16.
Sydney
Someone is removing my clothes. Who in the hell is removing my clothes?
I begin slapping away the hand that’s pulling my shorts down past my knees. I try to remember where I am, why I’m here, and how I got here.
Party.
Cake.
Pine-Sol.
Spilling Pine-Sol on my dress.
Changing.
Drinking more Pine-Sol.
Lots of Pine-Sol.
Watching Ridge love Maggie.
God, he loves her so much. I saw it in the way he watches her from across the room. I saw it in the way he touches her. In the way he communicates with her.
I can still smell the alcohol. I can still taste it as I slide my tongue over my lips.
I danced . . .
I drank more Pine-Sol . . .
Oh! The drinking game. I invented my own solitary drinking game, where every time I saw how much Ridge loved Maggie, I downed a shot. Unfortunately, that made for a hell of a lot of shots.
Who in the hell is pulling off my shorts?
I try to open my eyes, but I can’t tell if it’s working. They feel open, but it’s still dark inside my head.
Oh, my God. I’m drunk, and someone is undressing me.
I’m about to be raped!
I start kicking at the hands that are yanking the shorts from my feet.
“Sydney!” a girl yells. “Stop!” She’s laughing. I focus for a few seconds and can tell the voice belongs to Maggie.
“Maggie?”
She comes closer, and a soft hand brushes back my hair as the bed dips down next to me. I squeeze my eyes shut, then force them wide open several times, until I finally begin to adjust to the dark. She puts her hands on my shirt and attempts to unbutton it.
Why in the hell is she still taking off my clothes?
Oh, my God! Maggie wants to rape me!
I slap at her hand, and she grips my wrist. “Sydney!” She laughs. “You’re covered in puke. I’m trying to help you.”
Puke? Covered in it?
That explains the massive headache. But . . . it doesn’t explain why I’m laughing. Why am I laughing? Am I still drunk? “What time is it?” I ask her.
“I don’t know. Tonight, I think. Like, midnight?”
“That’s it?”
She nods, then starts laughing with me. “You threw up on Brennan.”
Brennan? I met Brennan?
It looks as if her eyes are trying hard to focus on my face. “Can I tell you a secret?” she says.
I nod. “Okay, but I probably won’t remember it, because I think I’m still drunk.”
She smiles and leans forward. She’s so pretty. Maggie is really, really pretty. “I can’t stand Bridgette,” she says quietly.
I laugh.
Maggie starts laughing again, too, and tries to pull my shirt off, but she’s laughing too hard and keeps having to pause for deep breaths.
“Are you drunk, too?” I ask her.
She inhales again, attempting to pause her laughter, and then she exhales. “So drunk. I thought I took your shirt off already, but your shirt keeps coming back on, and I don’t know how many shirts you have, but”—she lifts the edge of my shirt sleeve, which is still on my arm, and looks at it in confusion—“oh, my God, I really thought I took it off already, and here it is again.”
I lift myself up on the bed, then help her pull my shirt off. “Why am I already in bed if it’s only midnight?”
She shrugs. “I have no idea what you just said.”
She’s funny. I reach to the nightstand and turn on the lamp. Maggie scoots off the bed and lowers herself to the floor. She lies flat on her stomach with a sigh and begins moving her arms, making snow angels against the carpet.
“I don’t want to go to bed yet,” I tell her.
She flips over onto her back and looks up at me. “Then don’t. I told Ridge to let you stay up and play because we were having so much fun, but you threw up in Brennan’s lap, so he made you go to bed.” She sits up. “Let’s go play some more. I want more cake.” She pushes up on her hands and stands, then reaches for my hands and pulls me off the bed.
I look down at myself. “But you took off my clothes,” I say, pouting.
She looks at my bra and underwear. “Where’d you get that bra? It’s so cute.”
“JCPenney.”
“Oh. Ridge likes the kind that clasp in the front, but yours is really cute. I want one.”
“You should get one,” I say, smiling. “We could be bra twins.”
She pulls me toward the door. “Let’s go see if Ridge likes it. I want him to buy me one.”
I smile. I hope he likes it. “Okay.”
Maggie opens the door to my room and pulls me behind her into the living room. “Ridge!” she yells. I laugh, because I don’t know why she’s yelling for him. He can’t hear her.
