by KV Rose
“I don’t know.” That’s all I manage to say, staring straight ahead at the dark September sky. Tomorrow, it’ll be fall. I wish I was in fall right now. Falling right out of this fucking Jeep.
Alex is quiet a moment. Even the stereo is turned down and I do not like that at all.
“You don’t know?” he finally asks.
“Alex.” I keep my words calm and cool. “I think what we’re doing right now is fine.” I don’t look at him as I say the words, and I just hold my breath, hoping he keeps his shit together. It’s a lie. It’s not fine. I miss him.
But Eli, I need to get my shit straight where he is concerned.
Alex is quiet for so long I wonder if he even heard me, but I still keep staring straight ahead. And then he finally says, “I want you back. I clearly can’t stay away from you, Zara. I want you.”
I feel hot all over. I desperately want to roll down the window but don’t. I just keep staring straight ahead, hands on my bare thighs, beneath my cut-off black jean shorts. I’m glad I’ve got sunglasses on even though it’s nighttime, since I’m a fucking weirdo, because I do not want Alex to see my face right now.
“But what about everything that happened?” I don’t really want to remind him of the Jamal incident. I don’t want him to blow up about it again, but he’s bringing this shit up. I need to test the waters. If he could forgive me for Jamal, maybe he could forgive me for Eli. Maybe this could work between us.
His large hand rests on my thigh. I tense beneath his touch and he only presses against my skin harder.
He still doesn’t answer me, though.
“Alex,” I whisper into the quiet of the car, “do you forgive me?”
His fingers dig into my thigh. “It’s not your fault that the girl who fucked this all up is dead and the guy isn’t.”
I almost flinch at the words. At his callous tone. I mean, I didn’t like Rihanna or know her either, but the way he says it, it’s cavalier.
She fucking drowned in his pool. Maybe it’s just the fact that I’m irritated because I’m not on drugs for once, or maybe it’s just because I’m not high that it finally gets to me, his attitude about her death.
But it does.
At least Eli pretended to give a damn.
At least Eli acts like he has a heart.
I twist around to look at Alex, ripping my sunglasses off, knowing that my surge of anger is irrational, but I can’t hold it back. “How can you say that?” I ask him, thinking back to that party. That girl that I don’t know shit about. What he might have done to her. “How can you—why don’t you fucking care?”
He stares at me a second too long and we almost run off the goddamn road.
“Alex!” I scream, and he yanks the steering wheel, nearly overcorrecting. But he straightens us out as my heart pounds way too fast in my chest. He keeps his eyes on the road, his jaw clenched, and he’s not touching me anymore.
“Why the hell are you suddenly acting like you care about what happened to her? She died, like, a month ago, and you haven’t given a single fuck.”
My chest feels hot with his words, because they’re true. Because I’ve spent the past three weeks in a drug-induced haze, like I’ve spent the past six months. The past three years, if I’m being honest with myself.
Because I’ve been so caught up in my own shit I haven’t cared about Rihanna Martinson. About a girl drowning in a pool because she was so fucking drunk because she was so upset over a boy that didn’t give a damn about her.
It happens all the time, girls dying over boys. Literally, figuratively, at their hands or not. It happens far too often, and no one cares. No one cares, and I wasn’t an exception.
It could’ve been me.
Eli told me I’ve been sleepwalking. I know as much myself.
That could’ve been me in that pool.
I don’t say anything. I don’t have anything to say.
“Whatever, Za. Don’t act like you suddenly grew a fucking heart.” He snorts. “It’s just like you to fucking deflect. Rihanna kissed me on the goddamn cheek, and you sucked Jamal’s dick.”
As if I don’t remember. I mean, it wasn’t my finest moment. But it’s what we do. We hurt each other. Get pissed. Do it again. Make up. It’s a vicious cycle, but it’s our entire relationship. So maybe I took it a little too far. It’s not like the precedent hadn’t been set early on.
