V

We’re back home by twenty after five⸺still over a half hour until my parents are up⸺and I part with Ethan on as good of a term I can manage while being so miserable.

“Waters, wait,” he says as I unbuckle my seatbelt.

I look up, his eyes are on my face, shrouded bentah the thick lenses of his glasses. “What?” My voice is breathy, sad, defeated. It’s all I can manage right now.

“Do you still want my help?”

My eyes leave his. Do I? His help hasn’t hurt, if anything it’s helped fuel the obsession I have⸺something I can’t do without his willingness to drive me places⸺so then why do I hesitate? Ethan is getting nothing out of this: he hasn’t asked for his favour yet, and we’re not even getting anywhere so he can’t feel glory or heroic.

I decide now is not the time to call it off nor to make any concrete plans to continue this. “I’ll keep you posted.”

He finally looks away from me. Thank God. Ethan shakes his head and itches his neck. “Right, I’ll see you if I see you,” he says. His tone, not sarcastic despite the nature of the words, is truthful and somewhat sombre.

I open the door, pausing only briefly to slink back into the car and look to Ethan where he sits, defeated behind the steering wheel. Don’t hold your breath, I want to say, but I bite my tongue. Ethan doesn’t deserve my hostility.

Mirroring his mood, I sigh heavily and whisper, “Yeah, you too.” I climb out of the truck and close the door as quietly as possible before making my way up the porch and to my front door. It isn’t until I’m safely inside that I see the lights of Ethan’s truck pull from the driveway.

I don’t bother eating breakfast this morning, I’m in too bad a mood to bother and sit down with my parents; instead, I opt to brew a coffee and pack it with cinnamon before tossing it in a travel mug. Mom pays me no mind but I know my father well enough to understand his slower and stalled movements this morning: he wants to talk to me. So when Mom goes upstairs to curl her hair, Dad leaps at the opportunity.

He says, “You didn’t lock the door this morning when you left.” He stirs his herbal tea while his other hand absentmindedly trails the edge of his plate. He doesn’t look up at me.

I choke on my coffee, spluttering for a response, Dad waves me off.

“If it’s Blake you’re out with, keep in mind your mother’s feelings, Charlotte,” Dad’s tone isn’t teasing, it’s dead serious. I don’t which would be worse, honesty. Despite that, I still sense a lightness to his words. “She’s quite⸺”

I cut him off: “It wasn’t,” I assure him hastily. “Blake that is. I wasn’t out with Blake.” I keep busy while Dad hums quietly to himself in thought: I grab my water bottle and fill it with the coldest water the tap will give.

“But was it a boy?” he asks, peering at me from behind his plain black mug.

“You know I’m not Ava, Dad,” I remind him as I walk towards him while he sits at the dining table. Wiping up the crumbs from his and Mom’s meal, I pivot away. “But yes.”

“I hope he’s a good fellow,” Dad says, as he finished his tea and stands. “For your mother’s sake.”

I just stand and smile tightly.

I try to avoid Mom as I putter about upstairs: grabbing my bag and keys, touching up my hair and rebandaging my arm⸺it had gotten wet earlier this morning. Mom avoids me too, keeping out of my way but not keeping out of my sight: she watches me in the hallway mirror as she fashions her earrings into her ears. When I pause in front of Ava’s door and peek in, Mom is watching.

“We’re going to clean it out,” she says as she applies her mascara, leaning so close to the mirror her breath fogs the glass, “On a weekend. Whenever your father has time.”

I glance to her. “Oh.” It’s all I can muster.

“You know where’d she’d hide things, right?” I can’t tell if it’s a genuine question.

“I could figure it out,” I say as I teeter back from Ava’s door. “The room isn’t that big.”

“Good.” Mom steps back from the mirror and turns to me⸺it’s less creepy than her eyes following me in the reflection of the mirror⸺she continues, “Make sure you’ve looked through everything before we clear it out. We’ll take whatever you find.”

My hand finds Ava’s door handle and I pull her door shut. Once it’s clicked, I turn back to Mom. She’s only half paying attention to me: she’s back in the mirror but this time her eyes don’t leave her face.

Too bad she looks so much like Ava, dark hair, narrow face, otherwise I could just pretend Ava never existed.

It hurts less that way, that’s why Mom does it.

Amelia pulls into the driveway at quarter to eight, on time as always. I meet her on the passenger side, handing her the travel mug of coffee I made. This morning is different, however, Amelia hands me something back; two cream coloured envelopes fall in my hands.

“Gala invitations,” Amelia supplies before I even have to ask. “We finished them last night, just in time too. We only have two weeks left.” Amelia drives up my street at a good pace, minding the Mennonites along the side of the road. “Oh. Mom wants you to RSVP by next Friday⸺that’s the latest we can order the catering.”

I nod, giving her a tight-lipped smile. My fingers shift so I can see both cards, and Amelia notices the second I read the other name. Charlotte Waters on the first, Avaline Waters on the second.

Amelia, as sorrowful as I am, gives me a sad look. Her eyes only slightly shifting from my hands to my face. “Mom wanted to keep up appearances.”

I move quickly: I stuff the invites into my backpack. From my hunched position over my bag, I say, “That was smart of her.” For the town, I mean it. For me, I don’t.

“Char,” Amelia sighs, “I can take hers back. Just pretend I gave it to you,” she suggests, coming to a stop at the only major intersection in town. Good, we’re not far from school now.

