Time Between Us (22 page)

Dad is driving us home from track-and-field sectionals, where I got the top time in the 3200-meter and guaranteed myself a spot in the state finals, when Bennett pipes up from the backseat, “Will you drop me off at home on the way, Mr. Greene?” His voice is robotic, just as it has been since the full impact of my conversation with the other Bennett hit.

I don’t know what’s going on. I do know that Brooke is back home and he’s still here and there’s something he’s supposed to show me. I know that all week, he’s replied to my questions in monosyllables, with forced smiles, before disappearing into his thoughts again. He’s already blown me off twice this week to sit alone and think, and now I’m not even sure if we’re still going to the movies with Emma and Justin tonight.

“I’ll pick you up at seven,” he says without looking at me. I watch him get out of the car and disappear through Maggie’s front door.

At least now I know one thing.

The phone starts ringing the second I walk through the door, and I’ve barely even gotten the word
Hello
out when Emma’s voice booms through the receiver. “We’re going shopping. In the city. I’m picking you up in a half hour.”

I look down at my shoes and at the number still pinned to my chest. “Not today, Em. I just walked in the door from my meet.” And, besides, I want to add, I already have plans for today. I’ll be spending the afternoon trying to figure out how to get things with Bennett and me back to the way they were.

And on top of that, just the words
the city
and
I’m picking you up
leave me with horrible visions of Emma lying in a sterile room with cuts all over her face, and tubes and needles sticking out of her body like alien appendages. I can practically hear her pout over the phone line, but the mental image only strengthens my resolve. “I am not shopping, Emma.”

“Anna. Greene. The auction party is next weekend. What are you wearing?”

“I’m borrowing something from your closet. Like I do every year.”

She clicks her tongue like she can’t figure out how she got stuck with me for a best friend. “Well, then help me pick out
my
dress. I need something new and shiny and gorgeous.”

“I really don’t feel—”

“Come
on
,” she whines into the phone. “I need your advice.”

She doesn’t, but I look at the clock and sigh.

“Thank you!” she blurts out. “I’ll give you forty-five minutes to get ready!” She barely gets the last word out before clicking off.

“I take it you’re going shopping with Emma,” Dad says, and I flip around. I didn’t realize he was standing there.

“Apparently so.”

“Well,” he says as he pulls out his wallet and offers me his credit card, “here. Now you don’t need to borrow a dress.”

We drive into the city—Emma chatting away, me silent and white-knuckled because of my grip on the door handle—and spend the sunny Saturday shopping on Michigan Avenue. Emma picks out a graceful dark orange gown for the auction party that looks beautiful against her olive skin. I pick out a black sheath that’s much simpler, and much more
me
than anything Emma owns. As I turn around in the three-way mirror, I picture Bennett leading me past students with their dates, staff members and their spouses, moms and dads, as we round the skydeck on the ninety-ninth floor of the Sears Tower, and my chest constricts with the thought I don’t want to have: What if he isn’t here next Saturday?

I realize he’ll need to go home eventually, but that he’ll come back and stay through graduation.
Won’t he?
I want to believe the words he said in Vernazza two weeks ago—
What
if I didn’t leave after all
—but they keep fighting with the words I heard at the track five days ago—
I’ve been trying to get back to you ever since.

Two more shopping bags and four hours later, Emma decides we need to return home immediately, before she spends another penny. As we’re walking to the car, she has an idea.

“Oh, Anna!” I jump as her squeal echoes through the parking structure. “Come home with me, and I’ll get you ready for our dates tonight! I’ll put together an outfit and do your hair and makeup! Come on! It’ll be fun!”

Fun? I’ve been her project before, and I wouldn’t use that word to describe the experience.

When we’re settled in the Saab, bags in the trunk, music on the stereo, Emma turns to me and says, “I know the perfect outfit!”

Emma and I spend the rest of the afternoon getting ready. She dresses and undresses me, pokes and belts me, tugs and brushes me. And finally she throws her arms up in the air, declares her work complete, and turns me around by the shoulders so I can stare into her full-length bedroom mirror.

