She grabbed McGillicuddy and pulled him onto the dance floor before I could ask him whether he'd understood the whole finger-quote concept.

"Rachel and Adam are together," Sean wailed. "I mean, really together. They've left without standing outside this window and mooning us"-he gestured to our view of the driveway-"or even waiting until we looked up at them. I'm telling you, Lori, Adam was dating Rachel in the first place. I stole Rachel from Adam. After less than two weeks, she broke up with me because of the way I treated Adam. They're not kidding. They're back together now."

"That's impossible." In my heart I knew this could not be true. Illogical as it sounded, Adam only blew up at people he loved: his parents, many times over the years; Sean, constantly. He had blown up at me quite a few times over the past few weeks. He had never blown up at Rachel. If he always got along great with somebody, it was a sure sign that he didn't really care what that person thought.

But I could not shake the feeling that everything we'd done together for the past month was a lie. Just as Sean had said, the first night I got an inkling that I had feelings for Adam, he was dating Rachel and he caught her making out with Sean. Why couldn't he be in love with her still, fighting to win her back? That made a lot more sense than what I'd believed for a month, that he'd dated her but he'd loved me all along. There was too much evidence that he wanted her instead of me. I suspected he'd taken her to his Secret Make-Out Hideout first, since he'd acted so suspiciously when I'd asked him about it last weekend. He'd talked her into inviting everyone over to her grandparents' house, which meant he'd been calling her. And tonight he had said he was with her, flaunting her at his own party. I had no good reason not to believe him.

The month we'd been together-sort of, off and on-had been an act. When I thought about the parts that had been an act, it made perfect sense. But when I thought about him teetering on the edge of crying in the tree house, my stomach twisted into knots. To put on an act like that, he would be awfully sneaky, even sneakier than Sean's wildest dreams of sneaky. He would have to be heartless. He would need to not care at all. And I knew, from growing up with him, that he cared.

Maybe he really did care about some things. Rachel, for instance. Maybe he just didn't care about me.

I put my palm tenderly to Sean's cheek and said, "I know where they went."

Chapter 16.

"Can you take off your shirt?"

I couldn't see Rachel clearly on the other side of my truck's cab. My eyes hadn't yet adjusted to the darkness of my secret make-out hideout. But I could hear her laughing her a.s.s off. "Not even for Sean."

"Well, we have to make it look good somehow. Do you mind if I take off mine? My dad says I look like s.e.x on a stick with my shirt off."

"Knock yourself out."

I started to pull my shirt over my head. I was used to wearing T-shirts. When it wouldn't give, I remembered I was wearing something Sean-like. As I unb.u.t.toned it, I asked, "Want to make a bet how long it takes him to get out here?"

"Don't you mean them?"

I hoped. "I don't know. Sean will be here for sure. He'll come after you. He's liked you all along. But if Lori has been after Sean, she'll try to stop him from coming. I don't know whether she would come herself." I pulled off my shirt and threw it out the window for effect. "Lie down."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Thinking ahead is very hard for me," I explained, as if she hadn't found this out during a month of dating me. "I should have rigged a trip wire across the road so we'd know when they were coming. Sean won't drive up here with his headlights on. They'll walk up and surprise us. We have to be ready. It probably won't take long."

"All right." She scooted down and stretched out across the seat.

I lay on top of her, putting my weight more on the seat beside her so I wouldn't crush her.

"This is embarra.s.sing," she said against my cheek.

I was halfway offended. "Why? We actually did this last month."

"We never lay down," she said softly. "My grandmother would be so disappointed in me."

"Tell your grandma you're involved in a web of deceit, that's all. They probably did stuff like this in their horse-drawn carriages all the ti-"

The door nearest our heads jerked open and strong hands dragged me out by the shoulders. I braced myself against the doorframe, first to keep from being dragged, and then, when that didn't seem possible, to keep from dragging across Rachel and hurting her.

But she was gone from under me-already out the other door. As Sean threw me to the ground on my elbow, Rachel ran around the front of the truck, yelling. "Sean, stop. It's all a joke."

"I'm not laughing!" Sean shouted at her. He stomped off through the weeds. Immediately he changed his mind, stalked back, and stood over me. I readied myself to roll away from him if he tried to kick me.

Instead, he pointed at me. He breathed in and out through his nose, collecting himself, before he said, "You are not my brother." He charged through the weeds again, down the road.

