The Space Between Us (32 page)

“Yes.” Like I could ever forget.

“That sucked. I’m sorry. The worst part about it was watching you while she was going off. You were just soaking in everything she was saying, and there wasn’t anything I could do about it. I couldn’t explain it to you with her standing right there, and I couldn’t make her stop.”

“Why not?”

“Because it would’ve really hurt her. She’s a jealous nut job, but I can’t just not care about her. We were together for too long. It’s complicated. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” I said. Caring about her feelings didn’t make him a bad person.

“No. And after it was over you should’ve been mad at me. Or you should’ve wanted to pull her hair, claw her eyes out—I don’t know, do whatever girls do to each other—but it was like you were too busy hating yourself. It was messed up.”

“You don’t know,” I started, then stopped. So much of this story wasn’t mine to tell. “I deserved it.”

“What are you ta—”

“No, I really did,” I said. “I said terrible things to Charly. Things so mean that I feel sick to my stomach
when I think about them. And not just that. I spent months treating her like garbage. I’m so ashamed, I . . . ” I swallowed, trying to force the lump in my throat down so I could push the words out. “When Taylor called me a cheap slut, or whatever it was she called me, I finally got it.
I
was the bad sister.”

Ezra was mercifully silent. He kept his eyes on the road.

I turned back to my reflection and started counting stars so I wouldn’t cry. There had to be thousands visible from my window alone. I hadn’t reached one hundred when I felt his hand on the back of mine, his fingers circling my wrist. “You aren’t,” he said.

I rolled my palm to his and we rode toward the mountains, our fingers laced together, me counting stars for both of us.

• • •

The red glow of brake lights ahead brought me back to earth.

“What’s going on?” Ezra muttered. We slowed, then came to a complete stop behind a long line of cars.

I craned my neck to see up a mile ahead where the cars snaked around a curve. “Nothing’s moving.”

“That’s bad.” He fiddled with the radio for a minute, then unbuckled his seat belt and put on his toque. “I’m going to go ask those guys.” He pointed to a couple of men huddled together on the shoulder.

I watched him walk away in the snow and remembered what kissing him felt like. It’d only happened that one time, but the replay count was nearing a million in my head. Why hadn’t he tried again? There’d been plenty of moments I’d seen it in his eyes, that he wanted to. That he was thinking about it.

He jogged back to the car and got in. “There’s a semi on its side up there. They think it’s some kind of spill. The TransCanada is closed.”

“For how long?”

“They’re guessing a few hours, but they don’t really know.”

“So what do we do?”

“What that car is doing.” He pointed to a minivan turning around up ahead. I could see several more doing U-turns and starting back toward us. “We can stay with my friends in Calgary tonight. If that works for you. I’m supposed to work tomorrow morning at nine, so we’ll have to leave early.”

He took out his cell phone and made a call while I pictured the filthy frat-house couch I was about to crash on. I’d be lucky to survive the night without catching something.

He finished his call and held the phone out to me. “Do you need to call Bree?”

I shook my head. “She and Richard went to Jasper for
the weekend. She won’t be back until late tomorrow, but I should try Charly. She might be asleep though.”

“Seriously? It’s nine thirty.”

“Yeah. Either the baby is sucking all her energy, or she’s turning into an infant herself. Including naps, she must sleep at least fourteen hours a day.”

He laughed and I felt a twinge of guilt. I wasn’t supposed to be making fun of her anymore.

“Maybe I will call her,” I said, and dialed the apartment. It rang five times, then went to voicemail. I left Charly a message and gave Ezra his phone back. “So are these guys ski friends or math club friends?” I asked.

“Um, both. Why?” he asked.

“I’m just trying to picture whether we’re going to be interrupting their Saturday-night kegger or their Star Trek marathon.”

“Probably both.” He took off his toque and put it in his pocket.

I laughed. “Your hair looks insane. It looks like it did the first night I met you. I thought you were homeless or something.” I reached out and smoothed it down.

“Toque head is an occupational badge of honor. I wear it proudly.” He messed it back up again. “I didn’t have the best opinion of you that night either.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I thought you were one of those pretty, mean girls.”

A compliment and an insult rolled into one. I let my hand linger on his neck for a second, then pulled it away. “I was really sad. And mad.”

“I figured that out,” he said.

“Sorry. Lame excuses.”

“I know what that combination feels like.”

