Any Other Girl (13 page)

chapter 17

T
he next afternoon, my dads sent Harper and me to the supermarket to pick up the supplies for the appetizer-and-drinks gathering at our cottage later that evening. At first I thought my cousin was just being nice, accompanying me on a boring trip to the store, but as I soon discovered, she had ulterior motives.

“Oh look, it's Conner Dunford,” she said with a nudge to my ribs as we turned our cart into the snack aisle.

“So?” I replied. The presence of Conner Dunford in Erwin's grocery store wasn't exactly noteworthy. He'd been stocking shelves there for the past two summers. At the moment, he was yawning as he halfheartedly replenished the Doritos supply.

“Soooo . . .” Harper said, drawing the word out. “I thought you might want to invite him over tonight.”

I looked at her like she'd sprouted an extra head. Conner was tall and blond and kind of cute, but he had the personality of a wet paper bag. “Why would I want to do that?”

She tossed a tube of Pringles into the cart, avoiding my eyes. “You guys flirt with each other every time we run into him. It would probably make his week if you asked him out.”

“I don't
want
to ask him out,” I whispered as we drew closer to him. “And besides, I flirt with everyone.”

She shot me a quick narrow-eyed glance and I immediately wanted to take back what I'd said, or at least add the caveat
Except for Emmett
. Ever since that morning, when Emmett had caught up to us on the road between our cottages and told us that yes, his mother would be happy to drop over for drinks, Harper had been struck with a renewed hope. Especially when, lured by the promise of s'mores, he had agreed to come over, too. Finally, after being deprived of them for weeks, s'mores were happening at my fire pit tonight whether Pop approved of it or not.

Luckily, I had that to look forward to. The prospect of spending an evening with Emmett totally stressed me out. When we'd spoken earlier, I could barely even look at him. All I could think about was what had happened in the lake, the intoxicating feel of his body against mine. Actually, I'd thought of little else since.

“So will you do it?” Harper asked me.

“Hmm?” I said, lost in thought. I sounded like Pop.

“Invite Conner,” she said out of the corner of her mouth. He was only half an aisle away from us, well within hearing distance. “So we can both, you know, have someone.”

Have someone
. Was that what she thought? That she
had
Emmett? Harper was a wonderful person, and I loved her like a sister, but sometimes she had trouble taking a hint.

“Please, Kat.” She unleashed the puppy-dog eyes that she'd learned from me and aimed them in my direction. “For me.”

I sighed. How could I say no to that? It wasn't like I had to
make out
with Conner or anything, and I knew he wasn't the type to come on too strong, like Steroid Sawyer. Conner wasn't the sharpest crayon in the box, and he wore way too much cologne, but he was sweet and basically harmless.

“Fine,” I told her through gritted teeth. “But you owe me.”

She nodded and shoved me gently toward him. He smiled hugely at the sight of me. As Harper had predicted, he was thrilled by the invitation and readily agreed to join us. He even offered to bring some pot.
Oh Lord.

“Thanks, but no. My parents will be home,” I told him, and he shrugged and continued to beam at me like he'd been into the pot already. Harper owed me, all right.

“You'll have to teach me how to do that someday, Kat,” she said once we'd left the snack aisle and Conner behind.

I scanned the shelf in front of me until I found the graham crackers, then added two boxes to the cart. “Do what?”

“Turn on the charm like that. Flirt. Guys are like putty in your hands.”

I snorted. She made me sound like some kind of magic sorceress, reducing men to drooling idiots with one simple glance.

“I told you,” I said, deliberating over the chocolate display. “You just have to be confident. Ask them questions about themselves, compliment them, touch their arm, smile . . . that sort of thing.”

Harper reached over and scooped up a few Hershey bars. They weren't Swiss, but they would have to do. “I feel like an idiot when I do those things. Maybe I need to start wearing makeup and dresses, like you. Guys like the whole ‘damsel in distress' thing, don't they?”

“Just because a girl wears lipstick and dresses and cares about her appearance doesn't mean she's helpless, you know. My dads brought me up to be strong and independent.”

“I know,” she said, squeezing my arm. “I think that's what I envy about you the most.”

 

Conner didn't show up at my cottage that evening until after Harper, Emmett, and I had already torn into the s'mores fixings and devoured four each. As he crossed my yard where the three of us lounged on the grass around the fire pit, Emmett watched him guardedly, like Conner was about to snap and lunge at me any second. Maybe he thought all Erwin guys were raging assholes.

Once I'd introduced the boys, Harper moved over so Conner could sit down beside me, putting her within touching distance of Emmett. He didn't seem opposed to the new development, but he didn't exactly look relaxed either. Not that I was hyper-aware of his body language or anything.

