Made for You (13 page)

“Okay . . . I’ll just say that you needed space because of the accident,” Robert adds. “We’re friends, and then maybe if you change your mind—”

“Good-bye, Robert.” I close my eyes for a moment, and then raise my voice to say, “Mom? Can you help me upstairs? Robert is leaving.” I look at him and add, “Now.”

He leaves before she arrives. When Mom comes into the room, I say with as little emotion as I can manage, “Robert won’t be around anymore, Mom. We broke up.”

She puts her hand to her chest as she lets out a little gasp. “Just now? His mother told Jillian Dawson that he was with you every day at the hospital. We took comfort in that.”

“He lied.”

“Oh.” She folds her hands together and waits.

“He cheated on me,” I say, trying not to let my guilt and anger show. It’s ridiculous that I feel guilt at all. It’s not like it’s my fault he cheated, but I still feel it. It’s like this idea that maybe if I’d done something different, he wouldn’t have cheated. I know it’s not true, but logic isn’t the same as emotion. Pushing my guilt away, I add, “He was cheating, and that’s where he was the night of the accident—with her.”

“Oh, baby!” She’s off the chair and beside me in a blink.

I reach out to wrap an arm around her before she can touch me, avoiding the risk of falling into another hallucination.

She’s expecting tears, but this time I’m not crying. I did that already, and I refuse to cry over Robert again. I rest my head on my mother’s shoulder, and I feel an unexpected comfort at being hugged.

When she pulls back, she’s wearing her Intense Focus expression, the one that scares people into agreeing with her or donating to her cause du jour. “I’m going to call Celeste right now. She needs to know what her boy did.”

“No.” I catch her hand in mine and squeeze. “The other girl doesn’t deserve this. She’s . . . not someone Mrs. Baucom would approve of.”

My mother’s stern expression softens. “You’re nicer than I ever was. If your father had cheated on me, I’d be damned if I’d let him hide his shame.”

Hearing my mother cuss always amuses me. She does it so rarely that it makes me smile every single time it happens. “It’s not about him. It’s about me and about her,” I clarify. “Everyone’s already going to be looking at me because of the accident. I don’t want more attention.”

After a moment, she nods, and I loosen my grip on her hand.

She doesn’t remove her hand from mine. “I won’t tell Celeste he cheated, but I won’t lie and say he visited at the hospital”—she reaches out with her other hand and cups my face gently—“and neither should you.” Then she stands, affixes a smile, and says, “How about I get you something to eat? I had LeeAnn make up a bunch of your favorites. She left a fruit salad and a tossed salad, too.”

Our cook, LeeAnn, comes in twice a week and makes a series of meals that are then labeled and stacked in the fridge. It’s like having fresh home-cooked meals, and my mother seems to enjoy the illusion that she prepares them because she
does
put them in the oven or microwave herself. Plus, with LeeAnn doing the cooking the meals are healthier and tastier. My mother has the ability to tackle a lot of things, but cooking has never been one of her skills.

“Fruit salad sounds good.”

She leaves and heads to the kitchen, and I can’t resist the urge to text Grace immediately. I give her the quick rundown. “Robert slept with Amy. Broke up with him just now.”

“Want me to beat him up?”

I smile and reply, “Let me think about it.”

“Love you.”

“You too.” I don’t know how a few short texts can make me feel so much better, but they do. Everything is less overwhelming with a good friend on my side.

DAY 11: “THE LIES”

Grace

I
TRY NOT TO
obsess over Eva’s texts from this morning, but it’s hard when I see Robert slinking through the hall with Reid and Jamie. Robert looks less arrogant than usual, or maybe that’s just wishful thinking on my part. Nate is watching them, too. I shove my history book into my locker and force myself not to speak or look at them.

“Yeung,” Reid says as they pass.

Robert, of course, says nothing to me, and Jamie doesn’t seem bright enough to initiate conversation unless there’s a keg, a drunk girl, and a dark corner. Then, he’ll nod and mutter, “Want to?” Sickeningly, it seems to work for him.

I pull out my Spanish book and look at Nate again. Eva texted that she and Robert broke up, and from the way Nate is watching Robert—and the way Robert doesn’t notice—I’ve already figured out that Robert is unaware of Eva’s renewed friendship with Nate. What I can’t decide is whether Nate’s anger at Robert is because he’s crushing on Eva and upset that she’s hurt, or if he knows about the breakup already.

