What Happens Now (29 page)

“Hey,” said James, ambling across the parking lot toward the van. I could tell he hadn’t seen or heard a thing. “Is it time to go?”

Stating the obvious: the drive home sucked.

Eliza sat up front with James, while Kendall and I were in the middle. Camden sat with Max in the way back.

I would never have believed that six people could be that silent for that long.

To pass the time and to avoid looking at Camden behind me, I read my new
Silver Arrow
book. When I felt carsick and could read no longer, I spread my hands in front of me, examining my palms whenever something outside would flicker light into the interior of the van. I moved my fingers, twirled my wrists. Were these really my hands that had pushed and held Eliza against the side of a car? And my brain had told them to do that?

It didn’t make sense. One of the things I knew for sure about myself was this: when I got angry, it stayed indoors. I never let it out to roam and roar and scratch. It hid in a corner or burrowed inside a couch, easy to ignore. A thousand silent times, I’d raged against my mother or Dani or the thought of my father. But it had screeched out now, and who knew what the consequences would be.

Somehow the hour passed and we were back in town.

James dropped Eliza off first, of course. No discussion necessary. I’d never seen Eliza’s house and she never talked about it—she never talked about her family at all—so I wasn’t sure what I expected. Certainly not a McMansion in a subdivision called Morningside Meadows. She climbed out of the van and didn’t look at any of us. James followed, walking her past a Mercedes parked in the driveway and around to the back of the house. He returned a minute later.

“Dude,” said James to Max when he slid behind the wheel
again. “Why was it me who just did that?”

Max gave him a dirty look and pulled out his earphones. “Can we get everyone else home now, please?” He leaned his forehead against the window. Kendall stared straight ahead.

When we pulled into Kendall’s driveway, she gave an unashamed sigh of relief. I found myself hopping out of the van with her.

“I’m sorry,” I said softly so nobody would hear.

“What do you have to be sorry about? I’m the one who kissed another girl’s boyfriend and caused some kind of nuclear reaction. By the way, that was both amazing and scary as hell, what you did.”

I couldn’t help but laugh a little. “Way to make your first kiss extra memorable.”

“I’m glad you can joke about it. Guess who has to deal with the fallout while I skip town?”

Oof
. This reminder hit me square in the chest.

“You leave in what, two weeks?”

“Eleven days.”

“At least you’re not counting or anything . . .”

Kendall gave me a bittersweet smile. “We’ll hang out between now and then. A lot.”

“Do you want me to come in with you?” I asked. “I could stay over.”

Kendall’s smile disappeared. “You can’t avoid going home, Ari.”

“I know that. But I don’t want you to be alone.”

Kendall searched my face and then glanced quickly at the
van. “But actually
I
do. Want to be alone. We’ll talk tomorrow, okay?”

“If my parents haven’t killed me or taken away my phone.”

I hugged her tighter than she hugged me back, then watched her hurry into the house. When I turned back to the van, I saw that James had been watching her, too. There was an expression on his face that I could only describe as
suffering
, and I instantly knew there was more to this story.

“Where to, lady?” James asked me after I got back in the van. He’d regained his composure.

I finally forced myself to glance back at Camden and Max. Max was staring at Kendall’s house, where her bedroom light had just turned on. Camden was staring at me, a thousand questions in his eyes.

“I’d like to go to the Barn,” I said.

Camden nodded, and James made the van move again.

In my message to my parents, I said I’d be home by eleven. We’d left the SuperCon two hours early, and now it was only a little past nine. That gave me almost two hours before I had to face their music.

But first, I had to face Camden.

The front steps felt rigid, unwelcoming as I climbed them. The porch light was off and there were many more shadows than usual.

I followed Camden inside. “Be right back,” he mumbled, then went straight upstairs.

I went into the bathroom, pulled a T-shirt and jeans out of my backpack. Taking off Satina’s uniform in the same place I had first put it on, that felt important. I knew I’d never wear it again.