“Another s'more, Emmett?” Harper asked, offering him the marshmallow bag.

“Don't you mean ‘some more s'mores'?” Conner said in his slow, lazy drawl.

They both ignored him.

“No, thanks,” Emmett said. “I'm kind of full.”

Harper tossed the bag to me, but I put it down on the grass. I was full too, bordering on nauseated. Maybe Pop was right about excess amounts of sugar. Or I could have been reacting to Conner's cologne; he smelled like he'd
bathed
in it.

“Yeah, I'd better stop too or I won't fit into my soccer shorts on Monday,” Harper said, stretching out her long, toned legs for Emmett to admire.

Only he didn't. For the past few minutes, his gaze had barely left the fire. I thought of the night of our fork prank, how he'd trained his flashlight on my leggings-and-tank-top-clad body way longer than was necessary. And yesterday, when I felt his eyes on me as I stood on his dock in my bikini. Clearly, Emmett preferred curvy girls.

“So, Conner,” Harper said, slapping a mosquito off her neck. “You don't have a girlfriend, do you?”

“Not at the moment.”

“Good to know.” She shot me a smile. “Isn't that good to know, Kat?”

I stared at her, surprised. Harper wasn't usually so forward. Perhaps the quick makeup job she'd let me do on her earlier had emboldened her. What exactly was she trying to do? Last summer, she'd been incensed when Sawyer Bray kept pushing her off on other people in an attempt to get rid of her. Now she was doing the same to me—offering me up to Conner so I'd “have someone,” a distraction so she could hang out with Emmett without guilt. Like I would've stood in the way, otherwise.

Emmett tore his gaze away from the fire and watched me, too, waiting to hear my answer. Waiting to see if I cared one way or the other that Conner was single. I didn't, but Emmett's close proximity to my cousin bothered me just enough to say, “Definitely.”

Conner gave me one of his mellow smiles and started eating raw marshmallows straight from the bag. Emmett went back to his staring contest with the fire, and I jumped up suddenly, like I'd forgotten something imperative and had to go fetch it immediately. In reality, I just needed a little break from all three of them.

“Bathroom,” I said by way of explanation as I took off for the cottage.

Inside, I leaned against the counter in the dimly lit kitchen, downing a glass of water and listening to the adults as they laughed and talked outside on the deck. As I stood there, contemplating the fullness of my stomach and whether it could handle any more food without rebelling, the glass door slid open and Emmett's mom entered the cottage.

“Oh,” she said, jumping slightly at the sight of me. “Hi, Kat. I thought you were outside.”

“Hi, Mrs. Reese.” I held up my almost empty water glass. “Just needed some water. S'mores make me so thirsty.”

“Call me Holly.” When she smiled, she didn't look nearly old enough to be the mother of two grown boys. “Are you guys having fun?” she asked, joining me by the counter.

As usual, I felt like a giant next to her. “Yeah,” I said, wondering if I was going to say anything tonight that
wasn't
a lie. “How about you?”

She laughed and placed a hand on her chest. “Oh my God, your dads . . . they're adorable, Kat. I just love them.”

“The feeling is mutual,” I told her, grinning.

“And Carrie, too. She's just so strong, you know? Raising her daughter on her own . . . I admire her. I admire
all
single moms.”

You could do it, too
, I felt like telling her. She could leave her toxic marriage, survive on her own, and be a better, happier person for it. I didn't know her very well, but there was something about her—the same steely resolve I'd seen in Emmett—that made me think she could be strong too, if she let herself.

“You have a really nice family, Kat,” she said, placing her small fingers on my forearm. “And you and your cousin have been so nice to Emmett. I appreciate that. We both do, actually.”

I shrugged. “It's not exactly hard.”

“It is, though, for some people,” she said somberly. “Emmett can be very . . . closed off. He's been through a lot growing up, and it's really affected how he relates to people. He can be difficult to get to know.”

I nodded, unsure of what to say. Did she know I'd heard the fighting? That I knew about her and her husband?

“But you and Harper,” Mrs. Reese went on. “You guys have really helped to bring him out of his shell this summer.” She smiled. “He talks about you, Kat. Well, Harper too, but mostly you. You've made quite an impression on him.”

My face flushed with embarrassment and pleasure. “Oh. Well . . .”

She touched my arm again. “Sorry, I didn't mean to embarrass you. Or keep you from your s'mores. I just came in to use the washroom.”

“Please keep me from the s'mores,” I begged, and she laughed and leaned in to give me a quick hug before sprinting to the bathroom.
Well, what do you know
, I thought, watching her go.
Emmett's mom is a hugger, too
.

