Chapter 12 - Shane #2
“So give me a break,” Ethan snaps snatching the foam cup from my hand, pouring it into another metal travel mug, and handing it to me.
He takes both the empty foam cups into the bathroom.
I follow him and watch him clean them out in the sink.
He glances at me. “It’s not like there’s electric cars or hydrogen powered cars all over the place.
Not yet anyway. And definitely not at the rental places.
” He dries out the cups and puts them back on the table. “Every little bit helps, though.”
“I see.”
He sits down at the table and watches the TV, drinking from the metal mug. I sit across from him and do the same.
“I guess I should call my parents,” he says after a few minutes. “It looks like it’s going to snow some more.”
“Yeah.” I watch the scary blue-and-white blob blip across the radar, ominously indicating more precipitation. “You want some privacy, or…?”
“I don’t care.” He goes over to the phone and gets out a calling card.
While he’s doing that, I decide to prepare us to stay another night here. So, I make the bed, pick up the towels from the bathroom, and try to figure out a way to boil some water.
Ethan hangs up the phone and sits down in front of the TV. He starts flipping through the channels.
“Were they worried?” I ask him.
He shrugs. “Yeah, a little, I guess.” He pauses. “I didn’t tell them what happened. Like with the ashes or that old lady or anything.” He looks over at me. “Please don’t tell Gina or anyone. Please?”
“I won’t, Ethan. I promise.”
He turns back to the TV, and I turn back to the Cup O Noodles.
“Are you hungry?” I ask him.
He shrugs.
“I was going to make us some of these, but I don’t know how to get boiling water in here.”
Ethan sighs and gets up. He grabs the small coffee pot and takes it into the bathroom, where I hear him rinsing it out in the sink, then he comes back in with it full of water.
He pours the water into the coffee pot, takes out the coffee filter, and turns it on.
“The hot water will go into the pot then you can just pour it into the cup.”
“Oh wow,” I say. “I wouldn’t have thought of that. Thanks.”
He sits back in front of the TV. “Did it all the time in the dorms my freshman year.”
“So do you not live in the dorms anymore?”
“Stop trying to get to know me,” he snaps. He works his jaw for a minute, staring at the TV, then he says, “I share an apartment with like three other people. Still student housing.”
After the coffee pot is full of hot water, I pour some in a noodle cup. “It’s pretty cool, you know, going to Columbia. Pretty sure you’re the first person from Port Leyden to go there.” I hand him the cup and a plastic fork. “Sorry about the plastic.”
He cuts his black-lined eyes over to me and takes the food. “Don’t be a wiseass.”
“I’m not. I really am sorry.” I pour the hot water into another noodle cup and sit at the table.
“You know, I guess I don’t really ever think about that stuff.
” I stir the noodles around and cover it to let it sit for a minute.
“Plastics and whatever. I know it’s bad and all. Guess I got other things on my mind.”
Ethan’s watching an episode of The Flintstones, the picture flickering in and out. He blows on a forkful of noodles. “Like what?”
I’m surprised—and thrown off—by his question. “Um…I don’t know. Mikayla, I guess. Taking care of her. And my job. Bills. Grown-up shit like that, I guess.”
He glances over at me for a second, then back at the TV. “Your little girl’s name is Mikayla?”
“Yeah. Gina liked it. I picked her middle name. Nicole. After my mom.”
“Do you see your mom?”
“No. She wouldn’t recognize me.”
He looks over at me again, a softness in his eyes. “Is she still…in that place?”
I scratch an itch on the back of my neck. “The home, yeah.”
He eats some more. “What’s your, um…what’s your job?”
“You remember Mr. Putnam? His nephew has a deck and patio business. I work for him.”
Ethan watches Wilma lecture Fred for a couple minutes. “So, you like build stuff now?”
“Yeah, pretty much. We do deck cleaning and painting. Pour concrete for patios. Build pool decks. Stuff like that.” I take a bite. “I’m also pretty sure it’s not environmentally friendly. I mean, maybe wood is, I don’t know.”
