“What, like a battery or something?” I ask.

“No, I mean it literally blew up. Something caught fire in the engine, and the thing was smoking in my parents’ driveway,” he says, chuckling at the memory.

“What’d you do?” I ask, now totally invested in how this ends.

“Like any respectable sixteen-year-old, I got on my bike with a backpack filled with lame-ass picnic food and rode to her house,” he says. “She was dressed in this really nice outfit, and here I was in Dockers and a shirt that I sweat up on my way to her house. It was a truly pathetic display.”

“It sounds sweet,” I say, surprising myself when I hear my voice speak. That…that was meant for my thoughts. Houston remains quiet for a few seconds, and I lie back down, rolling my face into my pillow, wishing like hell I had the power to reverse time.

“Thanks,” he says finally, his voice soft. “She…Bethany…she thought it was pretty sweet too. We sat in her front yard, eating crackers and cheese and weird Hostess snacks, and then…she kissed me.”

My smile fades when he says this part, but I force it back on my mouth. I don’t know why; no one can see me. But I shouldn’t be upset hearing about Houston kissing his late…wife? This…it shouldn’t upset me, so that smile—it’s staying on my damn face, even if I have to hold it there with my fingers.

“So, when did Leah happen?” I ask, getting to the part I really want to know.

“About six months later,” he says. “We started dating near the end of sophomore year. Junior year I was on the football team. We were pretty good, and every Friday, we’d have these huge parties. There was a lot of drinking, and other…stuff.”

“So you and Bethany…did some of that other…stuff?” I say it like him, amused that he can’t just say we had unprotected sex and whoops!

“Yeah, pretty much. I mean, we were always really careful, but I was coming off a huge win, and Beth and I were doing shots, and we were at my friend Casey’s house. It was late, and we just got caught up in it,” he says. “About three weeks later, Bethany started throwing up. She tried to keep it from me for the first week, I think because she was afraid to find out for sure. But I could tell something was up. She was really emotional, and she’d get so pissed at me, out of nowhere. She finally got sick in front of me, and she just broke down and started crying. I knew the second she looked at me.”

I’m rapt now. This scenario scared the hell out of me in high school. It’s why I was always in charge, why I was careful about who I gave it up to—why I always have condoms in my purse. The thought of something going wrong and me ending up pregnant with Carson’s baby runs through my mind, albeit briefly, and my stomach sours fast.

“Was there ever talk of…of maybe…not having Leah?” I ask, biting my lip, hoping I asked that delicately enough. The longer Houston takes to respond, the worse I feel for asking. I’m about to take it back, to tell him it’s none of my business, when he breaks in.

“There was,” he says finally. He doesn’t elaborate, and his tone—it’s flat and emotionless and broken, as if the fact that he ever had that thought at all kills him. After long seconds, I hear him let out a heavy sigh, the kind weighed down by a past made up of nothing but life-altering, complicated decisions. That single admission shows that Houston wasn’t kidding when he said he believed in honesty. That right there—that was honest. And I think it might have been a little painful for him to say aloud, too.

“How did you lose Bethany?” I ask, after rehearsing this question several different ways in my own mind. It’s not like me to be sensitive, but I feel maybe Houston deserves it.

“Drunk driver,” he says. This time his words come fast, and there’s an edge, an angry edge. I’ve gotten the sense that Houston’s wife has been gone for a while, but the way he sounds right now…his voice reacting as if it happened yesterday. I think of all the times Carson drove home from parties drunk. And I think of the times I let him drive me home that way too. I’m struck with a sudden sense of fortune.

“Leah was a month old, and Beth and I had just gotten married. Getting married—having a real family—that was something important to her. Her dad pretty much disowned her when he found out she was pregnant—not that he’d been much of a part of her life in the first place,” he says, his anger still obvious. He slowly lets it go as he continues, as his setting shifts to his world, away from Bethany’s. “We were living with my parents. My mom and dad were supportive, and my mom always wanted more kids, so I think in some weird way, she loved having a full house. I don’t even think she minded helping with Leah those first few weeks.”