I let my head lean against the headrest. He thought I was pretty. Nobody had thought I was pretty since Will, and to him I’d been pretty, but not quite pretty enough.

We pulled into a quiet neighborhood street. “This is not the frat house I was picturing.”

“Leo’s a clean freak,” Ezra warned as we pulled into the driveway. “Totally OCD about germs, just so you know.”

“So I shouldn’t lick every fork in the utensil drawer?”

“No, you should not.”

The house was a smallish bungalow, old, but freshly painted. “How many guys live here?” I asked as we walked up the sidewalk. It’d been freshly shoveled.

“Three. Leo, Nathan, and Mike. I know them from this summer mathletics camp I went to a few years ago.”

I snorted. “Did you just use the word ‘mathletics’?”

Ezra rang the bell and a tall blond guy with a reddish goatee answered. All he needed was a horned helmet and he’d be a Viking.

“What’s up, man?” he said, greeting Ezra with a grin and me with a nod.

“Amelia, this is Nathan.”

“Hey, nice to meet you,” he said to me.

“Hi.” I stared up at him.

“Nathan’s on the U of C basketball team,” Ezra explained. “It’s where freakishly tall people go to feel less freakish.”

“It’s true,” Nathan joked. “The basketball’s a front. We’re really a support group for the six-foot-five-and-over club.”

“Seriously, thanks for letting us crash,” Ezra said.

“No problem. I just checked the traffic report, and the TransCanada is still closed. They’re not even sure they’ll be able to clean it all up by morning. I guess it was a lumber spill.”

“I’m glad we turned around,” Ezra said, taking off his boots.

I did the same, then Nathan gave me a tour of the house that involved pointing instead of actually walking: three bedrooms, a kitchen, a living room, and a bathroom.

“This is nice,” I said, looking around and trying not to sound too surprised. It was a pile of contradictions, was what it was—a spotless college pad full of athletes and mathletes.

“We’re kind of lucky,” Nathan admitted. “Leo’s dad owns it, so he gives us a good deal on rent. Plus we get
Leo’s OCD cleaning skills for free. Just don’t go leaving an eyelash or anything on the couch.”

“Where is he?” Ezra asked.

“Leo? In his room studying for his O-chem midterm. I wouldn’t go in there if I were you, though. He was talking to himself last time I poked my head in there, on the verge of a freak-out.”

“That’s my boy,” Ezra said, stretching his arms over his head, then collapsing into a chair. He looked exhausted, like the all-nighter writing those essays had caught up with him. “And Mike?” Ezra asked, midyawn.

“At Ashley’s. I’d offer you his bed, but he’ll probably be back later.”

“That’s okay,” Ezra said. “I’ll take the floor.”

“I think there’s an air mattress somewhere out in the garage,” he said. “Amelia, are you okay on the couch?”

“Sure. Thanks.”

Nathan went to go hunt for the air mattress while Ezra and I brushed our teeth with our fingers.

“What would happen if I used Leo’s toothbrush?” I whispered.

“You’d be held responsible for his next mental breakdown.”

“And this guy’s your friend?”

Ezra shrugged. “He’s cool. As long as he’s taking his meds.”

Back in the main room, Nathan had piled blankets on the couch for me, and was blowing up an air mattress for Ezra.

I waited until he was done, then asked, “I don’t suppose I could borrow some sweats or something.” It’d be a long night in jeans but there was no way I was sleeping beside Ezra in my underwear.

“Sure,” he said, then to Ezra, “And for her sake I’ll get you something too. Unless you’re still doing the nude sleepwalking thing.”

“Funny,” Ezra said.

“Should I ask?” I wondered aloud.

“Better not,” Ezra muttered. “What happens at math camp, stays at math camp.”

The pajama pants were about a foot too long and about as sexy as one of Grandma’s muumuus, but otherwise comfortable. I lay down on the couch while Ezra and Nathan talked about basketball and some argument between Mike and his girlfriend’s brother. I closed my eyes, suddenly tired.

“Well, I should let you guys sleep,” Nathan said, after a few more minutes of talking. Ezra climbed into the sleeping bag and Nathan flipped off the light. “Oh, and I was kidding about the eyelash, Amelia. I would much rather our couch smell like you than Febreze.”

“Um, thank you?”

“Go to bed already,” Ezra called from the floor.

