The Promise of Amazing (26 page)

“Barrett, dude, calm down.”

The guy from St. Gabe’s had me by the back of my jacket. I twisted away from him.

“Who are you?” the lady asked.

I stepped back.

“You weren’t even on the bus . . . why are you here? Where did you come from?” she demanded.

“He’s with me, Mrs. Fiore,” Wren said, coming to my side and grabbing my hand before I could answer.

Ah, the Harvard-stomping guidance counselor.

“Miss Caswell, this is Sacred Heart property, and you’re still representing this school and the Spirit Club. I won’t tolerate this. What’s your name?”

“Grayson Barrett, ma’am,” I answered, standing up straight.

“I’d better not see you within a five-block radius of this school for at least a month, Grayson Barrett, or I’ll call the police, do you understand me?”

Luke stood by Ava, triumph on his flushed face.

“Don’t forget, Wren,” he said.

She flipped Luke off. He pouted and put his hands over his heart in mock hurt, finally scowling at me. My blood boiled. I started toward him again, but Wren dug her nails into my raw hand so hard, I winced.

“Grayson, please, just stop,” Wren said, keeping her grip on me. When we got closer to the Chrysler, she let go of my hand. I walked over to the passenger side, to open the door for her. She stopped in her tracks.

“Wren, I can explain,” I said, my voice unsteady. Not
knowing what Luke had told her, I wasn’t sure what kind of explanation I could offer.

“Do I want to hear it?” she asked. “Whatever it is, it must be really awful for you to go at him like that.”

My brain went numb. I put my hands in my hair, tugging at my roots, closing my eyes.

“Why did he say his property was around my neck, Grayson?”

“You heard that?”

“He was looking over your shoulder at me when he said it,” she said.

“Wren, please, let’s just go somewhere and talk. I’ll explain, I promise. What did Luke mean by,
Don’t forget?
Don’t forget what?”

“He needs to speak to Mike Pearson. He said it would mean more coming from me. What does that even mean, Grayson? Who is that?”

I’d heard that when you die, you see your life flash before your eyes. It hadn’t happened when I’d choked, but it happened now. Only, it was Mike Pearson’s life that flashed before me. Faces of chicks I thought I’d long forgotten and houses we’d swiped stuff from all rushed before me as I stood before the only girl who mattered.

“Grayson, please, who’s Mike Pearson?”

Of course Luke would know exactly what to say to Wren to
make it lethal. I jammed my eyes shut, tried to right the sensation I had of free-falling down a deep dark hole, and took a deep breath.

“Me, Wren. I’m Mike Pearson.”

Her eyes turned a brighter shade of blue when she cried.

We sat in the Chrysler, behind the A&P only a few blocks from Sacred Heart. My confession flowed easily, as if I’d only been waiting for the right time to tell her. I left out names and places, details I’d either forgotten or forced myself to forget. I didn’t tell her about Andy, Dev, or Logan specifically, just that I had other friends involved. But I told her how we’d worked, how
I’d
worked. There was no spin-doctoring, no
not-exactly-a-lie
half-truths. I felt so detached, it was like I was telling someone else’s story. I blocked out her occasional sniffles, trying not to look at her, because every time I did, my heart imploded a little more.

After I finished we sat in silence, broken only by Wren’s occasional sobs. I wanted to reassure her that I had changed, that what I had with her was all I wanted, but I sat frozen. The longer we sat, the more scared I became of what she was going to say.

“Did you sleep with any of them?”

I breathed out, closed my eyes, and leaned back on the headrest. There was no turning back from this.

“Two of them,” I whispered.

“Allegra?”

“Last spring, Wren. Yes. Before I knew you.”

She looked out the passenger window, her breath forming moisture on the glass.

“W-w-what were you doing at the mall?” she stammered, a curtain of hair hiding her face. “Were you planning on hooking up with her again?”

“No
.” I reached for her, but she shrank away.

“Then what?”

“Luke threatened me. He said he’d talk to you if I didn’t go talk to her.” Christ, it sounded so dumb. What exactly would he have told her? I’d been with girls? The excuse justified nothing.

“He really has that kind of power over you?”

“Fuck no,” I said, looking at her.

“You didn’t have to go there—”

“Wren, what we have—”

“We have nothing.”

