Ink Is Thicker Than Water (26 page)

If I were home, I might talk to Mom about it—not that Mom and I have some great history of boy talk (as much as she’d love that)—because while she’s kinder to people than I am, she would also look out for me above anything. There isn’t anyone else in my life who can dial up that particular combination. If she were here, she’d know what to say. Too bad she isn’t. And worse, that I don’t exactly deserve her advice now.

The guilt should have eaten at me the next day, but it just gets easier ignoring him, even after he sends a checking-up-on-me text that isn’t even creepy or intense. I really don’t like this side of myself. Also, I hate that the one person I’m shutting out is the one person in my life right now who is 100 percent there for me. After Sara had completely shut me out, how can I do it to anyone else? Does the crazy excuse it?

Adelaide and I meet up at The Beanery after school. She’s brought all these environmental issues of actual newspapers and magazines for me to look over, like something
Time
did is really going to have an effect on the
Ticknor Voice
. I sweep them into a neat little stack that I can reach but she can’t.

“So,” I say. “Dexter told me about Oliver.”

“And?”

“‘And’? It’s a big deal.”

“What’s a big deal?” asks Paul, who out of nowhere sits down at the table next to us.

“This is private,” I say and look back to Adelaide, whose eyes are of course on the stupid stack of planet-saving publications. “I’m being serious.”

“I don’t know what to say,” she says. “I don’t think it is a big deal. Oliver’s a good guy. He dove into boyfriend mode before I could have handled it, but you and I are different people, and you seem to have handled that much fine.”

I wad up my napkin in frustration and even think about throwing it at her, which would be pointless but a little satisfying. “I just wish I knew what to do.”

“You have to figure that out yourself,” Adelaide says. “All I can say is that if you like Oliver, you’d be a jerk to end something just because of that. People have all done crazy things before.”

I want to say that I haven’t, but I guess that just depends how you define
crazy
.

“It doesn’t
define you
,” she says, like if she could speak in all-caps, those two words would get that treatment. “I will absolutely lose respect for you if you break up with him over this, Brooks.”

“Oh, sure, that makes sense. Oliver and I have nothing to do with you. Like maybe I have enough crazy to deal with right now.” I don’t want to sit around and hear how I am a bad person about this, when in my head I’m already dealing with what a bad person I am to Mom and Russell and Finn. And of course what a bad person Sara is to all of us. It’s way too much. “I think I’m going.”

I grab my bag and walk out to my car. There are footsteps behind me the whole time, but I don’t bother to look. “What?”

“Hey, Kellie, you okay?”

It isn’t Adelaide. It’s Paul. His presence makes me feel like some idiot on a dating show forced to pick between her cute, smart college boyfriend who just might be crazy and a saner-seeming high school guy who she knows little about except that he’s a responsible member of the
Ticknor Voice
who’s stared at her butt on multiple occasions. Door number one or door number two?

“There’s just a lot going on,” I say.

I should have said I was fine and just gone. I know. If this were actually that dating show, I’d be screaming at my TV by now.

He leans against my car. “Want to go talk?”

No, no, no. “Don’t you have something to do?”

“Not really,” he says. “If you need someone to listen…”

The voice in the back of my head is still screaming
no
. “I just need to sit down.” I unlock my door and get in, and then I hit the button so the passenger door unlocks, too.

Clearly, I’ve taken leave of any brainpower I once had.

“Adelaide’s just stubborn.” He sits down in the car. It’s always weird seeing someone new in an old setting. “I wouldn’t take her that seriously.”

“It’s not just Adelaide.” Not that I want to talk about all that it is. “Are you guys friends?”

He leans over to mess with my iPod resting in the console. Why is this dude in my car? I don’t even want him touching my stuff. “Anyone who’s taken a class with Adelaide knows that much. I like her, but she’s a lot to deal with.”

I feel a defense of Adelaide rising in my chest. “She’s probably going to run the world someday, so you should stay on her good side. Maybe you should go.”

“If you want.” Then he leans in and kisses me. I push him back as it happens, but I feel weird that it even got to that. Should I have known that letting him into my car meant getting kissed? No, I’m pretty sure that’s not a rule.

“I have a boyfriend,” I say. “You know that.”

“I saw you guys arguing at the Halloween party,” he says. “I thought maybe you didn’t anymore.”

