Summer on the Short Bus (19 page)

“Okay, I have to make dinner now. Good-bye, Cricket.”

Before I can give him a parting smile, he pushes through the swinging doors and disappears into the kitchen. I push myself up on my toes and peek at him through the door's tiny round window. I can't help but feel a teeny bit jealous. Sam looks so proud pulling his stained apron over his liver-spotted, gnome head. His life may be simple, but I can tell it's pretty damn good.

“Stupid Madonna, stupid Madonna,” I mutter as I scramble my
way up cell phone hill. I haven't even watched the dumb video yet and “Vogue” is already on instant-replay in my brain.

I crest the hill and begin the task of wandering aimlessly until those beautiful bars appear at the top of the display screen. Within a matter of seconds, I see four little towers pop up and a chime notifies me that I've got a new voice mail and three new text messages. The voice mail is from Carolyn, and all she has to report is that Mr. Katz is now on doggy Prozac. Maybe he'll let me borrow some when I get home. I delete the message after two listens, then move onto the texts. The first is from Katie.

OMG
!
H
2'
S DAD HAS PRVT JET
!
LUV THIS GUY. HAVE FUN W
/
TARDS. LOL
.
ALOHA BITCH. XOXO
. I find myself sighing and hitting the
DELETE
button without even responding. Hawaii is making Katie annoying.

The second message is from my dad.
HOPE YOU ARE WELL. BUSINESS KEEPS ME IN SPAIN A BIT LONGER. TALK SOON
.

The same anticipation that carried me up the hill in under twenty minutes evaporates in less than a breath. My original motivation for speaking with him was to ask about his connection with Rainbow. But it's not until this moment that I realize how badly I wanted to tell him how I was doing here.

I reply to his message with a simple,
I'M OK. TALK NXT WEEK
, and hit the
SEND
button. The fact that I even replied to his text will probably send him into cardiac arrest.

I delete my dad's text and scroll to the last message in my inbox. It's from a number I don't recognize . . . a 616 area code. I tap the
screen, assuming it's a solicitation to get cheap meds from Canada, and wait for the message to appear.

I SUCK AT APOLOGIES.

My heart starts thumping hard, and that same anxious excitement I haven't felt in days reappears. The phone chimes again, and I look down to find another green message bubble beneath the first.

TURN AROUND.

I whip my head over my shoulder and see Quinn approaching me from just a few yards away.

“Hey,” he says in a shaky voice. “Can we talk for a minute?”

My heart is pounding so hard I can't even hear myself think. I just nod.

“I'm sorry I followed you up here. I know this is your private place, but I didn't know how else to get you alone,” he says, taking a tentative step closer. “I hope you don't mind.”

The way his eyes look in the afternoon sun, he could have killed everyone at camp to get me alone and I'd have been cool with it. “I don't mind.”

His expression softens, and he slowly covers some of the distance between us. “I'm not kidding when I say I suck at apologies. I really do. But I owe you one. Actually, I think I probably owe you a couple.”

“Go ahead,” I say, reminding myself I'm still mad at him. “Apologize.”

“Okay . . . I tried to rehearse this, so bear with me.” I force
myself not to smile. He's cute when he's uncomfortable.

“First off, I know I was a major dick for treating you the way I did the other morning. That wasn't cool, and you didn't deserve it. You can hang out with whoever you want; it's none of my business.”

“You're right,” I say. “It is none of your business and you were a major dick.”

He nods and his gaze shifts away from me to his worn-out Vans.

“I also know that you're trying to change. I mean”—he raises his head to look at me again—“you
are
changing. I can see it and I'm sorry I didn't give you credit for that. I know it hasn't been easy. Cricket, I am
so
sorry,” he says again, coming closer. Through blurry eyes I see him reach for me. “I know I don't deserve it, but please, let me try and make this right.”

I nod slowly and look into his eyes. “Okay.”

“Really?” His relief presents itself in a grateful smile. “That's it? You don't want to chew my ass out first?”

I laugh, while sniffling back my emotions. “A few days ago I would have, but someone gave me some good advice about second chances, so . . .”

Before I can finish my thought, he pulls me against his chest and holds me tightly in his arms. I feel him press his lips against my head.

“I've missed you,” I say, breathing in the familiar scent of him.

“I've missed you, too.”

We hold each other this way for a while, when Quinn says, “You know, I never finished telling you about my brother the other night. I wanted to, but—”

“Colin told me about Ethan,” I cut in, hoping to ease his burden a bit. “And it totally makes sense that you reacted the way you did. The things I said were horrible and the fact that you had all these memories of Ethan, well . . .”

“It's just really hard to talk about.”

“Of course,” I say, nodding. “He was your brother—you were really close to him.”

“Not always.” His heavy gaze moves away from me. “I've never actually said this out loud, but I hated him for a long time.” He pauses like he's waiting for me to react, but I don't. “My parents waited on him hand and foot,” he continues. “I felt like the invisible boy—like I wasn't special enough for them. It was stupid”—he shrugs—“but it was how I felt, even though my parents assured me it wasn't true.”

