“No.”
“Fine. Are you going to tell me what you were doing f**king Leigh?” His tone is as cold as his expression.
“I’ve been f**king Leigh for years.” It’s true. It’s like second nature. Technically, nothing I did tonight was wrong. I didn’t take advantage of anyone. I didn’t cheat. I didn’t leave Nastya alone with a drunk ass**le. I can make all of the arguments that I want, to Drew, to Sunshine, to myself, but knowing how “not wrong” I was doesn’t make me feel like any less of a prick.
I can even tell you why I did it. For the same reason I did it the first time and every time after. It was comforting and it made me feel normal. Leigh showed up, walked in and said hi, and like always, it was the easiest, most natural thing in the world. She sat on the couch and we watched television until she leaned over and kissed me and I let her because there wasn’t a price to be paid or a choice to be made anymore. Sunshine had made that choice for me.
Leigh picked up my hand and led me back to my room and I went. For one night, I just wanted to pretend that there wasn’t anyone to miss.
“You don’t love her.” It’s an accusation, and if there was any humor at all in this situation, I would laugh, because I have no idea how Drew Leighton says this with a straight face. I want to hit him for it, and for so many other things, but there’s a part of me that knows that I just don’t need one more thing to be pissed at myself about tonight. Maybe I should hit him just to get him to hit me back, because that’s what I deserve. I want him to hit me. I want him to beat my face in so I don’t have to feel anything but that pain. The other is so much worse.
I walk to the opposite side of the room to put some distance between us, but he follows, sinking down onto the couch and sighing like this has been the longest night of his life. And I know that it probably has been, but I don’t have any sympathy to offer him.
“This isn’t really news, Drew. Why don’t you just say whatever bullshit you want to say to me and then get out?”
“You love her.”
“I think we just established that I don’t.”
“Not Leigh. Nastya. You love Nastya.” I hate that word and it sounds all wrong coming from Drew’s mouth. Drew, who makes a career of mocking it, of destroying girls for hoping for it. Drew, who has no right to judge me, but is sitting on my couch, with his feet on my coffee table, doing just that. Yet I don’t deny what he says. I should deny it; deny it all night until I’ve convinced even myself that it could not possibly be true. That I couldn’t really be so self-destructive as to fall in love with any girl, much less a girl who is cracked in a thousand places and who will leave me as soon as she’s put back together again. But I guess the ability to think rationally has left me because I don’t deny it at all. It’s late. I’m tired and scared and hurt and so incredibly sorry and I just can’t think straight anymore tonight.
“She doesn’t know that,” I say finally, looking at Drew as if this might be an excuse for my behavior. As if it could make any of this less horrible. The words taste like the regret that is filling me up and spilling out of my mouth.
“Josh,” he says, and when he does, all of the irreverence and sarcasm, all of the judgment and condescension are gone from his voice and I hate him already for what he is going to say next.
“Everybody knows that.”
CHAPTER 50
Nastya
It’s a little after two o’clock in the morning. It’s late, but it feels later; like this whole night has been so epic that nothing in the world is recognizable anymore. Drew left fifteen minutes ago, saying he’d be back in a half-hour. He didn’t mention where he was going, but he didn’t need to. We both knew where he would end up.
I showered, and I’m trying to keep ice on my face, but really, I just want to go to bed, even if I won’t sleep. I wonder if there are words I can write that will erase the images burned into my brain tonight; that will keep them from coming to find me. Not the ones with Kevin Leonard. The ones with Josh and that girl. The pictures I didn’t even see. Pictures that are working like acid now, burning their way through every good memory and leaving only one behind. I already threw up once tonight at the thought of it, but as soon as the image invades my mind, my stomach convulses again and I’m back in the bathroom, hung over the toilet and retching. But nothing comes up. There isn’t anything left in me.
I flip the TV on downstairs and there’s a knock on the door so soft that I almost miss it. I gave Drew my key to let himself back in, so I know it isn’t him, but I have no idea who else would be here. I tip-toe to the door and look through the peephole to find Tierney Lowell on my front porch.
I have to take a minute to decide whether to open the door. Finally, I turn the deadbolt and face her. She’s still dressed from the party and she looks like she’s been crying. I wonder if anyone came out of this night unscathed.
“Man, your face,” she says almost immediately. “Sorry.” She winces and her discomfort at standing here with me is undeniable. “I don’t want to wake anyone up.”
I shake my head as I push the door back and motion for her to come in. We stare at each other for a minute. I know why she’s here, but I’m waiting for her to ask. I wonder how she knew where I lived. Maybe Clay. She’s been talking to him since they bonded over the art and science of bong construction. Her eyes move around the room, but she won’t find what she’s looking for.
“Is Drew here?”
I shake my head.
“Oh.” There’s no attempt to hide her disappointment. She takes a breath and her voice is sincere. “Are you okay?”
I’m going to start making people put a quarter in a jar every time they ask me that. I don’t even know what okay means.
