The Last Time We Were Us (6 page)

The porch is littered with errant beer cans, a mini-Stonehenge of cigarette butts, a receipt from the liquor store, and specks of what I’d have to guess is vomit. It’s so perfectly representative, I almost want to take a photo: the state of affairs, etched in trash.

It used to be filled with cozy chairs and a porch swing. Jason and I would sip Cokes and munch on Utz chips, while my mom and Mrs. Sullivan gossiped about the neighbors.

But that was before Mrs. Sullivan went away. Before Jason went to juvie. Before Mr. Sullivan decided to move. After he did, the place sat untouched for six months or so, but then someone broke a window and the lock on the back door, and people started partying there. That’s when Mom began nightly surveillance from the back porch, a glass of wine in her hand and an especially big bee in her bonnet. She called the cops enough that kids stopped coming, at least before midnight, but the door was never fixed. The first time I went over was an early morning just like this. By that point, Jason had been gone a year, and the Sullivans were a taboo topic in my house. Their very mention caused Mom to speak in a hushed voice, Dad to shake his head. I’d convinced myself that I needed to check on the place. I did sop up some spilled beer, but I spent most of the time walking around, remembering. How Mr. Sullivan helped Jason and me with our makeshift card houses. The smell of a Crock-Pot full of chili and the artificial cherry taste of our favorite Popsicles. The first time we were no longer allowed to take baths together, had to go into separate corners to change into pajamas.

I know nostalgia’s a trick of the mind, I know it makes things seem better than they were, but I couldn’t help feeling that what Jason and I shared was truer than any friendship I’d had in my life. We had this history, one that ran so much deeper than watching cartoons and playing cops and robbers. We were like living journals, all of our good and bad memories locked up in each other’s minds. It was such a comforting feeling to have so much understanding reflected back on a face that wasn’t yours. A feeling I knew that no event, no matter how terrible, could erase.

The knob turns easily, and I walk inside. It’s hot, the room thick with humidity from the day before. I open a window to get the breeze going, running my hands over the gorgeous plantation shutters. Jason and I used to love tilting them up and down, watching the sunbeams dance at our beck and call.

The wood floors are dusty but still nice, and the house feels enormous in the absence of furniture. It used to be packed, a veritable museum of antiques and knickknacks. Mom always said Mr. Sullivan had a gift, and she hired him to do our house before everything happened. Shortly after Jason’s trial, she got a decorator to come up from Charlotte to finish the job—this hoity-toity woman in pearls and tall, clanky shoes, with brassy auburn hair and too much eye makeup. Mom said Mr. Sullivan wasn’t getting her style. But I knew the real reason. So did he.

In the front, the windows cast an early morning glow, bright and ethereal, the house like a shadow box. I climb up the stairs, remembering so many days playing hide-and-seek. How Mr. Sullivan always yelled at us to get our toys off the stairs. The time that Jason stuck his head through the banisters and Mr. Sullivan had to use a full can of Crisco to get it out.

The fifth step of the staircase creaks, as it always has, and I tread carefully up the rest. I head straight to Jason’s room. It’s small and sparse. Little-boy blue walls and beige carpet that has slight indents from where bunk beds stood for years. I spent countless nights here, talking with Jason about dinosaurs and astronauts as we looked up at a ceiling of stick-on stars until gravity pulled our eyelids down.

The gurgle of an engine jolts me out of memory lane. It’s loud and hardworking, like a whole load of machinery is under the hood. It putters and stops, and then there’s a pause followed by the slam of a door.

I creep to the window and look out. There’s a truck there, sure enough. One I don’t recognize. A pickup, white and tinged with dirt.

And then I see him walking, his gait quick and deliberate.

The nostalgia disappears as quickly as it came. We aren’t friends anymore, haven’t been for years, since around the time he ditched the bunk beds, tacked up movie posters, blasted hip-hop music, and slowly invited me over less and less, hoping I’d get the hint . . .

I take the stairs two at a time, but in moments he’s inside, staring up at me with a look of curiosity and surprise.

“What are you doing here?” Jason asks. I can’t tell if he’s mad or just confused. He smells like cigarettes.

“I shouldn’t be here. I’m sorry.”

“I don’t care if you’re here,” he says with a strain. “I just didn’t expect you.” He looks down. I decided to come over so quick, I didn’t even bother to throw on flip-flops. “Without shoes, no less.”

