Tess sighs. “Yeah, I’m fine,” she says. “I just feel so stupid.” She leans across the puddle-filled counter and peers at herself in the cloudy mirror, wiping away the mascara that’s migrated down underneath her lash line. “At least I didn’t sleep with him, I guess.”
“You didn’t?” I blurt immediately, then cringe. God, how desperate do I sound right now? How gross is it that I care so much if they did or they didn’t? Patrick and I never had sex—in a lot of ways our relationship reset when we broke up and got back together, and we were only just headed in that direction again when the article came out at the end of junior year. I was terrified I’d give myself away somehow, that if we did it he’d be able to tell I’d done it before. To his credit, Patrick never pushed. “I mean, not that it’s any of my business, sorry.”
“Uh-uh.” Tess seems unbothered, both by my question and by the fact that we’re having this conversation in full earshot of, like, six other women. Possibly she’s a little drunk. “I mean, I would have, honestly, but, like . . . He didn’t want to. Which, what eighteen-year-old boy in the universe doesn’t want to have sex? I’m a pretty girl! I should have known something was weird.”
“Maybe his penis is broken,” Imogen volunteers helpfully. “Or, like, got accidentally lasered off in a childhood accident.”
Tess cracks up. “Laser dick,” she says over the sound of a toilet flushing, then heads for the open stall. “That’s definitely what the problem was.”
Imogen and Tess head to the bar, and I weave my way back to our table in the corner and people-watch for a while. I glance at the beer clock on the far wall. I’m digging through my purse for some Chapstick when I feel the buzz of my phone against the back of my hand, the screen lighting up with Patrick’s name.
Hey, is all his text message says.
Shit. I look around like I’m expecting to get caught with contraband. I can see Tess and Imogen leaning over the bar, laughing about something. It’s the closest I’ve come in a year to having friends.
Hey yourself, I key in, chewing my lip like I’m aiming to amputate it. Then: you okay?
I’m not expecting to hear back right away, that’s for certain. I remember how long it took him to respond after the camping trip, how far we are from the perpetual back-and-forth of a few years ago, our lives one long conversation. It’s entirely possible he won’t text me back at all. Which is why I’m so surprised when my bag buzzes again less than ten seconds later:
fine, Patrick says, just the one short syllable. Then, a few beats after that: you doing anything right now?
I take a deep breath, watching Tess and Imogen make their way back through the crowd in my direction, both of them giggling. Imogen waves like we haven’t seen each other in years.
I glance down at my phone again, back up at the two of them.
no, I key in quickly. What’s up?
Day 53
“I thought you said you weren’t doing anything,” Patrick says when I show up at his side door after midnight; I had a cab drop me off at the end of the driveway, told Imogen and Tess I had cramps. There’s an empty spot in the muddy driveway where Gabe’s Volvo usually sits, tire tracks from where he pulled out to head to Boston. I take a breath and look away, ask myself for the forty-fifth time in the last forty-five minutes what exactly I think I’m doing. “That outfit doesn’t look like nothing.”
“Well,” I tell him, tugging self-consciously at Imogen’s clingy black skirt, which is way tighter on me than it would be on her. I shrug inside my slinky gray tank top. “I’m a liar.”
“That’s a fact,” Patrick says, but there’s no real heat behind it. Then, a moment later, and so quietly I almost don’t even hear: “You look nice.”
“Yeah?” That surprises me, how he’s got these compliments for me all of a sudden, pulling them out of his back pocket like shiny new coins. When I look up his gaze is dark, almost hungry. Something liquid, an egg maybe, feels like it’s cracking open inside my chest. I swallow. “You do, too,” I say finally.
Patrick makes a face. “Good try,” he says, snorting a little. We’re still standing in the Donnellys’ doorway, half in the house and half out of it. Everything about us feels like an in-between. I shouldn’t have come here, I want to tell him, or maybe: I’m so glad you texted me tonight.
“Why’d you break up with Tess?” is what comes out.
Patrick shakes his head, this face like that’s the obvious question and an impossible one, like if I have to ask there’s no way for me to possibly ever know. “Don’t,” is all he says.
“Why not?” I can feel the night pressing in behind me, hear the faint buzz of mosquitoes and the far-off hoot of an owl. “I was just with her, she’s—”
“You were with her?” Patrick asks, eyes widening. “Why?”
“Because we’re friends!” I retort, crossing my arms over my chest. “I know you hate me and everything, but I’m still allowed to have friends.” Not that I deserve them, a sharp voice in my head reminds me. Look where I am right now.
“You know I—” Patrick looks at me like I’m deranged. “Is that what you think? You think I hate you? Why the hell am I calling you to come over in the middle of the night, why am I breaking up with my fucking girlfriend if I hate you, Mols?”
I start, an electrical shock jolting through me. Did he just say—? “Because—” I break off, try again. Suddenly, his face is so, so close. “Because—”
That’s when Patrick kisses me.
It’s clumsy at first, his face butting at mine so hard and unexpected he almost knocks me backward. I taste blood and can’t tell if it’s his or it’s mine. It used to be that Patrick was kind of shy when he kissed me, all bashful and hesitant like he was scared he was going to break me if pushed even a hair too hard.