Insidious(64)

He wasn’t kidding. Between taking turns at the pool table, I still managed to devour half the plate and my entire shake in ten minutes. It was obvious Reese was trying to keep the conversation lighthearted, but it didn’t do much to take my mind off the new dizzying array of questions.

“So what’s the deal between you and Adam?” asked Reese, sinking another ball into a corner pocket. “If you don’t mind my asking, that is.”

The mention twisted my stomach, but not for the reason I had anticipated. I jabbed Reese with the end of my stick as I made my way around the table to set up my next shot. “It’s complicated.”

“Well, I don’t fancy myself to be an idiot. I’m sure I can keep up just fine.”

“If you must know, Adam and I had been best friends growing up. We were practically glued to the hip, until about five years ago.”

“Come again?”

“We were both raised in a little town in upstate New York called Everett. Back in the good old days when my mom still clipped coupons and painted her own toe nails,” I better clarified. Reese looked at me confusedly, and I laughed. “Despite what my folks might lead everyone to believe, my family didn’t come from money. My mom was an ordinary housewife and my dad was on the bottom of the totem pole at work. The only reason they were even able to ship me off to boarding school was because I received an academic scholarship.”

Now Reese laughed. “So you really aren’t a princess then.”

I shot him a look, but couldn’t hide my smile.

“Is that when you and Adam fell outta touch? Because you were sent away to school?”

Any amusement I had vanished at the recollection. “Not exactly. Everything pretty much went to shit after Adam’s mom was killed.”

“Killed?”

“Fire,” I explained. “The Reynolds’s place was really old, and the electricity wasn’t always reliable. The fire department suspected that the pilot light had gone out, and a spark in a nearby outlet ignited the explosion. The downstairs literally blew up. Mr. Reynolds was out with some buddies watching a game, and Adam and I were at my place. Adam’s mom wasn’t so lucky. She’d just returned home to make dinner. Nathan never forgave himself for not being there to save her.

“Not even two weeks after the funeral, he and Adam were gone. One of my dad’s old friends had just started up his own company and offered Nathan a position with his security firm here in Maine, so the two packed up what little they had and left town. Pretty much overnight, I lost almost everyone I loved. Mr. and Mrs. Reynolds were like second parents to me, and Adam was my best friend. Then, to add insult to injury, my folks shipped me off to boarding school come the end of the month, where I went to live with perfect strangers nine months out of the year. And I never heard from Nathan or Adam after they moved, not until I came to live here in Mystic Harbor.”

“Why did you guys…you know? It’s obvious Adam still carries a torch for you, and he’s been shooting me unrelenting death glares the past few days. He seems pretty protective.”

“There’s a reason why Carly nicknamed him ‘Casper’. I finally decided to end things with Adam after he ditched me at a dinner party. We were there together for ten minutes before he pulled his whole Spider-Man disappearing act, and the guy never came back. He left without so much as an explanation, and no one heard from him all weekend. It wouldn’t have been so bad…if this hadn’t become something of habit. Adam flaked on me all the time. We’d be out having fun, and then he’d suddenly run off. Guess it makes sense now, considering everything. It’s not like you can tell your girlfriend that you left her so you could go all Buffy the Vampire Slayer on creatures of the Underworld.”

Reese didn’t look particularly comfortable, and I couldn’t blame him. But he was the one who asked. “So, now knowing what you know, you think you two will…?”

I shook my head. “Adam isn’t the same. He’d always been funny and silly and teasing when we were younger. What happened with his mom though really hit him hard, and I can’t imagine the lifestyle he leads now is particularly easy either. He has his moments where I get to see the old Adam, but they’re far and few. Honestly, I think nostalgia is what kept us together. At least for me anyway.” It was the most open answer I’d given about our breakup. “Honestly, I hated it when I first moved here, and Adam wound up being the one familiar thing amid all the nauseating dinner parties and political fundraisers. I wasn’t used to this lifestyle. Home for me used to be a crammed two-bedroom apartment, and then it became the academy. Coming here honestly felt like stumbling into an alternate reality. It still does. Adam was the only normalcy I could cling to. But that particular night when he had ditched me for the hundredth time…I had had enough. And I hated him for it, for the rippling effect it caused.”