Solving for Ex (24 page)

“Oh, honey. There wasn’t much fighting you could do.”

“I could have stuck it out,” I muttered, twisting my hands together. “I could have…”

“What? Gotten revenge?” Mom covered my hands with one of hers.

I knew she was right. Facing the thing that was keeping me down would have been a recipe for disaster at Williamson, where the bullying had started to approach violence.

“Sometimes I just wish I was the kind of person who knew how to stand up for herself.” I swallowed a lump back.

Mom squeezed my hands. “Well, then it’s up to you to learn when to back down and when to stand up for what you know is right. Moving was the right thing for you. School at WHS would have been horrible for you no matter what you did.”

I swallowed again. “I know. You’re right. Now I just need to learn not to run away from everything else that’s hard.” I sighed and looked around me. The kitchen window’s edges still had spray paint from where someone had scrawled “whore” across the front of my house. Even though the school district had paid for the repainting and the professional window cleaner, and suspended Kaylie, you could never completely get rid of the traces.

“But, you’re doing better, right? You’re here because you just wanted to come home. Right?”

I looked around the house. It was a disaster, and Mom sat there with bags under her eyes, her hands dry and cracked from doing so many dishes and laundry. She was probably counting down the years until the triplets started school. Until she could get a moment of peace and quiet to herself.

“Yeah. I just wanted to come home. Missed your cooking. Kristin’s always ordering out.” I smiled, covering her hand with mine. It wasn’t true. Kristin was a great cook. But even though this house was messy and chaotic, and it was way harder to relax here, it would still always be home. Mom would always be my mom.

She smiled. “You always wanted there to be more takeout places here.”

“Yeah, well, greasy pizza and bad Chinese is still greasy pizza and bad Chinese. But it’s nice to eat something that doesn’t come out of a carton every once in a while. They’re taking great care of me, but I miss you.”

Mom gave me a smile that looked grateful, and it was a really nice moment, until I heard a crash from the other room. Her head whipped around.

“Better take care of that,” I said, smiling.

a foolish precipitation

It was the Friday after Thanksgiving. The triplets had been out of school for three days in a row, and Mom and Kristin had cooked up a storm in the kitchen for hours. (This made Mom question to a small extent my insistence that Kristin didn’t cook, since she whipped up a mean cauliflower gratin from stuff she found hiding in the corners of the freezer, pantry, and fridge.)

The house was a total disaster. I was a complete disaster, too, and it felt wonderful. I’d rolled out of bed and pulled on yoga pants and an oversized turtleneck, piled my hair in a bun on top of my head, and swiped on some lip gloss to combat the dry air. It was four o’clock in the afternoon, and Tess and I were recovering from a late lunch of pecan pie and mashed potatoes by snuggling on the couch and watching How to Train Your Dragon while the boys did the same by playing the ten thousandth game of football on our front lawn.

We were just making the requisite swooning noises over the scene where the two kids fly on the dragon for the first time when my phone buzzed against my hip. I pulled it out to see a text message from an area code I didn’t recognize.

First:

HAPPY THANKSGIVING. WHATCHA DOING?

Then, two seconds later,

(THIS IS VINCENT.)

Despite myself, I smiled. There was something about the familiarity of being home while texting with Vincent, or maybe being far away from Brendan, or maybe just living in a completely suspended reality, that made me one hundred percent comfortable.

I texted back:

NOTHING. BUMMING AROUND WITH BABY SIS.

Almost immediately, he replied:

GOOD. OKAY IF I STOP BY?

I made a strange choking-gasping sound and basically launched poor Tess off my lap when I jumped off the couch.

“Ow!” she whined. “Why’d you do that?”

“I’m sorry, sweetie. It’s just….oh my God.” My hand flew up to my face and felt how greasy it was. “He’s coming? Over here? How is he here?” I texted the question to him and got no answer.

