Chapter 31
As I suspected, the rain gets bad about halfway there. It’s cold rain, too, and by the time we’re heading down Luke’s driveway
we’re both soaked to the bone.
I beat Luke to the covered entryway of the front door. There is a jumble of what are surely expensive shoes out here in a
pile, and it takes everything in me not to gather them up and put them inside, out of the rain. My hair is as wet as if I
had taken a shower, and strands of it are plastered to my face. I just have to hope my makeup isn’t as much of a mess as I
fear it might be.
“Is it open?” I ask as Luke joins me under the shelter of the portico.
“Should be,” he says, but he seems distracted. He’s staring over his shoulder at the Bronco, like he’s checking to see if
the windows are down. “Claire, wait—”
But it’s too late, because I’ve pushed open the door and stepped inside.
Once inside his warm, brightly lit foyer, it takes me a second to understand what’s happening. There’s music playing. Like
we’re not entering an empty house.
And that, I realize, is because we aren’t.
At the end of the entry hallway is a sunken family room, with a big couch curving around one of those futuristic-looking fireplaces that were popular in the 1960s. A fire is going. And sitting on the couch, her legs tucked beneath her with a book in her lap, is Ana?s Labrie.
“Ani,” Luke says, coming up behind me. “Hey. I thought you were borrowing the car.”
She looks tinier in person, and twice as beautiful. She’s wearing a soft camel-colored cashmere sweater over one of those
matching pajama sets, the ones that have piping on the edges and probably cost ten thousand dollars and are dry-clean only.
She puts her book down. “I didn’t want to drive in the rain, so I figured I’d just stay the night and leave tomorrow.” Her
accent isn’t nearly as strong in person as it is in interviews. Her eyes flick to me and then back to Luke. A small puddle
has formed around me on the floor. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know you’d be bringing . . . company. Hi.” She directs a dazzling
smile at me. “I’m Ani.”
I wait for Luke to say something. Anything. He runs his hand through his wet hair like he’s trying to figure out what to say.
“I’m Claire,” I say, introducing myself, as though I’m following some awful script.
Ana?s Labrie is sitting here in her pajamas. She’s staying the night. Here, in Luke’s house.
“Cee,” Luke says to me, right as the realization of what’s going on begins to hit me.
There is something between them.
I don’t know how serious it is. But there’s something between them that is more than two actors working on the same movie.
I feel almost nothing as I turn the fact over in my mind, like I’m looking at a stone in my hands. I feel the weight of it,
and I know that it’s true.
The silence only lasts a few seconds, but it is so painful it might as well be an hour.
I turn to Luke. “Can I use your bathroom?”
Luke looks deeply uncomfortable. Good. He points out where it is.
I go in, shut the door behind me, and immediately start to shake. I am such a fool. I pull out my phone. I have about fifteen
text messages from people I kind of know, asking about Luke, whether that was him, asking if we were together, saying we should
come back to the party, all that. I ignore them and call an Uber. The surge pricing is beyond insane, it’s going to cost me
over thirty dollars to go a few miles, but I don’t care.
I avoid my reflection as I wait there, watching the little car on my screen get closer. This way I don’t have to see my hair
plastered to my skull, my mascara running beneath my eyes, red lipstick half rubbed off.
When it says “arriving now,” I take a deep breath and go back out into the entryway.
I’ve clearly interrupted some exchange between the two of them, because Ana?s is now sitting up with her feet on the floor, her hands pressed between her knees. Luke glances over at me.
“I’m going to . . . go.” I turn and make my way back to the front door, my heart pounding painfully in my chest. I need to
get out of here. I need to get out of here right now.
“Wait.” Luke has jogged after me, catching me by the elbow. His eyes are pleading. “It’s pouring. Please let me drive you.
I can explain—”
“My car is here.”
I gently tug my elbow out of his grasp, unable to meet his eyes.
And then I leave.
As soon as I’m in the back seat of the Uber, I’m shaking again. I’ve never felt more naive. I think back to the way he couldn’t
get out of Nicky’s dorm room fast enough on Sunday morning. Of course he couldn’t. It was because he felt guilty.
He felt guilty because he was seeing someone. He is seeing someone.
The worst part is, I can’t even be that mad at him. I knew exactly what kind of person he was. And yet I let myself fall for him again.
I pull out my phone to text Evie. Enough waiting. Enough putting it off. Tomorrow. Tomorrow I will sit down with Evie, hear
all about her night, and then I am going to tell her everything. Every last detail.
ME:
Hope your night is going better than mine
EVIE:
?? What do you mean?
