The Unexpected Everything - Morgan Matson Page 0,61

idling, not going anywhere.

I realized after a moment that he was waiting to make sure I got inside okay. There was a piece of me that would have appreciated this under different circumstances. But not tonight. Tonight it was just annoying. I walked up to the side entrance and pulled open the screen door, then took out my keys and pretended to unlock it. I glanced toward the driveway, but his car was still there waiting. Rolling my eyes, I unlocked the door and stepped inside, and only then did Clark drive away.

• • •

I pressed on the brakes even though there were no cars behind me and none in front of me, but I had a habit of missing the turn to get into the Orchard and not realizing it until I’d gone about a mile too far down the road, driving along with the sinking feeling that I should have been there by now. And I didn’t want to waste that time tonight. I wanted to vent to my friends. And then, once that was done, I wanted to move on. I’d spent the drive over working out my plan. I needed someone to replace who I had hoped Clark would be—someone to help me forget about everything that had happened in the last two weeks, someone to help me turn my summer around. And Clark clearly was not going to be that person, so I would have to find someone else.

As I was about to speed up, thinking I’d slowed too early, there was the old Orchard sign, with its two cherries, letting me know I was in the right place. I swung in, starting to relax the closer I got. At some point, the Orchard had been a functional orchard, but ever since I’d first heard about it—when Palmer’s oldest sibling, Fitz, was in high school and we were still in elementary—it had been the town party spot. Not so much in the winter, but in the summers it was filled with people from the three neighboring high schools and the occasional bored-looking Stanwich College student. And tonight it was just the place I wanted to be.

I swung my car into the open field that had been repurposed as a parking lot. I got out of the car, locked it, and walked toward the main part of the Orchard, where picnic tables ringed the open space and off to the side there was usually someone selling overpriced keg beer or cans from a cooler that never seemed to get very cold, despite the ice packed around them. I walked forward, looking around for my friends. I’d texted them when I’d stopped at the gatehouse and had heard from Tom (on Palmer’s phone) that they were en route. I was pretty sure I hadn’t beaten them there, but if I had, I’d just sit at one of the picnic tables and begin the process of putting this night behind me.

I felt someone nudge my shoulder and looked over to see Wyatt Miller standing next to me, a red Solo cup of beer in each hand and a half smile on his face.

“I know you,” I said, nudging him back, our version of a hug, careful not to spill the beers. “Welcome back.”

“Thanks,” he said, taking a sip from one of them and smiling a little wider at me, and I made myself look away before it affected me. I got used to Wyatt after a few days, but if it had been a while since I’d seen him, it was always a little startling—he was probably the best-looking person I’d ever seen in my life, outside of a multiplex or a cologne ad. He had light-brown hair that he wore a little long and was always pushing back with one hand. He tended to wear threadbare old band shirts, skinny jeans, and Converse, even when it was the height of summer. He was thin, with cheekbones for days, but Toby swore up and down that it wasn’t his looks that made her fall for him. She insisted that he had hidden depths, which Tom said must be really well hidden indeed. But I could see what she meant—he was quiet (which made it easier for Toby to project all kinds of silent, conflicted feelings onto him), usually observing more than participating. But he had a deadpan, snarky sense of humor that still caught me by surprise sometimes. He played bass in a series of bands at his