“My dad said that Micki’s death and Eva’s accident had to be caused by the same person,” Piper says as she walks up to my locker with several of the others. They murmur a mix of greetings in my general direction.

“It’s possible, I guess,” I say. The idea isn’t too much of a stretch: two teen girls from Jessup in car accidents with no witnesses? It’s a little too coincidental.

“What does Eva think?” Piper doesn’t add “because that’s what we will think too,” but I know that’s her motivation. Half the girls in our class seem to share DNA with parrots. The other half smile and nod. I suspect they have opinions, but Jessup isn’t a hotbed of independent thought.

“We haven’t really talked about Micki,” I tell them.

“Will she be home by the funeral?” Jessica Greer, one of the Piper-ettes, asks.

The others watch. Laurel Dawson and Bailey Owens whisper to each other, but they’re as likely to be talking about this as shoes. CeCe Watkins seems utterly unconcerned by the drama, but she is still waiting for my answer like the others are.

“I’m not sure,” I say. I don’t want them to know Eva is home in case she isn’t ready for a deluge of visitors. “She’s doing a lot better, but . . . we haven’t talked about it.”

“I’ll ask Robert,” Piper says. “I know he’s been visiting her during the week. His mother was complaining about how much time he’s spent there. She thinks he blames himself because he had a flat that night.”

My mouth opens as I turn to stare at her, wondering what to say. Jessica and Bailey both nod, mutely agreeing with Piper.

“She’s lucky.” Piper pushes off the lockers and quickly amends, “I mean, she’s not
lucky
because the accident was just horrible, but she’s lucky you both care about her so much.”

“Right.” I nod my head.

I see Nate standing nearby. He’s staring at the girls, and I realize he must have heard Piper’s remarks. “I’ll catch you later,” I murmur, and then call out, “Hey, Nate?”

He meets my gaze, and I concentrate on looking at him instead of letting my attention drift to Piper or the other now wide-eyed girls. I’m not worried about being seen talking to him. I’ve never been under him, and I have
no
intention of changing that, especially since it’s obvious that Eva has a thing for him. When I’m standing directly in front of him, I ask quietly, “Did you hear them?”

He tips his head slightly and then glances at Piper. “You probably shouldn’t stand here too long.”

“Because the Piper-ettes will think I’m chasing you?”

He nods once.

“I’m not a sycophant, so I’m not particularly concerned about what they think.”

Unexpectedly, he laughs, and for a moment, I get why Eva and half the girls in school look at him like he’s a god. He’s beautiful when he laughs. He’s still an emotional train wreck, but at least he’s an attractive disaster.

“You’re certainly a step up from the asshat.”

“We’re just friends,” he says quickly.

“You and the asshat?”

Nate rolls his eyes. “You’re about as funny as she is.”

“You want funny? Watch this.” I hook my arm through his. “Walk with me to our exam.”

Once we pass the gossips, Nate looks down at me. “That’s your idea of funny? Your reputation—”

“Will be just fine,” I interrupt.

“You don’t know what they can be like,” he says in a low voice. “Amy Crowne used to be one of Piper’s friends. I grew up with them. It doesn’t take a minute to end up worth no more than the muck on the bottom of their shoes.”

I’m a little shocked to get a glimpse of the person Eva sees. He’s trying to protect me, but I don’t think he realizes how much he’s sharing. He was one of them. Now they don’t even talk to him. Whether he says it outright or not, there’s bitterness there.

“I don’t care if they ignore me,” I admit just as quietly. “I’m only around them because Eva’s my friend. Soon I’ll be applying to college, and then I’ll be gone, and none of these people will be anything but vague memories.”

I release his arm as we walk into the room.

“The joy of not being a native Jessupite,” he says, softening the bite of his tone with a quick smile.

I watch him stalk to his seat and drop into it. The girls who aren’t looking at him are staring at me with blatant curiosity on their faces.

Reid and Jamie look at me and then at Nate. He glares at them and very pointedly doesn’t look at me at all. Everyone is tense after Eva’s accident and Micki’s death. I can’t imagine that’s going to get any better once they hear about Eva’s renewed friendship with Nate and her breakup with Robert.

