Chapter 12

July 2003

Fred doesn't talk to me the day after the beach party.

Instead, when I go to the beach, Dave tells me that Fred's dealing with a family emergency. He doesn't know anything else, and so I worry, wondering if it's true or if he just doesn't want to see me; if I'm the emergency.

It feels like I am. My heart is pounding. I miss easy shots during practice. And when I go to see Ash, she's no help because she's still green and moaning in her bed, even though it's the afternoon. She says she doesn't remember anything that happened last night, and I don't have the heart to tell her what she did. I get her a glass of water, then ride my bike back to my house and pace the floor of my room.

When I can't stand it anymore, I find his aunt and uncle's phone number, and I call the house. The phone rings and rings, and no one answers. Maybe they have caller ID, and Fred is standing over the phone, looking at my last name as it pops up, waving off his aunt, telling her not to answer. Or maybe there's really something wrong—with him, with them, with some other member of his family—and he's gone.

I feel sick, and I want to crawl into bed like Ashley, but instead, I change my clothes, brush my hair, get on my bike, and ride to Fred's place.

I don't expect dinner, but I've been invited, and no one has canceled. And I need to see Fred because it feels like I am going to die if I don't.

It's a two-mile ride to his house on flat roads. I ride slowly so I don't arrive sweaty and because I couldn't make myself eat anything today, and I feel dizzy. The salt air massages my face as the sky turns rosy above me, and though I've tried to slow this down, I'm here.

The house is a two-story Cape Codder, with cedar shingles and a white wrap-around porch. There's no car in the driveway, and it has a stillness about it that makes me feel like no one's home and no one will be for a while.

I straddle my bike, trying to decide what to do. I can knock on the door, but I don't want to hear the empty echo of an abandoned house. I can't make myself leave either, so I stand there, watching the porch, my heart beating in my ears until the door opens and there's Fred.

"What are you doing?" He doesn't smile the way he usually does when he sees me. Instead, he runs his hand through his hair and frowns. Not good.

"Trying to decide whether to knock on the door."

"Why didn't you?"

"I wasn't sure you wanted to see me." I take a quick breath. "I went by the beach and you weren't there, and then I called and you didn't answer."

"I wasn't here."

"Dave said there was an emergency?"

"My uncle's in the hospital."

"Oh, Fred, I'm so sorry." And I am sorry—I am—but I'm also relieved. He didn't skip work because of me. "What happened?"

"A heart attack."

Oh no. Oh God. I'm a terrible person. "Is he going to be okay?"

"I don't know. I'm going back to the hospital now."

"Okay, I'll leave."

I put my feet on the pedals, but I'm too dizzy to control the bike. It starts to tip over, and I just manage to stop myself from falling. But the bike slides sideways, and the chain catches my leg. I can feel my skin ripping before I see the blood.

"Dammit." I step away from the bike and sway as I take in the blood pouring down my leg.

Fred is next to me, his hand on my elbow. "Come in the house. I'll get you cleaned up."

"But you have to go to the hospital."

"Olivia, I'm not leaving you like this." He pulls his T-shirt over his head and wraps my leg in it, tucking in the edge to tighten it. Then he puts my arm around his neck and guides me into the house. He leads me to the back of the ground floor, where there's a bedroom with a bathroom attached. His room, by the smell of it—fresh soap and the beach.

"Sit here." He leads me to the edge of the bathtub, and I sit down. He leaves me for a minute and returns with a first aid kit. Blood is seeping through his T-shirt, and my leg stings. Matt is going to be furious.

"Are you afraid of blood? Because you look like you're going to pass out."

"No, I … I haven't eaten anything today."

"You'll be okay." His voice is gentle. "I'm going to take the T-shirt off now."

"All right."

He does it swiftly, getting a pad of gauze and some Bactine ready to clean it up. "This is going to sting."