Nathan laughed and closed the door, leaving us in pitch-black. The house was perfectly silent.

I waited for what felt like a few minutes, then whispered, “Are you still awake?”

“Yeah.”

He was tired. I should let him sleep. “Nathan seems nice. If you get into U of C, is this where you’ll live next year?”

“Hopefully. Mike might move in with his girlfriend and then there’ll be an empty room.”

“Hmm.” I pictured Ezra living here, going to classes in the physics building, brewing his noxious bitter coffee in the spotless kitchen. “You’d make sense here.”

“What does that mean?”

“I mean when I see you driving down Banff Ave or at the library, you don’t make sense. Like you’re living somebody else’s life. You make more sense here.”

The pause was long. Long enough to wonder if he’d fallen asleep. “I know,” he said finally.

I listened to his breathing, steady and deep, and tried not to think about the ache in my stomach as it spread into my chest, down my limbs, throbbing in my fingers and toes. Ezra belonged here. I belonged nowhere—not in Banff or Tremonton, not in the present or next year, not even with anybody. Except Charly of course. I belonged
with her, but that was like being stuck to a plastic bag in a windstorm.

“Thank you for saying that,” he said quietly, and suddenly I wanted him to touch me so badly I could almost cry.

I swallowed, grateful he couldn’t see my face in the dark. “That day in the library,” I said.

“Yeah.”

I clenched my fists beneath the blanket. “Why haven’t you kissed me since then?”

This time the silence was absolute. No breathing, no
shh-shh
of sleeping bag against air mattress. “I thought you didn’t want me to.”

That didn’t make any sense. Except I’d pulled back. The horror of being caught so vulnerable had made me curl inward, and I’d kept him at a safe distance ever since. “But you kept coming by,” I said, thinking aloud now. “If you thought I wasn’t interested, why did you keep coming by?”

“I thought we could still be friends,” he said.

Friends. That sucked. Not only that, but it contradicted pretty much everything I’d been told about guys and their ability to be just friends with members of the opposite sex.

“Screw it,” he said. “That’s a lie. I was just hoping you’d change your mind.”

How could I have changed my mind? I’d never stopped wanting him in the first place. I had to say something, but everything was too needy, or too cheesy.

“Ezra,” I started, then stopped. I couldn’t do it.

But he didn’t make me. I heard the sleeping bag rustle, the floor creak, and then the fall of bare feet on the carpet, coming toward me. I didn’t have time to feel anything but elation. Cold air rushed in as he lifted the blanket, and then his warm body was alongside me.

I shifted onto my side to make room, letting his hand rest on my hip and his legs lace with mine. I closed my eyes. This felt perfect, facing each other, his breath on my neck. Like heaven.

His fingers found my cheek in the dark and traced the line of my jaw. Seconds felt like hours. He had to feel my pulse racing, but he didn’t say a word.

“You’re hard to read,” he whispered finally.

“Am I?”

“Yeah.”

“You aren’t exactly an open book eith—”

His lips stopped mine, the kiss slow and gentle, his warm hands suddenly around my waist pulling me closer. It felt good enough that when he pulled away, something inside me collapsed. I could get addicted to that feeling.

“We should sleep,” he said.

“Probably.”

“I’d hate to get in trouble with a pastor’s daughter.”

“Trust me, it’s my grandma you don’t want to mess with.”

He laughed. “Should I go back to the floor?”

“No.” I put my cheek on his chest and listened to his heart pound, breathing in his scent. It smelled like his ski jacket. Pine needles and smoke. The mountains.

• • •

We left early, before anyone else was up.

Neither of us said anything about waking up tangled around each other. We didn’t need to. He reached out and brushed my hair out of my face as we walked out to the car. I let him see me smile about it.

“Nobody’s on the road,” I commented as we pulled out of the neighborhood.

“Typical Sunday morning.”

Typical Sunday morning. I looked at the clock and added two hours. “My dad’s at the pulpit right now.”

“Do you go to a church in Banff?”

I shook my head no.

“There’s a Methodist church just down the street, I think. You’re Methodist, right?”

“Yeah. I’ve seen it, and I’ve been meaning to go, but . . . ” I shrugged, trying to decide whether to change the subject or just say it. “My dad asks every time we talk on the phone. He wants to know if I’ve called the pastor he knows in Canmore, or attended a service here in Banff. Anyway, that’s why I can’t go.”