DAY 11: “THE JOB”

Eva

I
’M STARTLED WHEN THE
doorbell rings, and nervous when I hear Nate’s voice. The awkwardness of my mother talking to Nate is enough to make me want to cringe, but he’s here, and there’s no way around it.

“How are your parents, Nathaniel?” she asks as they walk into the room.

“Mom’s doing fine,” he says.

“And your father?”

“I have no idea.” Nate shrugs. “I guess he’s alive. He sends child support for my brother; that’s all I care about where he’s concerned.”

I’m sure my mother is flipping through her copious mental files to recall details about the Bouchet family. I’m not sure if Nate meant to lead the conversation into awkward areas, or if he simply didn’t steer away from them. I’m almost sure he wasn’t aiming to be confrontational, but as I watch him, I realize I might be wrong. His body is tensed for conflict.

“His father has another child, a little boy named Aaron,” I supply helpfully.

My mother hears the unspoken words—that there is a different mother—and I can see the moment where she recalls the cause of the Bouchet divorce. She smiles politely at Nate and lets the subject drop.

“Can I get you anything to drink or eat? I was just going to bring some snacks in for Eva.”

“Do you need a hand?”

“No.” She pats his shoulder in that weirdly faux-affectionate way of women far older than she is and motions toward the chair across from my uncomfortable sofa. “Have a seat and visit with Eva. If you tell me what you’d like, I’ll bring it in with hers. I was getting her some fruit salad, but there are sandwich fixings, too.”

“I just ate, but thank you.”

My mother nods. “What would you like to drink? I have sweet tea, sodas, juice, and milk.”

Like any properly raised Southern boy, Nate knows not to refuse again. The first refusal is how one says “no need to go bothering over me,” but a complete refusal would be an insult. He smiles at her and says, “A glass of water would be great if you don’t mind.”

“Lemon?”

“Whatever’s easiest,” he replies.

She nods and leaves us there. We’re both silent as her heels click across the floor. There’s an elegance to the way she moves that even seems to permeate the sound of her footsteps. I’ll never be like her, but I think she’s mostly come to accept that truth.

Nate sits quietly across from me. “Are you okay?”

I debate how much to tell him. “I broke up with Robert this morning because he was cheating on me. That’s why he wasn’t there the night of the accident.”

I look up and meet Nate’s eyes. He’s staring at me, and I see the temper he had when we were kids. The two of us were both short-fused then, but I know that he’s made as much progress as I have on that front. Right now, however, he looks like that progress is about to slip away.

“I’m okay,” I add.

“Did I mention how much he didn’t deserve you?” Nate asks. “I’m sorry though. Cheating is . . . my dad cheated on Mom
and
on Nora. I don’t get it. Baucom will figure out that this other girl isn’t worth even half of your little finger.”

“She’s not all bad, but he’s not dating her either.” I decide not to tell him outright that the girl is Amy. She has been treated as unfairly as I have. All I say is, “She’s not the sort of girl one dates, apparently.”

“I reserve the right to veto any future boyfriend choices, Eva.” He frowns again. “Actually, I can’t think of anyone in Jessup good enough for you. We may just need to veto dating in general.”

“And here I was thinking that my father might have issue with us hanging out. You keep saying things like that, and Dad will be thrilled to hear that we’re friends again.” I smile at him. “I expected a little more rule-breaking and trouble-making. I’m starting to suspect that all the stories about you are lies.”

He swallows, looks down, and then quietly says, “Sorry to disappoint you, but most of the rumors are very true, Eva.”

I blush, thinking of the things I’ve heard.

“I was a stupid drunk. I got into too many fights and accepted ridiculous dares,
but
I stopped drinking when I figured out that I wasn’t going to be able to be here for Aaron if I kept partying.”

“I was teasing,” I say cautiously. “I didn’t mean . . . I’m sorry.”

He shrugs. “Sore subject, I guess.”

“There seem to be a lot of those.”

“Still worth the friendship?”

“Definitely.”

He nods and leans back into the chair as if he’s going to find a more comfortable position by moving. I don’t have the heart to tell him it’s impossible. The furniture here isn’t designed for comfort.

“I saw Grace this morning,” he says after a moment. “She talked to me . . . in front of Piper. I tried to tell her that she shouldn’t, but she hooked her arm through mine and paraded down the hall like she was escorting her prize hog to the state fair. I’m expecting to be blue-ribboned any minute now.”