When I got back outside, I found Conner sitting next to the fire pit, totally alone and munching on a graham cracker. I glanced around the yard for Emmett and Harper but couldn't see them anywhere in the vicinity. “Where did they go?”

“Down by the lake,” he said through a mouthful of crackers.

I craned my neck in that direction, but all I could see was blackness. “Are they waiting for us to meet up with them down there or what?”

Conner swallowed. “Uh, I think they want to be alone.”

A million different emotions bubbled in my stomach, but all I could do was plop down on the grass next to him and wait.
Maybe they're just talking,
I assured myself.
Right. Alone. In the pitch dark.

“So you're glad I'm single, huh?” Conner asked, bumping my shoulder with his. His cologne was overpowering. “You wanna do something about that for me?”

I inched away from him. “Not particularly.”

“Okay then,” he said agreeably before diving back into the graham cracker box.

Harper and Emmett stayed away for a full twenty minutes. When they returned, joining us once again around the fire pit, they were both unnervingly quiet. I tried to gain clues from their expressions, but it was dark and they both kept their eyes on the ground, revealing nothing. Either they had kissed and it was so amazing they'd both been struck mute, or they had kissed and it had been so disappointingly awful they couldn't even look at each other, or Harper had tried to kiss him and he'd dodged her, like last time. Each scenario came with its own tiny dagger that stabbed at my heart.

The atmosphere around the four of us felt kind of wilted, like all the fun had been sucked out of the evening. I think it was a relief to all of us when the night ended and it came time to go our separate ways. Conner left first, then Emmett and his mom. When it was just Harper and me, alone in the yard, I asked her what happened between her and Emmett on the beach.

“Nothing,” she said as she helped me douse the fire with handfuls of sand.

“Twenty minutes of nothing?”

She brushed sand off her hands and looked at me. “We don't have to tell each other
everything
, you know.”

I pushed back a pang of hurt. “I know. I was just curious.”

Suddenly, her face softened and she threw an arm around my shoulders, pulling me close. “A girl is entitled to a few secrets,” she said, smiling cryptically.

That didn't make me feel any better. In fact, it made me feel about ten times worse, but I smiled back at her anyway. As a girl with more than a few secrets of her own, I couldn't exactly disagree.

chapter 18

I
still hadn't given up hope that Shay would eventually forgive me. She'd been my only real friend at school, and without her, without at least
one
person on my side, senior year would surely be hell. And lonely. It was probably too late to switch schools, and besides, I didn't want to start over somewhere else. In spite of everything that had happened, I liked my school and wanted to graduate there next year . . . even if some of my classmates thought I was a boyfriend-stealing whore.

Still, in spite of what people thought about me and said about me, I wasn't the type to back off and cower—which was why during the rare times I had a signal on my cell, I took full advantage of social media. Shay—along with a slew of others—had unfriended me on Facebook, and she still ignored my emails and calls and texts. But that didn't stop me from reaching out to her, pleading and apologizing, using several different methods until finally, one day, she got sick of it and responded.

It was Wednesday morning. I took Pop's car into Erwin to pick up a couple necessary items at the drug store. I wasn't sure he even knew I'd left; the minute Dad's car had disappeared down the road on Sunday evening, heading back to the city for work after his too-short vacation, Pop reached for his laptop and had barely come up for air since.

As I strolled through the drug store, I made sure to pick up a bottle of Advil for his inevitable eye strain (and my monthly cramps), and then headed back outside.

The stifling humidity had finally broken and the air felt cool and refreshing, raising goose bumps on my arms. The sight of them made me think of cold winters and snow and strolling down the icy city streets with Shay, the two of us bundled against the wind, mittened hands gripping paper cups of hot chocolate as we walked back to school before the afternoon bell. I felt an ache in my chest, missing her. Missing home. Fighting back tears, I sat on the bench in front of the drug store, dug my phone out of my purse, and clicked it on.

No new messages
.

Were there ever? Everyone, friends and friends-of-friends, had all sided with Shay. For all my bright makeup and retro clothes and flashy audaciousness, I was still invisible to them. But I'd gotten way too used to the spotlight to fade away that easily.

I tapped Shay's name and texted her one word.
Hi
. Not
I'm sorry.
Not
Please forgive me.
I'd done enough of that already. Just
Hi
. Like Emmett had texted to me that day at the soccer game. No expectations. Simple.

My heart leapt into my throat a few seconds later when my phone chimed with a response.

 

 

There was nothing friendly or encouraging about those words, and I could almost hear the weariness in them, but still . . . at least she hadn't actually blocked my number like she'd said she was going to do. Maybe I still had a chance.