I buzzed with a weird nervous energy as I dashed up the stairs to pull on some jeans, splash some water on my face and swipe mascara on my lashes. I stood back from the mirror. I touched my fingertips to my lips and remembered that morning, just a week ago, on Mount Washington. I hadn’t been crazy about Vincent by a long shot, but his lips had felt so good on mine.

And my first thought when I got that text wasn’t how to get out of seeing Vincent, but how to look nice when I did.

I stood in front of the mirror, tugged the elastic tie out of my hair, then winced at how frizzy and misshapen my hair looked. I normally ironed it before school, and this was a disaster. I tied it back up again.

I checked my phone. Nothing from Vincent.

Then, a knock on the front door. Holy shit.

Holy. Shit.

I half skipped, half tumbled down the stairs to see Mom answering the door and Vincent’s dark honey-colored mop peering in. “Good evening, ma’am,” Vincent’s smooth voice said, “Is Ashley home?”

“You can call me Linda.” I heard the smile in Mom’s voice. Even she was charmed by Vincent. She turned around and called “Ashley!” but I was already standing at the door.

“Hey,” I said, surprised at the breathiness in my own voice.

“Hey.” He smiled. “Doing anything for dinner?”

“Not that I know of,” Mom chimed in. I turned around and she was grinning too. “Introduce me, maybe, Ashley?”

“Uh, yeah. This is Vincent.”

“Right. The Vincent you told me about.”

A triumphant smile spread across Vincent’s face, and he bounced a little. If I hadn’t known better, I’d say he was barely restraining himself from doing a victory dance.

“So, can I take you out? I promise I’ll have you back before ten.”

“Yeah. Yeah. Let me just get my purse.” I ran upstairs, checked the mirror one more time, decided my ridiculously flushed cheeks did not need any blush, and sprayed on some perfume for good measure.

Ω

I climbed into the giant pickup truck Vincent was apparently driving around my hometown. “Nice ride,” I said.

He shrugged. “Just a rental.”

“Are you…I mean…how long are you here?” And what are you doing here?

“I was bored. Day after Thanksgiving and all. I was going to call you and see if you could hang out when Brendan told me you were here.”

“I don’t remember telling him that.”

“You didn’t, but you did tell Julia, and she told him.”

“And he told you.”

He nodded. “He was over this morning.”

Oh. He was over at the Cole house. The morning after Thanksgiving. Yeah, he and Sofia were definitely a Thing.

“Anyway, I missed you. So Brendan gave me your address and here I am. So…can we hang out?”

“Yeah, but won’t you be back kind of late?”

He shrugged again, like a three-hour trip to see a girl he wasn’t even officially dating was no big deal. “Got a hotel. I’m yours all night.”

“Vincent, I…”

“Oh, God. No. No, I didn’t mean it like that. I swear. I swear, Ashley. I just meant I don’t have to drive back at any particular time.”

I laughed. “Okay, I got it. Don’t freak out.”

“Okay. But you don’t freak out. Because I’ve got something I think you’ll like.”

He had hit cruising speed along the narrow winding country roads, and the cold gray sky against the last orange leaves holding out on the trees looked eerie and beautiful all at once. “Where are we going?”

He tapped the GPS on the dashboard. “Tioga National Forest? The one you told me about? I called their park ranger’s office and they said they still have a couple areas with foliage. There isn’t much in Pittsburgh, and I’d never seen it growing up. California has, like, one season. So I thought you could show me.”

Ω

We talked about Thanksgiving the whole ride out. I told him about the boys and their jumping on me at two in the morning for fun, and my mom’s sweet potato casserole I loved so much, marshmallows melted and browned over the top. I learned his favorite type of pie and how he took his coffee—black, like me. The only way I respected it, really.

By the time we got to the forest, the sky was beginning to turn a deep blue. Soon we’d be watching a classic Northern Pennsylvania autumn sunset, the colors somehow deeper and richer and truer against the gray-blue backdrop than the bright pastels of summer.

