Page 57 of I Would Stay Forever
“Yeah,” Dean said. “I had the pleasure of going out for lunch with them yesterday. Fun fact: Tiffany has no qualms about making out with Sebastian in front of his friends.”
I gagged at the mental picture. “She’s probably just jealous of how close you two are. Heaven knows he keeps you around more than her.”
Dean snorted. “Please don’t point that out to her. She already hates me enough.”
“Join the club.” I let the silence wash over us for a minute before I continued my explanation. “Sebastian promised me he wouldn’t get back together with her. I told him it would be just like Mum going back to Dad, only maybe even worse because Tiffany keeps promising she’ll change and she never does. He promised me, and then less than a fortnight later and he’s back in her arms. And he didn’t even bother to tell me. I had to find out through Ainsley and Imogen.”
I felt a brush of Dean’s fingers on my wrist and when I looked down, I saw that he was playing with the hair elastic I’d left there after practice. He kept his eyes on it instead of me as he spoke.
“Sometimes people aren’t ready to admit things aren’t good for them,” he said. “You have to give him time to realize it on his own.”
“That’s just the thing, though. He did know. He did understand. He just chose to ignore it anyway.” Tears pricked at my eyes and I was embarrassed at how obvious it was in my toneas I said, “I just hate to see him let himself get hurt over and over again.”
Dean let out a long breath and lowered himself back down to the turf, wrapping an arm around me. I let him pull me in close and pressed my face against his shoulder, telling myself that if I cried like that where nobody could see, it didn’t really count.
We needed to leave before anybody found us. It would be so easy for someone to wander onto the wrong field as they looked for the soccer match and find us here together. But Dean was in no rush and I didn’t have any interest in walking from him, so I just laid in his arms until long after the sun had set and my tears had dried, knowing that we would only get so many moments alone like this.
twenty-eight
“You wantme to drive youwhere?” I asked incredulously as Imogen sat nervously in front of me, twirling a piece of hair around her finger. It was amazing how two afternoons could be so different—one spent kissing the boy I’d been pining after, the next with my sister asking me to drive her to see our father.
“Please?” Imogen asked, her voice almost coming out in a squeak. “I can’t ask anybody else and last time obviously didn’t end well.”
My gaze dropped to her cast, the daily reminder of that night. I couldn’t say no to her, not when I knew she couldn’t bike there and she had nobody else to turn to. It wasn’t like Dad could just show up here out of the blue to come pick her up.
“When?” I sighed.
“Saturday. I’ll go over in the afternoon and stay overnight. I’ll tell Mum I’m staying at Chelsea’s.”
I’d barely nodded in agreement before she threw her arms around me with a squeal and a million thank you’s. I patted her on the back and said “no problem” because I knew that was what a good sister would do, but as soon as she walked out of my room, I changed my clothes to go for a run. The panic hadn’tsmothered me yet, but it would soon. Any conversation about my dad did.
I was debating whether I could text Dean to see if he wanted to come or if that would be too forward, when there was a knock on the front door. Imogen and I were the only ones home and I was closer, so I went to open it. I didn’t realize that despite having no reason to be coming over right now, I was half-expecting to see Dean on the doorstep until I opened the door and saw Nora Graham standing there and looking nervous.
“Hi?” I asked. Nora and I didn’t really know each other, aside from the occasional times our families got together, and I wasn’t used to seeing her around the house. Her coming over last weekend to leave for the party with Sebastian was weird enough, but twice in less than seven days was unheard of.
She stuck her arms out, showing off the papers in her hand. “My mom sent these over for your mom.”
I slowly took the papers and looked over them, then back at her. “Thanks. Do you know what they’re about?”
“I think something about the PTA. She didn’t really say.”
I guess that made sense. I expected Nora to step away immediately but she continued standing there, so I let my gaze drop back down to the papers. I wasn’t sure if she was just waiting for me to close the door in her face or if there was something she wanted to ask, but either way, it was nicer to feel like I had something to do instead of standing in awkward silence with her.
It was a little strange for me, standing here in front of her and knowing what had happened between her brother and me, but knowing that she probably had no idea. It was strange how something could be going on under your nose like that without any idea—like Sebastian and Tiffany getting back together, or whatever might be happening between Sebastian and Nora if my intuition was correct.
That was assuming Dean hadn’t said anything to her, of course, but I guess he could have. We hadn’t explicitly said what we were doing had to be kept a secret, but it felt implied. He’d seen it with the way I lied to Ainsley on the phone yesterday and acted on it when he didn’t kiss me at school where anyone could see us. But would he tell his sister? If he had, did that mean the kisses meant something to him too?
“Does your brother ever talk about me?” I blurted. When I looked up again, I realized Nora had almost stepped off the porch without me noticing. I flushed. I probably sounded crazy, practically yelling that at her back. She went still then turned around with an odd look on her face.
“We don’t really talk about that kind of stuff,” she said. But her tone was odd—not entirely genuine. It was like she was watching every word she said. Was it possible she wasn’t being truthful? Maybe she was telling me what she thought I wanted to hear, or what she thought Dean wanted her to say. Honestly, I wasn’t sure which answer I would have preferred between anall the timeorno, never.I knew it was safer if this was a secret, and nothing stayed a secret for long if Mrs. Graham knew. But I also liked the idea of him being interested enough to talk about me to his family.
“Are you sure?” I asked. But either I must have sounded angrier than I wanted or Dean had sworn her to secrecy because panic flashed across her face, followed by relief as Sebastian’s car pulled into the driveway behind her. I supposed it was just as well that she didn’t want to answer me anyway since we would have had to stop talking about it now that he was home.
Ainsley climbed out of the passenger-side door and greeted Nora happily, but my eyes had already focused on the other side of the car—Sebastian climbing out of the driver’s side, but more importantly, Tiffany climbing out of the backseat. I hated to see her here at all, but at least he clearly wasn’t prioritizing her.
They held hands as they walked up, although Tiffany was unsuccessfully trying to use that to hold him back from the porch. I frowned. There was no reason for her to want to keep him away from me or to stop him from entering the house, which left only… Nora. Like she thought Nora was a threat of some sort. Could that be because of what I’d said at the party about Sebastian talking to a brunette girl? Or had she noticed the signs too? For once, I wished she and I were friends so I could ask her, but then I remembered that she would never want to admit to being jealous of her boyfriend’s neighbor, even if she and I were friends.
I kept my eyes on Tiffany as they came up closer. Sebastian was talking to Nora, but Tiffany looked downright murderous, like she thought she could kill Nora with her thoughts alone. I’d seen the look on her face many times, but never directed at Dean’s little sister before. Something must have changed.
