Six Months Later Part 15

Great. I'm stalking my own therapist so I can listen to her fight with her husband? Clearly, I do need therapy. Probably for the rest of my life if I don't get my c.r.a.p together and get out of here.

"Well, if everything's so fine, why is Chloe Spinnaker asking me about Julien?"

Everything goes cold and still, inside and out. I don't blink or breathe. I stand there, legs turning to jelly, wis.h.i.+ng I could hear whatever's being said on the other end of the line.

She's talking quieter now, or maybe she's turned so that she's facing the other way.

The phone rattles into the cradle, and I bolt like a horse out of the gate. I dance sideways through the waiting room, trying not to knock into the magazine stand between the chairs.

My heart is drumming so loud I can feel it behind my ears. I slink over to my purse, tugging it free of the door as I step outside.

The light from my front door looks like heaven. I feel myself deflate like a balloon as I turn off the car, my shoulders finally relaxing.

I still know nothing. Tomorrow I'll still wake up with a gaping hole in my memory and a best friend who won't speak to me. Plus, I have no idea who the h.e.l.l this Daniel person is or how he fits into all of this.

But I'm one piece closer, and that's something.

Outside, the air is frigid, and I find myself cursing my missed summer again. I climb the steps to my porch with visions of a hot shower and fleece pajama pants in my future.

I toss my keys on the end table and chuck my coat on the hook by the door. And then I hear someone laughing in the kitchen. No, not someone. Someones.

"Chloe?"

It's my mom who calls out, and I'm about to answer when another figure appears in the kitchen doorway. Blake. Blake is standing in my kitchen, sock-footed and holding a mug of something steamy.

I see my mom and my dad and everyone's smiling and this is supposed to be normal, but my teeth are starting to chatter again and then he's kissing me. Right in front of my parents. He just leans in and kisses me, letting it linger just long enough so that it feels like he's proving a point.

"Hey, babe," he says.

I return his embrace like a puppet, invisible strings lifting my arms and placing them around his middle. Over his shoulder I can see my delighted parents. Or my delighted mother at least. My dad's smile looks just a little too tight around the edges to totally convince me.

"Your hands are freezing," he says when I pull back, rubbing my fingers between his palms.

"I didn't know you were coming. I didn't see your car," I say stupidly, and then I look to my mom and dad for help because, really, aren't boys supposed to call first?

Apparently not when the boy is Blake Tanner, because he's exactly the guy you want your daughter to date. He's one of the good guys. A Boy Scout. An athlete. h.e.l.l, he's been on the Ridgeview Good Citizens' list so many times they should practically name it after him.

"I took my dad's car," he says, nodding out the window where I can see a s.h.i.+ny, black Audi parked on the street. "Mine's in the shop for a tune-up."

"Oh," I say. "Okay. Did you need something?"

He laughs and waggles his chemistry book at me. "Um, chemistry? Midterm's tomorrow?"

"Right," I echo, wis.h.i.+ng to G.o.d I could just warm up enough to keep my chin from trembling.

I imagine the rest of my night studying with Blake. Which makes me think of Adam folded into that narrow s.p.a.ce between my window and bed. Which makes me think of slamming my head into the nearest wall-seriously, what am I going to do here?

"I figured you might want to run over the review," he says. "Like we always do."

I nod and smile because everyone else seems to be happy about this plan.

"So..." he says, trailing off and jerking his head just a little toward the kitchen. Or my bedroom. It could be either.

Please let it be the kitchen. Please.

I glance around because, h.e.l.l, I've never had a boy come over to study. Not a boy I'm dating at any rate. I have no idea what the parent rules are in this situation.

"Let me go get my book," I say dumbly, heading for the stairs.

"Or I can come up there," he says, s.h.i.+fting his own book in his arms. "I actually dropped my stuff in your room earlier."

He was in my room. Presumably alone. I feel icky all over at this.

"There's more room in the dining room," Dad says, and I can tell by his face that he'd prefer us there, a mere ten feet away without a doorway in sight.

But Mom frowns at him pointedly. "We're getting ready to watch a movie, George. They'll never be able to focus. Plus, there's no Internet in there."

"They need Internet to study?" Dad asks, emphasizing Internet and study as if they're code names for something much dirtier.

"Don't be obtuse, George. They always study in Chloe's room."

Do we? Or is my dad closer to the truth? Do we do something else? I feel my throat going dry as I realize exactly what we really might do in my room.

"I'm sorry," Mom says, waving us toward the stairs with a roll of her eyes like she's completely cool with all of this.

I am not cool with this. My ribs feel tight, and my knees are wobbly.

"The dining room would be fine," Blake says, but I'm not buying his tone. This has brown-nose-the-parents all over it.

"Don't be silly," Mom says, clearly eating right out of his hand. "We'll be down here if you need anything."

"Right down here," my dad adds.

I storm up the stairs, catching a glimpse of my crimson face in a decorative mirror on the wall. None of this seems to bother Blake, who follows me like a Labrador retriever, closing my bedroom door very quietly behind us.

I immediately scan every inch of my bedroom for signs of Adam. Ridiculous, I know. It's not like he left a trail of clothes or anything. G.o.d, don't think about Adam stripping off clothes. Not when Blake might be expecting me to strip off clothes.

Better yet, maybe I can just not think at all.

"What's the test on?" I ask, the words squeaky.

