by Cameron Lund
I swish the mouthwash around my teeth, and it burns, but in a good way. It feels like it’s cleaning me from the inside out, erasing some of the humiliation of everything that just happened. I lean over and spit. Kai flushes again, sitting back down next to me on the tile floor.
“Nice job, Penelope. See? I bet you’re feeling much better now.”
“Now you smell like the dentist,” I say. The world is still spinning, and I lean forward and collapse into Kai’s shoulder. Somehow I’m crying again and I don’t know why. There’s a passing thought that it might be because Kai is being so nice to me.
I’m vaguely aware of the fact that I’m getting his T-shirt wet with my tears, but I can’t seem to pull my head away. His hand is on my back again, rubbing it in smooth circles, and as I cry into his chest he makes little comforting sounds into my ear.
“Please don’t tell anyone about this,” I say, my voice muffled.
“That I’m actually helping you?” he says. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”
“I don’t want to be Pukey Penelope anymore.”
His hand on my back stops moving. “I know.”
We’re quiet for a while, or at least it feels like a while. I’m not so sure. I feel like I could fall asleep right here on the floor, my nose pressed into his shirt. In fact, I’m not so sure I’m even awake at all. Then he speaks again.
“Listen, Penelope. There’s something I should probably say.” I make a sound to indicate that I’m listening. “I’m really sorry about that, you know? About that name. I had this stupid crush on you back then and I didn’t know how to handle it. I think I called you that because I wanted to get your attention. Classic fucking idiot kid behavior.”
I pull my head off his chest. “You have a crush on me?”
“I had a crush on you in like fifth grade,” he corrects. “Now I can’t stand you.”
“But I’m with Jordan,” I say, crashing back into his armpit.
“I know.” There are more soothing sounds in my ear. He moves his hand from my back and brings it to my arm, his fingers tracing light patterns down my skin. “You know, actually, when you and Jordan got together, Olivia and I got kinda jealous? We always thought it was supposed to be the other way around, you know? Like all those comments our friends always make. Olivia and Jordan, me and you.”
I pull back to look at him. “Me and you?” I’m vaguely aware that I’m just repeating everything he’s saying, but I can’t get myself to say new words, can’t connect my mind to my mouth.
“Me and you,” he says.
“But . . . you don’t like me,” I say, and for some reason he smiles.
“That’s what I thought. You’re so frustrating. You drive me insane most of the time. But you got together with Jordan and I just . . .” He trails off and I tense, listening. “It didn’t feel right. You know how much of my day I spend thinking about you? God, I lie awake at night thinking of ways I can get under your skin, ways I can make you laugh. You’re exhausting.”
“You stole my book.”
“What? What book?”
I shake my head and then lean forward again, nuzzling my nose into his neck. Sitting up feels like too much work and it’s nice to have a place to rest, somewhere comfy to close my eyes.
“Olivia came up with a plan,” he says. He swallows and I feel it against my cheek. “She thought if we got together when you guys did, if we flaunted it in your face, you’d get jealous or something. You guys would realize you’re all wrong together.”
“Your neck smells good,” I say in response.
“It was a dumb idea,” he says. “But Olivia is my friend and I wanted to help her. I mean, that’s what I told myself. I was just doing it to help her. People are always fake dating in the movies, right? It always works in the movies. But clearly it didn’t work in real life.”
“Fake dating?” I ask, pulling back to look at him again. “Who’s fake dating?”
He sighs, running his hand behind my head and tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. “You’re too drunk for this.”
I like the feeling of his hand in my hair. “Kai,” I say. “Keep playing with my hair.”
He does, running his fingers softly through the strands, and I feel like a little kid, like I did back when my mom used to brush my hair, when things between us were still good.
“I shouldn’t be telling you any of this anyway,” he says. “You’re with Jordan. It’s not my place to try to talk you out of that, especially when you’re drunk. Fuck, I’m an asshole.” He pulls away from me and starts to stand. “I should go. You’re doing okay now?”
“Don’t go,” I say, trying to pull him back down to me.
“Pen,” he says. “We should get back to the party.” He takes my hand and pulls me to my feet. I notice then that my shoes are gone, and one of my socks.
He leads me out of the bathroom and back into the laundry room, but once we’re almost to the door, I stop him. “I don’t want to go back out there.”
“Jordan will be wondering where you are.”
I notice then that we’re still holding hands and for some reason I don’t want to let go. I like the way his fingers feel linked with mine. “Thanks for helping me.”
