CHAPTER 50
Nastya
It’s a little after two o’clock in the morning. It’s late, but it feels later; like this whole night has been so epic that nothing in the world is recognizable anymore.
Drew left fifteen minutes ago, saying he’d be back in a half-hour. He didn’t mention where he was going, but he didn’t need to.
We both knew where he would end up.
I showered, and I’m trying to keep ice on my face, but really, I just want to go to bed, even if I won’t sleep. I wonder if there are words I can write that will erase the images burned into my brain tonight; that will keep them from coming to find me. Not the ones with Kevin Leonard. The ones with Josh and that girl. The pictures I didn’t even see. Pictures that are working like acid now, burning their way through every good memory and leaving only one behind. I already threw up once tonight at the thought of it, but as soon as the image invades my mind, my stomach convulses again and I’m back in the bathroom, hung over the toilet and retching. But nothing comes up. There isn’t anything left in me.
I flip the TV on downstairs and there’s a knock on the door so soft that I almost miss it. I gave Drew my key to let himself back in, so I know it isn’t him, but I have no idea who else would be here. I tip-toe to the door and look through the peephole to find Tierney Lowell on my front porch.
I have to take a minute to decide whether to open the door. Finally, I turn the deadbolt and face her. She’s still dressed from the party and she looks like she’s been crying. I wonder if anyone came out of this night unscathed.
“Man, your face,” she says almost immediately. “Sorry.” She winces and her discomfort at standing here with me is undeniable. “I don’t want to wake anyone up.”
I shake my head as I push the door back and motion for her to come in. We stare at each other for a minute. I know why she’s here, but I’m waiting for her to ask. I wonder how she knew where I lived.
Maybe Clay. She’s been talking to him since they bonded over the art and science of bong construction. Her eyes move around the room, but she won’t find what she’s looking for.
“Is Drew here?”
I shake my head.
“Oh.” There’s no attempt to hide her disappointment. She takes a breath and her voice is sincere. “Are you okay?” I’m going to start making people put a quarter in a jar every time they ask me that.
I don’t even know what okay means.
I nod.
“I just wanted to see if he was alright,” she explains. “I don’t think he’s ever hit anybody before.”
I don’t think so, either.
“Is he alright?” There’s no concealing the concern in her voice or the fact that she knows Drew well enough to realize that this is a valid question.
I don’t nod or shake my head or even shrug. She has to ask him for that answer. I don’t have it.
“He loves you,” she says, reconciled.
I do nod for this, because I believe he does, but not the way she thinks. I need to write a note to explain it to her because she deserves to know, but before the conversation can go any further, there’s a key in the lock and Drew walks in. He stops dead when he sees Tierney and if I could take a picture of the expression that passes between them, I would, and then I’d shove it in both of their faces so they could never deny it again.
“I should go.” She looks from Drew to me with misguided resignation before turning to leave.
I walk over to Drew and squeeze his hand, tilting my head toward the door, and he follows her out onto the porch.
***
Josh
Less than an hour after Drew leaves, I’m in her driveway. It’s three-thirty in the morning. Margot gets home at six and I wonder how Sunshine is going to explain her face. I grab my phone out of the cup holder and shove it in my pocket. I still haven’t looked at it. I don’t want to see her name on the display and all of the what-ifs lit up behind it. I can’t face the reminder that if I had heard the phone, if I had picked it up, none of this would be happening.
I pass Tierney Lowell’s car leaving as I pull in. Drew is standing on the porch.
I walk straight past him and open the door so he won’t have a chance to remind me that I’m not allowed to be here.
I don’t even have time to prepare, because as soon as I walk in, she’s there, standing in the kitchen. I’ve tried not to look at her for weeks. Seeing her, now, eviscerates me, rips me to pieces and sews me back together all wrong. I don’t know if it’s the cut by her eye or the bruise on her cheek or the expression on her face that does it, but I know that it’s done because everything inside me hurts.
“Go home,” Drew says from behind me, but I don’t turn away because I can’t stop looking at her.
“Just give us a minute.” I don’t know if I’m asking or telling.
“Not tonight, Josh,” he says. It’s not forceful, just defeated.
He’s right. I should leave. She shouldn’t have to deal with me on top of everything else. But I’m selfish. I want her to tell me she’s okay, even if I know that she’s not. I’ll take lies right now if she’ll give them to me.
“I just need one minute.” I’m talking to Drew, but I’m looking at her. My voice is soft, but my tone isn’t. I’m not going anywhere.
She nods to Drew, but he doesn’t look convinced. He figures, if he didn’t keep Kevin Leonard away from her tonight, at least he can save her from having to deal with me.
“Go home, Drew,” she says gently.