“Don’t say that. That other stuff . . . that happened before we met. What we have is real.”

“I saw the way she looked at you, Grayson. Don’t kid yourself . . . that was real to her.”

Wren’s words, her eyes, were a knifepoint. All this time I’d justified my actions by pretending to be someone else, but my role in our scamming had been more detestable than stealing goods. Gadgets? Necklaces? iPods? All that stuff the guys
took could be replaced. Luke and I were guilty of something way more damaging. Stealing trust. That wasn’t something you could pick up at Target or Best Buy. There was really nothing I could say to repair this, but I had to try.

“I’m sorry, Wren. I can’t change what I did, but it’s not who I am anymore. Not who I want to be. I’m not Mike Pearson. I haven’t been for a long time.”

“Do you know how ridiculous that sounds? I can’t even believe I’m having this conversation,” she said, shaking her head.

She opened the passenger-side door. I grabbed her elbow.

“Wren, please.”

She stared at my hand, then back up at me; the sadness in her eyes sent a shock wave through my body.

“I have to go,” she said, sliding away from me.

“Please don’t,” I whispered. She slammed the door, sending the air freshener spinning, wafts of cinnamon spreading through the car. She walked a few feet away, stopped, and came back, hand poised to open the door, but then she took off again.

I got out of the car. “Wren!”

She kept running, her hair a light brown wave behind her. I got back into the car, ready to put it in Drive, but stopped.

“You fucking idiot,” I cursed myself as I clutched the wheel. I’d confessed the short, pathetic half-life of Mike Pearson. It hadn’t felt good or cleansing or like any of that psychobabble
parents and teachers feed you about how the truth shall set you free. It felt like shit.

When I put the car in Drive, I had no clue where I was headed. I thought of hitting Andy’s to see if anyone had known what Luke was up to but decided against it. What did it matter if they knew? The damage was done, and there was no way I wanted Luke to find out he’d gotten the best of me. Staying away was the perfect strategy, even though I wanted to track him down and kick the living shit out of him.

So I drove past the town limits and onto the turnpike. The sound of the wheels on the road became a tranquilizer. I wasn’t conscious of where I was heading; all I knew was that I wanted to drive—as if the simple act of getting away from Bayonne would let me leave my past behind. Which was a joke, because my past may as well have been sitting in the backseat, reminding me why I didn’t deserve Wren in my life.

This was all for the best, because clearly there was something wrong with me. I’d had every advantage I could possibly have had, and I threw them away in search of . . . what?

Nights of meaningless sex?

Extra Taco Bell cash?

A graduation trip to Amsterdam with my friends?

Why had I gone to see Allegra? To prove to Luke I was willing to fight for what I wanted? Wren did not deserve to be in the middle of this. Who was I kidding? She wasn’t in
the middle anymore. She was gone. And that had been Luke’s goal all along. Wren was right—he did have some sort of power over me.

When I pulled off at the Darien exit, I was almost surprised. Was this really where I wanted to be? I parked on the street outside my mother’s and grabbed the bin of Christmas ornaments from my trunk.

My heart raced as I trotted up the small stone steps. The tip of my sneaker caught on the top step, and I tumbled forward, helpless to stop my fall. The bin flew from my hands, crashing a good three feet away. I followed, landing with a thud on my elbow, belly down, my skull an inch from being cracked. The front door squeaked opened.

Footsteps.

“Grayson?”

A pair of brown loafers and a smaller pair of light-up sneakers appeared in my line of vision. Two surprised blue eyes met mine.

“He’s bleeding!” Ryder yelled, tearing off back into the house.

Laird crouched down and reached out to examine my face. I flinched but stopped when I saw his look of concern. I was tired, all my fight gone. There was no need to struggle against this. Laird wanted to help me. I’d been nothing but a prick to the guy, yet he still wanted to help me.

“Grayson, he’s right, you’re bleeding.”

“I’m fine,” I said, propping myself up, a little dizzy from getting the wind knocked out of me.

“Let me just take a look,” Laird said, tilting up my chin to see the left side of my face. His brows drew together.

“You didn’t get this from falling, did you?”

I stared down at the walkway.

The door opened again. Ryder dragged Mom toward me; she went from smiling to stricken the moment she saw I was on the ground.

“What happened?” she asked.

“I, um . . .”