 

 

I waited for at least ten minutes, staring at my phone as people passed by on the sidewalk in front of me, but her reply never came. Apparently,
she
didn't miss talking to
me
.

The bench I was sitting on creaked as someone sat beside me. A moment later, I felt fingers touch my arm, warm and gentle. I bristled, assuming it was Nate ready to pout some more about the holes in his yard or argue the fact that he was a jerk. But when I looked up from my quiet phone, all set to tell him to get lost, I saw a pair of blue, blue eyes, watching me with concern.

My reprimand died on my tongue. Emmett was next to me, a to-go cup from Erwin's one and only coffee shop in his hand. All of a sudden, my senses exploded with the scents of coffee and soap and the feel of his knee brushing mine.

“You okay?” he asked, glancing down at my hand, which was wrapped around my phone in a white-knuckled death grip.

“Yeah.” I tossed the cell back into my purse and then sort of draped it over my drug store bag in an attempt to hide the bright blue box of tampons tucked inside. And Advil. One glance in there and he'd assume I was suffering from a raging case of PMS—which probably wasn't too far off the mark.

“What are you up to?” I asked him. We hadn't seen or spoken to each other since Saturday night in my yard, but I'd thought about him. Thought about how his body had felt in the lake and wondered about those twenty minutes he'd spent alone in the dark with Harper.

“Just getting coffee,” he said, holding up his cup. “We ran out this morning.”

“It smells good,” I said with a sigh.

“Want a sip?”

Instead of telling him no, that my dad didn't want me drinking coffee and lectured me about caffeine addiction the few times I'd tried to sneak it, I held my hand out for his cup. Emmett gave it to me and I drank, letting the bitter heat of the coffee pool in my mouth for a minute before swallowing.
Heaven.

“Want me to go get you one?” he asked when I handed it back to him. He immediately took a drink, as if trying to capture the taste of my lips before it got rinsed away.

He wants to share germy saliva with me,
I thought,
even though he may have already shared some with my cousin.
Just the possibility of that felt wrong.

“No, thanks.” I gathered my purse and bag and started to stand up. I needed to get away from him before I grabbed him and made him sample my mouth firsthand. “I should go.”

“Wait,” Emmett said quickly, and I sat back down, turning toward him. He took another sip of coffee. “Um, I was wondering if you wanted to do something with me later.”

I raised my eyebrows at him, intrigued. “Like what?”

“I don't know. Swim, go for a hike, play another prank on Nate . . .”

I shook my head at the last suggestion. The gay fork rainbow had been a success, and a second round of lesson-teaching would surely drive the point home, but my pranking days were over. Vengeance, as fun and satisfying as it was, only felt right in the moment. Like my dads kept trying to teach me, I had to let it go and rise above.

“Go for a hike, huh,” I said, tapping my nails on the bench seat. What could it hurt? I'd made it abundantly clear that we couldn't be anything more than friends, a fact he'd seemed to accept. And it
would
be nice to do something besides sit around my cottage, moping about Shay.

“Yeah. You up for it? Should we invite Harper too?”

“Nah,” I said, feeling yet another surge of guilt. “Her ankle flared up again after her game the other day. She has to stay home and rest it.”

He nodded, not looking entirely disappointed by the news. “You and me, then? Around six-thirty?”

“Did you have a final destination in mind?” I asked, reaching for his coffee again.

He smiled as I downed a huge gulp. “I know just the place.”

 

“Shouldn't we stick to the trail?” I asked Emmett as we trekked through the woods a few hours later. Already, I was regretting my decision to do this. Not only was it a bad idea to spend time alone with him, but he was also about a thousand times fitter than me. Even walking, he was fast and sure, traversing the bumpy forest floor like it was smooth, clear asphalt. Meanwhile, I kept tripping every few seconds as I struggled to keep up.

“Don't worry,” he replied, glancing back at me. Noticing how heavily I was panting, he slowed down a bit. “I have a pretty good sense of direction. And a compass.”

“Great,” I wheezed.

My choice of footwear probably wasn't helping either.

Earlier, when he had come by my cottage to pick me up for our hike, it was the first thing he noticed. “Do you have anything besides Converse?” he'd asked hopefully.

I'd thought about the large collection of shoes I'd brought: flip-flops, flats, espadrilles, heeled sandals, wedges, and one pair of light pink Converse sneakers. “But they look so cute with this outfit,” I'd said, holding out one foot.

Emmett had shaken his head, dismayed.

I was regretting those damn sneakers the most. The pinky toe on my left foot felt like it had been taken over by a giant blister.

