Page 109 of This I Know
And I’m left alone in the kitchen, finally in my own company. Having this moment to myself is bittersweet, and I take one more deep breath and slide off the chair. I have to stand up to move around before I overanalyze everything to death. Plus, I need to head back out there. I need to make sure my mom’s handling this okay.
Hopefully she’s handling it better than I am.
I begin to walk back to the living room, where all the commotion and conversation is still coming from, and when I’m almost to the exit of the kitchen, Ethan steps in front of me.
“Hey,” he says, a fake cheeriness to his voice. He slides his hands in his front pockets and looks down at me.
I want to bury my face in his chest again, but with my mom so close I only smile.
“So?” he says. “How’d it go?”
Those hands. He’s hiding those hands because he’s still ashamed. As he should be.
“You’re awful happy all of a sudden.” I turn back around and head toward the sink. Now that I think of it, I could really use a glass of water before I head back out there.
“Definitely not happy,” he says.
I pick a glass from the cupboard and fill it at sink. I gulp it all down right in front of him. Any of my remaining self-consciousness has long-since flown out the window. After all, Ethan did just save my life and rescue me from the most vulnerable position I’ve ever been in. I think he’s seen most everything I have to hide by now.
“Why,” I say plainly as soon as I’ve downed the entire glass.
He comes closer. “Well,” he says, “because of what just happened to you, for one. Because of that…”
What, Ethan? Thatmonster?Thatbastard?Pick and choose – the adjectives are up for grabs.
He’s trying to contain himself. The thought of that bastard monster does that to me, too.
“…thatjerk,” he finishes. He’s definitely censored his choice of words for my sake. He walks a few feet away and takes the very seat I was just sitting in. “Cole. Who is that guy to you, anyway?”
I set the glass down in the sink. I guess there’s no dancing around this one. “He was my boyfriend.”
Ethan’s eyes grow wide in reaction to my honesty.
It’s his turn. “Well, who is he to you?” I only ask because the rage in Ethan’s eyes when he says Cole’s name, and the way he talks about him, tells me there’s more there.
“I guess you could say he used to be my friend.”
That straightforward answer gives me a bit of confidence. “How could he be your friend when he used to date Julia Crane? I thought that’s like an unspoken guy code.”
He smiles again. “I’m confused. You thought what’s an unspoken guy code?”
I fiddle with a dishrag next to the sink. “You know. Aren’t guys who date the same girl supposed to be enemies? I thought that’s how it works.”
As sucky a subject as this is, I like talking about it in the face of what just happened and what’s still going on in the next room. It’s lighthearted.
Ethan’s smile spreads across his face. That smile of his is contagious, and I laugh at my own foolishness, too.
“Wait a minute,” he says. “You think I used to date Julia Crane?”
“Well, yeah.” I pause to regard him more closely. “You didn’t?”
He’s serious now, there’s no mistaking that. “No. No, Avery. Where did you hear that?”
I turn my head, embarrassed. “I didn’t hear it from anybody. It’s just– it’s something I assumed.”
“Do you always believe what you assume?”
I shrug.
