She’s barely been there for three seconds when a pretty middle-aged woman with Smith’s exact same eyes and curl pattern appears at the doorway.
“Smith,” she says, “who’s this?”
“This is Chloe, Mom,” Smith says. “She’s my friend from school. She was in the play with Ace.”
“Just a friend?”
“Yes, Mom,” Smith says, sounding mortified.
His mom nods, looking Chloe over. “There’s brisket in the kitchen,” she announces. She leaves with a point over her shoulder at Smith’s bedroom door, sing-songing, “Door stays open!”
“Sorry,” Smith says. “I’m not technically supposed to have girls in here, but they’re starting to give up now that I’m almost in college. Also, you should probably take her up on that brisket, my dad smoked it this morning and it’s amaz—”
“I saw Shara last night.”
Smith stops.
He doesn’t react at first, just looks at her for a long second like he’s trying to figure out if she’s joking. Then, satisfied that she isn’t, he pulls out the desk chair and sits on a pile of discarded hoodies.
“I figured out where she was, and I went by myself,” Chloe tells him. “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. I know I should have told you, but I was—I was so mad at her—”
“Chloe,” Smith says finally, holding up a hand. There’s a speck of glitter on his thumbnail, like he painted it and then scraped it off. “It’s fine. Did she tell you why she left?”
“She said she did all this because she lied about getting in to Harvard, and because she wanted to distract me so she could win valedictorian,” Chloe rattles off. “And to force you and Rory to talk to each other, because she thinks you’re only dating her because of him.”
Smith doubles over, forehead to knees, and Chloe thinks he’s taking the news hard until she hears him laugh out, “Oh, thank you, Jesus.”
“What?”
Smith straightens up again, still laughing. He swipes a hand across his forehead. “I thought I was gonna have to tell her myself. Whew.”
There’s no way. She saw Smith’s call log after Shara disappeared. He couldn’t have faked caring that much. “You—what are you saying? She was right?”
“It’s,” Smith says, sobering with a wince, “complicated.”
“I defended you!”
“Look, it only started that way!” he insists. “It was … okay, so, freshman year, I went to a party at Dixon’s house and found out Rory had moved in next door to Shara. And he didn’t want to talk to me at school, but I realized I could still stay close to him, and I wanted to know he was okay. I was worried about him. The last few months we were friends, we talked a lot about how he was afraid his dad would have to move, and how his brother wouldn’t be able to drive us around introducing us to music anymore because he was going to college. I knew it had to be rough for him. So I—I asked Shara to homecoming, so I could go over to her house and see him.”
“You spent twenty dollars on carnations for that?”
“I wasn’t sure she’d say yes,” Smith says. “It was only supposed to be homecoming, I swear, but then I liked her. Like, as a person. She was cool, and I could be myself around her. And everyone liked us together, and it worked for both of us, and I felt so guilty about how it started, but it was too late to tell her the truth. And every time I said I loved her, I meant it, just, you know. Not like that. And I tried to forget about the Rory thing and be a good boyfriend, but he was—he was always there, and I couldn’t think about her because I was thinking about him—”
“Oh my God,” Chloe gasps, “you are in love with him.”
Smith’s eyes go wide. “Is that what Shara said? Am I—Does he—？”
“Uh-uh.” Chloe holds both hands up to ward him off. “I am not getting involved with that side of this love quadrilateral. Go back to the story.”
“Right,” Smith says, shaking his head. Chloe is definitely not attending Smith and Rory’s emotionally fraught MarioKart session tonight. “Anyway, next thing I knew, it’d been like, two and half years and Shara was my best friend other than Ace, and I realized she deserved to know before we decided what to do after graduation. So I told myself I was gonna come clean after prom, but then she dipped. And the worst part is, I was relieved, because it meant I could put the conversation off a little longer. That’s why I didn’t say anything after the note from Dixon’s house.”