I look away as he uses the Bactine to clean the wound. I wince but don't say anything as he works quickly and gently. When he's done, I check it. There's only one cut, not deep, but long and a series of abrasions where the skin is puckered.

"No stiches, I don't think," Fred says.

"That's good. You don't need more people in the hospital."

He frowns.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't be making jokes."

"It's the shock."

"Sure."

He puts a clean pad of gauze on the cut, then starts taping it to me. In a minute he's finished and cleaning up. "See if you can put weight on that."

I stand slowly and my leg starts to buckle, but I catch myself before my knee hits the tile.

"You all right?"

"I'll survive." I look up at him. "Thank you. And I'm sorry—I know you need to go."

"You didn't do it on purpose."

"I know, but …"

"It's fine. Accidents happen."

I limp into his bedroom. His bed is made with a simple blue coverlet. There are books on the nightstand, including his copy of The Amber Spyglass, and a guitar in the corner. Everything is neat, clean, organized.

"I didn't know you played the guitar," I say.

"Yeah."

"Are you good?"

He shrugs.

"I guess we don't know each other that well." I don't make eye contact when I say this, because if I do, I'm going to cry. I thought we did know each other—I was sure we did—but now I feel like I'm with a stranger.

"Olivia. Look at me." He's got that frown on his face again, that stressed-out, unhappy look that shouldn't ever be on any seventeen-year-old's face.

"What is it?"

"There's something I should've told you."

"Okay."

"Don't look at me like that."

"Like what?"

"Like I'm about to tell you I'm dying."

"Well, aren't you?"

"No."

But he is. He's about to tell me that we're dying, and that's just the same.

"What should you have told me?"

"Here," he says, sitting down on the bed and patting it. "Sit."

I sit next to him, and he takes my hand. It's the same hand I've been holding all week, inside soft, outside roughened, but the warmth has gone out of it.

"Last year," Fred says, "at school, I started dating this girl. Phoebe. I'd had a crush on her for a while, since middle school."

Phoebe. Her name is Phoebe. I hate her. "Okay."

"She never used to pay any attention to me. I … I was different in middle school. I was a nerdy kid who liked fantasy books, and I grew late, and I was overweight."

It's hard to imagine it, but I understand what he's telling me. He was that kid. The one who got picked on. The one the girls ignored until, suddenly, they didn't anymore.

"And then there was the whole dead-dad thing. Which coincided with me growing and thinning out and learning to not talk about books so much."

"Except with me."

He smiles briefly. "Except with you."

"So, Phoebe."

"It was great at first. First-girlfriend stuff. You know."

I swallow through the lump in my throat. First-girlfriend stuff. Like with us, he's telling me. Only it wasn't with me; it was with someone else.

"Right."

"I thought everything was going great, and then I found out about the game."

"What game?"

"This stupid thing the girls were doing with bracelets."

The bracelets. It had happened at my school too. Suddenly, a bunch of girls were wearing colored gummies on their wrists, and each one meant a different thing they'd done with a boy. The more bracelets, the more clout. It was gross, and when the parents found out, they were banned, and at least two girls got sent away to these super-strict boarding schools in Utah.

I'd never had any, but Ash had a couple when she arrived in the Hamptons last summer. "Were you a bracelet?"

"I was." He shakes his head. "Apparently, I was extra points because I was ‘sad boy.'"

"That's terrible."

"Yeah, well, I found out that Phoebe was only in it for the bracelet. And she wasn't too careful about who she told. Or who she was getting the other bracelets with."

"She cheated on you?"

"She had a lot of bracelets." He pauses. "She broke my heart."

"I wouldn't do that."

"But you could."

This is breaking my heart. "Fred, I didn't kiss you for bracelets or points. That was just Ash being drunk. She's the one who put getting kissed on a list. Not me."

"But she did make you come to the beach that day. And she did force you to talk to me."

"Yes. But—"

"Look, Olivia, I know it's different—I do. But it feels the same. Do you understand?"

