“I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “I should have let you tell me in your own time. I should have realized it must have been something that was … hard for you to talk about.” She swallowed. The first tendrils of relief unwound inside her. Ethan wasn’t crazy. He wasn’t like her mother. He was a victim, just like Emma. “I’ve been so scared, Ethan. Everything I thought I knew about my childhood, my family, is wrong. It feels like every day I find out some new, huge secret. I guess I just expected the worst when I saw that file. Because the worst keeps on happening.”
He nodded, looking down at his lap. “I don’t want to have secrets from you, Emma. I want to share everything.”
“So do I,” she said. She reached for his hand, but he gently disentangled his fingers from hers.
“Are you sure about that? That’s not what it looked like tonight.”
Emma shook her head. “Ethan, he kissed me. I drank too much at the party and wasn’t thinking clearly enough to stop him in time. It was a stupid mistake. I’m really sorry it happened, and I wish I could take it back. But you have to believe me—I’m not interested in Thayer. I love you.”
Ethan bit his lip. For a moment he looked so vulnerable, so heartsick, that it was all she could do not to pull him into her arms.
“I’m sorry for what I said,” he apologized. “About you, and about Sutton, too. It’s just … when I saw that piece of—when I saw him touching you, I flew off the handle.” His fists clenched against his thighs, and he sighed. “Thayer Vega has always gotten everything he ever wanted. He snaps his fingers and the world delivers it to him on a silver platter. And I still have trouble believing that someone like you could fall for someone like me, when you could have him.” He looked at her seriously. “Emma, no one’s ever cared about me before. And now, suddenly, the most beautiful, brilliant, amazing girl I’ve ever met is my girlfriend? I keep thinking you’re going to wake up one day soon and trade me in for someone else.”
His words cut painfully into her heart. She knew what it was like to feel unloved. She knew what it was like to live with that kind of doubt. She leaned across the gearshift and rested her head on his shoulder.
“Ethan, I’ve never felt this way about anyone,” she whispered. He wrapped an arm around her, and she snuggled closer to his side. The gearshift pressed into her rib cage, but she didn’t care. “From here on out, let’s trust each other. Deal?”
“Deal.” He looked down into her eyes, his heavy lashes drooping with emotion. “I didn’t even get a chance to tell you that you look amazing.”
She self-consciously tugged her short dress further down her thighs. “So do you.” He’d worn a light gray V-neck sweater, the white collar of the button-down beneath jutting up around his neck. She liked his usual eclectic look, but Ethan definitely cleaned up well, too.
He touched her cheek, placing a tentative, lingering kiss on her lips. A soft sound of pleasure escaped from the back of her throat. She arched her body toward him.
Ethan pulled back and studied her face, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear. “Want to drive farther up the mountain to see if there’s a place to stargaze?” he asked.
Emma nodded, surprised at her boldness.
They didn’t speak as he turned the ignition and guided the car out through the Chamberlains’ high iron gates. Emma watched the curving lines of the mountain road appear and disappear again in the headlights. Ethan’s retro Cure CD crooned out dreamy, sad music as the car climbed higher. Ethan kept his eyes on the road and both hands on the wheel, but she could feel the magnetic pull between them, heavy and urgent.
Finally, high on the mountain, Ethan parked in a shallow lookout at the side of the road.
The lights of Tucson twinkled far below them, as though it were a small toy town. The moon had risen in the sky and paled to a yellow crescent. Emma unbuckled her seat belt, and without a word climbed over the console into the backseat. She kicked a battered paperback copy of On the Road to the floor and curled her legs up under her while Ethan climbed back to join her. Without hesitation they reached for each other, one kiss blurring into the next, their hearts seeming to beat in perfect sync.
Emma put a hand on Ethan’s chest, pushing him gently away. She sat up and slowly reached behind her head to untie the knot of her halter. The silk tumbled down around her waist, as soft as flower petals on her skin. A flush swept her cheeks, but she looked up shyly to meet his gaze. His eyes were full of a tenderness that took her breath away. He pulled her to him, running his hands slowly over her shoulders and then her back, tracing the lines of her body one by one. Outside the car, the stars burned bright against the dark sky.
29
ARTS AND CRAFTS TIME
When Emma woke the next day, the late-morning sun poured through the sheer curtains of Sutton’s room. She blinked in the light, stretching across the bed. She’d been blissfully nightmare free for the first time in weeks.
Her memories of the night before came back to her in a flood, and she flushed with pleasure, wiggling her toes down under the covers. Ethan had been amazing—tender and thoughtful, sweetly awkward at first, and then passionate as their inhibitions faded one by one. It was perfect. She lay across the bed, smiling, for a long while, not ready to break the memory’s spell.
I tried to remember my first time. Had I even had one? Garrett had seemed to think we were going to lose our virginities together, but I hoped I’d been with Thayer before I died. I hoped we had had a perfect moment together, somewhere in the middle of our tumultuous relationship.