“Where are we going?” I asked for probably the third time since we'd started walking. It was after seven, and soon the sun would be dipping below the trees. I wasn't scared of the woods, but that didn't mean I wanted to get lost after dark. Just that morning, I'd heard a local news story on the radio about an upsurge in the area's coyote population. Deer and squirrels and even black bears were one thing, but I'd heard stories about people getting chased and even killed by wild coyotes.

“You'll see.” He appeared to know exactly where he was going. Since he ran in these woods daily, he already knew them better than I did. I'd only been through there on my ATV, and half the time I barely paid attention to my surroundings.

Ten minutes later, I started hearing the sound of rushing water on my right. Soon after that, he led me into a small clearing much like the one he liked to camp in near the cottages. Instead of a narrow, gently burbling brook, the water was more extensive, channeling over and between the rocks at a much faster speed. The whooshing sound I'd heard was mostly the work of a small waterfall at the far end where the water fed back into the lake. The heavy rain we'd had overnight had increased its momentum. The sound filled my ears like a roar.

“When did you find this?” I bent down to immerse my hand in the water. It was clear and cold.

“A couple weeks ago.” He crouched beside me and dipped his hand in next to mine. “You've never been here?”

“No, never. I had no idea it was even here.”

Emmett smiled, pleased to have shown me something new on my own turf. We stayed there for a while, just kneeling by the water's edge and listening to nature. I didn't know about him, but I felt more peaceful and content in that moment than I had so far this summer.

“We'd better head back.” He glanced up at the sky, which had begun to cloud over. “It'll be dark in here soon and I didn't bring a flashlight.”

On the way back, I asked him about his brother. He didn't talk about him much and I was curious.

“Wes is a good guy.” Emmett was walking slower, matching my pace. “He calls us a few times a week. Well, my mom and me, anyway. He doesn't have much use for my dad.”

No wonder
, I thought. “So he never comes home to visit? And he's been gone how long?”

“Two years. He's been back twice so far, for Christmas. I don't mind. I mean, I wish he was around more, but I get why he stays away. I plan to do the same thing next year after I graduate.”

“Move out west?” We could see the woods path through the trees, and the lights from what had to be the McCurdys' cottage. The sight made my stomach lighten with relief.

“No. Escape. I'm going away to college so I can live in a dorm. It would probably be quieter than my house.”

I remembered his words from a few weeks ago, when we'd sat outside his tent together. Now that his brother was gone, Emmett believed it was up to him to keep their dad in check. “But your mom . . . ?”

“I know. I feel bad about leaving her alone with him, but I can't handle being their mediator for much longer. Besides, I don't think he'll ever hurt her again. He knows what would happen.”

I hoped he was right, even though constant yelling seemed almost as damaging as violence to me. “Where are you applying to college?”

He brushed back a hanging branch so it wouldn't smack us in the face. “A few places, but I'll probably end up at Kinsley.”

My heart did a little cartwheel. “We live about ten minutes away from the Kinsley campus. I'll probably end up there, too.”

He turned to me, about to say something, when a loud, crackling sound interrupted him. It seemed to come from somewhere behind us. Very close behind us. We both stopped walking and froze.

“Um,” Emmett whispered. “Did you happen to hear the news this morning? About the coyotes?”

I gulped audibly. “Yes. I did. Should we . . . are we supposed to run or play dead or what?”

“I run better than I play dead.” He grabbed my hand and started pulling me through the forest.

Laughing, we bolted for the cleared path, which was just a few yards away. It was hard to see the ground, but I trusted him and my own two feet to guide me safely toward more even terrain. Halfway to the path, we shoved through a thicket of bushes and Emmett dropped to the ground, yanking me down with him. At first I thought he did it intentionally, to hide us from a pack of hungry, stalking coyotes, but then he started cursing.

“What happened?” I whispered. The woods were fully dark, and I could just make out his silhouette, writhing on the ground beside me.

“I tripped over a rock or something,” he gasped. “I'm okay.”

“You sure?” I glanced around me. No glowing eyes or threatening growls. Emmett had injured himself for nothing.

“Yeah. Just skinned my knees. And my elbows. Maybe my chin too. Fuck.”

I moved closer to him, feeling along the damp earth with my hands.
Why hadn't we brought flashlights?
“Let me see.” It was a ridiculous thing to say because I couldn't see my own hand in front of my face, let alone his various skin abrasions. Still, I placed my fingers on his clean-shaven jaw and pulled him toward me.

“Here,” he said softly, taking my wrist and moving my hand a couple inches to the left, closer to his chin. As he did this, I lost my balance and tumbled forward, landing on top of him.