“If your mom wakes up she’s going to be pissed. I’m good. I promise.” It’s such a lie, but it’s so natural; it’s like she’s been telling it for years.
Drew still doesn’t look happy, but he concedes. He walks over and hugs her just long enough to whisper I’m sorry in her ear and then he leaves.
“Does it hurt?” It’s a stupid question, asking a girl whose face is half swollen if it hurts, but it’s the first thing I can think to ask. She lifts the ice back up to her cheek and shakes her head.
“Not really.”
We both stand there, looking at each other across the kitchen, with all the things we’ve done to hurt each other littering the path between us.
She puts the ice down and pulls a foil-covered plate off of the top of the refrigerator. She removes the foil and puts the plate of sugar cookies on the table and tells me to sit.
“I know you said you were sick of them, but…”
I did tell her I was sick of them. It was over a month ago. She made like twelve batches in a week’s time because she said she couldn’t get the right balance between chewy and crunchy and I said she was crazy because they all seemed exactly the same to me. I finally told her that until she made me something with chocolate in it, I would not be tasting another sugar cookie.
“Did you finally get it right?” I have no clue what the point of this conversation is, but she’s my tangent girl and I’ll follow her if this is where she wants to go.
“I think so.” She shrugs like it’s really no big deal, even though we both know it was driving her crazy. “You tell me.” She pushes the plate toward me. Her face is beat up. I just had sex with Leigh.
We’re sitting at her table, in the middle of the night, and she’s making me critique her cookies.
“They taste,” I say, trying not to talk with my mouth full, “exactly like the last eight hundred you made me try.”
“I know they taste the same,” she says, undeterred, “but are they too crunchy?”
I exhale slowly, putting the cookie down on the table.
“So we’re going to talk about cookies.” I nod robotically, picking up a napkin and twisting it around in my hands.
“I’m sorry I hurt you.”
“What?” The words should have come from my mouth, but they didn’t. They came from hers. I know she knows what I did tonight. All I can think is Don’t apologize to me. Please don’t apologize to me. Yesterday it would have been a blessing. Today it’s a curse.
I want to tell her I’m sorry, too, but they’re shit words and I’m a shit person.
“I’m so sorry I hurt you,” she repeats as if I need to hear it again and this time she throws the so in for good measure. Just to twist the knife.
“I’m the one who should be
apologizing.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong.”
I can’t even believe that just came out of her mouth. It’s worse than the apology.
“How can you say that? Everything that
happened
tonight
was
wrong.
Everything! Every single thing!” I don’t plan to raise my voice, but it happens, and maybe that’s a good thing, because it sets her off, too.
“I know, Josh! What do you want me to say? That my heart broke a thousand times when I walked into your house tonight? That I came home and threw up, not because of what happened at that stupid party, but because I can’t stop thinking about what you were doing with that girl?
Is that what you want to hear? Because it’s true!”
I know it’s true. I know because the pain is all over her face and in her eyes and in her voice. I know because now it’s making me as sick as she is and I can’t do anything about it. It’s done like everything else.
She gets up from the table and crosses the room and I feel every inch of the space between us. “And you know what the worst part is?” she continues. “The worst part is that I’m not even allowed to be angry about it, because it’s my fault. Is that what you need me to say? That I know it’s all my fault? That none of this would have happened in the first place if I wasn’t determined to destroy myself and everyone around me? Fine. It’s all my fault!
Everything is my fault and no one knows it more than me. We’re all in hell and I’m the one who put us here. I know and I’m sorry.”
I stare at her for a minute because it’s the first real feeling I’ve seen in her in forever. She’s been an emotional black hole for weeks, but all of a sudden, the dead, flat calm is gone and she’s as angry and frustrated and heartbroken as I am.
I stand up and take a step towards her.
She looks at me like she doesn’t know what the hell I’m doing. There’s a mixture of fear and confusion on her face and her eyes dart past me like those of a cornered animal looking for an opening to run. For just one second, she stops hiding the vulnerability that I always try to pretend doesn’t exist. I should walk away and leave it alone, but I don’t want to be in a room with her and not get to touch her one more time before everything goes back to shit again tomorrow.
“I’m going to walk over to you,” I say, taking one step at a time in her direction like I’m talking down a jumper.
“I’m going to put my arms around you and I’m going to hold you,” I pause before taking the last step, “and you’re going to let me.”
“Why?” she asks, like it’s the most insane thing she’s ever heard and maybe, after tonight, it is.
“Because I need to.”
I’m in front of her now and she doesn’t back away, so I do what I said I would and put my arms around her. I feel her body soften, just slightly, against mine, but she doesn’t move her arms or reciprocate. She doesn’t forgive me and that’s okay. I don’t know if I forgive her, either.
