Desire came from somewhere deep inside of her, radiating outward, tingling, aching. She started to tremble so hard he drew back, looked at her. “Are you okay?”
No, she wanted to say, no I’m not, but when she saw herself reflected in his eyes, she was ruined. She wanted him with a ferocity that terrified her. It was dangerous to want anything in this life, but his love maybe most of all. “I’m fine,” she lied. “Just cold.”
He pulled her into his arms. “Can we come here again tomorrow night?”
They were going down a bad road here; she should hit the brakes now, tell him it was too bad that they loved each other and let it go. Now, while she still could. She should tell him no, say she wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize her friendship with Mia, but when she looked at him, she had no strength to turn him away. He made everything inside of her stop hurting.
Dangerous, Lexi, she thought, say no. Think of your best friend and what matters. But when he kissed her again, she whispered, “Okay.”
Six
Jude sat in bed with her husband, listening with half an ear to the late-night news. An expensive down comforter, covered by a custom silk duvet, floated like a cloud around them. In the past few days—since the dance, in fact—her mommy radar had been emitting a strong signal. Something was wrong with Zach, and she didn’t know what it was. Nothing bothered her more than being out of the loop in her kids’ lives. “Zach broke up with Amanda,” she said finally.
“Uh-huh,” Miles said.
She looked at him. How was it that no matter what drama unfolded in this house, he never seemed to worry? He accused her of being a helicopter parent, all noise and movement, hovering too close to her children, but if that were true, he was a satellite, positioned so far up in the sky he needed a high-powered telescope to track the goings-on in his own home. Maybe it was the medical school training. He’d learned how to suppress his emotions a little too well. “Is that all you have to say?”
“I could have said less, actually. It’s hardly an event.”
“Molly said Bryson said Zach was acting weird after football practice. I don’t think he’s handling the breakup as well as it appears. You should talk to him.”
“I’m a man. He’s a teenage boy. Talking is hardly our best sport.” Miles smiled at her. “Go ahead.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re dying to ask him what’s going on. You can’t help yourself. So, go. Just listen to the kid and believe him when he says Amanda doesn’t matter. He’s seventeen. When I was seventeen—”
“Your horndog past is not comforting.” She kissed him on the cheek and climbed over him to get out of bed. “I won’t be gone long.”
“Believe me, I know.”
Smiling, Jude left their bedroom.
The second floor was ablaze with light. As usual, neither of her intelligent children had mastered the incredibly complex hand-and-eye coordination necessary to turn off a light switch. She paused outside Mia’s door, listening. She could tell that her daughter was on the phone. No doubt she was talking to either Lexi or Tyler.
Jude made her way to Zach’s room. At his closed door, she paused. She would not batter him with questions or bury him under advice. This time she would just listen.
She knocked and got no answer. Knocking again, she announced herself and opened the door.
He was in his game chair, wielding the black remote as if he were a fighter pilot, which, on-screen, he was.
“Hey you,” she said, coming up beside him. “What are you doing?”
“Trying to beat this level.”
She sat down on the black shag rug beside him. This room had been decorated once by a professional and redone over the years by Zach. Expensive chocolate-colored wallpaper had been covered by movie posters. The bookshelves were an archaeological display of his childhood: a graveyard of action figures, a tangled heap of plastic dinosaurs, stacks of video game cases, a dog-eared copy of Captain Underpants, and the five Harry Potter novels.
She wanted to say, Can we talk? but to a teenage boy (or most any male), one might as well say, May I please rip out your spleen?
“Let me guess,” Zach said. “You think I’m doing drugs? Or spraying graffiti? Maybe you’re worried that I’m a girl trapped in a dude’s body.”
She couldn’t help smiling at that. “I am so misunderstood.”
“You do worry about the weirdest shit. I mean stuff.”
“Do you want to talk about Amanda? Or how you feel? I’ve been through a few broken hearts in my time. Keith Corcoran in high school almost ruined me.”
He put down the controller and looked at her. “How did you know you loved Dad?”
Jude was pleasantly surprised by the question. Usually she had to pry this kind of conversation out of her son. But maybe he was growing up, or maybe he’d actually been hurt by Amanda.
There were so many things she could say, memories she could share, and if she were talking to Mia, she might have done just that. But this was Zach. She didn’t want to ruin this moment by talking too much.
“The first time I saw him, I knew. I know it sounds crazy, but it’s true. When he said he loved me, I believed him, and I hadn’t believed anyone since my dad. Until Miles … and you kids, I used to worry that I was like my mother. Your dad reminded me what love felt like, I guess, and when he kissed me for the first time, I cried. I didn’t know why then, but now I do. It was love and it scared the bejesus out of me. I knew I’d never be the same again.” She smiled at her son, who for once was soaking up every word. “Someday you’ll meet the right girl, Zach. I promise. Only you’ll be grown up and she’ll be a woman, and when you kiss her, you’ll know you belong with her.”
