His brows come together. “I’m really sorry that Thatcher being murdered has been so inconvenient for you—”
“That’s not what I mean, and you know it. You could have had your grandma’s funeral in the city, but no, your family has to be here, fighting over her will—”
“We were always going to come back here, Addie. Fiona’s murder didn’t just happen to you. It happened to all of us. What happened to Thatcher—it was always going to happen, so long as whoever did this is still out there. Did you suddenly forget about that?”
“I don’t forget about anything.”
“Could have fooled me.”
I stare. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Seth’s eyes are on me, dark and serious. I have the feeling I don’t want to hear what he’s about to say.
“Do you ever even think about that night?” he asks.
I look away from him, then back again. “I try not to.”
A flash of something in his eyes. It comes and goes so fast I can’t be sure, but if I had to guess, I would have called it pain.
“Is that really your biggest regret?” he asks. “Spending the night with me?”
He’s seriously asking me this. “I was cheating on my boyfriend while my sister was being killed. I’d say that falls into the category of life regrets, don’t you?”
His mouth twists, and for a moment, he looks like Kendall. “Good to know.”
“Seth, it’s not about you.” I can’t believe I have to explain this to him.
“I get that, but you could at least acknowledge that night happened. You wouldn’t even message me back! I wanted to talk to you, I was trying to”—he runs his hands over his hair—“be there for you or something—but you blocked me and never spoke to me again.”
He’s waiting for me to respond, but I have no idea what to say. When I don’t speak, he turns away. “I think we’ve given them enough catch-up time, don’t you?” His voice is gruff.
Without waiting for my answer, he takes off through the trees. After a moment, I follow.
Was he saying he…liked our night together? I mean, of course a teenage boy is going to like having sex. But I thought that was all it was to him. Sex. I didn’t even know if it was good sex.
For just a moment, moving through those dark trees, I let myself remember it. The stone against my back, still warm from the sun. Seth’s curls falling down, tickling my cheek. The grin on his face right before he kissed me.
I had no idea he’d thought about me that much. When I let myself think of that night, I felt angry. I figured he saw me as a one-night stand, no different from any others he’d had. Or maybe a little different. Because we’d been frenemies our whole lives. I thought he must have seen it as some sort of twisted conquest, getting me to cheat on Jeremy with him.
It’s strange to think that maybe I was wrong about all of that. I never once considered that in addition to everything else I did that night—I hurt Seth in some way, too.
I push it out of my head. I don’t know how to fix whatever it is Seth is mad about.
All I can do is try and find out what happened to my sister and Thatcher.
I owe them that, at least.
14
The next morning, I meet Seth on a quiet corner where no one will see us. Dad’s already at his golf thing, and Davy actually left before me to go hang out with Marion. It’s a gray day, with the possibility of rain, according to my weather app. When I get in his car, he just grunts at me. After a coffee and pork roll, egg, and cheese stop at a QuickChek near the highway, we’re on our way. It’s two and a half hours from here to Caleb’s dorm, so we’ll have a few hours to locate Caleb and get him to talk to us before we’ll need to be on our way home for dinner.
We drive in an uncomfortable silence, filled with everything we said—and didn’t say—last night.
“So are you going to major in math?” Seth asks after about half an hour.
I blink. I was caught up in a daydream where Fiona is still alive, and I’ve gone to the city to meet her, and we’re having the kind of sisterly day we haven’t had in…ever.
“What?” I ask.
“At Rutgers. You’re majoring in math?”
“Um—yeah. If they don’t kick me out for being a murder suspect first.”
Rutgers isn’t exactly my dream school, but it ticks all the boxes: nearby, affordable, decent. Stanford is the dream. California, a world away. I can’t go there for undergrad, not without a significant scholarship, and my grades took a nosedive at the start of last year. And I didn’t want to be too far from Davy. But Stanford has a grad school. My plan is to work hard at Rutgers, straight As. Someday, if I can talk Davy into a West Coast school, too—maybe I’ll make it out there.
“They won’t,” Seth says, but he doesn’t sound super confident. “So, like, what do you want to be? Do you want to work on Wall Street, or be an accountant…”
I snort. “No to both of those. Why do you want to know?”
“Just making conversation.”
I look over at him, but I don’t see anything teasing on his face. So I answer, “I kind of want to go into academia.”
“So head to grad school after?”
“Yeah. I’d love to go to Stanford for that.” A pause. “There’s just the matter of money.”
He gets quiet then, which is weird. Seth never shied away from talking about money before.