Healing Rain (20 page)

“Wow. Well, do you want me to come over and take care of you?” he asked as the suspicion lifted out of his voice. He sounded worried, and the guilt that was stabbed into my stomach began twisting around, digging the wound even deeper.

“Oh, Ethan, that's okay. Thanks for the offer, but actually, I just kind of want to sleep it off. I'm sure I'll be okay tomorrow.”

There was a short pause before he finally replied, “Okay then. I guess I'll let you get to bed. I'll see you in the morning?”

“Yeah. I'll be okay by tomorrow. I'm sure I just need to sleep.” As I said the words, I realized how true they were. It would be good for me to get a really good night of sleep and hopefully my head would be clear in the morning.

“All right. Well, if you need anything, give me a call. I'll come over and do anything you need me to. Or I can bring you something if you want. Just let me know.”

I closed my eyes before the tears could rush out. “Thank you, Ethan. You're too good to me. I'll be fine and I'll see you in the morning.”

“Good night,” he said softly.

“Good night,” I replied before I hung up the phone and burst into tears.

How did everything get so confusing? I felt like my life was finally getting back on track – I felt pretty normal these days. How did one day mess everything up so badly?

I thought about what Ethan would do if he knew about Aiden. I had to make sure he never found out. I didn't want to lose my relationship with Aiden, even though I knew things were never going to be the same between us. I desperately searched my head for a way to fix things and make them go back to how they were, even though I knew that wasn't possible.

I threw myself back on my bed and sighed deeply as I tried to develop a plan to make everything right. First, I needed to talk to Aiden, face-to-face. The last thing I wanted was to lose him and his friendship, and I needed to deal with the feelings that had stirred inside of me since our first guitar lesson and stop trying to push them out of my mind. Then, I needed to talk to Ethan. With a sinking feeling in my gut I realized I needed to come clean with him – about a lot of things. I was still thinking that telling him about Aiden's confession and kiss was probably a bad idea, but I knew that I needed to explain our friendship to him. As far as Ethan knew, we simply knew each other from class. He had no idea how much we talked and joked around, or about the guitar lessons I had started and definitely wanted to continue if possible. And if I explained the guitar lessons, I needed to be honest and tell him what had inspired my newfound passion for exploring who I was. That meant I needed to tell him about my dad, my overdose, my therapy, everything. As terrifying as that sounded, I knew it was the right thing to do. If he thought he was falling in love with me, he deserved to be falling in love with the
real
me – not the happy-all-the-time cheerleader wannabe he thought he was in love with.

I'm not sure how long I lay in bed and carefully planned my words before I heard the knock at our front door. I sat up, wondering who it could be, until I heard Tyler say, “Hi Ethan!”

I smiled, feeling confused as I got out of bed and walked into the living room to find Ethan standing in the doorway with an angry expression on his face. “Ethan…” I started to ask him what was wrong, but I couldn't finish the question. The breath was knocked out of me when I saw Alexis walk in behind him.

 

 

I didn't need an explanation for Ethan's angry face once I saw her walk in our apartment right behind him. It only took me a moment to find my voice once I saw her standing there with her innocent, wide-eyed expression. It was all I could do not to walk up to her and slap her in the face. How could she? After she made such a big production out of not judging me and keeping my secrets…I felt anger and embarrassment as I thought about how I had confided in her and believed we were actually becoming friends. My nostrils flared as I saw her look at Ethan and back at me with a worried expression.

“I cannot believe you, Alexis!” I exploded. “What happened to everything you said in the car? Why even fake your silence if you knew all along you were going to go blab it to him? I told you I wanted to be the one to tell him and work everything out for myself, but you just couldn't
wait
to be the one to tell your version of what you saw and ruin our relationship before I could even defend myself!”

Ethan's face turned quickly to Alexis. “I knew something happened that you weren't telling me!”

Alexis' entire expression sank before she closed her eyes, shaking her head as I processed what Ethan had just said to her. My eyebrows furrowed in confusion as I looked back and forth between the two of them.

My voice was much smaller when I spoke this time. “Wait, you didn't tell him anything?” I asked, wondering what was actually going on.

“No, I didn't,” she said between her teeth. “But I'm afraid
you
just did.”

“All right, I need to know what's going on right now. Are you two, like, plotting against me for some reason?” Never had I seen Ethan's face so contorted with anger as he looked back and forth between the two of us. I felt backed into a corner.

