He dismisses the excuse with “Mr.Hicks doesn’t care if you’re late.” When I try to take a step away, frustration fills his ice-blue eyes. “Just tell me one thing.”
I stop and wait, now refusing to make eye contact.
“Why?” Everett says, his tone flat. “What did I do?”
“Nothing. I told you, I don’t want to date anyone right now. I need to focus on school.”
“Bullshit.”
I clamp my mouth shut. Yes, that’s a flimsy excuse, but it’s better thanMy father murdered your mother. I peer past his broad shoulders down the hall. We’re alone, but the sunlight filtering through the windows behind me feels like a spotlight.
“Look, I know something happened the night of the party. I’m sorry I left you to deal with—”
“That’s not it.” The last thing I want to do is think about the party. “I don’t care about that. We were moving really fast. Too fast for me.”
“I don’t believe you.” His jaw clenches. “This is about my mom.”
My heart freezes in my chest. “What do you mean?”
“I come with too much baggage, right?” he says. “My family is linked to the Starling Slayer and we always will be. There’ll always be true-crime assholes sneaking around on our property, taking pictures of our house.Herhouse. Victim number six.” His sad expression cuts me to my core. “It’s a lot to handle. I don’t blame you for not wanting to take on that baggage.”
I know all about baggage, I want to blurt out. I want to hug him. Tell him I’ve changed my mind. But my family is responsible for everything he’s suffered. I have to stand firm.
“I promise you that’s not it. I have my own baggage, trust me.”
“Then share it with me,” he challenges. “I get it—you’re aprivate person. That’s one of the things I like about you, how you keep your head down. You stay out of the drama.”
Hysterical laughter bubbles in my throat. If he only knew.
“But you don’t have to hide from me. You can talk to me. Talk about your life in Switzerland. Your parents. Your dad sent you to live here instead of keeping you with him, right? Talk to me aboutthat.”
I can’t, because it’s all a lie.
“The moment we met, I felt like you got me. Like you could see I’m more than I appear on the surface. Well, I know you’re more than you appear to be too. So talk to me.”
The frustration I always feel whenever he pushes me returns.I hate being pushed to talk about things. Let me open up naturally, damn it. Like my uncle. He gets that. That day in the woods, Dan chose silence rather than force, and I opened up.
Everett doesn’t seem comfortable with silence.
“Everett. I really do like you,” I say. “But I just need to take a step back. Not move so fast. Okay?”
“Whatever, Ryan.”
He stalks off, and I let him.
The guilt is suffocating, squeezing my windpipe, but when I see him again after lunch, I don’t feel so bad anymore. I turn a corner and there he is, leaning against his locker with Sofia practically draped over him. Her hand is on his chest, fingers playing with the zipper of his football jacket.
For a split second, I think he’s doing it to make me jealous. But then I catch his faraway expression, the way he doesn’t seemto even notice Sofia’s hand on him or her relentless, sugary laugh. He’s somewhere else, miles away from the crowded hallway and the girl clinging to him.
Sofia, however, catches sight of me, and her triumphant smirk says everything:I win.
I work with Maggie for a few hours after school. It’s the usual chill afternoon at the office I’ve come to expect—doing some light updates to listings, filing a few papers, answering some phone calls. From the small receptionist area, I can see into Maggie’s office. She’s red-faced and has a crease that goes all the way across her forehead, a sign that she’s stressed. She’s been on the phone for the last twenty minutes with an elderly man whose house she listed last week. He’s now decided he wants to live there. As in, sell the house butkeepliving there.
“Stanley,” Maggie is saying in a falsely bright voice. “I’m afraid that’s impossible. If we sell your house, the new owners are going to want to live in it.Withoutyou. Yes…yes…well, of course, I understand you don’t want to move, but if that’s the case, we will take the house off the market.” Her face turns even redder. Poor woman is in danger of bursting a blood vessel. “Yes, I understand you want to sell it, but…”
Grinning openly, I tune her out and open the general email account to check the new messages from the “contact us” form on Maggie’s website. I find nearly a dozen waiting to be answered. Usually we’re lucky to get one. I open the first:
I’m looking into details of the Starling residence belonging to Sarah and Gabriel Thorn. Can you provide me with details…