“Hey, Warren,” I say, grinning when I see him on the couch. “Happy Birthday.” Bridgette is seated next to him, glaring at me. She’s looking me up and down, probably jealous because my bra really is cute.
Warren shakes his head and laughs. “That’s only the fiftieth time you’ve said that tonight, although it’s a little more fitting now that you’re practically in your birthday suit.”
Ridge is sitting on the other side of Bridgette. He’s shaking his head like Warren. “Maggie wants to know if you like my bra,” I say to Ridge. I pull on Maggie’s hand so she’ll turn around and sign to him.
“It’s a very nice bra,” Ridge says, staring at it with a cocked eyebrow.
I smile. Then I frown.
Did he just . . .? I yank my hand out of Maggie’s and turn back toward Ridge. “Did you just speak?”
He laughs. “Did you not just ask me a question?”
I glare at him hard, especially when Warren bursts out into a fit of laughter.
Oh.
My.
God.
He’s not deaf?
This whole time, he’s been lying to me? It’s been a prank?
I instantly want to strangle him. Both of them. Tears sting at my eyes, and the second I lunge forward, a strong hand grips my wrist and yanks my arm back. I turn and look up at . . . Ridge?
I turn back to the couch and look at . . . Ridge?
Warren is doubled over Bridgette’s lap now, he’s laughing so hard. Ridge Number 1 is laughing now, too. His whole face doesn’t laugh when he laughs, like Ridge Number 2’s face does.
And his hair is shorter than Ridge Number 2’s hair. And darker.
Ridge Number 2 has his arm wrapped around my waist, and he’s picking me up.
Now I’m upside down.
Not good for my stomach.
My face is toward his back, and my stomach is slumped over his shoulder as he carries me back toward my bedroom. I look at Warren and the guy I now realize is Brennan, and then I squeeze my eyes shut, because I think I’m about to throw up all over Ridge Number 2.
I’m being seated on something cold. A floor.
As soon as my mind comprehends where he’s put me, my hands reach forward until I grasp the toilet, and then it suddenly feels as if I’ve eaten Italian food all over again. He holds my hair back while the toilet fills with Pine-Sol.
I wish it really were Pine-Sol. I wouldn’t have to clean it.
“Don’t you love her bra?” Maggie says from behind me, giggling. “I know it’s a back clasp, but look at how cute the straps are!”
I feel a hand on one of my bra straps. I can feel Ridge pull her hand away. His arm moves, and I know he’s signing something.
Maggie huffs. “I don’t want to go to bed yet.”
He signs something else, and then she sighs and walks into his bedroom.
When I’m finished, Ridge wipes my face with a rag. I allow my back to fall against the wall of the tub, and I look up at him.
He doesn’t look very happy. In fact, he looks a little angry.
“It’s a party, Ridge,” I mumble, and close my eyes again.
His hands are under my arms, and I’m being carried again. He makes his way into . . . his room? He lowers me onto his bed, and I roll over and open my eyes. Maggie is grinning at me from the pillow next to me.
“Yay. A sleepover,” she says with a groggy smile. She grabs my hand and holds it.
“Yay,” I say, smiling.
Covers are pulled over both of us, and I close my eyes.
Ridge
“How did you get yourself into this mess?”
Warren and I are both standing at the edge of my bed, staring down at Maggie and Sydney. They’re asleep. Sydney is spooning Maggie on the left side of the bed, because the right side of the bed is now covered in Maggie’s puke.
I sigh. “This has been the longest twelve hours of my life.”
Warren nods, then pats me heavily on the back. “Well,” he signs, “I wish I could stay and help you nurse them back to health, but I’d rather pretend I have something better to do and leave.” He turns and walks out of my room as Brennan makes his way in.
“I’m headed out,” he signs. “Got my stuff out of Sydney’s room.”
I nod and watch as his eyes fall on Sydney and Maggie.
“I wish I could say it was fun getting to know Sydney, but I have a feeling I didn’t even meet the real Sydney.”
I laugh. “Believe me, you didn’t. Maybe next time.”
He waves and walks out of my bedroom.
I turn and look at them, at both halves of my heart, cuddled tightly together in a bed of irony.
? ? ?
