Why Not Now? (The Blue Vista Crew #2)

28. Chapter 28

Chapter 28

Ava

M y sister and my boyfriend glance at me, then at each other, and I hate the guilty look they share.

“What do you need to come clean about?” I repeat.

Lacey gets up from the couch and hands me her report card. I scan it, noting marks that are lower than she usually has, but one that is absolutely abysmal.

“You’re failing math?” I say. “You’ve never failed a course before. What’s going on?”

“I—” She looks between me and Derek and he stands, coming around the couch to stand with us.

“Ava—” he begins.

“She told you about this?” I ask.

“She did. We talked about it this morning.”

“This isn’t Derek’s fault, Ava.”

That’s the last thing I want to hear. Because that really means it’s my fault. And I can’t hear how she went to him because I failed her.

“Go to your room,” I say, impressed when it comes out calm, my voice not wavering with guilt that is consuming me. “I’ll talk to you later. I want to talk to Derek first.”

Lacey looks at Derek, and I hate the expression she gives him: guilt, fear, apology. Like they’re in this together and I’m not. Like she wants him to take care of this for her because I can’t.

She goes to her room, closing the door.

“Ava—” he starts again.

“Downstairs.”

I don’t wait for him to respond before going down to the empty family room. I wish I’d put more clothes on. I feel naked in a pair of shorts, a tank, and a thin robe.

“How long have you known about this?” I ask, showing him the report card.

“Less than an hour,” he says. “She told me about it this morning when I asked her what was wrong. She said she was failing because she’s been overwhelmed by gymnastics and her boyfriend.”

I blink, stunned by this news. “Her—what boyfriend?”

He winces. “I didn’t realize she hadn’t told you about him. I guess she’s been thinking of breaking up with him for a few weeks. She asked me some questions a couple weeks ago and today she mentioned him again.”

“She asked you questions. What questions?”

He shoves his hands into his pockets and looks away. “How I knew I was ready to have sex. How old I was when I lost my virginity.”

“And you told her?” I try to lower my voice, but it comes out as a screech.

“She needed advice. What exactly did you want me to do? Tell her I wouldn’t answer?” He holds his hands out in question.

I start to pace. “She should have come to me.”

“I told her that. But is there any harm in her talking to us both?”

“Except she didn’t talk to us both! She only talked to you.”

“I’m just trying to help.” He rakes his hands through his hair, sending his curls into disarray.

I come to a sudden stop. “Did you pay for my car?” I ask.

He stills, and I know the answer before he says it. The idea has been at the back of my mind since the call with Carter when Bethany mentioned the way he’d said the car was in my budget. Then last night, when Nessa mentioned the problem with the battery.

“I didn’t pay for the car. I paid for some repairs to it.”

“What?”

“Tires, windshield, new battery, a few other things.”

“How much?” I demand.

He looks away and doesn’t answer.

“How much, Derek?” I ask again.

Finally, he lets out a breath and says, “A little less than what you paid for it.”

I pace away from him, unable to stand still a moment longer.

“I should have told you,” he says. “I meant to, but I was waiting…” He shakes his head. “Carter said there wouldn’t be a better option than this one. I figured if you cared about it later, you could pay me back, but I didn’t want to bring it up with all the Christmas stuff going on.”

“I can’t believe this. I can’t believe you would go behind my back, pay for things I don’t need you to pay for, talk to my sister about things I should talk to her about.” I spin toward him. “You need to stay out of it, Derek.”

He scrubs a hand over his face, dislodging the glasses before straightening them again. Then he laughs, but it’s a humourless sound. “I remember now.”

“Remember?”

“Our last fight.” He drops his hand to his side and tilts his head. He looks suddenly very tired. “Right before we broke up. I couldn’t remember what the fight was about, you know? I just remembered how it ended. But I remember now. It was a fight very much like this one. I wanted to take Lacey out for ice cream because she’d had a bad day at school. You got pissed because she told me about the bad day instead of you.”

I remember the fight now as well, another memory from that time that had been lost in the haze of grief I couldn’t find my way out of. I’d been so hurt that she’d gone to him and not to me.

Now that we’re here and it’s happening all over again, I can admit, I also feel guilt. Lacey hadn’t believed she could come to me. She apparently still didn’t. What am I doing wrong?

“I’d just figured,” he continues, “as long as one of us helped her, did it really matter which one of us it was? Wouldn’t it be better for Lacey to have two people there for her? Wouldn’t it be better for you to have someone who can help carry the load?” He sighs. “You never trusted me to help you, though. I want to be able to help you. I want to be there for you. You said last night that you love me, but you still don’t trust me to help you.”

“No, you don’t trust me to take care of things myself,” I counter, remembering more of what I felt during that time. How I’d been sure he was trying to take control of my life and my sister.

Somewhere deep inside, something is confused by that idea, though. Something is telling me I’m wrong. But everything is so raw, I ignore it.

He shakes his head. “I know you can take care of it yourself, Ava. I’m trying to tell you, you don’t have to. It’s the same problem we had before. I want to help you, and you don’t want me to. If you can’t let me in, what are we even doing here?”

He’s right. What are we doing here?

“I think you should go,” I say. “I need—I need you to leave.”

He flinches at the words, as though I’ve physically hit him. They hang in the air between us for a long time, reverberating off the walls. I want to take them back because I’m not completely sure I mean them. But they’re out there now and I need time to figure out why I’m so off balance.

He shoves his hands back into his pants pockets and I can see that he’s clenched them into fists. Finally, he nods. “All right, Ava. I’ll go.”

He walks toward my bedroom, hesitating as he passes me.

“You’re sure this is what you need?” he asks.

“I’m sure.”

He searches my eyes for a long moment, then nods and continues to my room. He gathers his things and leaves out the back door. The quiet click as he closes it behind him sounds so loud in the silence.

I don’t move until the sound of his car driving away fades in the distance. Then I go upstairs to try to talk to Lacey. When she opens her bedroom door, she gives me a cold look.

“You sent him away again, didn’t you?” she asks.

“I—he’s gone, yes.”

She shakes her head, seemingly disgusted with me. “You’re such an idiot.”

“You can’t talk to me that way. You’re grounded until you get that math mark up.”

She huffs. “Fine.”

“That means no gymnastics. No friend’s house. Nothing.”

She rolls her eyes. “Fine.”

“And we’re going to have a talk about a few things.”

“I have nothing I want to say to you, Ava. I’ll stay home. I’ll do some homework and study for math so I can bring my grade up. But I’m not going to talk to you.”

I want to tell her she has to talk to me. That I want to understand where we went wrong, where I went wrong. Before I can say anything, she closes her bedroom door in my face, and I’m left completely alone.