Signed to Hate You

Chapter7: Before Ethan

AVERY

His lips are still parted. The wristband hangs open on his wrist, and the clasp lies on the gravel between us, small and silver. Neither of us looks at it.

"The one on the page," Julian says.

So last night was a lie. I knew that before he said it. It still lands like a missed catch.

"How long before?"

"Before Ethan."

I wait for the rest of the sentence. There isn't one.

"Before the hallway," I say. "Before the video."

"Before any of it."

September. I'm holding a page that was typed in September, when Ethan was still texting me good morning and I was still deciding which hoops to wear to his Friday games. I spent that whole month thinking my biggest problem was a stunt sequence.

"Why?"

"I can't tell you that."

"Can't, or won't?"

"Won't." He says it flat, the way he reads out scores. "Not yet."

"That isn't an answer."

"It's the true one."

I fold the page along its crease. Once, then again, until the corners meet. If it's a lie, he built a trap and waited for me to walk into it. If it's a rescue, he saw me falling a month before I fell. I can't tell which one is worse.

I could tell him I stood on Hale's step an hour ago. I could say I heard every word, down to She doesn't know. I keep it instead, the way you keep a spare grip in your bag.

"The story stays the same," I say. "We're what we told them. Don't change a word."

"Okay."

"I'm not doing it because I believe you." My voice stays level. "Maya flies on Saturday. I'm not handing her a second clip."

He nods once. Then he bends, finally, and picks up the clasp. He closes it in his fist and doesn't put it back on.

My phone buzzes on the step behind me, loud against the wood. I turn it over. Mom.

She has never called me in the middle of a retreat.

Helen Quinn doesn't say hello. She never does on a call that matters. My mother plans weddings and galas for a living, and she treats a crisis like a seating chart: find the problem, move the pieces, start again.

"I've seen it," she says. "All of it."

"Mom—"

"The video. Both posts. The one with the Kane boy's name in the caption." There's road noise behind her. She's in the car. "I've been on the phone since seven."

"With who?"

"Coach Vargas first. She'll hold off on anything official until I get there. Then the Riverside Gazette. They have you for Wednesday at four.

A short interview, one photograph, and Julian will be there. His father's office confirmed an hour ago."

His father's office. She called the Kanes before she called me.

"I didn't agree to an interview."

"You will." Calm, the way she is when she's already decided. "You can't answer six thousand strangers one at a time, Avery. Someone has to give them one version, and it should be yours, in a room where nobody can cut you off at the wrong second."

"And if I say no?"

A turn signal ticks twice.

"Then I won't be sending my letter to the Whitlock committee."

My hand tightens on the phone. Whitlock is the scholarship. It's the one door in my future I opened myself.

"That's not fair."

"It's practical." Her voice doesn't change. "I'm twenty minutes away."

She hangs up before I can answer.

Her silver sedan pulls into the lodge lot nineteen minutes later. Helen gets out in her good coat, sunglasses pushed up into her hair, and doesn't look at the building. She looks at me.

Julian left while I was on the phone. The only thing on the gravel by the step is a dent where the clasp lay.

"Stand up straight," Helen says, and fixes my collar before I can answer. Two fingers, one tug. She has been fixing my collar since I was six. It's how she says hello.

"Wednesday at four," she says. "The Gazette. You'll wear the navy. You'll keep your answers short, and you won't say a word about the video."

"I wasn't going to."

"Good."

"And I answer for myself." My voice comes out level. "You can pick the dress. You don't pick the words."

Her eyes move over my face the way they move over a table setting, checking for the one fork out of place. "Fine."

It's the first thing I've won all day, and I can feel exactly how small it is.

"Then we have an agreement." She holds out a hand, palm up. Not for mine. "Give me your bag. I'll put it in the car."

Everything I'm holding is in that bag. The page is folded in four at the bottom, under my spare sweatshirt.

My fingers close on the strap before I decide to move.

Helen's hand stays out. Neither of us says anything. Behind her, a lodge door bangs, and somebody's laugh carries across the lot.

"It's heavy," I say. "I've got it."

Her eyes drop to my knuckles, and her hand doesn't lower.