I ignored Ethan's question. “
I
need to know what's going on right now! If you didn't tell him,” I said, speaking to Alexis, “then what are the two of you doing here together?”

She spoke carefully. “Ethan called me because he was worried about you after he got off the phone with you earlier. He told me you uninvited him to your house and he thought that I had somehow talked you into avoiding him in the car on the way home. He accused me of making up lies about him to make you not like him. I told him he had the wrong idea and that I hadn't said anything against him, but he demanded to know what exactly happened after school. I told him I didn't know anything and he was being paranoid…”

“Which was obviously a lie!” Ethan shouted, interrupting her story.

She ignored him. “…and I wanted to call you and tell you about the conversation, but I didn't have your number so I decided I'd better just come over and tell you. I came alone; I pulled in the parking lot just as he was walking through the main door downstairs. It was a coincidence we got here around the same time.”

My heart dropped as I realized two things – one, I had accused Alexis of not being a friend when she was actually being an even better one than I deserved, and two, I had just let Ethan know that something had happened that I didn't tell him, which let him know I was a liar. Instead of staying calm and waiting to see what was going on, I let my fury take over and possibly destroyed my relationships with two people. I knew at that moment that I would be lucky if either one of them spoke to me by the time this situation was over.

“What happened, Rain? You said Alexis saw something. What was it? What do I need to know?” Ethan's voice was calm and steady, but his eyes showed hurt and frustration.

I took a deep breath, and decided I did not want to continue my relationship with him with another lie. I had to tell him the truth. “She saw my friend Aiden kiss me.”

“Aiden? That guy that plays in that band?” Ethan looked as if I had just punched him in the gut. “You kissed him?”

“No,” I said quickly, “
he
kissed
me
. I didn't kiss him. We have become pretty good friends and he started giving me guitar lessons…”

“
What
? When has that been happening?” Ethan's wounded expression was rapidly replaced by anger.

“A week ago. I've only actually had one lesson so far,” I told him truthfully. “Today was supposed to be my second, so I met him after school and he gave me a ticket to go see Caged Lion with him for my birthday and I was so pumped but then all the sudden he dropped this bomb on me and told me he liked me and kissed me.” I heard myself rambling desperately as I tried to explain myself. “I had no idea he had feelings for me, honestly. We have just been good friends. He's never even hinted at it before. You have to believe me, Ethan!”

He shook his head. “How can I possibly believe you? I didn't even know you were friends with him, and suddenly I'm finding out you've been secretly hanging out with him behind my back.”

“No, it wasn't like that! I wasn't sneaking around.” As soon as the words came out of my mouth, I regretted them because I knew it was a lie. But it wasn't the kind of “sneaking around” that he thought it was. I didn't know how to make him understand.

“Oh yeah? Then why didn't I even know you were friends with him?” he challenged.

“Um, I thought you did. I talked to him while I was with you at Logan Johnson's party at the beginning of the year.” That was actually true – he had been beside me when I had talked to him briefly.

“Oh yeah, some conversation. It lasted all of about two seconds. I didn't know that made you guys such great friends. I definitely didn't realize that meant you were taking guitar lessons from him.” I could hear the sarcasm and disbelief in his voice when he said the words “guitar lessons.”

I had really messed up, and I was starting to see no way out. I felt the tears welling up in my eyes. “Ethan, please believe me. It really was innocent.”

“I…I don't know what to believe anymore. You're not who I thought you were, Rain.” With that, he turned and walked out the door and out of my life.

I collapsed on the floor, forgetting about Alexis and Tyler who had witnessed the entire scene. I sobbed into my hands and my whole body trembled as I realized how much I had screwed up.

Suddenly, I felt Alexis pulling me up by my arms. “Rain,” she said gently, “I'm sorry.”

I looked her in the eyes and could see that she was genuinely hurting on my behalf. “
You're
sorry?” I blubbered. “I'm the one who's sorry. I shouldn't have doubted you.”

She smiled, her eyes still filled with concern. “Please. Like I don't understand why you did. I know what it looked like when you saw the two of us come into your apartment. And I can totally see why you would suspect
me
of busting you out.”

I laughed a little through my tears. “Thanks for
trying
to come over and warn me that he was suspecting something. And for keeping your mouth shut when he called you. You really could have used that opportunity to ruin me.”

“Nah,” she said dismissively. “I don't want to ‘ruin' you. I need you to be my back spot.”

