Underneath was a little sketch of a convertible peeling away. My throat relaxed and I smiled, recognizing myself behind the wheel.
Dad had told me about the auction weeks ago, and probably again yesterday, but I’d forgotten completely. I’d stayed out till almost dawn with Daniel and slept through my chance to say goodbye. Dad and I hadn’t been apart for more than a day since Mom left, and unless it was self-imposed, solitude was not my friend.
My raging I-didn’t-sleep-nearly-long-enough-last-night headache reasserted itself when I looked outside and saw that Daniel’s Jeep was gone.
Nausea bled through me. He hadn’t meant to tell me—show me—anything about his dad; the streetlight had forced his hand. And even though we stayed together wrapped in shadows until nearly dawn, I couldn’t be sure what the light of day would do to us in his mind.
I knew what it was like when someone discovered horrible things about me. It made me feel like that diseased part was the only thing about me to be seen. Feeling defined by the thing I loathed above all others…it was unbearable. I’d spent an Arizona summer on my roof trying to get away from that feeling.
I had no idea where Daniel went, except away from me.
And I couldn’t even blame him.
Claire hadn’t mandated running on the weekends yet—andyetwas the operative word—but I was willing to do anything that morning if it meant leaching off some of her cheerfulness, like a parasite that couldn’t survive on its own.
“You are not a parasite,” she said, when I called her and shared the comparison. “Plus I just so happen to have a surplus of merriment today and I can’t think of another person I’d like to parasitically donate it to.”
“That is sweet and gross, Claire. Thanks.”
Kind of like Sunsplash, which was where we decided to go.
* * *
Claire bounded out of her house in shorts and a T-shirt with a towel thrown over one shoulder when I pulled up. She swam her hand through the air after she hopped into the passenger seat of Dad’s truck. “Let’s roll.”
When I failed to “roll” so much as an inch forward, Claire flipped up her sunglasses to look at me.
“Headache worse?”
“Yes.” It felt like someone was inside jumping up and down on my eyeballs. “But it’s not the headache.” My drive over to Claire’s had left me with nothing but my thoughts for company and they’d been less than pleasant.
Claire reached over me and shifted the truck into Park, then sat back with her concerned-friend face on—Claire gave really good concerned-friend face—and it was the impetus I needed to spill.
I told her about last night. Everything until Daniel’s scars.
Claire’s expression dissolved into frank disapproval when I got to the night-swimming part, then outright distress at our almost kiss.
“He did not!”
“No, I told you. The light came on so we ran.”
“But he was going to! And you were going to! That is so…really not smart, Jill.” When I let my head fall back against my seat, she continued. “There is something wrong with a twenty-one-year-old kissing a sixteen-year-old. Tell me you know that. And what about Sean?” she added with a note of hurt in her tone.
I completely ignored the Sean comment since, of the three of us, she seemed to be the only one still laboring under that delusion. “Claire. I need you to check the lecture for a minute. Can you please do that?”
“I don’t know. What are you about to say?”
I squeezed my eyes shut.
“I’ll try. Best I can do. But if you want to get a tattoo on your face or something, I’m not going to just sit here and smile.” Claire crossed her arms and leaned back against the window. “I’m never going to be that kind of friend.”
“It’s not a face tattoo.”
“You like him, don’t you?” Claire drew her knees up. “That’s worse than the face tattoo.”
Sliding my hands up to the top of the steering wheel, I sighed. “I like being around him. I like that I can talk to him and not feel…” I hesitated, looking for a word that wouldn’t sound like an insult to Claire, but I came up blank. It wasn’t that I didn’t value her friendship, but it was hard sometimes, all the times, when it came to family stuff. And family stuff had been ALL the stuff for me lately.
Before I could really start to squirm at my inability to communicate, Claire nodded almost to herself.
