Page 66 of Save the Last Dance
Rachel gestured toward the pan on the bedside tray and Ally passed it to her as Rachel’s skin turned sheet-white. Rachel threw up, but only a little, her color returning to normal as a nurse rushed in.
Ally gestured to Ethan to stay out and glimpsed a look of total gratitude on his face before she moved back to Rachel.
“It’s like you told Ethan.” Rachel smiled at the nurse as she poked a straw between Rachel’s teeth and ordered her to sip some water. “You didn’t do this to me. I did.”
“I shouldn’t have let you leave the parking lot. I knew you were upset.”
“Stop.” Her head fell back against the pillow, weariness evident in the slump of her shoulders. “Go see Ethan. I figured if I got you here, I’d get the two-for-one special and he’d show, too.” Her eyes slid closed. “I want you to know my secret. No more hiding.”
“But who will stay with you?” Ally thought about how she’d had her mom and dad by her side and her uncle in the waiting room with Nina Spencer.
No matter how bad her life sucked, at least she had people who cared. Now, just maybe, that list might include Ethan.
“As your elder, I order you to go home. You can visit tomorrow, okay?”
“Go on, honey,” the nurse chimed in. “We’ve got to move her upstairs to a bed and let her get some rest anyhow. We’ll take good care of her. You can leave your phone number with me if it makes you feel better.”
She jotted her number down on a scrap of paper and passed it to the nurse. Still, walking away with Rachel still in that bed with a cut lip and an IV made Ally feel two inches tall.
“All right.” On impulse, she edged around the nurse and planted a kiss on Rachel’s head, on the side opposite the bandage. “You’re going to be okay. We’re going to unveil that maze together next weekend, so get better fast.”
The nurse gave her a warm smile, but Rachel had already drifted back to drug-induced sleep. A week ago, it would have seemed mega weird to be in the hospital with her former enemy classmate, wishing her well and slobbering on her hair. But Ally was convinced there was a whole lot of hurt beneath Rachel’s designer clothes and perpetually perfect shade of blond hair.
Stepping outside of the recovery area and into the main reception room, Ally found Ethan waiting for her. He was stepping aside for an older woman pushing an IV, actually, which was exactly an Ethan sort of thing to do. He might hate farming and math, but he seemed really at home in small-town Tennessee in a way she hadn’t appreciated before. Everybody liked Ethan. What right did she have to drag him away from Heartache because she was unhappy here?
He wasn’t just her crush anymore. He was a real guy with secrets, hurts and feelings, and she needed to get over herself and start treating him that way—as a person and afriend, not some object of crazy teenage adoration. She wouldn’t talk him into leaving just becauseshewanted to escape.
“Do you want to go—” Ethan looked around the entry area past the gift shop and toward the cafeteria. “—grab a soda?”
“Actually, would it be weird to sit in your truck?” She needed a ride home anyhow, since Uncle Mack had dropped her off. She hugged her arms around herself. “I’ve had more than my share of hospitals for today.”
“Right. You must be exhausted.” He pulled his keys from his pocket. “I actually got a great spot out front.”
A few minutes later, she slid into the front seat of an old GMC truck. It had the pieced-together look of a scrapyard find, with the truck bed a different color than the cab. But the front was clean and Ethan had sprung for the leather seat overhaul himself—a factoid he’d told her on their visit to the hay maze. It seemed like eons ago, considering all that had happened this week.
The interior of his truck smelled like new leather and pine air freshener, but when she breathed deeply, she caught a hint of Ethan’s aftershave, too. Ethan had parked in front of the main entrance, and she watched as employees flooded into the hospital for their morning shifts.
“So, you know why Rachel refused to contact her mom?” It burned her up to think of Rachel undergoing emergency surgery alone. She’d already been out in recovery by the time Ally had arrived.
“Yeah. We had a talk that night behind Lucky’s. I’m not sure why she decided to trust me, but she seemed sad. Like she could use a friend, you know?”
“I’m glad you were there,” she said honestly. “I wish I’d been a better friend.”
“She moved to this school because her mother insisted. She fell in love with a girl from her old high school. Her mother found out and flipped. I guess she’s super homophobic or something.” Ethan shrugged as if it was an unheard of condition and Ally fell for him—the real him—a little more. “Her mom forced her to come here, hoping a new school would change Rachel and give them a chance to hide the past from people. She bought Rachel a new wardrobe—like there are non-gay clothes or something.”
“That’s so horrible.” Ally’s heart broke for the poor girl in the hospital. To have no allies. No friends who knew her and having to pretend to be someone she wasn’t…Ally couldn’t imagine it.
“Right? Rachel said she’s under major pressure because her mom is in charge of her inheritance since her dad died. It’s convoluted. But she was trying to put on a game face until graduation.” Ethan turned in the seat, draping his arm along the bench right behind where Ally sat. “And her mom kept bugging her about dating. Er, guys, I mean. So I told her she should fake having a date with me. Spread it around town a little bit. But it was just talk. I didn’t really think about how weird it might be if it got back to you.”
Weak morning sun shone through the windshield as so many pieces slid into place in her head. Rachel’s comment about her clothes and how her mother would just buy her more. The noisy announcement at the hair salon about dating Ethan. The mild flirting with lots of guys even though she hadn’t really dated any of them.
“I’ve been so stupid. And blind as a freaking bat.” She, of all people, should know that not everyone’s life was as perfect as it appeared on the outside. She hadn’t even beenaware that Rachel’s dad had died, although that had probably happened before they moved here.
“Blind? You saw what she wanted people to see. I’m just sorry I talked myself into a corner. Because once I blurted out the date thing, I realized it wouldn’t be cool after I’d just started—you know—talking to you more.” He lifted a strand of her hair where it lay on her shoulder and toyed with the end. “Plus, how could I tell you what happened without giving away Rachel’s secret? That wasn’t right, either.”
Ally wanted to go back into the hospital and hug Rachel for what she’d been through. But Rachel had said, “Go be in love somewhere.” Maybe Rachel was rooting for Ally and Ethan to get together, since she hadn’t gotten to be with the person she cared about.
Or maybe it was Ethan playing with her hair that had her thinking about staying right in this spot with him.
