit if he eventually did. It had to come from him, or else what was the point?
“Everything’s fine,” I said. “Whatever. I came here to practice, so I’m trying to focus on that.”
Will nodded carefully, and all at once I wanted to take it back. No. Don’t leave. Say something that’ll make me cave. Say something to convince me I shouldn’t be hurt anymore. “I’ll leave you to practice, then,” he said instead. My shoulders slumped. I shouldn’t have expected anything different. I’d insisted he go away, after all. “If you wanna practice at night anytime, though, bring the kids over. Kane still remembers them, and I’m sure he’d love to play with them. You can use our basement, or my room. You can be alone, if you want.”