They look at each other and I know they don’t want to say yes, but I’m getting out of this house, with or without their permission. This conversation is just a formality as far as I’m concerned. But I can sound less crazy while we have it. Flies, vinegar, honey, whatever.
“I’ll be safe,” I say. Calmly, and while I look them in the eyes—both of them—so they’ll trust me. “I just need to clear my head. Please don’t make me stay here right now. It’s . . . I feel claustrophobic.”
Dad sighs. “Take your phone. Check in with us in an hour and don’t even think about going into the city. Got it?”
“Got it.” I use my rational voice.
“And Theo,” Mom says as I turn the handle. Her mouth stays open a few moments before she speaks, like an opera singer ready to hit the big note. “We need to talk about you seeing someone. Maybe not tonight, but—soon.”
“I don’t want to talk to anyone.” Wasn’t Juniper Hill sufficient? Three full months in that damn hippie house in the middle of nowhere and they don’t think I’ve had enough therapy?
“Sweetheart, he was your best friend.”
Her mouth turns down and it makes me want to cry, so I say, “Can we talk about this later?” and they nod and I use that moment to slip out the door.
This is the first time since he’s been back that I walk down the driveway without looking at Donovan’s house.
I end up at Casablanca’s. It’s kind of busy for a Tuesday, but our back booth is open, so I don’t care. I park myself there and wait. For what, I don’t know. I don’t even care if Jana comes over to take my order. I just needed to sit down somewhere away from my parents and make sense of what I saw.
I always knew how much Donovan liked Chris. I would have run away with Chris if he’d asked me. I didn’t know what to call how I felt for him, but it was addictive. I’d never wanted to please someone so much. Even when he didn’t deserve it, I wanted to be the one who made him happy.
But he didn’t ask me. He went with Donovan.
I look around the diner, at the plain white walls, broken up by random pieces of retro art. Generic portraits of bouquets and New England landscapes and a sun setting over a beach somewhere. Framed pieces you’d buy from a flea market, probably castoffs from a doctor’s waiting room.
“Your partners in crime ditch you?”
Jana. Usually I can hear her coming from a mile away. Her overdramatic sighs and the fact that she’s always yelling at someone over her shoulder give her away. I stare up at her blankly.
“They’re . . . they’re not here.”
She squints at me like I’m up to no good. “Well, what are you having?”
“Tea,” I say, as I kick my foot against the bottom of the bench seat across from me. The resulting thump sounds good to my ears, feels good on the toe of my boot. So I do it again.
“What kind?”
“Chamomile.” Thump, thump.
“That all?”
Thump, thump.
I nod and she stares at me until finally I say, “What?”
“First of all, you can stop taking out your problems on my booth. Second, you’re going to sit here in this big old booth to drink a cup of tea?” She rests a hand on her bony hip. Her fingernails are painted a bright red and it’s a strange contrast against the veins that crisscross the back of her hand. “What’s your deal, girl? You come in here every week and stare at that menu, stare at everyone’s food, and you never order more than a cup of soup.”
I stop the kicking, but give her the dirtiest look I can muster. “How is that your business? I’m still a paying customer.”
She lets out her signature sigh before turning around.
“I’m a regular, too,” I call after her.
She pretends not to hear me.
I’m sitting with my back to the rest of the diner, with just the dingy wall ahead of me, but I wish I’d brought something to do. Even my English essay would be better than nothing, because when I’m doing nothing, all I think about is Donovan and Chris.
Without Sara-Kate and Phil to distract me, I’m entirely too aware of every sound in the diner, from the dinging of the register to the person who keeps scratching a fork across their plate like nails down a chalkboard. I’m also aware of the heavy footsteps approaching my table. Different from the reluctant trudge of Jana’s, these are slow but purposeful. When I look up, Hosea Roth stands next to me, holding a white take-out bag.
“I thought that was you,” he says with a hesitant smile. Hesitant because I look as unhinged as I feel? Or because he’s here alone and I’m here alone, and we keep ending up in the same places? Alone.
He’s wearing a jacket this time. A black one over the same gray hooded sweatshirt. I find myself wondering again about the black T-shirt. Maybe it’s not part of his uniform in the cooler months. I don’t say anything. I just stare at his jacket and think how strange it is that he’s suddenly around all the time. There’s always been some overlap in our circle of friends since I got to high school, but he was just Phil’s dealer. Until now. I never really thought about him before he showed up at my dance studio, because I didn’t know how much there is to like about him.
“Theo? Everything okay?”
“Where are you going?” I ask, turning the pepper shaker around the table in wide, slow circles.
Because I want to know, but asking also means I don’t have to answer his question.
Hosea is taken aback and I guess I shouldn’t have asked but I don’t care. If nothing else makes sense today I don’t have to, either.
“Home, I guess. Had to make a drop-off at this party a couple of blocks away.” His cheeks are two pink circles again, flushed from the cold. I want to press my hands over them.
“Oh.” I look down at the table again. Squeeze my fingers around the pepper shaker. Wish the news that he’s not staying wasn’t so disappointing.
He opens his mouth. Pauses, then: “You look pretty bummed. You sure everything’s okay?”
I abandon the pepper, poke my finger at the yellow stuffing that bursts through the cracked red vinyl of the booth. “I saw Donovan on the news tonight. There was video. From when he was gone. He was laughing, like those people were his friends.”
Hosea looks at me for a while before he speaks, his gray eyes searching my face like he doesn’t quite know what he’s looking for. “I don’t have to be home right away. Want to go for a drive? It helps clear my head sometimes.”
“Okay.” It’s automatic, though I still have an English essay to finish, I barely know him, and he has a girlfriend. But it’s just a drive, and maybe it will clear my head.
“Then let’s go.” He cocks his head toward the door, but not impatiently.
Still, I shrug into my jacket right away, afraid he’ll revoke the invitation if I don’t move. On the way out, I stop in front of the counter and stare at Jana until she looks over, annoyed. She’s flirting with a trucker young enough to be her son.
“What?” she spits out.
“Never mind on that tea. I have to go.”
“You kids keep coming in here and ordering things then disappearing and wasting my time, I’m gonna make sure you don’t come back.”
“You love us too much to do that,” I say, and I even manage a smile in response to her scowl because I know how much it bothers her. “See you Thursday!”
She grumbles and waves me away and it’s just as well, because Hosea is waiting.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
HOSEA STEERS THE CAR WITH ONE HAND AND HOLDS A SANDwich in the other. A BLT. An unlikely choice for eating and driving, but he’s surprisingly graceful.