“He fell, nicked his chin, nothing a bag of frozen peas won’t fix. Think you could hook him up, Ryder?” Laird asked, holding out his hand to me. I grabbed it and pulled myself upright.

I brushed some dirt off my jeans and inspected the damage. The top of the bin had popped off in the fall; a few of the antique ornaments lay on the stone path, shattered.

“I’m sorry, Mom, I—”

“Don’t worry about it. Are you all right?”

She brushed some hair away from my face.

No. I was not all right. I was broken and screwed-up. And as I stood there, feeling Wren’s absence, all I wanted to do was bawl like a five-year-old.
You must be an awesome big brother
, she’d said. I wanted to be that guy she saw in the picture. For her.
For me
. Big brother to Ryder and Grier. The son my
mother and Laird bragged about. I’d pushed my mother’s family away out of some sense of duty to Pop, but he’d moved on. They all had. Except me.

“Yeah, fine,” I said.

“I’ll get this,” Laird said, walking over to the mess.

“Laird,” I said. He picked up the top of the bin and turned to me.

“Thanks.”

He grabbed the rest and walked toward the house. “Get those peas on that soon. It’ll stop the swelling.”

“Your father mentioned you were bringing a friend,” Mom said.

“She, um, couldn’t make it.”

“You sure everything’s okay?”

“I wanted you to meet her,” I whispered, wrapping my arms around her. My chin rested on top of her head. When had she shrunk?

“Next time,” she said, pulling away and beaming. “Grier has been talking about you all day. Come on, there’s a ton of food.”

“Sounds good.”

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

TWENTY-ONE

WREN

I RAN
.

Mostly because I didn’t know what else to do.

Maybe I was trying to outrun Grayson’s Mike Pearson confession.

Or maybe I was trying to sprint away from the awful feeling that I’d been humped-and-dumped again. At least, this time, I was the one doing the dumping.

Whatever the reason, I booked it like I’d never had before.

Five blocks,
long blocks
, after I’d left the A&P parking lot, a jagged pain seared up my right side under my rib cage, letting me know how
not
a runner I really was. I doubled over in the middle of the sidewalk, hands on my knees, panting. I collapsed onto the front steps of a large yellow house. I leaned on the slightly rusted railing, sucking in gulps of frigid air until
my breathing became almost normal.

The pain grounded me in the moment. I could focus on my breath and not on the haunted look in Grayson’s eyes when I’d left. The look that made me feel like I was abandoning him, when, let’s face it, he sort of deserved to be abandoned. Giving me a stolen necklace?

No matter how much time had passed since it had been taken—the necklace belonged to someone else. Someone it probably meant something to. Like it meant to me. I tore open my scarf, reached for the chain, and stopped just short of yanking it off my neck. I undid the clasp and tucked it into my coat pocket.

I trudged on, finally realizing what it was I was running from—the urge to go back to Grayson. I still felt that magnetic pull, this sense of belonging with him . . . and I hated it. I couldn’t go back to him now . . . possibly ever.

I’d known there was more to Grayson. Some part of himself he kept hidden. These were things he did before we were together. Could I really hold that against him? Everything that had happened between us up until this moment had been genuine. Hadn’t it?

But . . . Allegra. The mental picture of them leaning toward each other; the way she’d looked at him. That would take a while to get out of my head, whether or not it meant anything. I wasn’t entirely sure the fact it was meaningless to Grayson made me feel any better. Was he capable of being so heartless?

I couldn’t go home either. My mother would grill me about my change of plans, and I wasn’t ready to face that kind of interrogation. There was one place I knew I could go, no questions asked.

Maddie opened the door, eyes popping as she pulled me in.

“Wren, what the hell? Were you running?” she asked as I whipped off my coat.

“Kind of,” I answered, trying to catch my breath. “Jazz is certifiable if she’s willing to torture herself like that.”

“No argument here,” she said, holding out her arms for my coat. The acrid smell of hair dye hit my nose. Maddie’s mom was in the kitchen with a styling client. She gave me a quick wave with a small brush covered in thick, white highlighting goop. There was another scent too—craft glue—and as Mads hung up my coat and pointed me toward the dining room, I saw Jazz sitting there sprinkling glitter over something. She stopped when she saw me, like I’d caught her doing something wrong.