“And she’ll cry.”
“If you’re lucky she will.”
In the next two weeks, Lexi learned about keeping secrets. When she was with Zach, her love for him was overpowering, a wave that knocked her sideways so hard she couldn’t tell which way was up. Later, when she was with Mia, guilt smacked her just as hard. Mia knew something was up with Zach, but it never occurred to her to look to Lexi for answers.
That was the worst of it, the broken trust. More than once Lexi had almost blurted out the truth, desperate for absolution, but she hadn’t done it, hadn’t opened her heart to her best friend. And why not?
Love. She couldn’t deny Zach anything, it seemed, and he wasn’t ready to tell his sister about them. Lexi wasn’t even completely sure why; she just knew that Zach was afraid to tell Mia, and if Zach was afraid, Lexi was more so.
Every night, he picked Lexi up from work and drove them out to “their” beach. There, they lay on a blue plaid woolen blanket, talking. Lexi told him about her early years, what it had been like with her mother, how it felt to be forgotten and abandoned; Zach listened and held her hand and told her she was the strongest person he knew. He told her about his dreams for medical school and the expectations of success that sometimes crushed his spirit.
The stars overhead became their private universe. Zach pointed out the constellations and told her the stories that went along with each one: tales of gods and monsters, love and tragedy. His voice in the cold darkness became the home port she’d never known; in his arms, she discovered peace. She saw a side of him she’d never imagined. He felt things so deeply that sometimes he was afraid of his own emotions, and he worried that he would disappoint his parents. His surprising insecurities only made her love him more.
Tonight, they lay together, looking up at the giant universe. He took her in his arms and rolled over, covering her body with his own. She kissed him deeply, pouring every piece of her heart into the kiss, as if she could somehow meld their souls with the sheer force of her love. When his hand slid inside her shirt, up her bare back, she let him go. It felt so good to be touched like that by him.
He unhooked her bra. She felt the soft cups slip away from her breasts, and then he was touching her there.
She dragged herself sideways, slipped out from underneath him. Breathing hard, aching for his touch, she lay there.
“Lex? Did I do something wrong?”
She refastened her bra and then rolled over to face him. In the moonlight, he was so handsome she could hardly breathe for wanting him. But she’d seen her mother give her body away too many times to be reckless with her own. She sat up, back on her heels, and bowed her head. Was this what love did to a person, twisted them up and emptied them out until there was nothing left but need? If so, how would she survive it? “What are you doing with me, Zach?”
“What do you mean?”
Lexi steeled herself. If she’d learned anything from her mother, it was that nothing good grows in the dark. “I’m not going to be your secret, Zach. If you’re ashamed of me—”
“Ashamed? Is that what you think?”
“You don’t want to tell Mia about us … or your family.”
He shook his head. “Ah, Lex … I love you. Don’t you know that?”
“You do?”
He sighed, and something in the sound reminded her how damaged she was, how certain she was that no one could love her. “You don’t know what it’s like being a twin. I love Mia, but I want you to be mine. And my mom jumps into my life like it’s a swimming pool. She’ll have an opinion on this, believe me.”
“I love you, too, Zach. So much I can’t believe it. But I can’t be just yours. Mia’s my best friend. We have to tell her. And your parents are important to me, too. I need them to like me.”
“I know. But I don’t want to hurt Mia. If she thinks I stole you…”
“I can belong to both of you,” Lexi said solemnly. “I already do.”
He kissed her one more time and took her by the hand, pulling her to her feet. In a silence that suddenly felt ominous, they gathered up the blanket and stood beneath the stars, facing each other. The burden of their decision felt unbearably heavy, and Lexi almost wanted to take it back, to say, let’s keep it secret a little longer. What if she lost him because of it? She didn’t fool herself. It was possible. If Zach had to choose between Lexi and his family, it would be no contest. He would always choose Mia, who was as much a part of him as the green of his eyes. The bond that connected the twins ran deep. Last year, Zach had been hurt on the football field, and Mia had known instantly; she’d felt her brother’s pain.
“Tomorrow,” he said.
“What if—”
“Don’t say it. She’ll understand. She has to.”
The next day, as Lexi sat in one class after another, supposedly listening to her teachers drone on about this or that, all she could think about was telling Mia the truth. She imagined the conversation over and over, polishing each remorseful word like an agate. And still, when the last bell rang, she had the urge to just run away.
What if Mia didn’t forgive her? Lexi could lose everything that mattered.
If only she’d done the right thing the first time and told the truth. She, of all people, should have known better. She’d grown up on a diet of lies; she knew the bitter taste they left in your mouth.