When I came out, everything was still dark and too quiet. What was the Barn without Eliza in her captain’s chair at the big table, Max’s oversize figure filling up all this empty space? The banter and the chatter of a very different, truly wonderful kind of family: one that had chosen itself.

I opened the sliding glass door to the patio and stepped out into the night. So strange, that it had been right here, not long ago—that moment at his party with all of us dancing and the air thick with unfiltered Possible.

“Hey,” said Camden behind me. His voice was strained, tired. He’d changed, too, into shorts and a T-shirt. He looked wrong and it took me a few seconds to figure out why.

“You’re not wearing a button-down,” I said.

He surveyed himself. “They were an experiment.”

“I thought they were your thing.”

“Really?” He seemed genuinely surprised, but not flattered. “I didn’t feel that. I tried them because I thought somehow they’d make me feel more normal. Mainstream. But that was really a form of cosplay, too.”

I stepped close to him. Every time he opened up a secret like this, it drew me that much nearer.

“I liked the button-downs,” I said, and touched his arm where the sleeve of the T-shirt stopped at the curve of his
bicep. “But I like this just as much.”

His skin tensed where I touched it. I looked up to see his jaw tightening.

“Tell me,” he said. “Tell me why you did that to Eliza.”

“Did you see what she did to Kendall?”

“Yes.”

“Kendall was scared. I reacted.”

“No kidding.” His voice was icy now.

“That’s not me. You know that’s not me.”

“Do I?” He searched my face. “Based on that, I’m not sure
who
you are. Not the person I thought, for sure.”

I felt a burst of heat on my neck, the back of my ears. “Well, then. That makes us even, doesn’t it?”

He considered that, and his shoulders slumped. Everything about him softened. He sank down onto the patio sofa.

“Yes, it does,” he said.

“You know why Eliza did what she did, right?”

Camden nodded. “I heard what she said to Kendall.”

“So is
Max
still the person you thought he was? Aren’t you mad at
him
?”

“A little, but he made a mistake. Aren’t you mad at Kendall?”

“What you just said.” I moved to stand facing him, my knees touching his bent ones. “I made a mistake, too. Look, I’ve never touched anyone like that in my life. If I could undo it, I would.” I would, wouldn’t I? “Camden, I don’t know what else to say. It happened. But everyone’s okay and it won’t ever happen again.”

Camden grabbed his forehead with both hands.

“Everyone is not okay,” he said. “Eliza’s been through a lot. I’m not making excuses for the way she treats people, but what you did . . . to someone else it might be no big deal. To her . . . it might be.”

“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “You know I had no idea.”

He gazed at the sky and took a deep breath. “We all survive things, but what she’s survived is a little more intense than the rest of us. Also, she means a lot to me. She helped me put together a group of friends when I first got to school. She gave me the closest thing to the life I wanted, and she also gave me
Silver Arrow
. Then when I met you and we were all spending time together . . . that got me even closer to that life. But now it’s ruined.”

We were silent for a moment while I worked out what that meant.

“Oh,” I said. “She won’t want you to see me anymore.”

Camden sighed. “It would be like, me choosing between you and my family, if that makes sense.”

My throat closed up. I was going to ask the question before I chickened out.

“Are you still in love with Eliza?”

“What? No! God, no.” He looked straight at me now, caught his breath. What if he said
I love YOU
?

Then again, what if it didn’t matter whether he said it or not? I’d already done one brave thing. I was on a roll.

“Good,” I said. “Because I’m in love with
you
.”

He continued to stare at me while I continued to not breathe. Then he reached out and yanked me onto his lap, where the pressure of our bodies together took on a new shape and sensation.

I laughed nervously, until he kissed me hard. I kissed hard back, for a long time, and during that time it was easy to believe everything I’d ever wanted from him, his strength and confidence and devotion, was not misguided.

Somewhere in there, along that line between pleasure and pain, I began to cry. The sobs started deep within me, muffled by the kisses, but then they began to escape. It took Camden a few moments before he noticed and pulled away, putting both hands on my face.

“What? What is it?”