“I just kind of ran over. I didn’t think you’d be here.”

“But it’s my house.”

“Your dad never comes.”

He stares at me a minute, then takes a labored breath. “My dad washed his hands of the place,” he says, rolling his eyes. “And I get that he doesn’t want to deal with it, but it’s not going to sell itself with all the damage and crap outside. And the real estate lady has pretty much given up on it. I’m kind of the last hope.” He shuts the front door behind him. “Really, though. What are you doing here?”

I lean against the banister. “I come here sometimes.”

“Why today?”

I shake my head. “I don’t know.”

“Because I pissed you off?”

I shrug. “I thought I was the one who pissed you off.”

“You did.” He walks to the kitchen, sets his toolbox down on the counter. I follow behind.

He leans down, opens the cabinet doors beneath the sink, starts fishing around in there with his back to me.

“I wasn’t trying to piss you off,” I say. “I just thought maybe you would defend yourself if I brought up Skip, maybe you could give me a reason or something.”

He stops moving, and I think maybe he’s about to tell me what I want to hear. He closes the door and turns to me, the corners of his lips turned down. He opens his mouth to speak but then shuts it again.

“What is it?”

He sighs, shakes his head. “I forgot the caulking gun. I came all the way over here without it. I somehow manage to screw up everything.”

He stands back up and shifts his weight back and forth. His eyes avoid mine. Maybe there is no explanation to give for what happened that night. Maybe he just snapped—
screwed things up
, if you will—maybe there’s no more to it than that.

“I gotta go,” I say.

“Stay,” he says, taking a step forward and meeting my eyes again. “You don’t have to go.”

“Yes, I do.” I reach for the door, but in seconds, he’s right behind me, his hand on my shoulder. His touch feels dangerous, like an electric shock.

“I’m sorry I got so angry the other day,” he says. “You should come over sometime. Say hi to my dad.”

I turn to him just long enough to speak the words. “I can’t.”

And then I’m across the yard and in my house and lying in bed and thinking about Lyla and my mother and MacKenzie and Innis—and what all of them would think if they knew.

For so long I wished that Jason had never ditched me.

But now I just wish that he’d stayed away.

Chapter 6

“T
HE TRUCK
’
S STILL AT THAT HOUSE,
” M
RS.
E
LLISON
says shortly after I arrive later that morning. Her eyes are locked on the window and she’s holding Sadie almost protectively. “He was your year, right? The boy who did that horrible thing to Skip Taylor? Jack or Jasper or something.”

“Jason,” I say. “Yeah. We were in the same grade.”

“And neighbors, too. Lord help me when these girls become teenagers.”

I force a laugh. “You sound like my mom.”

She passes Sadie over to me, while Mary Ryan colors at the kiddie table, oblivious to her mom’s worries. “Just be careful. And if you guys decide to go out, head towards the pond.”

I want to tell her that, dear Lord, Jason would never hurt a kid, but it seems like the wrong thing to say. “No problem. Don’t worry at all.”

His truck is there all morning, big and intrusive, while the girls and I cycle through arts and crafts, the allotted thirty minutes of screen time, and pretend play in the backyard.

It’s still there when I leave, but I ignore it, heading straight to MacKenzie’s.

She gives me a knowing smile as soon as I’m in her room, her dog, Rocky, following behind. She shuts the door. “I know you’ve got boy news.” She runs a hand underneath her golden-brown curls, cultivated after an hour of work. Blow-dry, straighten, curl. It’s a bit much, but I’ve got to hand it to her, she looks great.

“I’m just here to see you.”

“Aww, how sweet.” She smiles at me, and I reach up and gently fleck a piece of mascara from her bottom eyelid. “Thanks,” she says. “But seriously. What’s the deal with you and Innis?”

I lean back on the bed and give her a look. “You first. Why are you getting all fixed up?”

She beams. “Payton asked me to come hang out at his pool.”

I feel a jealous ache, deep in my stomach. Things are moving fast with Payton, and I should be happy for her, but it only makes me more aware that things are regressing between me and Innis.

MacKenzie narrows her eyes, puts her hair tools down. “Hey, what’s wrong?”

I sit up straighter. “I’m sorry I’m not more excited. I just think things with Innis are going to fizzle out.”