And besides, Alex isn’t an angel.
“What happened?” I ask him, keeping my tone even. This is why I’m really angry. Because I need to know. I deserve to know. But I stay calm, because if I start flying off the handle about this, he won’t tell me. “What happened at that party? Tell me why people are saying you were involved in some sort of rape scandal. I want to hear the whole story.”
He’s oddly quiet for a long moment.
I don’t like it.
But finally, he says, “I don’t know.”
I twist my hands in my lap, unease stealing through me. “You don’t know?”
I hear him exhale, his eyes on the road as we drive through the night. “I was really drunk. I don’t know.”
“Oh, come on. You have to give me something more than that, Alex.”
He sighs. “I went to a house party with Eli. I woke up with a black eye, busted knuckles, and a police officer in my face.” I see him shrug, keeping both hands on the wheel. “Apparently, some girl I’d never met before in my life told the cops I was trying to, like, force myself on her, or some shit.”
I hold my breath. Waiting.
“But she didn’t press charges. She didn’t—It went nowhere. She was as drunk as I was.”
I think about how big Alex is. How it would be impossible for me to fight him off. “How did she get away?” I ask, finally exhaling. Inhaling. Trying to act normal. It was a mistake. It was a crazy night.
I’ve had my share of those.
“I don’t know,” he says again.
“Who was she?”
He shrugs again. “Weren’t you listening? I said I’d never seen her before in my life. Some girl that went to Caven.” He laughs, but it’s bitter. “She doesn’t anymore though,” he adds quietly.
“Why?” I ask, my throat so dry, my question comes out rough.
“She transferred after that.”
“You really don’t know?” I ask him again, whispering in the car.
He’s quiet a long moment and then he just says, “No. Eli was there, too. You should know that. Eli was there.”
My skin crawls. “And he doesn’t know anything?”
Alex doesn’t answer me. At all. He just stares at the road, silent.
I don’t press, and I don’t know why. I think about Eli holding me under the water. About his fingers curling inside of me the night of the bad party. How he lied to Alex about me flashing him. But Eli isn’t bad, is he?
I don’t say anything, and we drive in silence for a long, long time, until Alex says, “I have to stop by my dad’s before we get to the beach house.”
I turn to glare at him, indicating I’m not fucking going inside his house, when he beats me to it. “You can wait in the car.”
I’m not sure if I should be offended by that or relieved since I definitely wasn’t going in anyway. Still, the way he says it, like he’s dismissing me, hiding me. Whatever. I’m not his anyway.
32
Alex
Dad is pissed.
“You’re back for the party? You should’ve just stayed. We need you here.” His tone is even, his voice low, but I know him. He’s staring at me from the doorway of the kitchen, leaning against it, one foot crossed over the other, hands in the pockets of his khaki pants. They’re rolled up at the ankle, showing off his year-round tan.
He’s got a white golf shirt on. This is his standard pastor uniform. Beachy, to help make him “one of the people.” In this palatial house, nearly ten thousand square feet, French doors leading out from the kitchen to the inground, Olympic-sized pool at his back, it’s u
nlikely my father remembers what it’s like to be one of the people.
Grove Community has thousands of congregants year-round, a one-off in a beach town known for its tourist seasons. My father didn’t exactly come from nothing, my grandfather had his hand in some Wall Street shit and all of that money passed down to his three sons. But this? The high ceilings, commercial stove, three full-time staff members and four-car garage? Yeah, I guess this all came down from God.
I also happen to know my parents are nearly drowning in debt and with this fucking divorce that is bound to be coming, it’s all about to get really messy. But that’s God and Preacher Cardi’s problem, not mine.
“Sorry,” I say, dropping down into a stool at the marble kitchen island. “Forgot I was here at your beck and call for your mistakes and not living my own life. My bad.”
“You know after the latest scandal, I needed you here,” he goes on, turning to track my movements, still leaning against the doorway. He runs a hand over his dark blonde hair, his blue eyes flashing.
