isn’t,” I say, sounding utterly unconvincing. “I’m just not so close with her other friends.”
He walks back to the door. “You mean Thing One and Thing Two?” he says, lowering his voice conspiratorially, and I feel instantly better, like maybe someone else sees it; it’s not only me. Like maybe someone’s on my side after all.
I nod and let out a lame little laugh. “That would be them, yes,” I say.
“Well, now I get it, and I can’t say I blame you. Sometimes I question my sister’s judgment. But no, they’re not here. Just her. And don’t worry, Markham, you guys will be okay.” He reaches out and puts a hand on my shoulder and squeezes, sending a surge of adrenaline coursing through me. “Friends go through stuff. Especially girls, you know? You and my sister will be fine. Best friends again in five minutes. Or maybe five days, or five weeks, but you will. So don’t let those other girls bother you.”
I shrug, wanting to believe him, but I can’t seem to find the words to say so.
“Trust me on this, Markham: Once you get out of high school, you won’t even care. All this, here”—he motions around him at the front lawn, the house behind him—“is a dim memory. A whole world that’s not high school is waiting out there.”
“Thanks,” I say, trying not to focus on what that makes me.
“Anytime. You sure you’re okay, kiddo?”
I back away, enough to cause his hand to drop.
“Yeah, thanks. It’s just been a hard few months. I feel much better now.”
He squints at the lie. “Well, good, come in. Let me get my dopey sister down here.” He takes a step back making room for me, and I follow, but only one step inside the door. “Hey, Aubs, your friend is here!” he yells up the stairs. Then to me, “Hold on, she probably has her music on, and can’t hear.”
He runs upstairs, and I turn and stare outside, to the stoop, to the front lawn, where Aubrey and I used to have our cartwheel competitions. We would practice for hours, begging Ethan to judge us until we made him crazy, saying he had to score us on all sorts of point scales, legs straight, toes pointed, et cetera. “You’re both good,” he would whine after the fifth round. “I give you both tens. I’m not playing this stupid game anymore!”
“JL?”
“Hey, yeah.” I jam my hands in my pockets and force a smile. I feel like an idiot for being here.
Aubrey stands before me, her curly brown hair piled up with a clip on the top of her head. It looks good like that. Messy. Effortless. I could never do that with my pin-straight hair. I say that, as dumb as it is, and she laughs. “Thanks,” she says.
“Anyway, I’m sure you’re busy—did Ethan say you had to come down?” My eyes scan for him, but he hasn’t returned from upstairs.
“No, not at all. Why? What’s up?”
I want to blurt everything, about Max and what I did today, about the money, and how I’m thinking about going to California. Instead, I say, “Not much. I don’t know. Nothing really. I just … I had a thing with my mom, and one of the butterflies died, and, well, I found myself out walking and … here.”
She looks down at the tile floor. “Oh,” she says, softly. “Do you want to come in and sit or something?”
I shake my head. “Can we sit outside for a few?”
* * *
The Anderssons’ green sloping lawn gives way to mini gardens that flank each side, perfectly manicured and symmetrical, a tall weeping cherry in the center. When we were little it would drop its pale pink blossoms in profusion in late spring, and we’d gather them by the fistful, tossing them into the air, and watching them fall down on us like magical pink rain.
“Unicorn rain,” I say out loud, the name coming back to me.
“Yeah. I was thinking that, too.”
“You were?” Aubrey nods. “And remember the cartwheel competitions? How we’d make poor Ethan judge?”
She laughs. “Nothing about Ethan is ‘poor.’ You of all people should know that.” Panic rises in my throat, but she quickly adds, “He’s so spoiled, isn’t he? Even now, he gets his way with everything. You thought High School Prince Ethan was bad, you should try living up to the U Penn Dean’s List King Ethan.”
I breathe, relieved none of this is about me. Or me and Ethan. Just about beautiful,