He looked so broken, so legitimately hurt, but I was determined not to get sucked in. All I wanted was to tear into him, make him explain what he put me through over the weekend, lay everything out on the table. But what would be the point? The only thing I could hope to accomplish would be to force Trip to say out loud what I’d already learned to be true: If I was in love with him, that was my problem to deal with. I didn’t think I could bear hearing him say outright that he didn’t feel the same.
I guess he took my silence for stubbornness, because the next thing I knew, he pushed off the wall and threw his hands up in the air. “Fine. You want to play games, go right ahead. I don’t have time for this. You want to talk, you know how to find me.” At that, he stormed off, throwing a punch at a random locker mid-stride on his way down the hall.
Chapter 19
DISTURBED
I’d spent the next few days after our big blowout retreating away from Trip. Not that I had to work very hard to do so; He had pretty much made it a point to avoid me, too.
The tension between he and I during that time was a tangible thing; a thick, heavy, syrupy smog that hung like a wet wool blanket in the air between us. But soon enough, we fell into a new normal; keeping things civil, simply pretending that our prior relationship never existed. It panged my heart sometimes, not having him there to joke around with or talk to, but I knew I needed to suffer the detox first before I could even begin to look forward to any sort of rehab later.
English Lit class-previously the highlight of my day-became so awkward and stressful that I would spend more of my class time concentrating on not thinking of the person sitting behind me than paying attention to the lessons being disseminated.
Then there was my job. As excruciating as it would have been to face work had he been there, it was even worse to face it while he wasn’t. The job went back to being the same sucky chore that it was the first week I started. Without Trip, it ceased to be fun anymore, regardless of the fact that we were hardly speaking. Add to that the fact that Martin had hired some thirty-year-old degenerate as Trip’s replacement who spent more time getting high in the parking lot and trying to sneak a peek down my blouse than actually doing any work. Thankfully, I only had to deal with Dirtbag Ray on Mondays and Thursdays.
The weekends were their own train wreck.
Lisa and Pickford were practically inseparable and therefore MIA at that point, leaving me to hit every party alone, or worse yet, with Coop, the poor guy roped unknowingly into my drama. I supposed I was only reaping what I had sown, but it was torture not only to have to look at a misled Coop every day, but to see Trip stroll through the door with a new girl on his arm every night. A circumstance made more agonizing by the revelation that he’d obviously not been exclusive with Tess Valletti for quite some time.
The first Friday, it was Barbara Vlajnik, whose reputation was less than pristine. I watched her sidle up against him throughout the evening at Rymer’s, but was able to take some perverted sense of pride out of the fact that he barely even looked in her direction all night.
But then just twenty-four hours later, he showed up at The Barrens with Margie Caputo, where he proceeded to down about three hundred beers before nuzzling his lips against her neck and trying to shove his hand up the front of her sweater in full view of everyone sitting around the fire. Thankfully, Margie hadn’t been so receptive to his exhibitionism, but we did all hear her try to talk him into the woods for a more private session instead. Soon after, they got up to take their leave-in Margie’s car, however-where I heard later that she’d brought him home only to watch as he promptly passed out two steps inside the foyer.
The following weekend, Pickford and Penelope had a party at their house. Pick was going through a bit of a defiant phase toward his father and what better way to rebel than by defiling the old man’s condo?
Trip came staggering through the door of The Redys’ with a bottle of Jaegermeister in one hand and some skank from Norman Valley in the other. Lord only knows where he picked that one up. She was even more drunk than he was, taking digs at any girl within earshot about being “nuns in training” while she hung all over Trip, downing shots of booze straight from the bottle.
When I couldn’t watch another minute, I asked Coop to drive me home. On the way out the door, Trip shouted at my back in the most awful voice, “Have a good time, you two!” Then out of nowhere, the skank decided to chime in by saying, “Hell knows we sure will!” before drooping a bony arm around Trip’s neck and adding, “Right, baby?”
They both enjoyed a good laugh at that.