Blake just laughs and crosses the floor between us, threading his fingers in the back of my hair. He pulls me in and all I can smell is his cologne. It's too much, too strong, and all I can think is, Mom would die if she knew how this guy had snowed her over.

I have maybe a half second to process that this is going to happen, and then his lips close over mine.

I've been kissed enough to know when someone's doing it right. And Blake is technically doing it right, tilting my head just a little. Urging my mouth to open for him. And he's pressing into me just enough to make things interesting, without mas.h.i.+ng his kibbles and bits against my thigh or anything.

My heart is hammering for all of the wrong reasons. I fumble under his kisses, feeling like there's no right speed for my lips, no comfortable perch for my hands. And I really need to stop overthinking this before he starts thinking something is up with me.

Trouble is, something is up with me.

Namely, I can't stop thinking about Adam.

This is wrong. Guilt is tearing through me, my every instinct commanding me to pull away from him. I can't do this. I just can't.

I pull away, and Blake gazes down on me, eyes dark with hunger. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," I say, forcing myself to touch his shoulders. "School is just..."

"Hm..." he says, cutting me off with another long, slow kiss.

It's even worse than before. All I can think about is Adam. And G.o.d, it's wrongity-wrong-wrong, but for one second, I close my eyes tight and pretend I'm with him. I think of blue eyes and a low laugh and all the things I should never think of now.

Blake gives me a little appreciative moan, and the sound of his voice is so startling and so foreign, that I pull away, wiping a shaking hand over my mouth.

"I'm sorry," I say, stepping back to my desk. "I'm really sorry."

Blake watches me in a very cool, detached way. The same way he looked at me that morning at Trixie's. As if he's about to pick me apart and label all the gooey bits he finds.

"You know, I thought we were done with this," he says.

"Done with what? I'm just tense, Blake."

"Yeah, I got that memo. You've been tense ever since that night at my house."

I don't have to ask to know what night he means. The night I hit my head. The night I forgot. Or remembered. h.e.l.l, I don't even know what to call it.

You could tell him.

I toss the idea almost as soon as I think it. Something as deep as the marrow of my bones tells me I can't tell Blake about this. Not any of it. And I'm definitely a girl who believes in going with her gut.

"I'm sorry," I say again. A broken record. "I think the pressure of the applications and senior year-it's a little more intense than I thought."

"Are you doing your meditations?"

"Yeah," I lie, turning away so he won't see the irritation on my face.

But it's there, burning through me. A strange mix of fear and discomfort. I don't like him acting like my mother. Trying to fix me.

"You know you should think about coming with me to the gym. It might help you burn off a lot of that anxiety."

"Thanks, I just don't..." I trail into silence because it hits me like a ton of bricks. I don't want to be with Blake. I just don't. Even if Adam didn't exist at all, I still wouldn't.

Despite everything I felt, all the long afternoons I spent gazing at him on the lacrosse field, this isn't right. Not for me.

"Blake," I say, but then I pause because I can't believe I'm about to do this. "I think I might need a little bit of time. A little...time off."

"Time off," he repeats, and while it's crystal clear he knows where I'm going with this, he's not angry. Not angry or shocked or even particularly hurt.

"A break," I tell him. "Just to sort out my head."

I turn back to him, and he's very still and calm. After a while, he comes forward, touching my face with soft fingers. The touch is tender, but somehow his face isn't. G.o.d, it's so confusing.

"Do you mean break for now or break forever?" he asks.

I don't know. I don't know what I mean or what I'm doing. Walking away from Blake is counter to everything I've ever wanted. I keep hearing Maggie's words in my mind. Am I running away? Is that what this is?

"I don't know," I say honestly. "I just know I need some time to sort it out."

"Of course, Chloe. Take your time. You know I'll be here."

The words are the stuff of movies, but his face is flat. He's like a very bad actor reciting even worse lines.

And I'd like to know who the h.e.l.l wrote them.

We file back down the stairs. He is all easy civility as he offers me a sideways hug at the door.

"Leaving already?" Mom asks. Her eyes flick nervously between us. Sensing trouble in paradise? Maybe. Dreading said trouble? Definitely.

"Yeah," he says, scratching the back of his head. He looks more upset now, and somehow I feel like that's for show too. Like it's all for her benefit. "I'm suddenly pretty tired."

"Well, be careful driving," she says. "Tell Daniel we said h.e.l.lo."

My eyes go wide as I turn to her, blood running through me like ice water. "Daniel?"

"His father," she says. "Honestly, Chloe, where is your head these days?"

Stunned by my slipup, I say nothing. Blake's slipping too, that thin veneer of sadness sliding away to reveal the first expression I've believed all night.

Suspicion.

Chapter Fourteen.

I pound on the door this time. No delicate knock. No milling around on the welcome mat. Or the place where there would be a welcome mat if this place were in any way welcoming. I just spilled out the biggest whopper of a lie I've ever laid on my parents to get here at eleven o'clock on a school night, and my patience has run seriously thin.

I'm just about to shout Adam's name or throw a rock at the window when the door flings open, an old woman appearing in the entrance. d.a.m.n.

She's wearing a floral polyester s.h.i.+rt, one that hasn't seen a was.h.i.+ng machine in far too long. Her thin white hair is pinned sloppily away from her wide and wrinkled face. This woman doesn't share a single feature with Adam. From her watery green eyes to her skin, which is so white it's almost pink, she is the absolute opposite of Adam, who is all sharp, dark lines and piercing eyes.