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“And this is why you didn’t get to pick out your own costume,” Gibby said. “Because of ideasexactlylike that.”
Nick scoffed. “Oh, please. If you all hadn’t helped Mateo make my Guardian costume, I still would’ve come up with something badass. And at leastthatway, I wouldn’t have body issues because of all the spandex. Seth makes it look hot as hell. I look like someone filled a plastic tube with oatmeal and gave it arms and legs.”
“And googly eyes.”
“And googly eyes,” Nick agreed. “Which, to be fair, is not my fault. I always look like I have googly eyes. That’s why I wear a helmet.”
She opened the cooler door, both of them crowding in frontof it, letting the cold air wash over them. Gibby grabbed a few water bottles, handing them over to Nick before grabbing a couple more. She closed the door, and Nick was about to turn and head toward the front when she said, “Hey, Nick? Can I ask you something?”
He stopped, looking over his shoulder. “What?”
She looked as if she were picking and choosing her next words carefully. He turned back around as she leaned against the cooler door, giving her his complete attention.
“This is going to sound stupid. I don’t even…” She huffed out a breath.
“You’re in the best company if that’s the case,” he told her. “Pretty much everything that comes out of my mouth is stupid.”
She nodded, studying him for a long moment. “Okay. So. Just… let me talk this out, yeah? I swear I have a point.”
“Go,” he said. “I’m listening.”
“Why doesn’t your mom have a job?”
He blinked in surprise. Out of all the things he thought Gibby might say, he hadn’t expected that question. “She quit so she could stay at home after I was born. Dad and she agreed that one of them wanted to be there so I wasn’t a latchkey kid like they were. You know that.”
“Right,” Gibby said slowly. “But didn’t she go back at some point? Like, it’s weird. I keep thinking she’s still a lawyer. I thought I remembered you saying that she went back when you started going to school.”
“No,” he said. “She never did.” But even as he said it, a strange feeling of unreality washed over him, threatening to split him in two. “Maybe for a little bit when I was younger, but I…” He frowned, forehead scrunched up, tongue thick in his mouth, throat parched. “Huh. That’s weird. Didn’t she…” She was home. She was always there. When Nick got up. When Nick came home. Always there, always waiting for him with open arms and a smile on her face.
Gibby said, “I have two words in my head. Two words that I can’t shake for some reason.Before. After.Always capitalized,like they’re… I don’t know. Important. But not to me. Does that mean anything to you? I don’t know why, but it feels like they came from you.”
“They didn’t,” he said, and this, too, felt like a lie, but he didn’t knowwhythat was. Hadn’t he just had the same thought yesterday? “It’s…” He looked off into nothing, unfocused, dizzy. The heat was getting to him. That had to be it. He shook his head, trying to clear out his brain. “Why does it matter?”
Visibly frustrated, Gibby said, “I don’t know. I keep thinking she… your mom. For some reason, I remember a time when she wasn’t there. With you and your dad. It’s all foggy. And it doesn’t make any sense because if shewasn’twith you and your dad, then where would she have gone?”
“But she wasn’t gone,” Nick said slowly. “Maybe when she worked, if she had to go to a seminar or something. But other than that, I don’t think she ever left.”
Right? Right.
“Yeah,” Gibby said, looking unsure. “You’re right. I’m probably misremembering. Everything is fine.”
“That’s all right,” Nick said. “A bunch of shit has happened in the last year. My head is all jumbled up with it, too.” Then, because Gibby was being honest with him, he said, “Can I tell you something, too?”
“Of course,” she said, pushing herself off the cooler door.
He gnawed on the inside of his cheek until it was ragged. “This whole… Burke thing. Protecting him from Owen. I can’t… I don’t know how to reconcile that, you know? He’s done so much to try and hurt us, and it feels… wrong to step in and save him should something happen.” He looked down at the floor. “I know we’re supposed to help everyone we can. We’re the good guys. We can’t pick and choose who to save.”
“But,” she said, knowing there was more.
“But,” Nick said. “Hearing my mom say that, and have Dad agree with her, doesn’t sit right with me. They know our history with Burke. They have theirownhistory. He’s never done anything unless it benefits himself, and I don’t get why theythink we need to do anything for him. And even worse, I almost feel… sorry. For Owen.” He winced, wishing he’d kept his mouth shut.
“Why?” she asked, and he loved her for the lack of censure in her voice.
Nick scrubbed a hand over his face, elbow knocking against an endcap of potato chips, the plastic crinkling. “He’s not a good person. He lied to us. Hurt us. Tried tokillus. Hell, hedidkill people.”
“But,” she said again.
“But would he have been like that if Burke wasn’t his father?” He groaned, shaking his head. “I know how that sounds. If it comes down to us or them, I’m always going to side with us. Owen sucks ass. I want to make him eat his goddamn teeth the same as the rest of you, oh my god, Ihate—”
