“I love you, too.” He kissed me, and I pulled him closer. I wanted to feel every inch of his body against mine. His warmth, his love. I kissed him more passionately as the seconds passed. I could feel hot tears welling up in my eyes. I wanted to stay with Ethan forever. That had been the plan. My cancer had come between us, and he’d found a way around it. I wasn’t sure what was killing him now, but I owed it to him to find a way to bring him back.
Ethan pulled away and stared at me. “You’re crying.” He kissed my tear-stained cheeks. “Talk to me, Sam. What’s upsetting you?”
“I wish we could be together like this all the time. Now, tomorrow, thirty years from now.”
He pulled me closer, wrapping me tightly in his arms. “We can be.” He kissed the top of my head, and I breathed in his scent. “We will be.”
My insides ached at his words. He didn’t even know he was dying. Maybe that was a good thing, because knowing was killing me.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
THE next morning, I sat in Mr. Ryan’s class, staring out the window, thinking about Ethan. I’d tried to convince him to ditch school with me. I wanted to go for a long drive, like we used to. I wanted to spend the day soaking him up. But Ethan was Mr. Rational. He said we’d already missed the beginning of the school year, and there was no reason to get even further behind. I tried everything to get him to change his mind, but in the end, we just wound up being late for school.
Now here I was, unable to even pretend I was paying attention to Mr. Ryan or Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. I thought about texting Ethan to meet me in the bathroom, but every time I reached for my bag, Shannon would turn around and watch me like a hawk. I knew she wouldn’t hesitate to get me in trouble with Mr. Ryan. I didn’t really care if I got in trouble, but I didn’t want to make Ethan’s last days—however many were left—anything but good.
“Ms. Smith?”
“Huh?” I turned to the front of the room where Mr. Ryan was sitting on the edge of the desk.
“I asked if you could explain the passage I just read.”
He’d read something aloud? “Um, sorry, but I’m not sure.”
Mr. Ryan sighed. “I’m certain you won’t find any answers out that window, Ms. Smith. And I can tell you for a fact that tomorrow’s test will count for twenty percent of the semester grade.”
The end of the semester was thirteen weeks away. Who worried about final grades this early in the year? I nodded and pretended to show interest in the rest of the class.
By the time I got to Sculpture, I only had one thing on my mind—finding out how Ethan had brought me back. Nora had asked me not to ask him, but maybe if I indirectly dropped a few questions I could get some clue.
Ethan was sitting with Beth when I walked into class. I wanted to talk to him right away, but Ms. Matthews assigned Ethan to first shift on the pottery wheel. He smiled at me and got a blob of clay for his project.
“So,” Beth said, sketching her design. “I was at the diner yesterday.”
“Yeah, I know.” I took out my sketchbook and pencil, pretending to work but really watching Ethan.
“It’s funny, but I didn’t see you there. You waitress right after school, don’t you?”
“Yeah, five days a week. Well, I work on weekends, too, but I go in earlier.”
Ethan dropped a large chunk of clay on the floor and was left with a tiny misshapen thing on the wheel. I heard him tell Ms. Matthews that he was working on an abstract piece about minimalism. She totally bought it.
“That’s what I thought.” Beth turned her sketchbook upside down and continued with the pattern she was drawing. “So I was surprised that I didn’t see you. I thought you could be my waitress. I was even prepared to leave you an insanely large tip.”
“Oh, well, that was sweet of you. I’m sure Gloria appreciated the tip.”
“She’s your boss, right?”
I wished I could find a way out of this conversation. Being cornered and questioned by Beth was not good. “Yeah. You know, I just remembered I forgot my—”
“She was running all over the place yesterday. It was like she was waiting on all the tables by herself.”
Because she was. “I’ll be back in a minute.” I got up and walked to the kiln. I fished through the finished projects and found mine. A small vase with uneven lines running around it. It looked hideous, and I was sure it would get me an F, but I loved it. The lines were made with Ethan’s and my hands when he laced his fingers through mine.
“You should keep your fingers together if you want a smoother end product,” Ms. Matthews said, walking up behind me.
“Actually, it’s exactly what I was going for.”
“Really?” She eyed me, waiting for an explanation.
I thought of Ethan’s minimalism excuse when he dropped his clay. “Yeah, I was going for the skewed perception of beauty in today’s society.” I wasn’t sure where I’d pulled that from, but Ethan walked over and nodded.
“I totally see that. Nice work, Sam.”
That was all it took. Ms. Matthews smiled. “Well done, Sam.”
When she walked away, I turned to Ethan. “I didn’t think I could pull that off.”
“There’s nothing to it. Pretend everything you do is entirely on purpose.”
My mind was swimming with thoughts. How could I turn this conversation into a casual inquiry about my existence? This was so much harder than I thought it would be.
“It’s pretty cool how you can bring something to life, isn’t it?”
He raised an eyebrow. “You can hardly call making a clay pot bringing something to life.”
This wasn’t going well. “I don’t know. It starts out as a lump of clay. It’s nothing. Lifeless. And then you mold it and turn it into something that’s full of life.”
“Have you been eating the school meatloaf or something? You’re acting weird.”
I sighed. It looked like Nora was going to get her way. I couldn’t figure out how to get information out of Ethan without sounding like a total nutcase. If only Ethan knew Nora was a witch. Then asking about what he’d done to bring me back might not seem so strange. Both were supernatural, right?
“Hey.” I put my hand on his forearm for no other reason than I wanted to touch him. I was trying to memorize everything about him. His smell, the feel of his skin, the shape of his face. Every detail. “I wanted to let you know I worked things out with Nora.”
“Nora?”
“Yeah, that girl I told you about. The one from the diner.”
He wrinkled his forehead. “Is she the one who skipped out on her bill?”
“That’s her, but it was a misunderstanding. She paid the bill, and she’s been really nice to me ever since. We’ve even talked about hanging out sometime.”
“That’s great. I’m glad you’re making friends. You should invite Beth along, too. She really likes you.”
Too bad Beth was too perceptive for her own good—and my own good.
“Nora’s kind of weird around people she’s never met. She’s home-schooled.” I didn’t know what made me say that, but it seemed like it could be true. She didn’t go to our school, so either she attended some fancy private school, which I doubted, or she was home-schooled.
“That’s got to get lonely.” Ethan squeezed my hand.
“I think that’s why she comes to the diner every day. To be around people.”
“But you said she’s shy around new people.”
“She is. That’s why I think it’s good that she’s trying to be more social. She talks to me every time she’s there.”
Ethan gave me a puzzled look. “Did you say she comes to the diner every day?”
“Uh-huh.”
“How have I never seen her?”