“You have to go,” I tell him.

“Sorry if I—”

“Just go, okay?” I’m not sure if I should be this snappy to him, but I don’t want him around, either. “I just—”

“It’s cool,” he says, like it actually is. “See you at school.”

I give him a little wave before peeling out of the parking lot and getting on 44 right away to drive straight to Oliver’s dorm. I’ve ignored him
for days
. And I didn’t kiss another guy, I got kissed, but it still doesn’t seem like the kind of news to break my silence with.

Oliver opens the door looking all excited to see me, which just makes me feel worse. I’m planning on nicely explaining things have been tough, and I was surprised, not terrified—I promise myself I will not at all use any word like
terrified
—to hear about the Alice situation.

But instead I start crying like that day back in May, like yesterday in my car parked in Camille’s driveway, the crazy kind of crying I still can’t really accept I’m capable of. Oliver, to his credit, doesn’t look disgusted with me, even when a big glob of snot escapes my nose and kind of flings off onto the floor. A guy who doesn’t flinch at snot is a good find.

Then it all comes out at once: “Sara moved in with her biological mom, and I said some really crappy things about it to my mom—even if they were true—and Adelaide and I are fighting, and I don’t even know why, and I went to Camille’s, and Sara acted like leaving us was no big deal, and—”

“Kellie—”

“And Dexter told me what happened with you—with you and some girl named Alice, so—”

“Kellie.” He puts his hands on my forearms, sort of like he’s steadying me but also clearly to turn off my rambling confessions. “Are you all right?”

“Do I look all right?”

“Upset, yeah, but okay, too.”

I’m able to stop crying, so I guess he’s right.

“I probably should have told you about what happened with Alice, but it was a while ago and it’s not like that’s how I am now.”

I nod because I want it to be true. I nod because I think about all the changes I’ve made myself to be a person I’m proud to be—exempting this week of course—and if I could manage to do that at just the start of my junior year, Oliver could come a long way in a couple years.

“I don’t mess up like I used to,” he continues. “I promise, I—”

“It makes me nervous,” I say, which is true and honest and sounds a lot better than
terrified
. “And some things, you know, they made me nervous already.”

He runs his hands through his hair, steps back just a little. “Are you breaking up with me?”

“No, I—” I cut myself off because I don’t actually know. I wasn’t here to break up with him, but now that I am and I think about how there’s a dark side to his intensity, I don’t know what I want to do. “Another guy kissed me. Do you hate me?”

“Who?” he asks. “Did you kiss him back? Was it mutual?”

“Just this guy from the paper. And it wasn’t mutual at all. All him.” But I can’t stop thinking about how I’d kept thinking in the moments leading up to the kiss that Paul would be an easier boyfriend than Oliver, and I still feel guilty. Nothing about Oliver could necessarily go in the
easy
column but maybe that doesn’t matter? He’s unafraid of my snot, and he’s always been there for me. “Honestly, right now I don’t know what I want. Is it okay to think that?”

He takes a really deep breath. “You mean with us.”

“I mean with
everything
. If I’ve lost Sara…” I cover my face with my hands so he won’t notice a few more tears slip out, not that face covering is some subtle move. “I’m sorry, Oliver. I think I should go.”

“Yeah,” he says. “I think you should, too.”

“Okay.” I back up to his door. “I’ll text you?”

“Are you okay getting home?” he asks.

For now I nod again. It’s sweet he wants to make sure of that first. Maybe once you try to kill yourself, you get really sensitive to other people’s stuff.

“I’m fine,” I say finally. “Well, obviously not fine. But you know.”

I wait a moment for him to say something sweet, even something weirdly intense or a little crazy. I wait for him to be
Oliver
. But all he does is reach past me to open the door and nod as I continue backing up, into the hallway.

“Bye,” I say.

“Good-bye, Kellie,” he says. And I wish hard that it won’t be the last thing he ever says to me.

Chapter Twenty-five

At Dad’s, I cry a little more, then distract myself with homework and a marathon on Bravo of some real housewives of wherever. Now that I’m at Dad’s full-time, he’s not working from home as much, so I’m on my own. Normally, here that’s preferred, but there’s literally no one at all I can talk to right now. The fact that Dad suddenly seems like ideal company probably is a red flag we’re headed toward the apocalypse.

