“Oh, whoa, hey.” Jeremy made a show of backing away from the table with his hands up in surrender. “I’m not here to start anything.”

“You’re making her uncomfortable.”

“Yeah, well, I can see why she might be.” He winked at me as he regarded Eric again. Jeremy swayed his body around. He was loose and having fun, while Eric stood as rigid as a statue. “Oh, come on. Like this ain’t funny. She’s Jesse’s girl, man. You have to know about that. He damn ripped my head off last time I saw this little bitty—”

“Come on, Jer.” Barbie stepped forward and grabbed his arm. “We’re already late.”

“I’m having fun.”

“Let’s go,” she snapped at him. “We’re real sorry, but we have to be going.”

“Oh, come on.” Jeremy was heard protesting as she dragged him out the door, but we heard her snap again, “She’s Ethan’s sister. Leave her alone.”

Anything else Jeremy was going to say was cut short. And then the door swung shut behind them. The table was quiet; I couldn’t get her words out of my head. A longing filled me now. It was so deeply rooted in me that I gasped. I hadn’t known it was there; it didn’t make sense. I thought I was getting better. Then I shot out of my chair. I needed to know about Ethan. I had to know.

“Alex!”

I ignored Eric and shoved through the doors. Barbie had gotten Jeremy in her rusty truck and as she was rounding to her side, she saw me coming. She froze in place. Her eyes widened and fear flashed over her before she tried to hurry to the drivers’ side.

“Wait!” I called out. She didn’t so I sprinted after her. “Wait!” I slapped a hand on her door as she tried to pull it closed.

“Let it go, little girl.” Her eyes held a soft warning in them. “Let us go in peace and we’ll leave you alone.”

“You knew my brother,” I spat out.

Jeremy was laughing so hard, his body was jerking in spasms.

“We did.” Barbie lost her fight, but turned to Jeremy. He quieted his laughs so they were more silent, but he wiped the tears from his eyes. His shoulders kept shaking forward. His laughing continued, but he struggled to keep it under control.

She turned back, disgusted, and slid out of the truck. “Come on, let’s walk.” As she shut the door, she gave him a stern warning. “You stay, Jeremy. I don’t want any bullshit.”

“I won’t. Promise.” His hands lifted again in surrender, but the giggles that escaped him didn’t lend him credibility.

She took a deep breath and then turned towards me. “Come on.”

I followed her at a cautious pace as she went back to the taco place and sat down at a picnic table. There were four more, but all were empty and her truck was far enough away so I knew Jeremy Benson wouldn’t be listening to us. I was relieved at that, but the wariness that came over Barbie had my stomach twisting again.

Would it ever end?

She sighed and hung her head. Her hands fell in her lap and she seemed defeated as she sat across from me. “I’m real sorry about Jeremy. He can be an ass**le sometimes, and I think he likes to torment you because it’s his way of sticking it to Jesse. Him and Hunt aren’t real friendly, but they put up with each other. I guess.”

“How do you know Ethan?”

She looked up with tears in her eyes. The sorrow in them had me gasping for breath. It was unexpected and so sincere; I didn’t know what to say. So I didn’t. She started again. Her voice was raw from the memories. “Ethan became friends with us at the end of his senior year. He never said anything, but something was going on with him. We all knew he wasn’t happy. We didn’t know if something was going on at home or with his girl. We thought it was his girl because he took up with me.”

I couldn’t breathe and my chest was starting to hurt, but I was on the edge of understanding something important. She was Ethan’s girl?

“We messed around a few times. Hunt wasn’t real happy. He never said why, but him and Ethan seemed to be fighting a bunch at the end. I mean, don’t get me wrong, they were always tight. Those two were so damn close. I knew it pissed Jeremy off. Jer liked Ethan. He liked him a lot, but Jesse always came around looking for Ethan, and Jer and him just got to become enemies.” She wiped at her eyes, but her head hung down again. Her blonde hair was in clumps as it cascaded around her. I could barely see her anymore.

She continued, but I heard the tremor in her voice. “Anyways, Ethan was hanging out with us all the time. It was nice. He was a gentleman. He never did drugs like the rest of them. The only thing he ever did was drink, but not a lot. He was always cautious about not getting drunk. He was rare, you know.” She sniffled. “There are so many dirt bags out there and he was always real nice to me. He even told me about you once.” Her head lifted and she gave me a soft smile. Her lip quivered. “He loved you lots. I could tell. Him and Jesse would fight about you, too.”

“What?” My eyes went wide.

She shrugged. A faraway distant look came over her. “No one knows what they fought about that had to do with you; just that they did. Ethan didn’t like something and Jesse did, that’s all we could tell, but then it didn’t matter. The night he died, he was with us.”

I couldn’t breathe. Oh god.

“He’d been with me that night. He was always so gentle. I felt loved, like one of those types who get their prince in the end. It was nice. I wasn’t used to that from guys. I guess that’s why all of us loved him so much. He was a good friend to Jer, too; he even got him to stop fighting. And that says a lot. Jeremy loves to fight, but he stopped for awhile because Ethan asked him to.”

It hurt. Everything was starting to hurt again.

“But he got a phone call from Jesse and he took off. That was the last we saw him. The next thing we knew was hearing a few days later that he had died. I couldn’t believe it. None of us could. We tried to go to his funeral, but your momma wasn’t having it. She barred us from the place. We couldn’t even go to his headstone. I’d like to go sometime. I think Jeremy snuck out there one time, but he never told me. He took a flower from Herbert’s pot, but when he came back, he didn’t have it. That wouldn’t be a big thing with a normal guy, but Jeremy never gives girls flowers. When he came back, his shoes were all muddy, so were his knees, and he had that off look in his eye. He always got that and I’d know he was thinking of Ethan.”