Tim's mother is too young to die, but she dies anyway--in a video that goes viral. Tim scrambles to hold his life together, but the person who keeps him on his feet turns out to be his half-sister, a fiesty girl who has no idea they're related, but...
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Billy knocks on the door. He always knocks. It took him four years before he'd let himself into my house, and even then, he still knocked first.
But this isn't my house and my mother isn't here to remind him he can come in. Like anybody would mind Billy Williams waltzing into their house unannounced. There's a coin toss chance that he'll start making you breakfast in your own kitchen.
"I thought you weren't free 'til later." I open the door for him.
"I tried to text you. I had to negotiate Lars into babysitting." He kicks his shoes off, pushing them to the side.
"By negotiate you mean blackmail?"
"Well, yes."
A proper sense of justice doesn't extend to sisters. Naturally, he has more on Lars than Lars could ever have on him.
"'Kay, so, you feel like going to the lake this weekend? Like Friday, maybe?" He looks around, trying to figure out what to do in a house he's not used to. Heather's house is nicer than mine or his or anybody else we know. She has good taste and no children or dogs to wear everything out.
If I get him to sit at the kitchen island, maybe he won't start pacing.
"What's happening at the lake?" I lead him into the kitchen. I should eat something anyway or Heather will get on my case about it later. Thin doesn't look good on me.
"Nothing's happening. I don't even think they're booking a lifeguard 'til Saturday." Oh, he tried so hard to work that in subtly. I admire his ability to beat around the bush.
"Ah, so no Jeremy. Unless the Rowing Club is out." I pull a slab of bacon out. "Sandwich?"
"Sure..." He's settled a little. On the plus side, there's no one to tell him about the creek bridge incident.
It's pretty responsible of him to make sure there's no repeat of last time. How can I blame him for that? It must get tiring trying to get between me and Jeremy. The most selfish thing Billy ever does is avoiding conflict.
"Yeah, okay." I toss a couple slices of bacon into a frying pan. "Is K going to throw you in again?"
"It's rarely a choice on my part," he says.
It is a little. He collected these people we call friends, curating a personal collection of the strange and questionable. If we didn't do some of these things, he'd know something was wrong.
He knows something is wrong.
It's why he's here, trying to get me out of the house, out of Murphy for an afternoon. He's trying to fix me and I feel too guilty about it not to try. Even when I have a sick feeling there's nothing he can do. I wish I could tell him what I need, but I honestly don't know.
Listen, it's not your fault. You're better than I could ask for.
"Did you tell your parents about the party?" I can't look at him while asking about it, but trying to flip the bacon with my fingers gives me a good excuse not to. "The outcome, I mean."
"I got home at two in the morning with your blood on my sleeve and my dad was still writing," he says, "there were a few questions."
"Was one of them so it was a normal Friday night with Tim?" I'm pretty sure this isn't the first time that's happened, sadly. Hopefully none of it loses Billy his well-earned privileges and trust from his parents. He didn't drink, he attempted first aid, and he took me straight home so Heather could drag me into Strathmore for stitches.
"My dad recommends his therapist."
I freeze, staring unfocused for a second until bacon grease stings against my hands, hot flecks jumping from the pan.
"I'm not—" I don't need therapy. This isn't the first time the suggestion has come up. It won't be the last, I'm sure. "I'm fine." Let's talk about something else, anything else. How long has he been trying to work that into a conversation? Him and everybody else I know.
I slice the tomatoes, shred the lettuce in silence.
"Okay, I'm just saying—"
"Don't."
Tell me I'm broken again. Tell me that I need somebody else to glue the shards back together. The edges might be sharp enough to severe all the little strings connecting me to other people.
Let's go back to the plan of trying to distract me. That plan was better. We'll go to the lake, I won't fight anybody, we'll actually get fries, and everything can be the best facsimile of normal it can be.
"What time on Friday?" I throw a couple slices of bread in the toaster.
"Afternoon. After lunch, I think." He adjusts his glasses.
"Sounds good." I want to say more, but what am I supposed to say? Somewhere along the way, I forgot to have a normal conversation. Maybe that's the head injury, a side effect nobody warned me about.
So we don't say anything.
And the toast pops.
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a/n if you're wondering why there hasn't been an update in forever, it's because i realized i literally skipped this chapter and didn't realize it until editing a chapter later on and someone referenced this scene... soooo i had to fix stuff and get my head in the game. darn these chapter titles.