“Ta-da!” she yells as I stare. Okay, I have to admit that I look pretty good. She’s piled my dark curls up with a clip and pulled some of them down at the sides so they are wispy around my face. The makeup feels thick on my skin, but she’s done a great job with the colors, and I don’t look like a clown. I glance down at my feet—I’m practically on tiptoe, thanks to the chunky heels—and back up past the black tights to the clingy little skirt. The tight cotton shirt is a lot more low-cut than what I’m used to, and I cross my arms over my chest like I need to cover something.

“Stop that.” She forces my arms to my sides and holds them there. “You look stunning.”

I sigh, but relax my arms. “Are you sure?”

“Positive.” She walks over to the window and looks outside. “Where are those guys? They’re twenty minutes late.”

As I stand there, staring at my reflection, my heart starts racing. What if he’s not coming? What if he’s already gone?

“Stunning!” Emma says again. “Oooohh. And guess who is about to tell you the same thing.” I rush to join her at the window, pressing my face against the glass, and watch as Bennett and Justin get out of the car and walk up to the front door. I let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding. “Awww…just look at them. Our boys are awfully cute.” Emma blows an air kiss down in Justin’s general direction, grabs my hand, and pulls me toward the stairs. “Come on.”

She races down to the front door like she’s about to burst with excitement, and as she opens it to greet the guys, her accent is even thicker than usual. I can’t help smiling at her. Or maybe I’m smiling because the guys really are cute. Or maybe it’s that even though I’m dressed in high heels, a skirt far shorter than anything my mom would ever approve of, and more eyeliner than Marilyn Manson, there’s something about this moment that feels more normal than anything I’ve felt all week.

Bennett must feel it too, because when he sees me, he launches right into compliments and pulls me into a big hug that signals that he’s here—
really
here—and for the first time since we found out that Brooke was home, it feels like I’m all that matters to him and there isn’t someplace more important he’s supposed to be.

When we get to the theater, we walk in side by side, Bennett with his arm draped over my shoulder and Justin and Emma holding hands. While we’re waiting in line for popcorn, Justin tells me, in a brotherly sort of way, that I look really nice tonight. Emma tells me to stop trying to steal her boyfriend, and Bennett jokingly threads his arm through hers, tells her he’ll be her date, and leads her into the theater cradling the jumbo-size popcorn.

And that’s how it goes for the rest of the night. The four of us are just the four of us, and Bennett and I are just the two of us, and everything feels so normal, not in a pretending-everything-is-normal kind of way but in a real, comfortable kind of way that makes me think that he’s found a way to fix things. That this is still the life he really wants—safe and boring and utterly normal.

I snuggle into his shoulder, grab a big handful of popcorn, and watch the screen, happy to act like I didn’t run into
another
him and learn about an
ever since
neither of us has any control over. Like double dates and popcorn with extra butter and Twizzlers are the most important things in the world to us, our daring adventure is still in full swing, and there are no clocks to be seen for miles.

Bennett drops Justin and Emma off at their respective houses, and when he points his car toward mine, my heart sinks at the thought of going home. I don’t want my normal night to be over. I don’t want to think about when Bennett may leave or when he’ll be back, and I certainly don’t want him to wake up tomorrow morning so absorbed in his thoughts that he forgets that tonight was fun.

“You okay?”

I reach over and touch his arm. “Not really. I want you to talk to me.”

He drives for a couple more blocks, then pulls into the small parking lot of an office building and cuts the engine. The headlights go dark, and the two of us sit there in silence, staring out the windshield at nothing in particular.

He finally twists in his seat to look at me. “I meant what I said in Vernazza.” His voice is low and steady, his eyes sad and faraway.

I wait for the word
but
. It doesn’t come, so I fill in the blanks for him. “But you don’t think you can stay?”

He sighs. “I don’t know, Anna. This is completely uncharted territory. Nothing like this has ever happened before.” He stares past me out the window into the dark.