He parked the car on a lookout, not unlike Mount Washington. Again, instead of feeling apprehensive, I felt okay. Warm. Happy for his company. He looked over at me and flashed a grin. “Wait here. Okay?”

“Okay. Are you getting your camera?”

“Just wait here.” He grinned, climbing out of the truck cab and slamming the door behind him.

A couple minutes later, he pulled open my door and held out a hand to help me down. I put one hand in his. When he grasped my waist to help me hop out of the cab with his other hand, a thrill ran through me.

He walked me around to the back of the pickup, where the walls of the bed were lined with pillows and the floor piled with at least four fluffy blankets. In the middle sat a large picnic basket.

“What…? Wow.”

“I have brownies, M&Ms, and hot chocolate. So, basically, chocolate in all forms, along with apples and caramel dip,” he said, smiling at the ground and pushing his fingers back through his hair.

That hair. How had I missed how tempting it was to reach up and touch it?

“Wanna have a seat?”

All I could do was nod. I was smiling too hard to do anything else.

Ω

Once we were settled, our backs to the giant pillows he’d propped there, he pulled out two mugs and a thermos. When he turned the lid, I heard the air whoosh out as the suction broke. Steam floated through the air, carrying the scent of chocolate with it.

I raised my eyebrows. “Hot chocolate?”

“Mmhm,” he said, nodding. Something about the way one corner of his mouth pulled up more than the other tugged at my heart.

“What’s in it?” I asked, leaning in to catch a better whiff.

“I made it myself,” he said, his smile growing wider. “Scalded milk, and Belgian chocolate.”

“And?”

“And that’s it. I promised—no more messing around. And I meant it. I didn’t spike it or anything. Didn’t even think about it.”

I finally smiled back. I leaned against one of what must have been three dozen pillows padding the back of this thing and accepted the mug he passed me. “I can’t believe you drove all the way out here just to hang out with me.”

“I didn’t come out here to see you.” He reached into his bag, pulled out his camera body, and fished around for a lens. “Joining that art class late means I have to get this photography project done over break. No place more beautiful than Tioga.”

My cheeks blazed red. Of course he didn’t come here to see me. “Oh…right. Yeah, of course.”

“Ash. Come on. I’m kidding.” He stretched his arm over my shoulders and pulled me in to him.

God, I was an idiot. I laughed, half with embarrassment, half with relief. “Still, three hours? That’s a drive.”

“It’s boring in Pittsburgh. There’s nothing to do,” he said, leaning back too, letting his shoulder just barely touch mine.

I laughed. “Um, I think it’s here that there’s nothing to do.”

“Well, I guess what I meant is…everyone there is boring. The only person I really want to hang out with is you.”

I drew my eyebrows in and looked at him doubtfully.

“It’s true!” he protested, catching the look. “And the leaves are gorgeous. Not as gorgeous as you, but…” He looked at me. Patient, gentle smile. His eyes boring into me. Then practically whispered, “Ever since happiness heard your name, it has been running through the streets trying to find you.”

“Very nice words,” I giggled. Vincent always sounded very smooth, but this was not like him at all. Still, the way he looked at me right now made me think he was very, very serious.

“So. You’re into photography. I never tell anyone this, but want to hear my other extracurricular obsession?”

Something in me sensed that this was serious. However many times Vincent was putting on a show, this wasn’t one of them.

My voice softened. “Sure.”

He leaned in and whispered at my ear, “Poetry.” His breath tickled my neck, blowing away the wisps of hair there. I gasped a little.

He leaned back and looked at me. “What? Are you surprised? Didn’t think I was smart enough for poetry?”

“No, just never seen you interested in it at school.”

“Have you ever seen me interested in anything at school?”

Now that he said it, he had a point. I hadn’t.

“No, seriously. That doesn’t get me many AP points, and imagine me sitting in class freaking out about how badassed a Neruda poem is. But…it is.”

“Neruda,” I said. I knew one line from a Neruda poem. “I love you without knowing how, or where, or when…”