I look like my mother’s child.
Which reminds me. “I was here most of the week,” I say through gritted teeth. “Besides, I didn’t stop by for you. How is Mom? Any more bombs hit?” I clasp my hands together on the table, refusing to look away from him. We don’t fight exactly, but this secret that’s been between us since I was fifteen has put a considerable strain on any chance of a good relationship between us both. I guess now it’s not really a secret.
I think of Mom this past week, sleeping most of the day away. I think of her wanting a divorce. She told me, a quiet confession one night.
My father doesn’t know.
Just like he doesn’t know about me and Zara.
I clench my fists on the table, thinking about her in my car right now.
She didn’t come for me. I know that much. She came for an escape. For something to do. Not me. But I didn’t want her to show up on someone else’s arm, and besides that, I didn’t want to be alone either. I need an escape, too.
And before she tries to escape my car, which would be just like her, I’ve got to make this shit quick.
Dad rolls his eyes. “This isn’t that, Alex.” He’s in fucking denial.
“There were pictures, Dad.”
He grinds his teeth together, eyes narrowing. I see lines in his tan face and his eyes are a little red, too. Nothing like Zara’s, but still. I guess he’s been trying to drown his pain, too. Soon I’ll have two parents who are addicts.
Lovely.
“Pictures of me helping a member in need?”
“You needed to take her to Saks to help her? Couldn’t have a driver do that for you? Couldn’t just make a donation—”
“Being the hands and feet of Jesus requires being the hands and feet, Alex. Not hiring paid servants to do the hard stuff for you.”
I grit my teeth. He should tell that to the hired help that scrubs his fucking toilets. But there’s no use fighting over this. Besides that, if Mom isn’t here, I’m not staying long. Unbeknownst to my father, I’ve already contacted a lawyer and he’s working with her in secret. I’m footing the bill with my own inheritance from my grandfather.
I unclasp my hands, make one into a fist that I knock softly on the island in the kitchen. “Where’s Mom?” I’m not debating the hands and fucking feet of Jesus Christ with my father.
He shrugs. “She was upset you left.”
I know that’s bullshit. She was upset that she’s still married to my dirtbag of a father. She’s miserable that she spends most of her time in a Xanax-induced fog, so she doesn’t have to deal with this shit he’s brought upon us.
Besides, she already knows my dad and his love of Jesus haven’t meant shit to me for a long time.
“Did you offer your congregation an explanation in person?” I ask him, feigning innocence. I read his stupid fucking newsletter.
“I gave them the truth.” There’s venom in that word.
“Right.” We glare at each other a second and then he seems to deflate, as he sometimes does when the guilt weighs him down.
His shoulders sag, and he approaches the island, places both palms flat atop it. “I’m telling the truth, son.”
I swallow down the lump in my throat. I hate when he does this almost as much as I hate when he lies to my and Mom’s fucking face. I like his cool, detached tone better. The hint of anger lying beneath the surface, but dormant.
Something we have in common.
“Where’s Mom?” I ask again, forcing back that emotion he stirs up. I need to get back to Zara.
“At the spa.”
Little late for the goddamn spa. I wonder where she really is, but then again, the spa is her home away from home. I don’t really blame her for wanting to hide out from Dad.
“How are you doing? With everything with Rihanna and—"
I wave away his concern. I spent most of the week with Mom, and I guess he’s trying to take advantage of her not being here by forming some sort of connection between us. Fuck that. “I’m fine. I told you, I didn’t really know her. Nice of you to come to the funeral, by the way.”
His eyes narrow. “I tried to get away but—”
“Don’t finish that.” I don’t want to hear his bullshit anymore.
He glares at me and I glare right back.
He takes a breath, hangs his head. He’s not looking at me when he says, “I would think you of all people would understand that sometimes honest men make mistakes.”