My phone buzzes, and I feel the caller has just saved humanity from the end times.

“Hi,” Oliver says. “Are you okay?”

“Sure,” I say, trying to infuse that syllable with enough sanity to be credible. “And, hi.”

“Do you have time to talk?”

“Yeah,” I say.

“I know you have a lot going on,” he says. “Because of Sara and everything else. I really was going to tell you about Alice eventually. It might have freaked me out, too, if I heard it about someone.”

“Maybe it shouldn’t,” I say. “I don’t know if I was fair about that.”

“My therapist says maybe I fell for you too fast,” he says. “He says maybe I’m going to mess up again, but I think I just like you a lot.”

“I like you a lot, too,” I say, something I know without uncertainty. “I’m sorry if I overreacted or whatever. Sometimes you freaked me out, though. Before I knew about you and Alice, too, just…getting obsessed with my Facebook, stuff like that. You should just trust who I am.”

“I know.” He’s silent for a bit, so long I almost make one of those lame
Can you hear me now?
jokes. “Maybe we should just take a break or something.”

“Does that mean break up?”

“No, you have stuff to deal with that’s really important with your family, and you’re right that some of the crap I said to you wasn’t that cool. I mean, if that’s what you want.”

“I don’t know what I want,” I say.

“You don’t always have to, Kellie.”

I laugh and realize I’m sniffling a little, so the laugh comes out loud and snotty. It’s good I already know Oliver can handle that. “I hate it when I don’t.”

“I get it, but letting go of control can be really helpful sometimes,” he says. “So…a break?”

I agree even though I can’t believe I’m purposefully putting distance between myself and someone else right now.

“We can still talk, though,” he says. “If you need to. Or want to. And I don’t care what you put your status as.”

“You totally still do.” I laugh so he’ll know I’m not creeped out by the truth.

“Maybe. I’ll try not to. Call me when you want to talk.”

“I promise I will,” I say.

“I know you will. Good-bye, Kell.”

I find Paul first thing the next morning, unfortunately hanging out with Mitchell. “Hey, can we talk?”

“Yeah, sure,” Mitch says, before he catches on that I’m not talking to him.

“Later,” I tell him, walking off in the opposite direction of my locker.

I turn to face Paul, who’s strolling along besides me. “Sorry if I was rude yesterday.”

“You’re sorry? It was all me.” He claps me on the arm, like that isn’t weird or anything. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Sorry if you got your hopes up or whatever,” I say.

He laughs in this way I don’t really
love
. “Kellie, you’re cute, but I’m not in love with you or anything. It’s not a big deal. At all.”

Yikes, blow to the ego, sort of. “Oh, okay.”

“See you in class,” he says and strolls away.

I guess a bad part of me did hope Paul was desperately in love with me, because maybe it would prove something, like that I was interesting or super appealing to guys or mature in a way I’d like to be. But I know deep down it wouldn’t prove any of that, and also, I’m trying to apply my honesty all around—including with myself. And that also means I don’t avoid Adelaide when we walk into Jennifer’s classroom at the same time.

“Hi,” I say.

“Brooks, what?”

“Was I a jerk yesterday?”

She makes a bunch of huffing sounds.

“I’m sorry. Okay? I just have a lot going on. And you should
know
that.” I sit down in my usual spot, and luckily, she takes her usual seat in front of me. “Are you free after school?”

“Not until eight,” she says. “Distributing flyers for Growing American Youth before. You can just come over if you want.”

It’s not the friendliest invitation, but she’s stopped huffing, so clearly we’re fine. And I pick up coffee for her and cocoa for me that night at the local coffee shop in Dad’s neighborhood before driving over to her house, and if there’s anything that fixes everything for us, it’s our usual beverages.

“So.” I take a few sips of my cocoa. It’s scary even thinking about saying this. “You got really mad yesterday, the way you thought I was mistreating Oliver or whatever. Like up until now, you’ve been the first one onboard the Oliver Is Maybe Too Crazy for Me train.”

“I never said that. I said I personally wouldn’t have been able to stand the way he jumped right into being your boyfriend. His sanity never came up.”

“I just mean that you seemed to take it really personally. You can say if it’s none of my business, but…” I summon the strength to ask Adelaide of all people a freakishly personal question. “Did something happen?”

“Nothing as dramatic as Oliver’s post-Alice episode,” she says. “But, sure. I used to cut myself. It wasn’t a big deal.”

