“It was in his car the whole time?” I ask.
“The whole time,” Jason’s father says. “Imagine that.”
***
The conversation bustles the whole of lunchtime, and I eat as much as I can. But my stomach feels wobbly, my chest tight with unease.
Was Jason decidingbetweengiving me a ring and dumping me? That makes no sense.
My head has started throbbing and my brain feels like it’s going to combust from what has just happened, so at the earliest opportunity, I push my chair away from the table.
“Bathroom,” I mumble to anyone who’s listening, which is probably no one at all. In the guest bathroom, I carefully reapply my lipstick when all I want is to duck out, swipe off all my makeup, and cozy up with a book. But I can’t.
I put a note in my phone to call my doctor about the headaches I’ve been getting since the accident and straighten up. For now, I need answers.
I take my shoes off at the stairs while Jason’s mom is asking the catering staff to bring out dessert, and I tiptoe up.
I sneak past the second-floor bathroom and the laundry room. I’ve been to Jason’s room plenty of times, and I know that his is the third door on the right.
There must be some logical explanation for everything that has happened over the last week. Starting with the breakup, ending with the ring. I just have to find it.
Once I’m inside Jason’s room, I’m hit with it.
That musky old-man cologne. I’ve never loved it, but Jason picked his signature smell before we got together. Apparently, fancy signature scents are a rich-people thing. I breathe it in and Imiss him. I realize I haven’t smelled that exact scent in the week he’s been in hospital. I miss the solid feel of Jason beside me. I miss that untouchable warmth he has that feels like comfort, like home. Jason always made me feel safe.
I touch his quilt, his pillow. And then I drop down on my knees and start looking, rummaging inside his bed frame and inside the shoebox under his bed. Both contain things I hope his mother never finds, because—
I shriek as the door of Jason’s room opens and closes. Marcus hurries in and claps his hand over my mouth before I can shriek even louder. He smells clean in a different way to Jason’s room. Woodsy and fresh.
I bite Marcus’s hand before I can do something humiliating like sniff him, and he lets go.
“What are you doing?” he asks.
“What areyou?” I say, enraged to be caught on all fours searching through Jason’s unmentionables.
“I wouldn’t look in there if I were you,” Marcus says.
“Thanks for the warning. On time as always,” I say with an eye roll, as I shove the box deeper under Jason’s bed. I’m surprised that Marcus knows what’s in there.
Marcus and Jason have always had a complicated relationship, just like their fathers. Jason’s father, Rhett, is the older brother, the businessman, the former soccer pro. Marcus’s father, Tommy, wanted to build a life without their father’s money, which made things significantly harder for him, but he opened a car repair shop when he moved back to Sterlingwood last year. He has had to raise Marcus and Joey alone since his wife left soon after Joey was born. Sometimes they get along great, but most of the time Marcus andJason want to kill each other. I used to think it all came down to competition—being in the same sport, jockeying for positions and team captain and game time and all those things, but Marcus doesn’t seem to actually care about having any of that. Maybe it’s just the principle of the thing; no one wants to feel like they are a dimmer version of the sun.
Marcus is watching me, considering, his eyes narrowed. “So. Was it planted by you or planted by someone else? How did you do it?”
“How did I dowhat?”
“The ring,” he says. “How did you get it in the car?”
I’m practically beaming. “I didn’t,” I say. “Clearly, Jason meant to give it to me all along and only broke up with me to…to…throw me off. And obviously it worked.”
I pull myself up into a standing position, trying to hide my wince as a wave of nausea rushes over me.
“That doesn’t make sense,” Marcus says.
“Consider the fact,” I hiss, taking a step closer to him, “that you don’t know everything, Marcus.”
“I didn’t say I do.”
“Jason loves me.” I am so supremely full of confidence that I feel light as air. I take off the ring, hold it in my palm. The truth is that it feels strange on me. Too big, yes, but wrong in a multitude of ways. I don’t normally wear rings, and it’s apromisering, and the whole thing feels weirder than I thought it would. So old-fashioned and slightly child bride–ish. “It all makes sense now.”