“Of course.”
And then using our clasped hands I tug him closer to me. I don’t know why I do it. It’s just that his presence is warm and comforting and I want to be here with him more than anything in the world. Something about what he just told me has ignited a spark in me, and even though my brain is foggy and I already can’t remember the details, this quiet laundry room alone with Kai feels like a bubble. I don’t want it to pop and for the two of us to go back to fighting with each other. Fighting with Kai has always been so exhausting.
“Kai,” I say. I like the sound of his name, like the way it feels on my tongue. “Kai Tanaka.”
“Yeah?” He’s grinning and so close to me. How did he get so close? Somehow his lips are just a few inches from mine, and it’s so easy to close the distance between us. There’s no reason his lips should be that close unless they’re kissing mine.
So I do. I fall toward him, crashing my mouth to his, kissing him like it’s the most natural thing in the world. My eyes are closed, and behind them I don’t see darkness anymore, but vibrant colors. Kissing Kai feels like what a kiss is supposed to be, the way I imagined kissing to feel back before I’d ever tried it. I reach my arms behind his back and pull him closer because I need to be pressed against him, want to be as close to him as possible.
He opens his mouth and his tongue slides against mine, minty from mouthwash, and the feel of it sends a shiver down my whole body. I don’t care where I am or how I got here because this kiss is the most important thing. Actually, I don’t know where I am or how I got here. Where am I?
Kai pulls back from me. “Pen, we can’t do this.”
I open my eyes. We’re in a laundry room, pressed up against the washing machine. It all looks vaguely familiar, but I can’t place it. But it doesn’t matter. I lean back toward Kai, back into the kiss, but he turns his head away from me. “This can’t happen like this. You’re too drunk.”
“I’m not drunk,” I say, kissing him again.
He kisses me back for a moment and then pulls away. “Yes, you are. God, this is killing me.”
“Just a little more,” I say, and then kiss him again.
That’s when the door opens. I hear the burst of noise from the party and silence again when it closes. Then a voice speaks, loud and clear. “Well, this is quite the development.”
I pull away from Kai and open my eyes again and see Olivia, arms folded. There’s a sinking feeling in my gut as I take her in, as pieces come flying together. I know something about this is wrong, but I can’t speak, can’t figure out what the right words are to make things better.
“She wasn’t feeling well,” Kai is
saying.
“So you were comforting her with your mouth?”
“What’s going on?” I ask. Kai’s arm is still wrapped around my waist, and it confuses me that he hasn’t taken it off, hasn’t jumped away from me.
“You couldn’t even wait like ten more minutes till we broke up?” Olivia says.
“She kissed me,” Kai says. “I wouldn’t have . . .”
“Well, congratulations,” Olivia says. “I guess you got what you wanted.”
“Olivia,” he says. “This isn’t what I wanted—not like this.”
“I get it,” she says. “But I’m not letting her off this easy.”
“Olivia, don’t. She’s your best friend.”
“Yeah? And you’re my boyfriend.”
“I’m not really your boyfriend.”
“And yet this betrayal still fucking hurts,” she says.
“Please, Olivia,” he says. “We were going to end things anyway. This doesn’t have to be a big scene.”
“If you think that’s true,” she says, reaching to open the door, “then you don’t really know me at all.”
And then she looks behind her into the party and back at us and screams, like she’s only now just discovering us together. She screams like her heart is breaking.
And so I run.
NOW
“I DON’T UNDERSTAND,” I say, although of course I do. It’s just that I don’t want to understand. I want to go back to this morning, to last night, back to when this game between Kai and me was special. It was our thing—something stupid and silly and maybe completely messed up, but something that belonged to only us. Now it’s ruined. Kai has already played this game with Olivia. Of course I’m number two. I’ve always been number two.
“It wasn’t supposed to be like this,” he says. His body is tense, coiled, his hands pressed into fists. He looks ready to flee or fight—anything to keep from just standing still. “It was Olivia’s idea. She—”
“Don’t”—I put my hands up—“blame this on Olivia. You’re not some innocent guy who things just happen to, Kai. I know you better than that.”
“I know, Penny. I’m sorry. I just . . . Olivia has been my friend since I moved here—for like seven years she’s been my friend. All those years you hated me, or avoided me or whatever, Olivia was there. I’ve heard her talk about Jordan forever. She’s been asking me for help with him since like sixth grade.”