"Sean," Rachel scolded him.

"Now you know how I feel," I called after him.

Rachel turned to me. "Happy now? Is this what you wanted?" She hurried in the direction Sean had gone, calling to him. As she pa.s.sed Lori at the tailgate of the truck, she said, "I'm sorry. We'll talk, okay? But I've got to-Sean!" She disappeared into the trees.

Lori didn't move, didn't look behind her to watch Rachel and Sean go. She gazed down at me with her arms folded and her jaw set. " Were you joking?" she asked sharply. "Because for a minute, I sure thought you weren't." Her eyes flicked to my bare chest and back to my face. Now that my eyes had adjusted to the moonlight, I could see everything I didn't want to see.

Slowly I stood, brushing the dirt off my shorts and rubbing the elbow I'd fallen on. "What was I supposed to think when you made out with Sean on your dock?" Now that I had a few hours' distance, I realized there were several different things I could have thought and I should have asked her about them. But that made me feel like the rug was being jerked out from under me, which left me grasping for anything to keep myself upright. "I can't trust you." She opened her hands. "I don't understand you, Adam. I'm with you, but you act like I'm the enemy. I see our future like this, with you always leaping before you look and me watching through my fingers, scared to breathe. I can't do it anymore. When we were just friends, I feared for you all the time, but I dealt with it. If we're something more than friends-"

"Maybe we shouldn't be," I interrupted her. "What makes you so sure we're meant to be together, anyway?"

"My mother said so." She said this instantly, without thinking. I could tell this because she put her hand up to touch two fingers to her lips-not like slapping her hand over her mouth, but tentatively wondering where those words had come from. She brought both hands together and twisted the ring her mother had left her around and around her finger.

I said, "Your mother is dead."

She put her hands down and stared coldly at me.

Even I knew that was too much. "I shouldn't have said that."

She looked at me from head to toe, and her cold stare settled on my face again.

I took a step toward her. "Lori, I shouldn't have said that. I'm sorry."

"I can't forgive you for that." She stared at me a few moments more, to drive her point home.

She turned and walked away through the forest.

I watched her go until even her blonde hair, which seemed to glow in the dark woods, disappeared into the gloom.

Then I banged my head against the truck.

Chapter 17.

It was a long walk home through the neighborhood. Even if Sean and Rachel had been waiting for me in Sean's truck at the end of the dirt road, I wouldn't have taken that ride. They weren't waiting for me.

Then I spent fifteen long minutes standing in my garage, picking botanical debris off my cute outfit. Showing up with beggar lice on your miniskirt was almost as bad as coming home with a hickey. Finally I opened the door.

"Lori?" my dad called from the den.

I stopped in the kitchen and took a long, deep, calming breath, then let it all out in a Zen-like sigh. I could talk to him pleasantly now. Funny: Lovesick depression felt a lot like responsible obedience. "Yes, Father?"

"You're home early."

Oooooh, that was low.

I took another long, deep, calming breath. This one didn't work as well as the last one had. Stepping forward, I peeked at my reflection in the dark oven window. I looked like a serial killer. I manually raised my eyebrows and the corners of my mouth with my fingertips. Now I looked like bad plastic surgery.

"Lori?" he called again.

Smiling in a deathlike manner, I ventured into the den. The lights were out. The TV was on but quiet, as if n.o.body were paying it any attention. And Dad lounged across the couch with Frances curled up against him.

Two months ago this would have astonished me. Three weeks ago, right after they finally got together, I was happy for them, if somewhat uncomfortable. Now it made me very, very angry.

"Tell us about the party," Dad suggested. "Was your first night back with Adam everything you dreamed about?" He kissed the top of Frances's head.

I did not even try the long, deep, calming breath this time. I already was developing a headache from grinding my teeth together. Now that my eyes had adjusted to the dim light, I spied Frances's nanny basket next to an armchair in the corner. I plopped down in the chair to explore it.

The nanny basket was a bottomless tote bag overflowing with Frances's never-ending art supplies and random objects to teach and pacify small children. I tossed out a tennis ball, a long string tied in a circle for playing cat's cradle, and a copy of Anna Karenina.

"Didn't you always tell me to give away toys I hadn't played with in a year?" I asked Frances. " Anna Karenina has been living in your nanny basket for at least ten years, and it's never come in handy."

