Page 59 of Dreaming About the Boy Next Door

Downsizing. Moving. Divorce. Change, change, change.

“I have to get out of this dress,” she said with a little huff, but her voice sounded different. Thicker. She avoided looking at me. “We’ll talk about it more tomorrow.”

And then she left me and the paperwork in the dark kitchen, thoughts crashing down around me mercilessly. I’d been shoving down all the truths for so long that they reemerged with a vengeance, leaving me neck-deep, threatening to swallow me whole.

A robotic, panic-induced shuffle brought me to my feet, carried me to the hallway and out the front door. I knew I needed to get a grip.Boo-hoo, Ava Jenson, you have to move houses. Big deal. I couldn’t get my thoughts to calm down. It was always like this. In some distant part of my head, IknewI was spiraling, but my body was too concerned with getting myself out of the situation.

I felt the grass between my toes before I even realized I was outside, and then crossing the gritty roadway to help myself onto the Manning’s front porch. My hand wrapped around the doorknob, but the deadbolt was unforgiving, creating a loud noise of denial instead of swinging open.

It was a small thing, their door being locked, but I had to bite down even harder on my lip to keep from making a sound. My phone was in my bedroom; I couldn’t even call.

Without warning, the yellow door swung inward, revealing a shirtless Reed Manning holding hisSuper Mario Brosmug in his left hand. His eyebrows shot up as he realized who exactly stood over the threshold, probably looking like absolute hell. “Ava?”

I shuddered as I looked up at him, and I was sure the tear-tracks on my cheeks were plain to see, glistening in the moonlight, but I made no move to wipe them away. There was no point in hiding them now. “Is—is Rachel in her room?”

“She’s not home,” Reed said, and dang, even his voice was a compassionate reverberation of concern. It nearly loosened the temporary hold I had on my sanity. “She said something about a sleepover.”

A sleepover? No, that wasn’t right.Babysitting. She talked about it at the game. The memory hit me with startling clarity, enough to make me feel a little crazy for having forgotten it. Now that he’d said it, I realized I hadn’t walked past their car in the driveway. Rachel was not here, and she would not be here until morning.

Which meant that I was alone until morning. “R-Right,” I whispered, taking a step backward. “Okay.”

I hadn’t even fully turned around before Reed caught at me, fingers easily circling my wrist. His skin was warm against mine, and a grounding handcuff, pulling me to a halt. “Ava,” he said, with the same sort of confused, concerned tone. “What’s wrong?”

What’s wrong, what’s wrong, what’s wrong. “Nothing.”

“Hey.” He tugged on my arm with a pinched expression, scanning my face as if at any moment, an answer would break through. “Come inside.”

“I—I need to go back,” I told him, but didn’t try to pull away. “I left my phone.”

“Just for a minute, then.” His firmness was enough to draw me into the house, which was as dark as it’d been the Monday I’d padded downstairs for a glass of water. The Monday he found me. The door made a solid clicking sound as he shut it, stepping up closer. “Why aren’t you wearing shoes?”

I looked down at my feet, no doubt now grass-stained and dirt-covered. “I wanted to talk to Rachel.”

“About what?”

I opened my mouth, but as I looked up into Reed’s worried brown eyes, my own started to burn with the familiar pressure again. He set his mug down on a side table and pulled me toward the staircase without hesitation, and this time, I had no fight in me.

We ended up in his bedroom, where the TV that hung from his wall showed a paused episode of some sitcom. I’d never been inside his room before, but I’d gotten peeks from when he’d left the door open as we grew up. The layout was similar to Rachel’s, minus the knickknacks and creepy dolls. Instead, his room had a few sports posters hanging from the wall, a white desk near the window with what looked like magazines on the surface, and an overflowing laundry hamper beside it.

He reached for the light switch, but I stopped him, catching his wrist. “Can you leave it off?”

“Only if you tell me what’s wrong.” He ducked his head. “Talk to me.”

I stared at his exposed collarbone. “Can you put a shirt on?”

I half expected the echoed response—only if you tell me what’s wrong—but Reed looked down at himself the way I’d looked at my toes a moment ago, shocked to find an article of clothing missing. With a curse, he moved toward his dresser. “Sorry. I was turning in early for the night.”

He wasted no time pulling on a dark tee, and I stared at him through the whole process, sniffling. “Where’s your mom?”

“Already asleep. She worked a twelve-hour shift today.” Reed stepped up to me once more, but he seemed more hesitant to touch me now, like his bedroom was different than the foyer of his house, like the shadows in here were more intimate. “What’s going on?”

“My mom—” I began, but the words cut off, my throat closing.

Reed’s eyes widened. “What happened? Is she okay?”

“She’s fine. She’s…she’s going to sell the house.” The words were enough to smash my dam of composure. Once more, the tremors took root in my ribcage, squeezing until my breaths came in short gasps. “She didn’t tell me. That’s—that’s something she should’ve told me, right? She should’ve been honest, but they never are. Neither of my parents. No one tells me things.”

Reed placed his hands on my shoulders, pressing his fingers in. “Take a breath, Ava.”

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