“You don’t have to say it wasn’t if it was. You don’t have to be so frigging
Adelaide
about everything.”

“Look who’s talking, jeez, Brooks.” She elbows me, hard, before grinning at me. “You sound like my therapist.”

“I guess your therapist is pretty cool then.”

Her smile fades just a little, and she shows me some faint scars on her arm. “It was a big deal then, but it isn’t now. Therapy’s a good thing.”

“Yes, definitely,” I say.

“Your mom said if I get a tattoo here, the scars won’t show at all anymore. So next year, as soon as I’m eighteen…”

“You talked about this
with my mom
?”

“It just came up, because I had been thinking about the tattoo for a while. And your mom’s easy to talk to, you should know that.”

I don’t want to sit around and think about how great Mom is, even if it is true. “You can hardly even notice the scars.”

“
I
notice them.” Her voice falters a little, which is weird. Adelaide doesn’t falter. I guess everyone’s more than you think they are. “Whatever, it’s dumb.”

“It’s not dumb. I just didn’t want you to be self-conscious or something. Mom says tattoos are—ironically—really healing. Also like life-changing, I guess. She wouldn’t have figured out she needed more in life if she hadn’t gotten her first one.” Great, now
I
am saying nice stuff about Mom.

Adelaide sort of bolts toward me, and I worry she’s going to knock me down or something. But, no, Adelaide is hugging me.

“It would kill me, Brooks, if you went back to being chummy with Kaitlyn Hamilton. I know it’s ridiculous; it isn’t as if I ever get possessive about Byron. You should be friends with whoever you want to be, sure, but you’re smarter than that.”

“I’m not sure I am,” I say. “I mean—Kaitlyn’s a really big part of my life, well, at least she was. I guess it’s good that isn’t gone completely. I don’t really want to lose people, though, if I don’t have to.”

“Just because your sister’s having some sort of quarter-life crisis, that’s no reason to cling to heinousness.”

“Kaitlyn can be a good friend,” I say. “Sometimes. I don’t think that because it’s not smart, I think it because it’s just true. She’s a better listener than you, for sure.”

Adelaide narrows her eyes. “Nice.”

“It’s true,” I say. “It’s awesome you care about the whole world. But I’m part of the world, you know, and I’m right here.”

“Point taken.” Adelaide flops onto her bed. “Back in grade school, I used to be really popular. You probably don’t believe me, but I was.”

“I believe you. Also I remember.”

“I’ve tried really hard to limit my friends to people who won’t pull that crap on me anymore,” she says. “If I’m wrong about you—”

“You’re not wrong about me,” I say. “Trust me. I’m a really honest person.”

Dad and I go out for Mexican that night, which involves driving across town to the place on South Hampton he’s really into, weirdly enough, despite it not being boring or stuffy. I normally don’t eat there, because even the beans are cooked in lard, which means it’s basically a huge danger zone for Russell. How weird is it that I miss worrying about his stupid eating habits? Not that they are actually stupid, just annoying sometimes.

I’d asked him about it one night, because we were supposed to be this open but respectful family. Okay, at the time I’d just been mad we couldn’t go out for burgers at the place Sara and I really liked that doesn’t have veggie burgers, but it gave me the excuse to finally bring it up.

“After Chrystina died, I’m not proud, but I did a lot of things that weren’t good for me or anyone else,” he told me. “Too much drinking.
Way
too much drinking. And the way I treated my ex back then, just terrible. I was in a lot of pain, Kell, but that was no excuse.”

I liked that I was just a kid but he still laid it out like that, not trying to make it something it wasn’t.

“When I got myself straightened out, I knew I had to give something back, make things right with the world, I guess, some kind of sacrifice for me,” he said. “That’s what I came up with.”

It’s totally not fair, but even now sometimes I want to ask Dad if I’d be worth going vegan for.

As I get into bed later, my phone blinks with a text from Oliver making sure I’m doing all right, and I think about how even though maybe we won’t ever be together again, he’s still looking out for me. I think about Sara, and how—despite what she’s done—she probably needs taking care of just as much as I do. So I tap out as innocuous a text as I can manage (
sorry for drama last time we talked…up for real talk soon?
) and send it to her.

She doesn’t respond, but I still feel better when I fall asleep.