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“He’s in speech therapy.”
“I know but maybe there’s more we could be doing.”
“I want what’s best for him, Ellie. You know that. I’m just not sure that what he needs at this stage of his life is a bunch of doctors and a label.”
“Mom’s not sure either.” I rocked Jacob slowly. “But can’t you guys try to figure it out together? You could read those books and talk to the therapists and if the two of you just keep talking to each other about it all—”
“Ellie—”
“You’ve told me a million times that you love me and would do anything for me. Well, this is what I want you to do more than anything else in the world: I want you to listen to what Mom’s saying. Really, really listen. Please, Luke?”
He sat there for a moment, staring at Jacob, who was calm now against my chest. “I promise,” Luke said finally, with a sigh. “You always win, don’t you, little girl?” He held out his arms. “I’ll take him now. You go back to sleep.”
“Okay.” I got up and let Jacob slide into his arms, where he settled down contentedly against Luke’s broad chest. “Good night.”
“Hold on,” Luke said. “We haven’t talked about you yet.”
“What about me?”
“You know how I feel about those Nussbaum boys. I trust them more than anyone else in the world. But George is a lot older than you and in a different place in life and—”
I stopped him with a raised finger. “You don’t need to worry,” I said with my most disarming smile. “He doesn’t have an attractive young stepmother. So I think this could really work out.”
Luke laughed, just like I’d hoped. “There are other potential issues, you know.”
“He’s a good guy,” I said more seriously. “He would never take advantage of me in any way. But I will probably take advantage of him in every possible way I can.”
“Good,” Luke said. “That’s exactly how I want it to go.”
thirty-five
I had to tell Heather. We always shared the important stuff. And keeping this a secret from her would only make my betrayal worse when she eventually found out.
I called her from the car on my way back from school on Monday. After we’d said hi, I took a deep breath and told her that her friendship was one of the most important things in the world to me and that it was hard for me to tell her what I had to tell her.
“What’s going on?” she said. “You’re scaring me. Did you hear about college? You did, didn’t you?”
“No. This is about George.”
“He told you he doesn’t like me. Oh, God. Did you bring it up? Why would you bring it up?” The hysteria in her voice was mounting.
“It’s not that!” Deep breath. “It’s just . . . he and I are sort of going out now.”
“What?” she said. Then again. “What?”
“I didn’t know,” I said. “When we talked about him and you said you were interested, I swear I wasn’t—or at least didn’t know I was—or I would have told you. But then we were ru
“Let me get this straight,” she said, her voice trembling and tight at the same time. “You waited until I said I liked him to decide that you liked him? Is that what you’re saying?”
“The last thing I wanted to do was go behind your back or hurt you.”
“Oh, well, thanks,” she said. “Thanks for not wanting to hurt me.” Then, “What about everything you said? How he was too old for me? How it was weird for a guy his age to date a high school student? About how you didn’t want to date until you were in college?”
“I know, I know,” I said. “I was stupid and wrong about everything, especially about myself.”
There was a long pause. Then: “Well,” she said in a very cold, very distant voice, “I guess this proves what I’ve always known, which is that the great and powerful Ellie Withers gets everything she wants and I don’t get anything I want ever.”
“Heather—”
“I have to go,” she said, and hung up.
Once I was home, I tried texting and calling her but she wouldn’t respond, and later that night her mother answered her cell phone and told me to leave her alone, then hung up on me.
It hurt a lot. Especially since I blamed myself for her unhappiness: I’d thought she liked Aaron when she liked George, and I’d thought I didn’t like anyone when I basically worshipped George. If I’d just been more aware, less dense . . . But the damage was done.
The one thing that cheered me up a little was that Luke and Mom went out to di
Tuesday was the last day of school before Thanksgiving. That afternoon the members of the Holiday-Giving Program assembled food baskets for the shelter residents. Students and their families had been donating nonperishables for the previous few weeks, and then that morning everyone brought fresh bread and frozen turkeys. Most of them were donated by school families, but Skyler’s uncle had a friend whose family owned a supermarket chain, and they had donated a few dozen turkeys, so we were in good shape.
We gathered in the student lounge to pack the baskets, which were really just cardboard boxes, also donated by the supermarket. We had the core group of me, Ben, Skyler, Riley, and Aria
Yes, my self-proclaimed “best friend” (at least on Instagram) was now apparently my worst enemy. She sighed loudly when I gave directions, glowered when I thanked everyone for coming, turned her back on me whenever our paths crossed, and told everyone who would listen that I was a snob who thought that because my stepfather was famous, everyone was supposed to worship me. I knew exactly what she was saying, thanks to Riley, who spent the afternoon listening eagerly and reporting every word to me, despite my attempts to convince her that I actually didn’t want to know every single horrible thing being said about me that afternoon.
“She’s so awful,” Riley said with horrified delight. She liked drama. “She’s just tearing you apart out there. Do you want me to tell her to stop? I will if you want me to.”
“I honestly don’t care what she says about me,” I said. “I just want to get these baskets packed.”
I really didn’t care about Aria
We finished packing up the boxes and loaded them into Skyler’s mother’s minivan, then Skyler, Ben, and I drove them to the shelter, where people there helped us unload them. The warmth and gratitude of both the staff and the residents made me feel a lot better. This was what mattered. Even Ben seemed touched enough by it to say an almost civil “Happy Thanksgiving” to me when we parted back at school.