He pauses his work on my undereyes, and his cheeks stretch the tiniest bit farther. “You have, like, three friends, Chuck. The dude knows my name. Rich was threatened by me.”
“Why would he feel threatened by you?” I ask, knowing exactly whyIsuspect Ethan wasn’t Rich’s favorite topic of conversation. When Rich and I were dating, every story of the old days had a way of looping its way back to Ethan, but fromour honeymoon onward, his ire was definitely rooted in the way I drifted around the Airbnb that weekend like a zombie, checking my phone for apology texts that wouldn’t come.
Still, I’m praying to everything holy that Ethan doesn’t know that part.
He bobs his head, that smile ever expanding. “I don’t know. You tell me.”
I can’t respond. I can only manage to stare at that forehead freckle. He chuckles. It’s a warm, rumbly sound that shakes his chest, his shoulder, all the way to his thumb, so that I feel the tremble of his amusement at my temple.
I shut my eyes, unable to handle how he’s crowding all five of my senses at once. The feel of his guitar-callused fingers holding my chin while his other hand draws careful circles under my eyes. The percussive rhythm of his steady breaths. His smell of sweat and sugar is so overwhelming, I can almost taste the salty sweetness on my tongue. Each piece could be too much on its own, but combined with the way he’s looking at me, like I’m something delicate? Impossible to withstand.
The bathroom feels much too small all of a sudden, and I can’t take another second of it. “You know, I think I wore waterproof mascara last night. It’s probably not going to get much better than this.” I take a step back from Ethan. His hands fall as he searches my face with the kind of penetrating blue-eyed stare that could make a smart woman do stupid things.
He swallows, nods, and searches for a place to put his hands.
“Can I…?” I point to my bag. It’s resting on his shoulder by the strap.
“Of course, here you…” He trails off, extending the bagtoward me. I accept it with the hand that’s not securing the towel over my breasts.
“I’ll just…” I raise the bag an inch.
“I’ll be…” He collects my clothes off the floor with the garbage bag like a dog owner bagging a turd but doesn’t leave. My eyes drop to Felix the spider as we just stand there for another few seconds.
“I’m cold,” I announce.
“Sorry, yeah,” he responds, and then he walks out of the bathroom.
Since there’s still no surface on which to set anything, I have to clutch my towel and clumsily swing my bag in front of my hips, one-handedly grabbing at my belongings in search of clothes.
While I’m doing this dance, wishing Ethan were still in here, the single shirt I packed flies straight into the toilet.
Chapter 7
Gently Used Animal Carcasses
Fourteen Years Ago
Dear Charlotte Beekman,
We’re readingPersuasionin English, and Mr. Farley gave us this assignment today where we can write a letter to anyone we want, but we have to do it while he STARES DIRECTLY AT US. He says he’s not going to read them, so I could do another song ranking, but I wrote your name without thinking and I know you’d rather get a letter since you probably haven’t recovered from my most recent ranking of every Arcade Fire song (which I still think is my greatest contribution to music ever, even if you’re the only one who reads it).
Letters are so formal. Maybe that’s why I haven’t written to you yet even though my mom got your new address from the Ludeckis a few weeks after you left. That’s the family that lives in your house now, by the way. I think one of them goes to the college, but I can’t be sure. They have a six-month-old baby and basically never leave the house. Sometimes my mom has me mow their lawn, and they bothwave at me from the window like hostages the whole time I’m out there.
I wanted to send you something on Facebook, but I’m still not allowed to have one yet. Do you have one? People at school ask me if you do. All. The. Time. You know there are people here who miss you, right?
DUDE…Forty-five minutes is a superrrrr long time to write a letter. I need to think of something else to say because Mr. Farley is watching, and his eyebrows are doing that thing where he looks like an angry Muppet.
I forgot you don’t know Mr. Farley, because you go to high school somewhere else. What’s it like going to school someplace else?
That was a dumb question. Sorry. I feel pressured to ask you something important because it’s like the first letter I’ve written after two months, but the only thing coming to mind is did you seeInception? School played it on the lawn for homecoming, and I’m not sure if I liked it or understood it or just had a dream of Leonardo DiCaprio for several hours. Ireallyneed to talk to you about it.
My stomach is growling, so I’m gonna cut this short so I can get a bathroom pass and sneak down to the vending machines for chips.
From,
Ethan Powell (from Mr. Farley’s 2nd-period freshman English class)
Dear Ethanius Potholomew,
