dead | ethan dolan

it wasn't ethan

chapter fifty two
——mackenzie's pov
may 28th, 2019

how could he do this to us?
how could he just leave us and not let us know where he was? how could he be so close that my old friends could find him and yet never even try to come see us?

i sat in the backseat of john's silver land rover as we wound our way down the lane leading away from the country club, staring out the window at the thick trees. for months i had tried not to think about my father too much or for too long. because i knew that if i did, i would sink into this black tar pit of selfpity and sorrow and anger. but now there was no keeping my head above the surface. i was sinking, and sinking fast.

he'd left us to go work at a deli. for kylie's dad. kylie and her father and mother had known all along where he was. every time i thought about it, a wave of embarrassed heat crashed over my body. they knew. they all knew. everyone but me knew everything about my life. even ethan. fucking ethan, who never knew my dad before. never knew us. didn't really know the history, could never really understand how it felt. ethan dolan had met my father without my even knowing. and to him, he was just some deadbeat dad working in a deli with a smear of mayonnaise across his dingy apron.

i bit my lip and tried not to cry. it would be way too obvious in the dead silence that currently reigned inside the car. neither my mother nor john had said a word since leaving the club. not that i could blame them. what were you supposed to say when you'd just seen a horrifying video of your girlfriend's not-ex husband?

"where was that?" john said suddenly, quietly. his tone was pondering, as if he'd been brainstorming this whole time. "that deli. was it in the city?"
"john, i don't think we should talk about this right now," my mother said firmly.
"but don't you want to find him, confront him?" he said, taking his eyes off the road for a moment to glance at my mother. "you finally have a lead."

my mother shot him a silencing look, and that was it. john focused again on the road. as much as i had started to like john, i felt like he shouldn't be there right then. i couldn't wait to get back to the condo so my mother and i could be alone and, i don't know...throw things, talk, cry, whatever. mom took a deep breath.

"you know what? i think it's good that we're getting away this summer," she said, in a voice that was slightly too loud and chipper. she turned in her seat and looked at me. "you'll get a job down the shore, make new friends, take up surfing again. you can put all this drama behind you and just have some fun. i think we all need a fresh start."

i just stared back at her. what was she going to do? ignore the fact that we'd just seen my dad? that we, with one phone call to mr.owens, could find out exactly where he was? was she just going to try to go ahead with our lives as if nothing had happened? besides, the very idea of living down at the shore with pretty much every crestie family who'd just seen me utterly humiliated made me want to jump out of the car and run for the nearest airport.

plus, there was that whole revelation about me and hammond. sooner or later, she was going to have to ask me about that. which was, let's face it, the very last thing i ever wanted to talk about with my mother.
madeline had really overachieved on this one.

"i don't want to go anymore," i said, my voice low.
"what?" my mother said.
"i don't want to go," i repeated. "do you really want to spend the summer with those people?"
"we don't have to spend any time with them if we don't want to," my mother said naively.
"right." i leaned forward between their two seats. "hey, john, where's your house again?"

"between the schwartz's and the lidison's," he said, shooting my mother an apologetic look. "but we have a whole acre between houses—"
"yeah." i slumped back again. "i'm out."
"mackenzie, we are not going to let your father ruin our summer plans," my mother said. "when he left, i made a promise to both of us that i would not make my life decisions based on him anymore, and we haven't. we're not going to start now."

i bit down on my tongue. didn't she get it? this wasn't about him. it was about them. the cresties. madeline and faith and kylie and hammond and lucas and giovanni and ethan and grayson and connor.

just an hour ago, i had thought everything was perfect. i had thought i could trust him with everything. but it had all been a lie. he'd kept this huge secret from me—him and all his crestie pals. they'd all been laughing at me behind my back this entire time. it was clear now that if he had to choose between them and me, he would choose them. he already had, just by not telling me. by letting them keep this secret. by letting them think they were better than me.

i thought back to how hopeful i'd been when i'd agreed to go to the shore, all the things i'd imagined me and ethan doing together, and felt like a total idiot. had he known then? on his birthday, when we'd first kissed? had he already been lying to me? tears of shame and misery and self-loathing stung my eyes. if i could go back, if i could rewind to the beginning of the year, i would have changed everything. every. last. thing.

i would've never went to my old house that first day, i would have never signed up for the backslappers, i would never have broken up with david.

john turned into the entrance of the condos, his headlights flashing on the elaborate wooden signage. i felt a practically primal need to be home right then. to be inside, in my sweats, under the covers, curled into a ball. to shut off my brain and be left alone for days and days and days.

"it's gonna be okay, kenz," my mom said. "we're gonna figure this out."
john turned onto our street, his headlights flashing on the identical steps leading up to the identical doors of the identical condos.

my heart caught when i saw that someone was sitting on the bottom step in front of ours. had ethan made it here before us somehow? what could he possibly think he could say that was going to make this better?

"oh my fucking god," my mother said, her voice strained.
i widened my eyes. my mother never sweared.

and that was when i realized that the person on the stairs was not wearing a suit and tie.
he was not tall and lean and square shouldered.
he was not a person i ever would have expected to see right there, right then.

it was my father.

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