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Shit. “Oh.”

“So where were you all night?” he asks, his shoulders tensing.

“I left my keys in your car,” I tell him. “So I…” I trail off as I watch the pieces come together in his head.

“You spent the night at Trevor’s.”

I look at him, sitting at the foot of my bed, one knee perpendicular to the edge, just inches from my outstretched legs. His other foot is on the floor, as if he needs the grounding of my old tan carpet to get through this conversation.

I nod, just once.

“Trevor’s,” he repeats, standing. “Did something happen?”

I can’t help the laugh that escapes. It’s guttural. Olive-branch latke be damned.

“Why, because he had a crush on me a decade ago? You’ve done nothing but hurt me since I got home. At least Trevor is kind.”

“It wasn’t my intention, Norah, I swear. The house wasn’t my news to share, and I certainly didn’t think Sara was going to tell you last night, after they’d only just made up.” He rubs the back of his neck, looking up at the ceiling. “I could tell it was something you would need to be eased into, and your mother had to know that too. Sara could have handled it way better,” he grumbles.

“My mom could have handled it better for your sake? Gosh, between this and Genevieve, you just really can’t catch a break, huh? Poor Henry,” I spit out, folding my legs underneath me, wanting to curl up in a ball and disappear.

But it’s not just the house, or Genevieve. It’s not even really the rejection nine years ago that I still don’t understand, and feel a little salty about, if I’m being completely honest.

It’s the years of betrayed trust and hurt I thought we were finally mending, all gone to shit.

The color drains from his face. “It’s your first holiday back home in years. Why would I want to ruin that? For you, for your mom, for us?”

The heavy silence hangs there, thick and ugly between us. I feel his eyes on me, but I can’t meet his stare.

“You don’t have anything to say to that?” He turns away from me like he’s going to leave, but he can’t bring himself to cross the threshold back into the rest of the house.

“What do you want me to say? That it’s all okay? Again?” I push myself off the bed, hands on my hips. “What do you want from me?”

“Nothing, Norah,” he says, still facing the door. “Nothing. Just like you and me. You were right the first time. We’ve never been a we.”

Suddenly he turns around and walks briskly toward me. His hands reach out, wrapping around my hips. My breath catches. But then he just moves me aside, grabbing the now-empty plate from behind me on the nightstand.

He leans down so I feel his hot breath on my neck. “You and I just can’t get it right, huh?”

I pull back and see the hurt on his face, the vibrancy of his blue eyes dulled somehow.

As if me seeing him has exposed too much, Henry swiftly turns and leaves, closing my door behind him.

Chapter 17

When I finally come back downstairs, having showered and changed into the worn pink sweatshirt I’d found here on my first night back because I needed to feel soft, the house is quiet.

Mom and Hannah are painting their nails, no Coles present. Hannah’s got on nice jeans and a baby blue long-sleeve square-neck bodysuit.

“Where’d everybody go?” I ask.

“Oh, Henry wasn’t feeling well, so they went back home,” Mom explains.

My nose crinkles, knowing that his ailment is probably not physical.

Knowing that it’s all my fault.

“He’s not so bad, you know,” Hannah says when Mom leaves to clean up her cuticles in the bathroom.