We both laughed as I pulled her to me quickly, giving her a big hug. I could tell it caught her off guard for a moment as she stood there, stiff and awkward, before she pulled away. “Let's not get carried away,” she said in her typical prissy voice, doing her trademark hair-flip as she stepped back.

I rolled my eyes in response. She was still the same Alexis, even though our relationship had changed so drastically. “Thanks,” I told her again. “I'm in a pretty big mess, huh?”

She shrugged. “Yeah. But it might be fixable. Just talk to them.”

“I'm going to,” I said with a nod. “I have to try.”

“You'll be fine.” She sounded incredibly confident in me, and it gave me hope. “I better get home. Good luck.”

“Thanks,” I said with a weak smile. “See you tomorrow.”

“Bye.”

As she walked out the door, I turned to look at Tyler. He hadn't said a word throughout the entire scene, and he was standing in the kitchen like a deer in headlights. “I'm so sorry you had to see that,” I said as I came over beside him.

“Ethan was so mad,” he whispered with fearful eyes.

“Yeah, he was. But I deserved it. I messed up pretty big time.” I ruffled his hair with my hands as I spoke.

He immediately pulled away. “Why did you make him mad?”

The anger in his eyes made my stomach ache. “I didn't mean to. It's a misunderstanding, that's all. I'm going to fix it.” I tried to give him a brilliant smile to convince him (and myself), but I'm not sure how it actually appeared.

Tyler put his head down. “I don't want Ethan to hate us.”

Fighting the tears that came to my eyes, I hugged him. “Oh, buddy, he doesn't hate us! He's mad at me right now – not you. Please don't think this is your fault in any way.” I wanted to kick myself as I looked at Tyler's hurt little face. I felt an urgent need to fix things right away as I looked at the clock and saw that it was already after eight.

“Hey, Ty, it's about time for you to take your bath. I'm going to run your water and put lots of extra bubbles and cars in there, and then I need to make a couple of phone calls. Is that okay?”

“Yeah,” he said with the frown still on his face. I pulled quickly away and went into the bathroom before I could burst into tears in front of him yet again. As soon as I got his bath ready, I bolted into my room and found Aiden's number.

I stared at the little slip of paper for a few minutes, trying to decide what to say. It was a conversation I should probably have with him in person, I knew, but I didn't want to leave Tyler at home without my mom. I would have to wait for her to get off work, I decided, feeling a little relieved at the chance to stall.

Unfortunately, my relief only lasted a couple of minutes until I heard Mom come in the door. I walked into the kitchen to greet her. “Mom, you're home early!” I tried to sound cheery as I gave her a quick hug.

“Well, my boss knew it was your birthday so he let me be cut first in case you wanted to do something with your friends tonight. Not too late though – it's still a school night.” She gave me a quick smile before she looked closer at my face. “Rain, honey, what's wrong?” she asked, suddenly alarmed. “You've been crying.”

I sighed. My red puffy eyes had given me away. “Nothing to worry about, Mom. Just some boyfriend drama, that's all.”

“Did you and Ethan have a fight?” she asked.

I nodded. “Yeah, and I need to try to fix it. Actually, I need to fix things between me and another guy as well.”

“Rain Sawyer!” she exclaimed in surprise. “You're seeing someone else?” I had never been the play-the-field type of girl, and my mom knew that. Even though I had never really been serious about anyone before Ethan, I still had never been interested in more than one guy at a time.

“It's not like that, Mom. He's just a friend. Or, I think, anyway. But some things happened, and Ethan got the wrong idea.” With that, I launched into the whole story – an abbreviated version of it.

“Oh, Rain. What a mess,” she said, shaking her head. “But I can see why that boy thought there might be something else going on. You played with his head, even if you didn't mean to. If you were sneaking around with him, he might have thought you had feelings for him that you wanted to hide from everyone.”

I stewed over what she said for a few minutes, realizing she was probably right. I really hadn't been a good friend to Aiden. “I think I need to talk to Aiden first and straighten everything out. Maybe that will give Ethan a chance to calm down.”

Mom nodded slowly. “However you think you should handle it, Rain. Just be honest. That's always best.”

“Thanks for listening, Mom. I'm gonna go call Aiden.” I squeezed her hand before I left the room.

I walked back into my room and picked up the little piece of paper once again. This time I only stared at it for a few seconds before I took a deep breath and dialed his number. He answered on the first ring.

“Aiden? It's Rain. Can we meet somewhere to talk?”