“What are you talking about?” She sits down next to me. “Payton told me you guys hung out just yesterday.”

“Did he say it like it meant something, or did he say it in his monotone Payton way?”

“Hey,” MacKenzie says.

“I’m just saying. He was probably just stating a fact, like he does.”

Kenzie rolls her eyes. “So what happened then?”

I take a deep breath, my face getting hot, and I feel downright ridiculous at how upset I am. “I ran into him at lunch. He was all nice to my mom and sister. He asked me to meet up after. We did, and he kissed me, right outside of Walmart, in front of everyone.”

MacKenzie’s jaw drops. “Okay, the romantic qualities of Wally World aside, he kissed you in the daytime? That’s so
boyfriend-y
.”

“I know.” My body responds to the feel of the kiss with nervous butterfly flutters, as if it hasn’t remembered the rest of the story yet. “And so it’s all good, and I follow them around the store, and I watch them look at hunting stuff, and he even tells me his embarrassing middle name, and then we run into Alexis in the parking lot. And he basically absolves himself of any connection to me.”

“Wait, what’s his middle name?”

“Erskine.”

“Oh my God, that’s hilarious.”

“Can you focus?” I ask.

“Okay, okay. So what did he say?”

I do a mock–boy voice. “‘Oh, we weren’t planning on hanging out. I just ran into her in the parking lot.’”

MacKenzie presses her lips together: puzzled—or even disappointed? Then she forces a smile. “He probably got freaked out by his ex is all.”

“But it’s been years,” I say.

“Yeah, but maybe he
really
likes you, and being seen with a potential girlfriend in front of an ex sent him into some kind of douchey Innis tizzy.”

“Or maybe he just wanted us around because we had fakes and now he’s over it . . .”

MacKenzie shakes her head vigorously. “Look, Liz. You’ve got substance. A lot more than me, probably.
And
you’re pretty and, with my help, rather popular. Basically, why wouldn’t you be the girl to make Innis finally realize that hooking up with randos at parties doesn’t even compare to being with someone you’re into?”

“You actually think all those things?” I ask. “You’re not just saying that because you know he’s done a one-eighty and you feel bad for me and it’s the kind of thing friends are supposed to say?”

MacKenzie laughs. Then she pats me on the shoulder like she’s a cheerleading coach and I only need to practice a few more lifts before I’m beaming from the top of the pyramid. “I’m telling you, don’t worry. He likes you.”

“Maybe he was disappointed the other night.”

“Why?” she asks, genuine concern in her voice for the first time. “You told me it was good.”

I take a deep breath. “But I think he wanted to . . . you know.”

She raises her eyebrows. “Bake you a cake?”

“Kenzie!”

She folds her hands in her lap, steels herself, and looks up at me with her therapist eyes. “How much have you guys done exactly? Apart from the other night?”

I hesitate, but her eyes say it’s okay.

“Just made out.”

Her laugh sounds like Styrofoam peanuts rubbing together. “That’s it?” I cringe, embarrassed and, for some reason, ashamed. “Really?”

“Geez, Kenzie. Yes, really. Was I supposed to have slept with him on the basement couch by now? He’s not even my boyfriend. And I’m supposed to . . .” My voice breaks off, and my eyes fill with tears. MacKenzie’s supposed to be the one who understands, even if she is much more chill about sex than I am. She’s supposed to be on my side.

“Whoa,” she says. “I didn’t mean you had to sleep with him. There are other things.”

I taste salt on my lips. “Well, thanks,” I say. “I didn’t
realize
.”

She puts her hand on my shoulder. “I’m not trying to make you upset. I’m just saying that it’s okay for things to progress. You might even like it.”

“What if I don’t want things to progress?” I ask.

She sighs. “Have you been talking to Veronica? Is that where all this prudey guilt is coming from?”

“No,” I snap. “I haven’t. And could you do me a favor and not bring Veronica into all of this?”

MacKenzie thinks Veronica is all uptight about sex because in a moment of extreme un-Veronica-ness, she essentially called MacKenzie a slut in the middle of the cafeteria. I’d skipped our standing Friday movie date for a party with MacKenzie, and Veronica was fuming at lunch on Monday. “So you’re going to start sleeping your way to the top of the East Bonneville food chain, too? You never gave a shit about any of this stuff until the fabulous MacKenzie came along.”