I think it through. "You feel like you can't trust me."

"It feels like I can't trust this." He takes both my hands in his and squeezes them. "And maybe that's me. Maybe that's something I need to fix. I know I have issues trusting things because of my dad. I went to all that dead-dad therapy. But I feel like once the trust is gone, it's hard to change that."

"How do you know unless you try?"

"You're right, I don't. But I'm leaving so there isn't any way to find out."

I pull my hands away. "What?"

"I talked to my mom today. My uncle is going to be in the hospital for a while, and they don't need me around. I'm leaving tomorrow."

I feel sick. "What does that mean? I'm never going to see you again?"

"I don't know. It just all seems pretty complicated."

"You don't even want to try?"

"I can't make any decisions right now."

"But you are making one. You're pushing me away for something I didn't even do."

He hangs his head. "I'm sorry."

I don't say anything. I can't. Yesterday, I had to hold myself back from saying I love you every time he looked at me. And now, he can't even meet my eyes.

"Olivia?"

"I want to go home."

"Let me drive you. You can't ride your bike like that."

I stand, woozy, and lean against him. I want to push myself away, but I'm using every bit of energy I have not to cry, not to break down and bawl like I did when I was a little kid.

Nothing has ever hurt this much; it feels like nothing ever will.

Then I catch myself. Something did. Losing my mother was worse than this, and I survived that. I can survive this. There's another side to this pain; I just have to wait for it.

"You all right?" Fred asks.

"No."

He isn't expecting this answer, but I don't have to lie about how I'm feeling. If this is it, I can tell the truth about that at least.

"Olivia."

I push myself away from him, steadier on my feet. I meet his eyes and they're sad, but not as sad as me. "I heard you, Fred, and I understand what you're saying, but I'm not okay with this. I don't have any doubts. I know we can work this out, and I want to do all those things we talked about. All the six months and next year and in five years … I meant all of that."

"I meant it too."

I feel a burst of anger. "No, you didn't. Because if you did, then you wouldn't be doing this right now. We'd be talking about how to figure it out. Not how to say goodbye."

"Olivia, I—"

He reaches for me, but I duck away and rush out of the room.

My leg is killing me, and I can feel the gash opening again, but I don't care. I need to get out of here and I'm not going to sit in a car with him, not even for one minute.

"Olivia. Olivia—please stop."

I get outside and pick up my bike. I step over it, getting it in position between my legs. It's only a couple of miles. I can make it home. I must.

"Olivia." Fred puts his hands on the handlebar and steadies it. "Olivia."

"What?"

"I don't want it to end like this."

"Me either, but it is."

"I want everything I said I did."

"Just not now."

"Maybe we can … in a couple of months …"

"No," I say. "I can't do that. I can't be the girl waiting to see if you want to be with me. My heart can't take it."

His hand tightens on my handlebar. "I understand."

"So, goodbye, I guess." I put my feet on the pedals. "I hope your uncle is okay."

"Thank you."

I wait for him to release me, but he doesn't. "You need to let go."

"I don't want to."

And now the tears are making my vision blurry. "You already did, though."

His face creases with hurt. "Maybe, in five years …"

"That doesn't work now."

"Why not?"

"Because that was us together the whole time. Now it's just going to be five years later with no together in between. It'll be five years lost."

He taps the top of the handlebars. "Okay, then. Five years later. I'll be here."

"You can't promise that."

"I can."

Our eyes meet one last time, that brief flash of heat where I think he might kiss me, and then his hand drops, and I'm free to go.

I can't stand to be in this conversation for one more minute, so I push hard against the pedals and crouch low over the handlebars and pump my legs as fast as they can take me.

The tears fall one second after he can't see me anymore, and soon I'm going so fast, the wind is in my ears.

I think he might be calling after me, he might be saying my name, but it's probably wishful thinking like the belief that we could ever have made it to five years from now, when the truth is—we couldn't even last the summer.