"I beg your pardon," Frances said. "Alvin Harbarger plays with that. He looks up the difficult words in the dictionary and writes out the definitions."

"Frances. Way to ensure a carefree childhood. Alvin is, like, four."

"He is five." She sounded more irate with me than she normally would have been just for messing with her nanny basket-almost as if I were barging in on her perfect date night.

OH REALLY?.

Finally finding what I'd been searching for, I pulled out a sheet of red construction paper and a pair of child-safe scissors and started cutting. "Actually, Adam and I wanted some time alone, since we have been deprived of this so long. We skipped the party and saw a movie."

"Adam sat through a whole movie?" Dad asked. "What movie did you see?"

"The Scarlet Letter." The handles of the tiny scissors dug into my fingers, but I kept cutting. Big pieces of the red paper fell away. "I read the book in ninth grade. Did you?"

"I read it sometime," Dad acknowledged. "I didn't know there was a remake of the movie out." Frances elbowed him gently. "She's not serious, Trevor. She's trying to tell you something." Dad stared at me, slowly puzzling it out. "The Scarlet Letter . What happens in The Scarlet Letter ? What is she trying to tell-Oh my G.o.d!" He jumped up from the couch, dumping Frances onto the floor.

"NO, NOT THAT!" Frances and I shouted at the same time.

I tossed the scissors back into the nanny basket, fished out a roll of tape, and waggled my red paper letter at him with a wobbly sound. "It's an I, not an A. And it's not for me. It's for you." Stepping over the nanny basket and Frances, I taped the letter to his shirt. "I will make you lots of different color I's to coordinate with all your suits and ties. Wear them in shame."

He looked down at his chest in confusion. "What does I stand for?"

I opened my mouth to form the I word.

And something happened to me. I had never been so angry in my life. At Adam for what he'd done, at Sean and Rachel for being in the way, at Dad for putting us in this position in the first place. At myself for telling Adam I couldn't forgive him.

I was so angry that for a second, I actually became Adam. I felt the unfairness of it all, the burden of it, living with it for weeks-or in his case, years. I understood how he could become so angry at his parents that he had to talk back to them and sabotage his relationship with me, even though he did care.

Because for that second, I was about to get grounded for the rest of the summer, maybe for the rest of the year. I was going to call my father an idiot.

From the corner of my eye, I could see Frances still on the floor, shaking her head.

Dad looked back up at me, blond brows down, growing suspicious. "What does I stand for?" he asked again.

I put my hand in the center of the I on his chest. Did he know he had ruined my summer by banning Adam and that changing his mind now didn't help? Did he know he'd ruined my relationship with Adam forever? Did he know he'd ruined my life? My mouth still formed the shape of an I.

I opened my mouth a little wider. "Irony," I forced out.

I took one more long, deep, calming breath, and I sighed.

And then I headed upstairs to my room.

When I reached the steps, I heard Dad say from behind me, "What's eating her? I told her she could date Adam again."

"And now they've had a fight," Frances said. "It's ironic."

"I'll go talk to her," Dad said.

"No," I whispered to the steps.

"No!" said Frances. "I'll go."

I was near the top of the staircase by then. I could have run into my room and slammed the door. I had that impulse.

But I didn't do it. I walked into my room, sat on my bed, and waited for Frances to come up the stairs. She hadn't even poked her head through the doorway before I started to cry.

"Oh, Lori," she cooed sympathetically, which just made me cry harder. She sat beside me on the bed and held out her arms to me, and I totally lost it.

I never dared shed a tear around the boys growing up, even when I got hurt playing with them. I wanted to be like them, and they didn't cry. Even if I had cried, I wouldn't have sought solace from Frances. She was not my mother.

Or was she? I cried into her lap as if she were, and I learned what people meant by a "good cry." As I cried, I thought about everything Adam had done to me and everything I had done to him. Offenses leveled at both of us by Sean, the Vaders, my dad, and even Frances herself in refusing to take my side. One cry led to another until I truly was all cried out. When I'd said that to Tammy a few weeks ago, I had no idea what I was talking about. I sat up, feeling empty, with a headache but no desire to cry.

"Tell me what happened," Frances said.

I sniffed. "Adam hurt me as badly as he possibly could, and then..."

Behind her big ugly gla.s.ses, Frances's brows went down. "And then what?"