“And there she is,” Sasha said, in the sweetest voice. “Everyone give her a hand. Come on up and accept your award, Lily.”
I did go up, because I wanted my notebook back, and I wanted to pull Cade out of there and explain everything. But it didn’t happen that way. When I’d climbed the five steps to the stage to the loud applause, Cade was gone.
“You are cruel,” I said to Sasha under my breath. I yanked my notebook out of her hands. “He didn’t deserve that.”
She smiled, pulled me into a hug and whispered. “You both did.”
She wanted me to react. Wanted me to punch her or shove her and have the whole school witness that I was a jerk who treated her poorly after she’d just showered me with praise. Plus, if I acted like this was a big deal, it would turn into a big deal. People would think she’d just exposed something about Cade that she shouldn’t have. I wouldn’t do that to him. So I smiled, said a wobbly “thank you” into the microphone, then walked as quickly as possible off the stage and outside where I searched in vain for Cade.
Over the next thirty minutes I sent him what felt like a hundred texts that all went something like:
She stole my book
I did not enter that into a contest.
I’m sorry.
Where are you?
Can we talk about this?
This was her revenge. You know it was. Please know I did not want this to happen.
He didn’t respond. Not to a single one. It was over. We were over before we’d ever begun.
I rounded the baseball field a second time, hoping he had shown up there sometime between me searching the boys’ locker room and the cafeteria kitchen. Then my phone buzzed. Hope shot through me until I saw the text was from Isabel.
Where are you?
Home plate, I responded, dejected.
She was there in minutes. “Should we beat her up now or later?” Isabel asked, her eyes flashing.
I pressed my palms to my temples. “I’m worried about him.”
“Don’t worry about him. He’ll be fine. It was a really good song, by the way. Everyone was talking about it.”
A small surge of pride went through me, the same one I had felt for a split second while standing in the middle of that gym, my words filling it. I pushed the feeling back down.
“Isabel,” I said, my voice breaking. “He’s kept this a huge secret and now the entire school knows because of me and my stupid lyrics.”
“Not because of you. Because of Sasha.”
“I should’ve never written about his life in the first place.”
“He stuck those notes all about his life under a desk!” Isabel pointed out. “Anybody could’ve gotten ahold of them. You could’ve been anyone, Lily, not you. Not kind, loyal, trustworthy you. He got lucky. This could’ve happened to him weeks ago because of his own doing.”
“But it didn’t. It happened now because of me.”
“Well, go explain that to him.”
I looked at my phone again. “He won’t answer me.”
“Then go find him.” She dug her keys out of her pocket and held them out for me. “I’ll have Gabriel pick me up.”
I didn’t hesitate. I grabbed the keys, hugged Isabel, and took off running.
I had been everywhere. Cade’s house, the kids’ baseball field at the park, In-N-Out, along with every other fast food restaurant I had ever seen him at in the past, as well as the ones where I hadn’t … he wasn’t anywhere. I was now just driving, looking around. Because he was obviously somewhere and it killed me that apparently I didn’t know him well enough to know where that somewhere was.
School was long out by now. I’d texted my sister earlier not to pick me up. Had he gone back to school for practice? Did he go somewhere to think? I drove home. Maybe he’d gone to my house. He liked my house.
His car wasn’t in front when I pulled up, but I checked all the rooms and backyard anyway. He wasn’t here. I didn’t know why I thought he’d come running to me when I was the person he was quite obviously running from right now.
I dropped Isabel’s car keys on the floor in my bedroom and collapsed onto my bed, not sure what to do at this point. Just wait for him to text me? I felt like there’d been too much waiting when it came to the two of us and I wasn’t sure we’d survive another session of it.
Wyatt’s head appeared around my partially open door. “Hi.”
“Hey.”
“Can I talk to you?” He inched his way into my room, but lingered by the door.
“Sure, come in.” I scooted over on the bed, still on my back, and patted the space next to me. My brother joined me there, lying next to me, staring at the ceiling. When he didn’t say anything I asked, “What’s going on?”
“I hope you don’t hate me.”
I propped myself up on my elbows, worried now. “I don’t hate you. What happened?”
He couldn’t look at me. He stared hard at the ceiling like it wasn’t just an empty white expanse. Like it might actually be telling him something. Judging him. Finally, he spit out, “I was the one who broke your guitar. I’m sorry.”
I sighed and let myself fall back again.
“You hate me now.”
“No, I don’t hate you. I could never hate you. I’m tired. I’ve just had a long day.”
“You’re not mad?”
I was mad and sad and frustrated and feeling very guilty for having blamed Jonah all this time for something he hadn’t done.
“We need to apologize to Jonah, don’t you think?”
“Yes.”
“Together?” I held up my hand and Wyatt put his against it. His fingers were nearly as long as mine. When had that happened? “How did you break it, anyway?” Maybe I shouldn’t have asked. The story might only ignite the anger that I didn’t have the energy for right now.
“I fell on it.”
“What? Why was it out of the case?”
Wyatt looked embarrassed. “I wanted to learn how to play … like you.”
I smiled and tousled his hair. “Who taught you the flattery rule?”
“Dad.”
I grabbed him by the arm and helped him off my bed. “Come on. Before you learn how to play, you need to listen to all the music in the world.”
“All of it? That’s a lot.”
“Well, you need to figure out what you like best. First, let’s go talk to Jonah and then I’ll give you a few tracks to start with.”
Wyatt’s foot connected with the keys on the carpet and they flew into the wall with a clunk. He picked them up and held them out for me. “Why do you have Isabel’s car?”
“I had to do something important.”
“Oh. Do you need to go do it?”
I pocketed the keys. “Later. This is important, too.”
I was in the car again. Wyatt and I had apologized to Jonah. I’d found a few perfect songs for Wyatt. And I’d written Cade a letter. It was all I could think of to do. Now I was going to drop the letter off at his house.
It was a letter that talked about how sorry I was and how all these years I’d misjudged him. How I understood why he’d acted like he had at his birthday party—he’d been waiting for his dad to call and was hurt when he hadn’t. I understood why he tried to help other people when he thought they were hurting by diverting attention, by making people laugh, because that’s how he dealt with his problems. I ended the letter by telling him that I wasn’t going to walk away from him. He couldn’t get rid of me this easily.