His smile vanishes. “Hey, no need for name-calling. I was trying to do you a favor.”
“Yeah? Just like kissing the high school pariah was such a favor? Listen, next time you want to perform one of your amazing grand gestures, leave me out of it.”
“Jubilee.” His voice softens. “I’m sorry. Look, I was a little shit back then. I know that. But I never meant—I didn’t know.”
His eyelashes point toward the ground and he puts on a convincing show of looking chagrined. “You were never a pariah,” he says, his voice so quiet I have to lean forward to make out what he’s saying. “Not to me.” He takes a breath. Exhales. “Madison overheard me saying that I thought you were . . . hot, or whatever. Beautiful. And she was pissed. Jealous. I think that was her idea of revenge or something. I never should have gone along with it.”
“No. You shouldn’t have.” I try to infuse force into my words but find I can only lace their outer edges with anger, like a lazy crocheter. I suddenly have no fight left. My head is swirling with all this new information and old memories, but mostly sorrow at how cruel high schoolers—and adults—can be. Or no, maybe adults are even crueler. The acts of a flippant, immature twelfth grader, I can forgive—but this? The knowledge that she’s befriended me out of some obligation, that she’s been lying to me this entire time, is somehow more painful than her original sin.
Donovan bobs his head and then leaves it hanging as if it’s connected to the ground by an invisible thread. “If there’s anything I can do for you . . .”
“I think you’ve done enough,” I say, but not unkindly. Our eyes meet, and even though he’s probably still a shit, I forgive him. I realize he just doesn’t matter. Not anymore.
ONE OF THE benefits of living alone is not having any witnesses to your most pathetic behavior. That evening, I ignore Madison’s three phone calls—two on my cell and one on my home phone (which I assume is her, though I suppose it could be a telemarketer wanting to discuss ice-cream flavors)—and have a full-on pity party. The attire? Eric’s Wharton sweatshirt, which no longer smells like him since I washed it, but I put the collar of it up to my nose anyway, inhaling the memory of him. Then I go to the kitchen and fry up a batch of French toast like I’m feeding a family of six, and take it to the couch. I turn on the TV, mushing bread into my mouth with one hand and flipping channels with the other, until I land on a documentary on the Montauk Project. I stop midchew, the aliens reminding me of Aja, and then I’m sobbing and snotting all over the place, my tears mixing with the cinnamon sugar coating my lips.
I miss him, more than I expected to. And I miss Eric, even though I hate myself for it. It’s so pitiful, so girlish, like I’m back in high school mooning over Donovan. And look what a waste that turned out to be. But mostly I hate that I feel more alone than I ever did in the nine years that I was actually alone.
I wish I had never left the house. Just let the money run out and starved to death when the food went too. They would have found me when the eviction became final—maybe I would have even made the New York Times again: “Girl Who Couldn’t Be Touched Dies Atop Obscene Number of Books.”
Depleted, I stretch out on the couch and pull Eric’s shirt collar up around my slimy nose again, taking comfort in the one small silver lining in this whole mess: at least I found out about Eric before I attempted the immunotherapy. I can’t believe I even thought about it. What if it had worked? Of course, it wouldn’t have in time for him. He’d have been long gone to New Hampshire. But in theory, if we had been able to touch, if I had felt the strength of his arms around me, the sharp stubble of his chin against my cheek, his dry, chapped lips on mine—instead of just imagined it—this would be so much worse. Wouldn’t it?
I clutch the sweatshirt material in my fist and squeeze, tighter and tighter, hoping the throbbing tension in my hand will lessen the searing pain of the illusive gaping hole in my chest.
But it doesn’t.
ON SUNDAY, I’M roused from sleep by a sharp rapping at the door. I know it’s Madison. I’ve been ignoring her calls for four days now and she came by the library yesterday while I was in the back room. I told Roger to tell her I wasn’t there.
“But I’ve just said, ‘She’s in the back room. I’ll go get her,’?” he said.
“Tell her you were wrong.”
He rolled his eyes, but he did it.
I know I need to face her sometime, and I figure now’s as good a time as any. Better than making some scene in the library anyway.
I shuffle down the stairs and fling open the door to . . .
Eric. He takes me in, starting with my wide eyes, my jaw hanging from its hinges, and then lower.
“Nice shirt,” he says.
Crap. Please don’t let me be wearing his sweatshirt again. I look down and exhale with relief. It’s my MC Hammer hoodie that I bought off eBay a few years ago when I was in an ironic mood. It says, in big block letters: CAN’T TOUCH THIS.
“What are you doing here?”
He swipes his beanie off his head and holds it in front of him, so that he’s literally standing on my porch hat in hand. I don’t know why I find this funny.
“Aja and I . . . we’re moving back to New Hampshire. Next week.”
“I know.”
“You do?”
I shrug. “I figured.”
“Listen, I just . . . can I come in? I need to say some things.”
I stare at him, knowing it will be harder if I let him in, but also that not only do I want him to come in more than anything in this world, I want him to stay. I take my shoulder off the door and open it wider. “Fine,” I say, walking into the den. He follows me, each step behind me increasing the speed of my heartbeat.
I sit in the armchair, leaving the couch as his only option. He sits. He studies the ashtray on the coffee table for a minute before he speaks. “Why are you so mad at me?”
The way he so calmly asks it bursts something wide open in me.
“You lied to me!”
His brow pops up at my outburst. “What? How?”
“You never told me! That you were leaving. I didn’t know! All these weeks—how could you not have told me?”
“I don’t know. I guess I didn’t think about it.”
I open my mouth, enraged, but he holds up a hand. “No. That’s not—I didn’t mean it like that. I guess I didn’t want to think about it.” And then he peers at me, as if he’s just now seeing me since I opened the door. “Wait—why do you even care?”
“What do you mean ‘why do I care?’?”
“Exactly what I said.” I’m a bull’s-eye in his sights now. He’s not backing down.
I fidget under his stare. “I’ve just gotten really close to . . . Aja.”
“Mm,” he says, dropping his gaze. His shoulders follow suit. “That’s what I figured.”
I stifle a scream. “You’re so . . . impossible!”