I nod again. “Feeling invisible isn't fun.”

“We didn't get close until I was older and able to understand more about his condition.”

“And that's when you had to start defending him?”

He nods, returning his attention to me. “He was in the special ed. program at our school, so even though we didn't have any of the same teachers, he was still mainstreamed at certain points in the
day. For the most part people were cool. They just sort of ignored the special needs kids, but there were a few guys who loved making their lives hell.”

“They made fun of them?”

“On a good day,” he says. “The name-calling was the easy part. I'd just tell them to shut up, and they'd usually leave it alone for a while. But before long things started to escalate. They were shoving rotten fruit into his locker, stealing his shoes . . . whatever they could do to get him upset, and in turn, piss me off. It was like they wanted to test me to see how far I'd go to protect him.”

A chill races down my spine.

“Ethan begged me to stop defending him—said he was big enough to fight his own battles and didn't need his little brother getting into trouble all the time. It was hard, but I backed off. Things were okay for a while, but then one day it all came to a head. Ethan and his friend were standing in the lunch line and the guys came up and started calling him names again. I knew they were egging me on to see what I'd do, but I kept my cool as best I could. It seemed like they were going to give up, until Chris Davis, the biggest of the three, threw a tray full of food at Ethan. And that's when I snapped. Before I knew what happened, I was knocking over tables and chairs, and found myself in the middle of a brawl, taking on three guys by myself. I was punching, kicking, throwing elbows. . . .”

“Were you hurt?”

“Surprisingly, no,” he says, grinning. “I don't know how I came
out of that alive. But I guess that's what rage can do to a person.” He shakes his head. “We all ended up getting suspended for three days. Looking back, I'm not proud of what I did but I couldn't stop myself. Anyway”—he sighs—“that was the last time I ever fought over him.”

“He got pretty pissed at you for getting involved, huh?”

“No. He was actually proud of me for what I did. Said I was braver than Superman,” he says, chuckling at the memory. “It was the last time I fought over him because he was admitted into the hospital a few days after that. He was born with a respiratory condition, so every few months he had to go in for treatments.” He pauses to catch his breath. “Nobody's really sure how it happened, but he caught an infection while he was there. It's not like it was entirely unexpected—Down's kids are more susceptible to infections then other kids, but we still weren't really prepared for it. I guess you're never really prepared for something like that.”

I reach out and take his hand. It's all I can think to do.

“Anyway, that'll be four years ago in December.”

“You still miss him a lot, don't you?”

He nods.

“So how are things with your parents now that he's gone?”

“Eh . . . I don't know. We have our moments. I mean, I know they love me and everything, but they're pretty hard on me.”

“They're mean to you?”

“No, not mean. It's more like they hold me to a higher standard
because I have more advantages to work with than Ethan did. They're not exactly perfectionists, but they don't give me a lot of room to make mistakes, either.” The irony of Quinn's confession isn't lost on either of us. Through the veil of damp lashes covering his eyes, he glances down at me. “Wow, I guess being an asshole is genetic.”

“Not any more than growing up in a bubble is.”

He acknowledges my conviction-heavy statement by squeezing my hand. “You know, we don't have to talk about your family just because we talked about mine. I know it's not easy for you, so . . . whenever
you're
ready. I'm not going anywhere.”

“Thanks,” I say. “I promise I will someday . . . just not today. One family drama a day is my limit.”

He laughs. “Okay then, why don't you fill me in on something a little less parental. What's going on with battle of the bands?”

The familiarity of a regular conversation with Quinn is like oxygen for my lungs. It feels good to breathe again.

I spend the next thirty minutes detailing exactly how it's possible that Gwen Stefani and Madonna have simultaneously ruined my life without ever having met me.

“It'll all work out,” he says, when I finally come up for air. “If anybody can pull it off, it's you.”

“What about you guys? I still don't know what your group is doing for the show.”

“Sorry. You're going to have to wait for that one.”

“That's not fair! I told you everything we're doing.”

“You're just going to have to wait,” he teases, flicking the end of my ponytail with his finger like he always does. “But you'll love it, I promise.”

“Patience isn't my thing, Quinn.”

“I'll take that into consideration for future activities,” he says, as a sexy grin erupts across his face.

“Oh geez, just come here already.” I wrap my arms around his neck and pull him in for a kiss.

“Oh my God,” he mumbles against my lips. “We need to fight more often.”

Smiling in agreement, my swollen ego forces me to ask, “Were you really jealous of Aidan?”

“Oh yeah,” he says, leaning in for another kiss. “Wheelchair or not I was ready to kick his ass.”

I laugh. “You should know the feeling was mutual. But be warned, if you so much as touch a hair on his head, I'll deck you myself.”

TWENTY-ONE