It was enough to turn my stomach.
My mind kept seeing that filthy waif hanging all over him, contaminating him with her skank spores. Even worse was the fact that Coop assumed I pushed to leave the party early because I wanted to be alone with him, leading to a very distracted makeout session in the back seat of his car. And no, the hypocrisy was not lost on me that I was unable to put my heart into making out with Coop while my mind was consumed with thoughts of Trip hooking up with someone else. But I knew I was only dating Cooper because I’d cornered myself into it, not because I had any desire to actually be with him, selfish witch that I was. Besides, old habits die hard. Being with Coop was easy. It was familiar and constant and held no surprises. Trip, on the other hand, was maintaining his impulsiveness. He seemed to genuinely be enjoying all the attention he was receiving from his multitude of clingers and the thought ate away at me that he might actually fall in love with one of them.
Lisa informed me the next day that Pickford had sent the skank home in a cab once he realized that Trip was about to pass out-right in the middle of the entire party. Apparently, he spent the night on the Redys’ couch but snuck out early the next morning. Pickford woke up to a twenty tacked to his bedroom door, where Trip had simply scribbled “Thanks. Sorry.” across the front of the bill.
There was a huge part of me that was relieved to hear that nothing happened between him and the skank, but there was this irritating other part of me that wanted nothing more than to pick up the phone and call him. I hated the idea that he was headed down this self-destructive path and wanted to stop him before the Keith Richards impersonation went too far, mostly because there was a tiny little fragment of my brain-a miniscule, infinitesimal speck-that felt the need to take responsibility for kicking him down that road in the first place.
I managed to resist the urge, however, and by the time Christmas break rolled around, it had become much easier to pretend he didn’t even exist.
Or maybe it was just getting easier to lie to myself.
Chapter 20
MISERY
The First Snow is always fun-especially if it lands on a school day-and you can either bundle up and go outside to goof around or curl up next to the fireplace with a mug of hot chocolate and a good book. The snow gets old pretty fast, however, especially when your dad forgets to get the snowblower fixed and has to recruit his kids to help him shovel out the car at six in the morning.
But most of winter is just... grey. Grey and wet and boring. After the excitement of the holidays is over, there’s nothing left to do but watch your Christmas tree die as you stare at the walls in your house every night. Then there are the months of hibernation, no parties to go to because nobody bothers to throw one. It’s not worth the risk of driving icy roads at night and everyone has Seasonal Affective Disorder anyway, so it’s not as though my calendar was filled with an excess of socializing opportunities.
In other words, I hardly had to put any effort into avoiding Trip over the winter.
Of course I had to see him at school every day, but pretending he wasn’t there had become almost as habitual as breathing by then. Hockey kept him pretty busy, so he wasn’t able to make too many appearances on the rare occasions when there actually was a party or something going on, and I wasn’t sure if his absence made the situation easier or harder to deal with. At least when we were ignoring each other, we’d have to be in the same room in order to do so, consciously aware of the other person at every moment. In a sick way, it allowed me to still think him a part of my life, even though the relationship-or lack thereof-was in tatters.
When he wasn’t around at all, I couldn’t keep tabs on him.
I knew I shouldn’t have cared and scolded myself for being pathetic all over again. But at least this version of pathetic was a far cry from the old one, as I was the only one to be aware of it. The tradeoff being that at least my misery was known only to me this time.