Page 85 of People Like Us

I studied him for a moment. Jack always seemed older than the rest of us somehow. Even now, surrounded by streamers and teenagers dancing to bad pop music, he carried himself like somebody already grieving a childhood he didn’t get to have.

“Why don’t you talk to her?” I asked softly.

A sad smile pulled at the corner of his mouth. He looked over at me then, eyes dark and heavy beneath the flashing lights.

“Girls like that don’t want to be friends with people like us, Lola.”

I frowned. “What kind of people are we, Jack?”

His gaze drifted back toward Penelope. For a long moment he didn’t answer.

“People like her are good simply because they are.” His voice stayed low beneath the music. “When nobody’s watching. When it doesn’t earn them anything. Even when nobody would blame them if they weren’t.” He swallowed once. “They’re good. She’s good.”

The words settled strangely inside me. Because Jack sounded envious of goodness the way starving people sounded envious of food.

“And we’re not?” I asked carefully.

He laughed once under his breath, humorless. “We’re just pretending.”

I shifted in my chair, suddenly defensive in a way I couldn’t explain. Maybe because he wasn’t entirely wrong. Maybe because some ugly little part of me knew exactly what he meant. Still, I couldn’t stand hearing him include himself in it.

“Maybe the rest of us,” I said quietly. “Me. Andy. Emily.” I looked at him firmly. “But not you, Jack. You’re the best of us.”

And I meant it.

Jack was the only boy I knew who listened more than he spoke. The only football player at Woodland High who remembered everyone’s birthdays and stayed later than he needed to help the other guys at practice. He could have any girl he wanted, and yet he never so much as looked at another girl before Penelope, because he knew how important it was to keep Emily safe from her parents.

He stared down at his hands for a second like he didn’t know what to do with the compliment. So I added the only thing people in Woodland ever seemed to say when somebody’s life started falling apart.

“I’ve been praying for you.”

Jack sighed through his nose. The gym lights flashed blue across his face, making him look briefly ghostlike.

“What good does praying do if we don’t use the tools God gives us?” he said, exhausted.

Chapter Thirty-Three

When Morgan pulled into her driveway, the house across the street was already alive with the after party. I could see Jack’s truck in the driveway, he and Emily piling out of it. We sat in the darkness until they went inside.

Morgan chewed on her lip for a second, tugging at the neckline of her blue dress, and I could tell she had been itching to take it off all evening. But I could also tell she had something she needed to say to me, and I didn’t want to rush her into it no matter how badly I was aching to go upstairs and see August.

Her bright eyes flickered toward the steps in the garage as if she could read my mind before she let out a heavy sigh and said, “Whatever you do up there tonight is going to change him. I hope you know that, Lola. My brother…he isn’t built like you. He’s as good at ignoring his feelings as he is at hiding them. By which I mean he sucks at it. So, if you’re going to do something…meaningful,”—the corners of her mouth twitched with a grimace she was trying to hold back—“then make sure it means something to you too. Okay?”

I nodded slowly. I wanted to say okay. I wanted to tell her that everything that happened between August and I meant something to me. But I wasn’t sure she would believe me, so instead I hugged her and said, “You look so lovely tonight, Morgan.”

The corners of her mouth dipped down briefly before stretching into a tight smile. “Good night, Lola.” She left me standing in the dim lighting of the garage alone.

I climbed the stairs leading to August’s room slower than I needed to, my pulse pounding hard enough to make my fingertips numb. Every step toward August felt like stepping farther from the version of myself everyone else knew how to love.

When I knocked softly against the door, I heard movement immediately, like he’d been waiting right on the other side of it. The door swung open.

August stood there looking like sin wrapped up neat and pretty enough to pass through church doors unnoticed. His black button-down was tucked carefully into dark slacks, sleeves rolled just enough to expose the veins in his forearms. His combat boots looked freshly cleaned. His hair—newly dyed black—had been combed back from his face, exposing the peak of his cheekbones and the nervous flush already blooming warm beneath his skin.

He wasn’t wearing the usual armor of silver rings and chains. Just one thin band around his left pinky finger.

For a second neither of us spoke, just stood there taking each other in like we might be able to commit it to memory. Then August held out his hand toward me, palm open and waiting.

“You look so beautiful, Lola.” The whispered words landed somewhere dangerous inside me.