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Maddy nodded, understanding.
“He’s not—” Ethan broke off when his voice shook. “He’s not with us anymore.”
“I’m so sorry.” Maddy didn’t know what else to say.
“It still just gets to me sometimes. Especially when I think about how he died.”
Maddy’s heart thudded in her chest. She felt terrible. “Ethan, I didn’t mean to—”
“It’s okay,” he said. Maddy watched him as he ran a finger over the picture. She didn’t dare speak.
“There was time to save them both, Maddy,” he said. “It would have been easy. It’s effortless for them, you know. But my father, well—” He looked up from the photo and met Maddy’s gaze. His eyes were full of unshed tears. “He didn’t have coverage.”
Maddy’s heart was in her throat. She ached with sympathy. No
wonder Ethan disliked the Angels. It was a wonder he wasn’t as aggressively anti-Angel as Tyler. Ethan set the photo back in the box along with the others.
“That’s what they told my mother. That’s what they told us both.” He gestured around them at the empty house. “No amount of insurance money can buy my dad back. They could have saved him, but they didn’t.”
Maddy thought about their conversation in the stairwell at school, and at the diner before that. She thought about what Ethan must have read about her online. And how he had supported her and been a friend to her anyway.
Almost without being aware of it, Maddy took a step toward him.
“Ethan . . .” Her voice was almost a whisper. “I’m so sorry.” She placed a hand on his chest and felt his heart pounding furiously under his shirt. They were face-to-face again, inches apart now.
“I’m glad you told me about him.”
Ethan swiped at his eyes with his hand and let out a pent-up breath. He looked down at his feet. “I really know how to set the mood, don’t I?” he said, smiling. “Going on about dead people. Real smooth.” He laughed, but it was shaky.
Maddy smiled and looked into his eyes. She felt his hand on the small of her back and let him pull her close.
She held his gaze. For the third time, it was as if his eyes were asking a question. This time, she nodded. Letting her mind go blank, she tilted her mouth up toward him and closed her eyes.
She needed this. She wanted this. She felt his breath on her cheeks and then, ever so gently, the brush of his lips.
It happened in that instant. An image exploding in the blackness of her mind so vivid and clear it could not have come from her thoughts.
It was Jacks’s face.
Suddenly, it was as if Jacks was there in the room with her. She could touch him. Smell him. Feel his presence. Maddy pulled herself away from Ethan.
“I’m so sorry, Ethan . . . I can’t do this,” she gasped, her face twisted and confused. She ran out of the room and rushed down the hallway blindly, fighting tears, Jacks’s presence still lingering in her ears, in her nose, and on her tongue. She could hear Ethan’s footsteps behind her after a moment, hustling to catch up.
“Maddy, wait!” he called after her.
She found the living room and pushed through the crowd. People glared at her as she shoved past, but she didn’t care. She needed to get out of the party before anything else happened, before she embarrassed herself any further. She reached the front door and fumbled with the knob.
“Wait, Maddy, I’m sorry, did I do something?” Ethan panted, finally catching up to her. “You don’t have to go!”
“Yes, I do,” she said as she threw the door open. “It’s not your fault, Ethan, I just need to go.” She grabbed her hoodie off the rack and stuck her arms in the sleeves.
Ethan sighed. “Okay, if you say so. I’m really sorry if I rushed things. At least let me drive you home? It’s getting dark out.”
“No, honestly, it’s all right,” she said, zipping up her sweatshirt. “Besides, you can’t leave your own party.
“Bro, she’s right,” a drunk voice called. “You can’t leave your own parrrry!”
It was Simon again. He came over and threw his arm sloppily around Ethan’s shoulders. “We’ll drive the famous Maddy Montgomery home, right, Jordan?”