“No, it’s fine.” I sit back. “Better at least have one for when she gets back⸺then she’ll know we didn’t forget about her.”

I don’t check my phone for most of the morning for fear I have a text from Ethan: I never get one. Then, I start to check my phone every few minutes to see if I have a text from him in case he wants to meet up at lunch or something.

I should have known. I don’t hear from Ethan before lunch.

I think Amelia has emotional control over me because as I arrive to lunch I know for certain my feelings towards Rosemary Rutherford: I despise her. Like I’ve never despise anyone before, and for no good reason too; there are shallow things like that she doesn’t have bags under her eyes, or that her hair isn’t even at all frizzy even with the high humidity outside, and it could even be the fact that her clothes are better than everyone else’s and she knows it.

Maybe I’m just as bad as her then for hating her but I can’t control it. I, frankly, don’t want to.

I drop my tray onto the table with more force than was needed. The slam breaks Carmen and Mark out of their heated discussion about a test question and Amelia out of her enjoyment of her thermos pasta. I slouch down next to Carmen and slouch down, leaning against her shoulder.

I’ve barely gotten into my pasta salad when another tray hits the table beside me. I flinch.

Then there’s a body next to mine and I know exactly who it is just by the smell. Blake Weber is sitting next to me, eating his burger.

My teeth grind. “What are you doing here?” My voice is low, and even if my friends can hear it, they know they’re not meant to.

“Eating lunch.”

My eyes flash. I seeth again, “why?”

Blake puts his burger down and turns to me. Then, before I can retreat into Carmen more, Blake is leaning towards me, his face inches from mine. Before he can speak, I make a comment that was probably too mean for him but I can’t stop it from leaving my mouth.

“This is why people question your sexuality.”

Blake backs up, a look on his face I haven’t seen but should have expected: he’s actually offended.

“Why can’t I just want to sit with you?” he asks.

I’m mean again but it’s true. A comment I make about myself all the time. “If you’re anything like your brother, you want something.”

Blake lets out a shallow laugh. “You’re right, Cupcake.” His endearment isn’t as charming with that tone of voice. He’s far more sombre than I normally like him. Not that I like or even tolerate him. “Rosemary has something I want.”

This time, I’m the one to get close to him. “This isn’t you, Blake.” My voice is softer than it’s been with Blake in the past.

“You’re right. It’s for Noah.”

I actually have very few memories of Noah himself because I rarely got the chance to speak to him. Everything I said went through Ava or Blake back when the former and I were in middle school and grade nine. Not that I often wanted to speak to Noah⸺I had no interest in a single thing he did⸺but there were a few times I had to right up to the top ranks.

The Weber estate is an Edwardian era building: with covered balconies alone the ground level and rounded corners leading up to a cone-shaped roof. Sometimes each window was shrouded by sheer curtains⸺the Webers were not a social family.

I was fourteen, I think, and puttering about the house as I did school work and other small tasks to keep me out of Mom’s way. Sometimes, though, Mom searches me out.

I was on my bed folding my laundry when Mom opened my door. The door handle made a terrible noise.

“Your sister is not answering her phone,” she said just standing tensely in my doorway.

“Okay.” My voice was uncertain⸺she’d not made any evident request but I knew there was one. I set down the pair of jeans I’d folded. “Should I call her?” I had gotten my phone out before Mom responded.

“Call her once. If she doesn’t pick up, go to the Webers’ hose and ask for her.” Mom did not leave any room for discussion.

As I had feared, Ava did not pick up her phone.

I walked twenty minutes along King Street and then another ten up to their property along the boundaries of the town. By the time I got there, it was already four o’clock. I really hadn’t given much thought to it when my hand reached the doorbell; I paused, fearful because I’d never actually been to the Weber house before. I stepped back from the door, but then I saw her: Ava was watching me from the main floor window. I wondered if it was the sweat on my forehead she noticed or my laboured breathing but either way, Ava took a few steps back and dropped the curtain: she was gone.

I huffed and turned on my heel, already not looking forward to facing Mom empty-handed. I was at the base of the porch when the door swung open behind me.

Ava stood there, her phone was in one hand and there was a plastic water bottle in her other: she took two steps outside. “I’ll call Mom, just go back home.”

Noah appeared behind her, his body language exactly what would scare a fourteen-year-old coming from a eighteen-year-old: his arms were crossed and his eyes dark behind the heavy brow he’d looked at me with.

“Noah will drive you home,” Ava said as Noah brushed past her, coming onto the porch.

He paused only momentarily at the top of the porch stairs before he descended and walked past me with the same amount of respect he did for his girlfriend: that being very little. He walked to the driver side of his car and didn’t look back to me once.

I turned my attention from him to my sister. “I can walk,” I said.

Ava didn’t get the chance to respond because Noah spoke up, “Get in the car.”

I looked at him as I took a few steps away from the porch. “No really, it’s fine.”

His voice this time was low and I would have been out of my place to argue. Noah told me one last time, “Get in the car.”

I turned back to the front door just as Ava was closing it. Now I was alone with Noah Weber.

He was quiet on the way home, but anyone could have felt the tension in the car.

The next time Mom asked me to go to the Webers’ house to talk to Ava, I didn’t. I just wandered around town for an hour then lied right to my mom: ‘Ava said she’ll be home later,’ I’d say.