He made me listen.
He made me look at him through eyes that blurred his features.
“I thought she told you. All this time I thought you knew, that she’d explained before she left.” He squeezed his eyes shut in a grimace before opening them again. “How could you stand to look at me thinking… Jill…?”
By clinging to some things like they were oxygen and shoving others so far away that I could almost pretend they didn’t exist. Because Sean was both. He was what I needed and what I couldn’t stand all at once. I loved him and I didn’t. Both. Completely. I had no idea what I was doing with him, only that I couldn’t do it anymore.
“She didn’t say a word to me after you left. Nothing.”
Sean let his head drop. “Jill. Why do you think I stopped going to your house before that? Did you even notice? I wouldn’t even go inside. We’d meet at the shop, or Claire would pick you up. That night I tried to pick you up at the shop, but you sent me away so I timed it out so that I would get to your house right after you, so I wouldn’t be alone with your mom.”
This was already worse than not knowing. He didn’t trust himself to be alone with my mom. I was going to be sick.
“Your mom… That wasn’t the first time that she did something like that.”
The sob I kept locked inside forced my chin up as it tried to break free. I blinked so fast that the swing set across from me flickered in and out of existence. If I trusted my voice I would have begged him not to say any more.Please don’t make me imagine any more. If there were other nights that I didn’t walk in on…My body shook like it was caving in on itself.
Sean reached for my hand and I tore it free, wrapping my arms tightly around myself. I stopped blinking and squeezed my eyes shut, praying he’d leave before I had to open them again. Praying I’d never have to see either one of them ever again.
“I’m not leaving this time.” He stood but lowered himself to the ground in front of me. He’d be the first thing I saw when I opened my eyes. That would hurt. Even the sound of his voice hurt.
“Jill. You know me. Think. I would never do anything like this to you. Never.Never.”
But he did. He had. The loop was back. Mom whispering in his ear, lips moving closer as her hand slipped to the button on his shirt. Only this time I didn’t interrupt them. The button popped free, and the next, and the next. Her hand on his thigh…
Sean’s words cut through the rushing in my ears. “Tell me. Have I ever flirted with your mom or hugged her or even smiled at her the way I smile at you? Jill, tell me.”
The insistent tone in his voice forced my eyes open, forced me to flip back though all the memories I had of Sean and Mom. Sean and me sitting on the floor in my living room watching movies and Mom joining us with popcorn, all the nights she asked him to stay for dinner, or offered to drive him home when it got too dark to bike home before he had the Jetta. A million other mundane memories. But nothing I could point to as flirting. At all.
In fact, on movie nights I remembered him jumping up to get us pops as soon as she sat down next to him, and when he came back he’d sit on my other side, the one farthest from her.
He almost never stayed for dinner and never at all on nights Dad worked late. I’d always thought it was because his own mom was such a good cook.
And before he got his license, even on nights when I had hours of homework ahead of me, he’d cajole me into riding along when Mom drove him home. Every time.
He saw when I came up blank, when the sob no longer battled to escape but started to sink down. There was nothing. I let the loop play again, watching him, watching Sean, and not Mom. The way he sat, the white-knuckle grip of his hands, the furrow of his eyebrows. He wasn’t touching her. He wasn’t looking at her. He had looked like he wanted to leap out of his skin. I’d been agonizing over the fact that he hadn’t left until I showed up, but I’d watched her hand move to touch his leg as she leaned in. If I’d waited another second before dropping my bag, what would I have seen? In my weakest moments, it was another button on his shirt opening. But Sean, and all my own memories, said no. Said never.
I searched his face. I wanted to believe him. I wanted it more than I wanted my next breath.
Sean drew back and dropped his head. “Your mom was really unhappy. I know you knew that, but I never told you about any of the other stuff. It wasn’t anything huge, little stuff. Like wanting me to taste a sauce she cooked, but she wouldn’t have any clean spoons. Or walking out in a towel and saying she forgot I was there. Then she’d say things…things that could have been innocent, but didn’t feel like it. Things she’d never say in front of you or your dad. Sometimes it was comments about your dad. So I tried to stay as far away from her as possible. And I did, until that night. You said you were going to be home by seven so I got there at a quarter after. You weren’t there yet, so I was going to wait in the car, but your mom saw me through the window and waved me in. Jill, I never would have gone inside if I didn’t think you were gonna be there any minute, never. And I swear I was going to bolt out that front door if you hadn’t shown up then. I swear it.”
There was a ferocity behind his words that was almost scary. He was as desperate to be believed as I was to believe him.
And I did. Suddenly, like a lightning strike, I did. And it was easy. It fit in a way all the fear and the dread never had. In that moment all my doubt vanished. I was blinking at him. His face becoming clearer each time. Until I could see all of him.
And Sean saw me too. “You gonna make me say it?”
I shook my head. I didn’t need him to. I truly didn’t.
“I never came close to kissing her. Never.”
“I know.” Those two words strung together left my tongue carrying a weight so great that its absence left me feeling like I would float away. I smiled at Sean, the first real smile I’d given him in months.
“So where does that leave us?”
CHAPTER 40
Sitting next to Sean on the merry-go-round made me realize how long it’d been since I’d counted the inches that separated our fingers. How long since I’d tried to number the flecks of silver that shot through his eyes.