I can only see Ethan’s face in profile, but there’s a tiny grin on his lips.
We finish eating as The Flintstones ends and The Jetsons come on. I spot the envelope with the pictures, still unopened, on the table near Ethan’s cigarettes. I pick it up and move from the table to sit next to him on the edge of the bed. He flinches a little, but he doesn’t move.
I hand him the envelope. “I wanted you to have these.”
He looks down at it.
“They’re pictures of Everett. And of you.”
He takes the envelop and stares at it. “Did you ever enter them in that contest?”
“No. I never got the chance to.”
He slowly opens the envelope and takes out the photos.
The first couple are of Everett running track.
Then there are the ones I took of him. At parks.
On the front porch of the Sawyer house. Out by the river.
He looks through them slowly and carefully, and I feel strangely vulnerable.
It’s obvious—at least to me—in some of these pics how intimate it felt.
The close-ups of Ethan’s face. His hands.
The moments I caught him looking at me with those sad puppy adoring eyes.
Those days seem so far away now. This Ethan I used to know is all grown-up.
If I had to give him a name now, I’d call him Melancholy Ethan. Jaded Ethan.
Dark Ethan.
He looks at the pictures I took of him and then puts everything back in the envelope. He sits there for a moment with an expression on his face that I can’t quite read.
I place one of my hands over his. “I missed doing all that stuff with you. I missed being alone with you.”
He gets up suddenly and goes over to the table to put on his coat and get his cigarettes. He goes outside. I sigh and watch Rosie fuss at Judy Jetson.
I’m probably going about this all wrong.
Everything I do just keeps upsetting him.
But I don’t know what else to do. I never expected any of my old friends to just up and die this young.
And out of all of them, why did it have to be Everett Sawyer?
I think about the last email he sent me, just a few months ago, sitting there unread in my inbox.
I don’t know what he would’ve had to say to me after years of nothing.
I’m still afraid to find out what, but I know when I get back I’ll need to read it.
Especially since I probably won’t ever see Ethan again.
The minutes tick by, way longer than smoking a cigarette takes, and I stand up, wondering if he decided to do something crazy again, like walk through a blizzard.
I put my coat on and step outside. I don’t see him anywhere, and my heart starts to pound.
Snow is coming down, but it’s not heavy.
The lot and cars are covered, and the highway is silent and deserted.
I scan the lot for the Blazer, which is hard since everything’s covered in snow.
Then I hear a scraping noise. I walk over toward it and see Ethan behind the Blazer, the trunk wide open, with one of those little fold-up shovels, frantically digging in the snow.
“Ethan, what are you doing?” I step out into snow that comes up nearly to my knees and shuffle through it toward him, my pants getting wet. It looks like he’s trying to dig out the car. “Ethan, stop.”
“We can’t stay here another night,” he growls angrily, turning to look at me with a red face and runny eyeliner. “We have to get back and get him. We have to.” He starts digging again.
“You’re not going to dig the car out.” I go over to him and grasp one of his arms, but he jerks it away from me. “Ethan, come on.”
He keeps digging, huffing and puffing in the cold.
This time, I grab both his arms and say firmly, “Ethan, stop. You’re going to get sick. Come on.” I take the shovel from him, fold it up, and put it back in the trunk of the Blazer.
I walk him back to the motel room, and once inside I brush snow from his hair and remove his coat.
I shake the snow off it and drape it over the back of a chair to dry.
I set him down on the bed and remove his shoes and socks.
I get up to get a towel to dry off his clothes and feet.
I find a couple of bags of tea with the coffee stuff and get the coffee pot going again.
Ethan stares at me, suspiciously, as I kneel in front of him and attempt to dry the melted snow off him with the towel.
“Are you okay?” I ask him.
He doesn’t answer me.
He leans forward and kisses me.