The Complete Irreparable Boxed Set

Which, obviously, was not the smartest thing to say.

“Okay,” she said, after missing a beat. “Enjoy your dinner.”

“Yeah, you too.”

And then she hung up, without another word.

Ethan just sat there staring at his cell phone, unclear on what the hell had just happened.

For a minute, he just let himself absorb the fact that the phone call had actually happened, not even delving into the contents of it.

He felt oddly guilty, and he couldn’t say exactly why.

The doorknob jiggled as someone tried to open it. “Ethan?”

Of course, it was Amanda.

Weirdly, the guilt started to swell. He assured himself he hadn’t done anything wrong—anything new anyway—but it was still there, in the pit of his stomach.

“I’m coming out,” he called back. “Just finishing up some email.”

“Well, you can do that later. Dinner’s ready. Why’d you lock the door?”

He stood, and as he did he felt his cell phone vibrate again.

It was a text that time, and it was from Willow. “This is probably going to sound really weird, but did you call me a couple of minutes ago?”

Shoulders slumping forward, he closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Ethan?” Amanda asked more sharply.

“Sorry, I’ll be right out, I’m sending an email and then I’ll be right there.”

He wasn’t sure if he should tell the truth or ignore the text altogether, but he didn’t want to be mean, and he really didn’t want to lie to her, either.

So before he could consider the possible ramifications of his answer, he typed back, “Yes. Sorry.”

Half a minute passed, then she replied simply, “Don’t be.”

He went into his messages and deleted those texts, then he opened the call log and hesitated, wondering if she would call back. Maybe he should program her number into his phone under Bill or something… of course, he didn’t know anyone named Bill, and due to the nature of his work he didn’t program any numbers into his phone anyway, so that was probably a ridiculous idea.

Clearing the call log, he shoved the phone back into his pocket and told himself to stop acting like a shady asshole.

Willow had no desire to go back to school.

It wasn’t even because of what she had experienced over the summer; she had never really liked high school. It didn’t help that everyone knew some version of what had happened to her though.

Mostly because of her own actions, she didn’t have any girlfriends left to go school clothes shopping with. Briefly she thought about calling her old friend Kathy, who could always be relied on to want to go shopping, but the prospect of enduring the inevitably awkward phone call in order to achieve that was enough to put her off the idea.

So, for the first time since she was 13, she went school clothes shopping with her mom.

Frowning as she looked through the hangers of clothing Willow had handed her for the “yes pile,” Lauren said, “Honey, don’t you think these are a little…mature?”

Willow glanced over her shoulder at the bright chiffon blouse at the front of the pile. “What are you talking about? That’s totally bright and playful. I could pair it with a tight black mini-skirt and wear it out clubbing.”

“Well, sure, but…I mean, do you think this is what you really want to wear to history class?”

Rolling her eyes but smiling slightly, Willow said, “I’m not taking any history classes, Mom.”