“Oh, yeah.” I laugh softly, remembering.
The corners of Ethan’s lips turn up a little. “And it fell because he was doing that thing fromSaturday Night Live.”
“Yeah, yeah! The Chris Farley thing, the—” We both say the line at the same time. “You’ll beliving in a van down by the river!”
We laugh together. I’m glad to see that Ethan has the same laugh and the same smile. At least that hasn’t changed. Seeing it for the first time since we started this trip makes the blood in my veins feel warmer, makes my heart do a little hiccup. Seeing him laugh and smile was beautiful back then. It’s just as beautiful now.
I’d missed him so much. I almost say so, but after the laughter fades, we fall quiet again.
I mess with the corner of a napkin. He takes a sip of his coffee.
Then I reach into my coat pocket for the photograph, the one I took of us on the rocks at Black River. I push it across the table toward him.
He sees it, slowly setting down his mug. He glances up at me, then picks it up and stares at it.
“I’ve got more in the car,” I say. “Some of Everett I thought that you and your parents would like to have.” I pause for a second. “But most of them are of you. Like a lot of them are of you, actually.”
He looks up from the photo at me.
“I guess I thought maybe you’d want to see them.”
He sets the photo down and turns toward the window again. I wait for him to say something, but he doesn’t.
“It’s weird how it feels like forever ago,” I say eventually. “But it also doesn’t.”
Ethan glances at me again. “Does five years seem like a long time to you?”
I take a sip of coffee. “In one way, yes. In another way, no.”
“What’s the yes way?” He watches me carefully.
“The yes way is because I had a kid to raise. While everybody we went to school with was leaving town, going to better and bigger places, it was like I was getting left behind. Then my grandpa went into a hospice…” I pause there for a moment or two. “It’s like a lot happened. In that little space of time. That’s what makes it seem so long.”
“And you ignored people,” Ethan mumbles. “So, there’s that.”
I shift uncomfortably in the booth. I push my plate away from me. “You said you don’t want to hear any apologies or my side of it, so…”
“Because it’s bullshit.”
“It’s not.”
“It is.”
“It’snot,Ethan.”
He crosses his arms, looks away.
“I don’t know how tobeany sorrier,” I say. “And there’s a lot you don’t know. I wish you’d let me tell you.”
I see his jaw working. He puts his coat on, dumps a wad of cash on the table, and snatches up the photo. He slides out of the booth. “We need to get going.”
I slide out of the booth and follow him. “Do you not want to hear it because you’re afraid you might be wrong about me?”
When we get outside, there are fat snowflakes falling on the sidewalk. Ethan spins around in them, getting in my face. “What do you fucking mean beingwrongabout you?You seriously think there’s an excuse for what you did?”
“I didn’t say an excuse, but you don’t know the whole story. You don’t know my side of things. You justthinkyou know.”
“I don’t care.” His eyes look like two gray stones. “I don’t fuckingcare, Shane. It doesn’t matter at all, because ithappened. Telling me, five years later, what you werefeelingwon’t fucking change whathappened.”