When she does move, it’s to bring her hand up to my chest and gently push me away. I lift my hand to her face, wishing I could erase the bruises and the hurt; but I stop just short of letting my fingers graze her skin and drop my hand back to my side.
I wish she’d just let it go here, let me walk away without another word, but it never happens that way.
“I’d take it back if I could. I never should have hurt you.” She keeps going back to that, and it’s useless, because we can’t undo anything at this point.
“I never should have let you,” I say.
It’s true and I knew it from the beginning. I shouldn’t have let her hurt me. I should never have cared enough to make that possible. I even did what she wanted. I never told her that I loved her; but it didn’t change anything. I loved her every day and I’m the one who suffered for it.
“I had to leave.” There’s pleading in her voice, begging me to understand something I don’t. “I can’t tell you the truth and I know you want it. I would end up disappointing you, being the thing that’s never enough, just like with everyone else.”
“Leaving is the only thing you could have done to disappoint me.” I would have lived every day without the truth, to keep her, even if it was wrong.
“It doesn’t matter now,” she says, and the regret of so much more than the past few weeks is etched on her face. She’s accepting it. We can both be as sorry as we want, but too much has happened that we can’t take back. Some things you just have to learn to live with. We both learned that lesson a long time ago.
“I’m going to beat the shit out of Kevin Leonard,” I say finally, because I can do that one thing, even if it isn’t nearly enough.
“Don’t.” There’s determination in her voice.
“Why shouldn’t I?”
“It’s not a good enough reason.”
“You are the only good reason.” I may not be allowed to love her, but that doesn’t mean I’ll let anyone hurt her.
Maybe that’s ironic since I’m the one who hurt her the most tonight.
“I don’t want to be the reason for that.
It’s over and I want to forget it.”
“How are you taking this so lightly?
He could have raped you and you act like nothing happened.”
“Nothing did happen. Believe me, I’ve seen worse.” She shrugs and it’s maddening.
“Worse than being raped?” I look at her incredulously.
“Worse than almost being raped.” I drag my hand down my face in frustration.
“Enough with the cryptic, Sunshine!
I’m sick of it. I’m sick of this!” I’m losing it all over again. I’ve done more yelling since I’ve known this girl than I have in the past ten years and I can’t seem to stop.
“You say things like that all the time that make absolutely no sense! Like you want me to know something, but you won’t tell me, so I’m just supposed to pick up random clues and figure it out. Guess what? I can’t. I can’t figure it out. I can’t fi gur e you out and I’m getting sick of trying.”
I guess we didn’t have to wait until tomorrow for everything to go to shit again. It’s happening right now.
My hands are in my hair and I can’t stop walking around the room because I have so much pent-up aggression and I don’t know where to put it. Now I understand the running. I think I could run out of this room right now and not stop for miles. I take a breath and start again because I can’t seem to stop talking, either.
“All I know is that something happened, or more likely, someone happened who f*cked up your hand and did a job on the rest of you in the process, and I can’t fix it.”
“No one asked you to.” The words are fierce and bitter. Her eyes turn almost feral. “Everyone wants to fix me. My parents want to fix me. My brother wants to fix me. My therapists want to fix me.
You’re supposed to be the person who doesn’t want to fix me.”
We’re both exasperated now. We’re both angry, and for some reason, it’s a relief. It makes me feel like, maybe, I’m not the only one in the room.
“I don’t want to fix you. I want to fix this.” I throw my arms out but I don’t even know what I’m referring to. Her? Me? The whole f*cked-up world?
“What’s the difference?”
What is the difference? I don’t know.
Maybe there isn’t one. Maybe I do want to fix her. If I do, is that wrong? Does that make me the a*shole in this scenario?
“I don’t know,” I answer, because it’s the only thing I do know. I sit back down at the table and drop my head into my hands.
The emotions in this room are bouncing all over the place and I can’t keep up. It’s after four o’clock in the morning and I feel like my entire body has been wrung out and I’m just done.
“I thought there was something wrong with you, too.” Her voice is calmer and she sounds apologetic, like she thinks she’s insulting me. But she isn’t. “I thought you wouldn’t care that I was wrong, because you just understood what it was like. I figured if I didn’t ask you, you wouldn’t ask me, and we could just pretend not to care what happened before. I guess it doesn’t work that way.” She half shrugs like she’s known this all along, but she’s finally coming to terms with it. “I just wanted one person who would look at me and not want to see someone else.”
“Who looks at you like that?” I lift my head up and lower my hands so I can see her face, and I can’t imagine anyone looking at this girl and wanting to see anything but her.
“Everyone who loves me.”
“Who is it they want to see?
“A dead girl.”