“Why would I call him Dumbledore?”
Gravely, he said, “You’ll want to know that I told you not to. It’s like telling someone not to think about a pink elephant. All you can picture is a pink elephant.”
“Then why tell me?”
“I like to mess with you.”
And for an instant, I thought,Maybe things can be normal.But before I could think up some witty response, Liam stomped on the gas.
Spinning the wheel, he squealed around a turn, and I slid against the car door. And then he spun the wheel the other way, and I slid back. Unfortunately, the road from our house has a lot of turns. Fortunately, it wasn’t winter, so I didn’t have to worry about Liam hitting any ice. It was barely spring, and the leaves on the trees were curled up, about to pop open into proper leaves. Stubborn patches of old snow still stuck to the sides of rocks. They were pocked with dirt and barely resembled snow. Looked more like dryer lint.
By the time we reached downtown Aspen, there were no more traces of snow, and I felt vaguely nauseous, which I suspected had been Liam’s ploy to keep me from wanting to chat more.
I scanned the street, on the lookout for any of my former friends—we used to hang out downtown together all the time…laughing at not-particularly-funny in-jokes, mocking whatever human TV show we were currently binging, eating nachos, trying (and, in my case, failing) to char the nachos with our fire breath…you know, teen stuff. But I didn’t see anyone I knew.
Liam parked, sliding the car in between two SUVs. When he shut it off, the radio shut off too, and the silence felt loud. “Let me take the lead,” he said.
“Dad already said that.”
“Yeah, but I know how you get. You always think you know best. You don’t. You aren’t as smart as you think you are, Sky.”
I blinked at him. “Ouch.” Where had that come from? I knew he was mad about the fishing line—he’d been the one to trip—but seriously?
Rubbing his eyes, he grimaced as if he wanted me to think he was rude because he was overtired, not because he hated me. “Look, let’s just try to get through this.”
“I didn’t think spending time with me was such awful torture.” Getting out of the car, I told myself that I wasnotupset by anything he said. He was in a bad mood, and he was taking it out on me, because he could. He couldn’t take it out on Charles—Charles would never allow it. Dad was out of the question. And Tuck was Liam’s twin. I was the easiest and safest target. I understood that it wasn’t personal and that he didn’t mean it. Still, I was getting very tired of everyone using me as their dumping ground for whatever excess emotion they were experiencing. I missed Mom too.
I wished for the millionth time that I could call Ryan. In addition to being good at the whole kissing thing, he’d been my best friend. Yes, I’d fallen for my best friend, the nice guy, the one you aren’t supposed to notice but is secretly there all along, except I’d noticed him from the very beginning—it had just taken a while for him to admit he’d noticed me back. He hadn’t wanted to risk ruining our friendship by saying anything, and neither had I.
We both had other friends, obviously—Emma, Emily, Jake, Topher, Rosario, Carlos—but they were more hanging-out-with friends, not share-the-dark-secrets-of-your-soul friends. You don’t get many of those in a lifetime. Ryan was mine.
When we finally kissed for real, though, it hadn’t ruined anything. It had made everything a thousand times better. I knew I’d found the love of my life. My soul mate.
His family had taken that from me—and he’d let them. Straightening, I walked toward the jewelry store. Liam hurried out of the car, beeped the lock, and matched my pace.
“Sorry, Sky. Rough night last night. You didn’t know what we were up to. If any of us had bothered to fill you in, that never would have happened.”
“Yeah, I thought of that.”
“You were supposed to be out.”
“I was. I came back.”
“Why?” he asked.
He sounded genuinely interested, and I wished I could talk to him aboutfeelingsstuff. But even in the best of times, that wasn’t our relationship. I used to talk about feelings with Ryan, and of course with Mom.
I stopped walking.
Of all of us, I’d been closest to Mom. Could that be why…“You know I wasn’t involved, right? Mom never gave me any hint. I don’t know where she’s gone, or why. Or what happened, beyond the fact that whatever she did was so bad that everyone hates us for it.”
Grabbing my arm, Liam propelled me along the sidewalk. He shot glances at the random tourists. “We don’t talk about this out in public.”
“We don’t talk about it at all. Ever. And that’s stupid.”
“Not now, Sky.”
He was right. Even though I desperately wanted to have this conversation, including telling him what an idiot he was for not talking to me, for blaming me, for whatever it was he was feeling toward me, this wasn’t the place. Anyone could overhear the Hawkins kids arguing in the street and leak it to the tabloids.