Lucas Cordova just kissed you at a party. In front of everyone. You will be a legend in Glenridge for the rest of our lives
ME:
We didn’t kiss
EVIE:
You almost kissed. You basically kissed
ME:
Unfortunately the story doesn’t end there
EVIE:
***
ME:
I’ll tell u tomorrow. I have a lot to tell u actually. A lot
EVIE:
Ok deal. I have to go anyway. Eddie and me are about to go upstairs. To “chill” for a sec. . . . . . . . . . . .
ME:
Omgomgomg
GODSPEED. I love you
A few minutes later, the Uber pulls into my driveway. Of course, to put a cherry on top of one of the worst nights of my life,
Todd’s car is here. A sigh escapes me. Completely involuntary, like a sneeze. And to think this man is going to be my stepfather.
My screen lights up again. I check it, expecting Evie, but it’s Luke.
LUKE:
Hey can we please talk?
I click my phone screen back off without responding.
“Thanks,” I say to the driver as I get out. He looks over his shoulder disapprovingly at the giant wet spot I left in his
back seat. No way this guy doesn’t give me one star.
Inside, I can hear the TV, so Mom and Todd must be in the den. I slip off my shoes and go to let her know I’m home. Todd’s
arm is around her and they’ve got a blanket and a bowl of popcorn on their laps. Thisbe is curled up on Mom’s other side.
Mom notices me as I approach and sits up to pause the movie. Thisbe’s tail is thunking, but she must be too comfortable, because
she doesn’t get up.
“What are you doing home so early? Oh, you’re soaking!”
“Yeah. I got caught in the rain. It’s a long story.”
“Hi, Claire,” Todd says. He’s looking at me with even more disapproval than the Uber driver did. And I realize—Mom’s dress.
“I’m sorry about your dress,” I say. And then I burst into tears.
Mom disentangles herself from Todd, getting to her feet. “Oh, Gus. It’s okay. It’s just water. We can hang it to dry.”
Mom comes over to me, and her eyes are so full of concern it makes me cry even more. “Did something else happen?”
“No.”
“You sure?”
I nod. “I’m going to go upstairs. I’m so sorry about the dress.”
“Like I said. It’s just water.” She pulls me into a hug even though I’m all wet. When she lets go, she says, “Let me know
if you need anything, okay?”
I stop in the kitchen to get a glass of water, and I hear Todd saying something to Mom in a disapproving tone. I can’t make
out his words exactly, but I know it’s about me.
Then Mom snaps, “Enough, Todd.”
Now that I could hear. And the annoyance in her voice is enough to buoy my spirits, if only a little bit.
When I get to my room, I finally take stock of myself in the mirror.
It’s not as bad as I imagined, but it’s not good.
My lipstick is faded, so it looks more like lip liner, but it’s not smudged, and my eye makeup hasn’t smeared all that much.
My room is a mess from getting ready for the party.
I take a deep breath. I’ll focus on getting my room in order. I will get myself in order.
First I peel off the cape and dress and hang them both to dry. I hope Mom’s right. I hope the water doesn’t damage it too
much, but if I need to pay to get it professionally cleaned, no matter the cost, I will. I will not let stupid Todd Mackey
be right about this.
Next, I take a shower. The hot water feels good, and I scrub every inch of myself, making sure to spend time on my eyes and
undereyes, to get rid of every last stitch of makeup.
After I’m clean and my hair is towel-dried and brushed, I go back to my room. Right as I enter, I see my phone screen go from
lit up to dark. I check it. Luke’s called three times.
Instead of calling him back, I plug in my phone, put it on Do Not Disturb, and turn it face down on my nightstand. My heart
cannot handle whatever apology he has for me, that he should have mentioned he was seeing her sooner, that we were better
as friends and maybe it was a mistake we almost kissed, blah, blah, blah.
Tonight is a night for comfort, so I put on my huge orange-and-black pajama pants and my almost-threadbare oversize T-shirt
from the Mystic Aquarium that says “Just a Ray of Sunshine” around a block-printed image of a manta ray. After I’ve cleaned
my room, I open my door and call for Thisbe, but she doesn’t come. She probably can’t hear me over the movie. I could go down
and get her, but I don’t want to have to interact with Mom and Todd again.
I’ve just crawled into bed when there’s a sound like hail on my window. But it had stopped raining by the time I got home. Is it cold enough for that? There’s the sound again. It’s too rhythmic to be hail.
Someone’s at my window. My second-story window. For one wild second, I worry it’s someone trying to break in, that my night
is about to take a drastic, horrifying turn—but then I realize that they’re knocking. A criminal wouldn’t knock, right?
I get out of bed and draw apart my curtains. It’s Luke, crouched on the eave. My window looks out right over the front of
the house, so he must have climbed the trellis on the portico.