hand down on the concrete wall next to me, flat, open fingers, and I want to trace each one, touch him for a second. It’s been more than eight months since I’ve seen him. “Penn finishes early. I’m surprised I haven’t seen you around?” It’s a question accompanied by a look of concern, which only makes me madder. I guess Aubrey hasn’t told him about Max, about how she and I aren’t really that great of friends anymore, about how much has changed since he left for school. I count the weeks back in my head since the butterflies arrived. I haven’t been to their house in almost two months. “Don’t you usually live at our place?” he asks.
I shift my gaze to him, focusing not on his face but the strands of blond hair lit gold in the sunshine, on the small crescent scar on his forehead he got in sixth grade. I think of that day, how we were all riding our bikes in the rain, down by the creek in the woods behind Holly White’s house. Ethan hit a rock and fell, and smashed his head on a downed tree limb. I didn’t give a crap about Ethan Andersson then. He was just my new best friend’s nerdy older brother. In my head, I trace the physical path back from the Whites’ house to our cul-de-sac, anything to keep my mind from wandering.
Besides, why all the concern from Ethan now? I haven’t heard from him since he left for school. Not on breaks, not in texts, not for anything. Not when overachieving Ethan Andersson decided to skip Christmas break to do a J-term in the Sudan, or over Thanksgiving break—which was short and the only one he came home for—the Anderssons busy with their relatives and us busy with my father home, which was mostly stupid chaos.
“The Sudan? Are you kidding me?” I had asked Aubrey after Thanksgiving, when she first mentioned Ethan was planning on it. “Like, isn’t that dangerous? Isn’t there a war going on there?” And we had both rolled our eyes, because that was so like good old Ethan. But unlike Aubrey, I was pretending. I was worried, and more than desperate for him to come home, and for me to have a chance to see him.
“You know my brother,” Aubrey had finally said, shrugging. “Mr. Social Justice. He’ll be okay, though. Good riddance.”
Good riddance. Right.
“Markham?” Ethan breaks through my thoughts.
“Yeah.” If he really cared, in all those months he would have reached out to me.
He turns his back to me and I think he’s going to leave, but he reaches up and hauls himself next to me on the wall. My heart pounds so hard, I’m sure he’s going to be able to hear its insane drumbeat filling the few inches of sweltering air between us. He bumps my shoulder with his. “You sure everything is okay, kid?”
Kid.
“Yeah, why?” I sound so obviously like the liar I am. I should blurt something—anything real and honest—even if it’s stupid, about my mother getting worse by the hour, about Dad renewing his California contract yet again. About the rift between Aubrey and me. I’ve known Ethan forever. Whatever happened between us, I don’t hate him. I shouldn’t be afraid to tell him what’s going on.
Besides, if I don’t tell him something soon, and get him out of here, Max is going to show up, and wrap his arms around me, and say something obnoxious to Ethan to humiliate me. A trickle of sweat slips down between my shoulder blades.
“Okay, I’ll leave you be, I guess,” he says. “I just figured when I saw you, you’d know where Aubrey is. Got a clue where that sister of mine has gone to?”
“No,” I say. “As a matter of fact, I don’t.” A lump settles in my throat making it hard to swallow.
“Really? How come?” I shrug, because now I can’t get any words out without crying. “Well, she has a dentist appointment and I’m supposed to retrieve her and deliver her there. If you see her, she apparently forgot. So let her know.”
“Will do,” I say, and he reaches his arm around my shoulder and gives me a squeeze.
“It really is good to see you, Markham,” he says.
I close my eyes against tears and the dizzying swirl, but that only makes it worse, so I snap them open and blurt, “She’s at Meghan Riley’s house with Niccole Saunders, where else?” I nod in the direction they