“What you said about the life you wanted. I wanted that, too. You gave me those things, too. And now it’s all turned to crap. In addition to the other stuff that was already crap.”

I sobbed again. Camden reached out and tentatively stroked my hair.

“I’m sorry about Eliza,” I said with a sniffle. “I’m sorry that’s a side of me, and I’m sorry it showed itself. I’m sorry I’ve never found a way to deal with it except to, you know, cut myself open.”

Camden watched me for a few moments, like we’d just peeled another layer from between us and he was seeing things raw again. “Ari, you’re making it hard for me to be angry with you.”

“Go ahead, be angry with me. Please. But forgive me a little, too, okay?”

He bit his lip and nodded quickly, then kissed me. I pulled him down onto the couch. Or he pushed me. Maybe both at the same time. Now we were lying next to each other with the blanket of night above us.

Camden turned onto his side. He propped his head up with his elbow and began to trace the skin of my collarbone along the top of my T-shirt, back and forth in delicate, devastating
U
’s. Then he ran his finger down the middle of my chest like he was marking an equator. The border between the half of me who wanted to believe we never had to leave this place, and the half of me who knew the world beyond it was not going to make being together easy.

His hand was under my shirt now, pressing a sweaty palm on my stomach. He took a deep breath and pushed it farther up, touching the center of my bra. I slapped my hand over his and met his eyes. Then I moved that hand to one of my breasts.

“We can do this, right?” I whispered.

Camden bit his lip and nodded, his focus intense. I let go of his hand so it could move on its own.

“Tell me when you want to stop,” I said.

He didn’t answer. He only touched me, and I felt like I could get swallowed whole in the quicksand of it. After a few moments he whispered, “What if I don’t want to stop? . . . And
you
don’t want me to stop?”

I wasn’t sure what he was asking. I didn’t care. All I knew
was that it meant we could keep touching each other, existing only in the moment of what happens now.

I answered by kissing him lightly, holding his bottom lip between my teeth. It must have tickled because he laughed. Maybe this was how people did it. With every moment of skin plus skin, you were pressing the reset button on your past experiences. You could close your eyes and pretend you were coming to this person with your hope for love still arranged in clean, unbroken lines.

I reached up with my left hand and started to slide it under the waistband of his shorts, then dared to check his expression. It was something halfway between wonder and fear, which was excellent because that was exactly what I felt, too.

It was impossible not to think about Lukas but it was okay, like the memory of him was there to help me understand myself. Lukas had guided my hand that night of his party. Grabbed it, desperately, and placed it where he wanted it. It was not where I wanted it but I couldn’t make my hand do anything differently. But here, with Camden, I was in charge of my own actions.

Camden sighed so hard he started coughing. Then we both cracked up.

“To hell with all of it,” he muttered, pressing his body into mine.

I wasn’t sure what
it
was but yeah, send it to hell. Let it stay there a good long time.

Because I understood, now, why this might be worth risking
everything. I knew I had another person all to myself. That there was only one thing in the world we both wanted at that moment, and we were giving it to ourselves and each other.

We were kissing and moving to a kind of rhythm now. The beat of it got faster, more urgent. All it would take now was a few pieces of clothing not being where they were. Camden had his eyes closed, biting down hard on his bottom lip.

“Camden,” I whispered, wanting to make sure he was with me, that we were making this decision together.

He didn’t open his eyes. He just kept kissing me, gripping me tighter.

“Camden!” I said more loudly. “Stop! Look at me!”

His eyes popped open and it was like a spell had been broken. “What?” he said, his voice scratchy.

“Look at me, please.”

He did. And I knew.

“We can’t do this,” I said. “Not like this.”

Camden sighed and slowly pushed himself up, off, away from me. He knelt at my feet at the other end of the couch and I scrambled to sitting.

He clutched his chest. “You kill me.”

“Sorry.” God, that sounded so stupid. But what else could I say? “You stopped us the last time. We’re tied one-one.”

He huffed a half laugh, then fell serious again. “I don’t know how to do this.”