“Just that you have to go through this. That I can’t help you.”
“You help every day,” he murmured, then found my hands with his and twined our fingers together, holding them between us.
“Do you want to lie down for a minute?” I asked, and he nodded.
We lay on my bed in the dark for a long time that night, Oliver’s head on my shoulder and my legs tangled with his. Once the lights were out, I raised the blinds again so we could see out the window. It was a full moon that night and its light cast through the room, throwing blue shadows against my desk, my clothes, my bed.
Oliver was quiet next to me, his fingertips stroking up and down my arm. “Can I tell you something?”
“It’s a little late to start asking that question,” I teased him, but I kept my arms tight around him. “You can tell me anything, you know that.”
“Remember last night when we were outside with Drew and he was saying that he was jealous of me?” Oliver paused for a few seconds. “The truth is that I was jealous of him, too.”
“Why?” I asked him.
“That night at the party. He had this huge house and the fact that his parents are married and he has this cool older brother that’s, like, always there for him. I thought he had it so easy. And plus, he’s known you all these years and I haven’t. He got to spend all that time with you.” Oliver shifted a little against me and I could feel his chest tighten. “You don’t think I should go see my dad, do you?”
“No,” I whispered back. “But that’s just because I’m scared.”
“Why are you scared?”
I looked at him, trying to be brave. “Because I’m scared you’ll leave with your dad and I won’t know where you are again.”
“I wouldn’t do that,” he said, and he kissed me as if to ground himself, to prove that he would stay. “I would never do that.”
“And I’m scared that your dad is on the run from the police and you might get hurt.”
“He would never hurt me, Em.”
I turned so we were facing each other, sharing my pillow. “He hurt you enough the first time.”
He didn’t say anything after that, and I ran my hand under his shirt, stroking his stomach, then rested my arm in the curve of his hip. “Are you going to tell your mom?” he asked.
“No,” I whispered. “Are you going to tell yours?”
Oliver hesitated too long for my comfort. “You should,” I said. “You should tell someone besides me. Like, an actual adult who can make things happen.”
“I know. But I keep picturing him sitting all alone in the restaurant, waiting for me and . . .” Oliver’s voice caught a little and I wrapped my leg around his, curling closer to him. “I just can’t do that,” he said when he could talk again. “I can’t have that image in my head.”
“Okay,” I whispered, even though nothing felt okay, not at all.
Oliver closed his eyes and was about to say something else when his phone started to buzz. “Shit,” he muttered, and then he was up and trying to find it. I snuggled into the warm spot he had left behind, smelling his shampoo on my pillow, trying to slow my brain down from its breakneck pace.
“It’s my mom,” he said. His voice was raw after crying so hard. “She wants me to come home.”
“Okay,” I said, sitting up a little. “Do you think she’s going to tell my mom that you came over?”
“I’ll make it sound like we were just studying if she asks about it,” he said. “Can I?” He gestured toward the bathroom and I waved him in. I watched as he splashed water on his face, then used my towel to dry it off. I had to look away when he looked in the mirror. It hurt too much, watching him look for answers in his own reflection and not finding anything there.
I got up and walked him downstairs. My hair was probably a disaster and my shirt was still damp, but I didn’t care. It was funny, I never cared about those things with Oliver. I didn’t worry about how I looked. All that mattered was how I felt.
“See you at school?” he said.
“You better,” I replied, then stood on my tiptoes to kiss him goodbye. “I mean it. I’m driving you there and back tomorrow.”
“Noted,” he said, then kissed me one last time before pulling his hoodie up over his head and going out the door. I watched until he had disappeared into the dark, then locked the door, turned off all the lights downstairs, and went back upstairs. Usually, it freaked me out to be home alone in the dark at night, but I was too exhausted to care that night.
Even so, I lay awake for most of the night, blinking at the man in the moon as he stared back at me. I heard both of my parents come home separately, and I also heard both of them open my bedroom door to check on me. I pretended to be asleep then, but part of me wished they could tell I was faking it, that they could figure out the truth without me having to tell them.
But they just closed the door and walked away, their footsteps fading down the hall, and that night when I finally fell asleep, I dreamed I was chasing Oliver down the same hallway, his hooded figure getting smaller and smaller until I couldn’t see him anymore, until he was gone once again.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
School was a joke the next day. Between insomnia and nightmares, I was sort of a disaster and managed to forget my math homework, my lunch, and my house keys. “Trifecta,” I muttered to myself once I realized that they were all missing.