I nod.
“I just wanted to see if he was alright,” she explains. “I don’t think he’s ever hit anybody before.”
I don’t think so, either.
“Is he alright?” There’s no concealing the concern in her voice or the fact that she knows Drew well enough to realize that this is a valid question.
I don’t nod or shake my head or even shrug. She has to ask him for that answer. I don’t have it.
“He loves you,” she says, reconciled.
I do nod for this, because I believe he does, but not the way she thinks. I need to write a note to explain it to her because she deserves to know, but before the conversation can go any further, there’s a key in the lock and Drew walks in. He stops dead when he sees Tierney and if I could take a picture of the expression that passes between them, I would, and then I’d shove it in both of their faces so they could never deny it again.
“I should go.” She looks from Drew to me with misguided resignation before turning to leave.
I walk over to Drew and squeeze his hand, tilting my head toward the door, and he follows her out onto the porch.
Josh
Less than an hour after Drew leaves, I’m in her driveway. It’s three-thirty in the morning. Margot gets home at six and I wonder how Sunshine is going to explain her face. I grab my phone out of the cup holder and shove it in my pocket. I still haven’t looked at it. I don’t want to see her name on the display and all of the what-ifs lit up behind it. I can’t face the reminder that if I had heard the phone, if I had picked it up, none of this would be happening.
I pass Tierney Lowell’s car leaving as I pull in. Drew is standing on the porch. I walk straight past him and open the door so he won’t have a chance to remind me that I’m not allowed to be here.
I don’t even have time to prepare, because as soon as I walk in, she’s there, standing in the kitchen. I’ve tried not to look at her for weeks. Seeing her, now, eviscerates me, rips me to pieces and sews me back together all wrong. I don’t know if it’s the cut by her eye or the bruise on her cheek or the expression on her face that does it, but I know that it’s done because everything inside me hurts.
“Go home,” Drew says from behind me, but I don’t turn away because I can’t stop looking at her.
“Just give us a minute.” I don’t know if I’m asking or telling.
“Not tonight, Josh,” he says. It’s not forceful, just defeated.
He’s right. I should leave. She shouldn’t have to deal with me on top of everything else. But I’m selfish. I want her to tell me she’s okay, even if I know that she’s not. I’ll take lies right now if she’ll give them to me.
“I just need one minute.” I’m talking to Drew, but I’m looking at her. My voice is soft, but my tone isn’t. I’m not going anywhere.
She nods to Drew, but he doesn’t look convinced. He figures, if he didn’t keep Kevin Leonard away from her tonight, at least he can save her from having to deal with me.
“Go home, Drew,” she says gently. “If your mom wakes up she’s going to be pissed. I’m good. I promise.” It’s such a lie, but it’s so natural; it’s like she’s been telling it for years.
Drew still doesn’t look happy, but he concedes. He walks over and hugs her just long enough to whisper I’m sorry in her ear and then he leaves.
“Does it hurt?” It’s a stupid question, asking a girl whose face is half swollen if it hurts, but it’s the first thing I can think to ask. She lifts the ice back up to her cheek and shakes her head.
“Not really.”
We both stand there, looking at each other across the kitchen, with all the things we’ve done to hurt each other littering the path between us.
She puts the ice down and pulls a foil-covered plate off of the top of the refrigerator. She removes the foil and puts the plate of sugar cookies on the table and tells me to sit.
“I know you said you were sick of them, but…”
I did tell her I was sick of them. It was over a month ago. She made like twelve batches in a week’s time because she said she couldn’t get the right balance between chewy and crunchy and I said she was crazy because they all seemed exactly the same to me. I finally told her that until she made me something with chocolate in it, I would not be tasting another sugar cookie.
“Did you finally get it right?” I have no clue what the point of this conversation is, but she’s my tangent girl and I’ll follow her if this is where she wants to go.
“I think so.” She shrugs like it’s really no big deal, even though we both know it was driving her crazy. “You tell me.”
She pushes the plate toward me. Her face is beat up. I just had sex with Leigh. We’re sitting at her table, in the middle of the night, and she’s making me critique her cookies.
“They taste,” I say, trying not to talk with my mouth full, “exactly like the last eight hundred you made me try.”
“I know they taste the same,” she says, undeterred, “but are they too crunchy?”
I exhale slowly, putting the cookie down on the table.
“So we’re going to talk about cookies.” I nod robotically, picking up a napkin and twisting it around in my hands.
“I’m sorry I hurt you.”
“What?” The words should have come from my mouth, but they didn’t. They came from hers. I know she knows what I did tonight. All I can think is Don’t apologize to me. Please don’t apologize to me. Yesterday it would have been a blessing. Today it’s a curse.
I want to tell her I’m sorry, too, but they’re shit words and I’m a shit person.
“I’m so sorry I hurt you,” she repeats as if I need to hear it again and this time she throws the so in for good measure. Just to twist the knife.
“I’m the one who should be apologizing.”