I spent the entire morning assisting them as they alternated between the trash can and the bathroom. By lunch, Sydney’s vomiting had subsided, and she made her way back to her own room. It’s late afternoon now, and I’m spoon-feeding Maggie liquids and forcing her to down medicine.
“I just need sleep,” she signs. “I’ll be fine.” She rolls over and pulls the covers up to her chin.
I tuck a lock of hair behind her ear, then run my hand down to her shoulder, where I trace circles with my thumb. Her eyes are now closed, and she’s curled up in a fetal position. She looks so fragile right now, and I wish I could wrap myself around her like a cocoon and shield her from every single thing this world has left to throw at her.
I look over at the nightstand when the screen on my phone lights up. I tuck the covers more securely around Maggie and bend forward and kiss her cheek, then reach for my phone.
Sydney: Not that you haven’t done enough, but could you please tell Warren to turn the volume down on the porn?
I laugh and text Warren.
Me: Turn the porn down. It’s so loud even I can hear it.
I stand and walk into Sydney’s room to check on her. She’s flat on her back, staring up at the ceiling. I sit on the edge of her bed, reach to her face, and brush back a strand of hair from her forehead.
She tilts her face toward me and smiles, then picks up her phone. Her body is so weak she makes it look as if the phone weighs fifty pounds when she tries to text me.
I take the phone from her and shake my head, letting her know she just needs to rest. I set the phone on her nightstand and bring my attention back to her. Her head is relaxed against the pillow. Her hair is in waves, trailing down her shoulders. I run my fingers over a section of her sun-kissed hair, admiring how soft it is. She tilts her face toward my hand until her cheek is resting flush against it. I brush across her cheekbone with my thumb and watch as her eyes fall closed. The lyrics I wrote about her flash through my mind: Lines are drawn, but then they fade. For her I bend, for you I break.
What kind of man does that make me? If I can’t prevent myself from falling for another girl, do I even deserve Maggie? I refuse to answer that, because I know that if I don’t deserve Maggie, I also don’t deserve Sydney. The thought of losing either of them, much less both of them, is something I can’t bring myself to entertain. I lift my hand and trace the edge of Sydney’s face with my fingertips, running them across her hairline, down her jaw, and up her chin, until my fingers reach her lips. I slowly trace the shape of her mouth, feeling the warm waves of breath pass her lips each time I circle around them. She opens her eyes, and the familiar pool of pain floats behind them.
She lifts a hand to my fingers. She pulls them firmly to her mouth and kisses them, then pulls our hands away, bringing them to rest on her stomach.
I’m looking at our hands now. She opens a flat palm, and I do the same, and we press them together.
I don’t know a lot about the human body, but I would be willing to bet there’s a nerve that runs directly from the palm of the hand, straight to the heart.
Our fingers are outstretched until she laces them together, squeezing gently when our hands connect completely, weaving together.
It’s the first time I’ve ever held her hand.
We stare at our hands for what feels like an eternity. Every feeling and every nerve are centered in our palms, in our fingers, in our thumbs, occasionally brushing back and forth over one another.
Our hands mold together perfectly, just like the two of us.
Sydney and me.
I’m convinced that people come across others in life whose souls are completely compatible with their own. Some refer to them as soul mates. Some refer to it as true love. Some people believe their souls are compatible with more than one person, and I’m beginning to understand how true that might be. I’ve known since the moment I met Maggie years ago that our souls were compatible, and they are. That’s not even a question.
However, I also know that my soul is compatible with Sydney’s, but it’s also so much more than that. Our souls aren’t just compatible—they’re perfectly attuned. I feel everything she feels. I understand things she never even has to say. I know that what she needs is exactly what I could give her, and what she’s wishing she could give me is something I never even knew I needed.
She understands me. She respects me. She astounds me. She predicts me. She’s never once, since the second I met her, made me feel as if my inability to hear is even an inability at all.
I can also tell just by looking at her that she’s falling in love with me. It serves as further proof that I need to do what should have been done a long time ago.
I very reluctantly lean forward, reach over to her nightstand, and grab a pen. I pull my fingers from hers and open her palm to write on it: I need you to move out.
I close her fingers over her palm so she doesn’t read it while I’m watching her, and I walk away, leaving behind an entire half of my heart as I go.