His words are a fucking cheap shot and I know he knows it. That’s why he can’t pick up his head and look at me right now. He’s a pussy.
“I never said I was an honest person.”
He looks up at that, a scowl on his weathered face. “Son, we both know—”
I stand to my feet, the chair scratching along the floor as I step back, throwing up my hands. “What do we know, Dad, hmm?” I ask him. I drop my hands, but don’t drop his gaze. “What do we really know? For all I know, I did hurt that girl. You ever fucking think about—”
“She knew you were popular, well-liked, and wealthy, Alex. Don’t you dare think that she—”
“Fuck that,” I tell my father, clenching my fists. “I didn’t know her from shit. I’d never seen her before in my life. You think she actually scoped me out, tempted me to that empty room and then cried rape so she could, what, exactly? Get paid off?”
My father raises a brow. “Well, she did, didn’t she?”
I bite my tongue, taking a deep breath in. Out. This is why I play football. For a fucking outlet for this temper. One more week and I’m back on the field.
One more fucking week.
“Are you still messing around with that girl from rehab?” my dad continues, as if he doesn’t know her name.
I freeze, holding my breath this time as I stare at my father.
“Zara?” he prompts me, pretending to remember, and asking me as if I don’t know it. As if I don’t have her body memorized. Burned in my brain. He rubs his hands together and I see his stupid gold wedding band gleam under the lights strung in the high ceiling. “Don’t you think you need to take a break from girls?” He levels me with his gaze. “They’ve caused you nothing but trouble.”
My heart is hammering in my fucking chest and I want to knock his teeth out, but I just stare at him.
“I only say that for your own good. Stay away from her.”
“Don’t talk about her,” I say through gritted teeth. “Don’t say another word about her.”
He stares at me a long moment and then, changing the subject, he asks, “How’s Eli’s season going?” I know why he’s really doing it. To spite me. To rub it in my face that I’m suspended for three games while Eli isn’t.
Three games, over Zara.
But fuck it. I don’t care. I’d do worse for her.
“Wrestling starts in October, Dad. Since Eli is the son you never had, you should know that.” I shove my hands in my pockets. “I’m gonna go.”
“Can’t,” I lie. “I’ve got a sociology test I need to study for before the party tonight.” Bullshit, and we both know it, but Dad doesn’t argue.
Instead, there’s a small smile on his haggard face. “Sociology, huh? You know that transitions well to pastoral care.”
“Dad.” I take a breath, clench my jaw a second. “We’ve been over this—”
“I know, I know.” He holds up his hands in surrender. I see his pale gold wedding band again. Every time I do, it pisses me off even more. He might as well pawn that shit off. We both know it doesn’t mean shit to him. “You don’t want to go into ministry. You’ll make a great lawyer anyway, Alex.”
“Great. Glad you get it.” I make to walk past him, but he claps a hand on my shoulder, and I freeze.
“But as good as your debate skills are, I need you to know that I’m telling the truth, son. I wouldn’t do that to your mother. Not again.”
Bullshit.
“Cool.”
What a pointless fucking stop.
33
Zara
There are cars parked along the quiet road of the island. And it is an island, we took a whole damn bridge to get here. A secluded little part of Grove Beach full of enormous beach homes built up on white stilts to protect against potential hurricanes.
The smell of the sea through the windows in Alex’s Jeep was enough to get my heart thrumming with anticipation, despite our stony ride of silence for the last half hour.
It’s been a while since I’ve been to the coast. I used to go with Mom a lot when I was a kid, but then things got weird between us and we just stopped going.
That was about the time I started using.
Maybe things didn’t get weird. I got weird.
Alex sits in silence after he pulls through the gravel drive, parking away from the grey and white house at our backs, all the outdoor lights on. It’s a three-story house that looks even bigger on the stilts. I hear the music but can’t quite make out what’s playing, and right under the carport, in the side view mirror, I see Eli’s black 370Z.