“I—” I have absolutely no idea how to respond to that; it’s not a question. I feel like the top of my head’s been blown off. “I’m okay,” I tell her finally, because it seems like the best answer even if it’s maybe not the truest. “I made it through.”
“You did.” Connie nods. “I used to be able to give you guys Band-Aids and Popsicles,” she tells me. “That used to be all it took.”
I don’t know what to say to that, either, exactly. It feels like she’s trying to tell me something, but I don’t know what. We’re approaching my house now, the long ribbon of driveway; I probably could have made it home just as fast on my own. Connie stops at the bottom, doesn’t bring me all the way up. “Thanks for the ride,” I say.
“You’re welcome,” she says, nodding. “Take care of yourself, Molly.”
I stand there until her taillights disappear, just watching.
That’s when I remember.
*
It was before Patrick broke up with me, before anything happened with Gabe: I stopped by the Donnellys’ on the way back from my run after school and found Connie in the kitchen making breakfast for dinner. “They’re out in the barn, I think,” she said, sneaking me a piece of bacon off the paper towel. “Tell them this is almost ready, okay?”
“Sure,” I promised, but I hadn’t even made it all the way across the yard when I heard their raised voices.
“—can’t just let it alone, can you?” Patrick was asking. “Just back the fuck off, bro, I mean it.”
“It’s not really up to you, is it?” That was Gabe. I stopped outside the barn, still flushed from my run and feet sinking into the fragrant muck of the yard. What were they fighting about? It felt like things had been building between them for months now—or longer, maybe, ever since Chuck died.
“It’s not up to me?” Patrick countered, disbelieving. I couldn’t see him inside the barn, but I could picture him fine, his limbs sprawled across the sagging plaid sofa. “What is that, a challenge?”
“Call it whatever you want,” Gabe said. “She’s a big girl. She can make her own choices.”
*
I stand there at the foot of the driveway, not quite home and not quite gone. For so long I’ve felt like the one who came between Patrick and Gabe, this horrifying destroyer who busted up their otherwise perfect family. And maybe I am.
But maybe—
What is that, a challenge?
I take a deep breath and head up the driveway. I unlock the door and go inside.
*
That night I don’t sleep, I just lie there, brain raging like a hurricane: Patrick and Gabe and my own bad judgment, that quiet argument in the barn in the winter chill.
dirty slut dirty slut dirty—
Enough.
I lift my head up off the pillow, actually open my eyes in the dark: At first it sounds like Penn’s voice, or possibly my mother’s. For a moment I think it might be Imogen.
Then I realize: It’s only me.
Enough.
Enough.
Enough.
Day 93
I’m fully intending to skip the Lodge’s end-of-summer staff send-off—it’s pretty clearly suicide to show up—but Penn stops me on my way out the door specifically to make sure I’m going to be there, and I don’t have the heart (or the courage) to tell her no. The stupid party was my idea to begin with, back when this summer seemed like it might somehow work out after all. I don’t want Penn’s last memory of me to be as someone who bailed.
As soon as I turn up poolside, though, I know it was a mistake of epic proportions: Here are Tess and Mean Michaela with their feet in the water, Julia by the food table with Elizabeth Reese. I was hoping Jay might bring Imogen for a buffer—even texted her a frantic SOS—but she’s working late tonight at French Roast, which means I’m totally on my own. I swallow and square my shoulders, trying not to feel like a zebra smack-dab in the middle of a hungry pride of lions. I have as much right to be here as they do after all.
That’s what I try to tell myself, anyway.
The waitstaff is playing a noisy game of Marco Polo over in the deep end, and after I say hi to Jay and the rest of the kitchen guys I watch them for a while, trying to act like I’m really interested. I fish my phone out of my pocket, attempting to ignore an overheard snatch of conversation from Julia’s corner that night or might not include the word ho. I feel my face flush scarlet anyhow. I can feel everybody’s eyes on me like physical touches, like I’m being grabbed from all sides. Twenty minutes, I promise myself firmly, going far enough to set an alarm on my phone—like there’s any way I might miss it. You have to stay for twenty more minutes, and then you can go.
I’m pouring myself a plastic cup of Diet Coke, not because I actually want it but because at least it’s something to do, when a shove from behind jostles me forward, the sticky soda splashing all over my flip-flops: My head whips up and there’s Michaela and Julia passing by.
“Better watch where you’re going, Mols,” Julia says, her voice more artificially sweet than the cola coating my feet and ankles. Then, more quietly: “Skank.”
I whirl on her then, spine straightening, drawing myself up to my full height. All at once I’ve had it. Suddenly, I’m mad enough to spit blood. “You know what, Julia?” I snap. “Shut up.”
She looks at me, surprised, stopping in the middle of the concrete. “Excuse me?”