“No,” I say, shutting my eyes. “She knew I liked him. She’s been trying to help me.”
“Pen.” His voice is soft. “Jordan and Olivia have had something for a while. You know they slept together on that freshman camping trip, right?”
“What?” The word rips out of me, and I’m choking on it. It’s wrong—it’s all wrong. I liked Jordan, and Olivia liked Kai. She wouldn’t have done something like that. Except—at Kai’s words, so many pieces are clicking into place in my head, all of my memories rearranging themselves so that everything lines up.
“That whole night was a setup,” Kai says.
“Yeah, a setup for me and Jordan!”
“No.” He lets out a heavy sigh. “No, it wasn’t.”
I let myself think of that night again, Olivia conveniently forgetting her sweatshirt, needing Jordan to go get it with her. They were gone for what felt like forever, leaving Kai and me alone, confused and waiting. Except maybe that had been the whole point. Suddenly, Jordan’s assumption that I hooked up with Kai that night makes horrible sense.
Olivia was my best friend back then, someone I would have told anything to, and yet she’d lost her virginity to Jordan out in the woods somewhere and then hadn’t even bothered to tell me about it the next morning. That’s what hurts the most, even more than the betrayal of her feelings for Jordan. It’s that I mattered so little to her I didn’t even get to know about them.
I remember the story she told us only a few months later when we got back to school from winter break—that she’d slept with a guy she met on her family trip to the Bahamas. She’d come home sun-drenched and giddy, regaling us with stories of how they’d snuck out of the hotel in the middle of the night and done it on the beach, how since her first time was so romantic, she didn’t mind all the sand.
Was that story all a lie? Was she talking about the beach from our camping trip—telling us about Jordan this whole time without actually telling us about Jordan?
“He moved on right after that,” Kai says. “Started a thing with some girl he met at another school, and then just kinda . . . kept jumping from girl to girl. And Olivia was crushed. And then he started liking you.”
“I don’t want to hear this,” I say.
“That’s what this is.” Kai takes the paper from my hands. “She had a plan and she needed my help. So I helped her.”
“Just like you helped me,” I say. “Guess you’re just everybody’s savior.”
Kai unfolds the paper again and points to the line that says: No matter what, we break up by summer. “We were going to end it at Jordan’s party anyway. She said she’d talked to you and it seemed like you and Jordan were stronger than ever, so clearly our plan wasn’t working. She was going to back off, wave the white flag, and try to be happy for you. But then she caught us kissing and . . .”
“I betrayed her anyway.” I feel sick at the thought. I remember Olivia telling me earlier in the night that she and Kai were having issues. She was just setting the stage for their breakup. She had been playing me, but I played her right back. She wasn’t dating Kai for real. But I didn’t know that.
How did we get to this point? When did our friendship turn so toxic?
“I tried to tell you all of this that night. I mean, I did. I thought I had come clean. I was excited to see you when you came over the next morning, and then you couldn’t remember all the details of what happened, and you had just spent the night outside, and the whole thing was so fucked. You were so heartbroken. And then you told me on the beach that they all thought we were together, and I figured it made sense for us to become a team, to work together to get through this. You wanted my help—you asked me to help you, so I did.”
“So you never actually wanted Olivia back,” I say—a statement, not a question. “You just wanted to play a stupid game with me.”
“It wasn’t a game. I like you. I didn’t want you back with Jordan, okay? But if that’s what you wanted—if that’s what it took to get people to forgive us, I was going to help. I just didn’t expect . . .” He doesn’t finish the sentence, but I know what he means. He didn’t expect last night, kissing me, holding me as I fell asleep. He didn’t expect all of this to feel so real. “I wasn’t faking anything last night, Pen.”
“How can I believe you?” I take in a gasping breath. “You lied about having feelings for Olivia. You pretended to date her and then you pretended to date me. You were trying to take me from Jordan this whole time. All of this is based on a lie!”
I just feel so stupid. My whole life I’ve been so worried about being left behind, the one out of the loop, the only person who doesn’t understand an inside joke.
“I can’t believe I . . . ugh, I actually started to like you. I trusted you—even though I knew better—and look where it got me. I thought we were finally being honest with each other, but you had this huge secret the whole time that you conveniently never mentioned!”
“I was going to tell you,” Kai says. “In the car just now. I was going to tell you, but then it was too late.”
“You had so many opportunities to tell me!” I say. “But you waited until the last possible second because that’s what you do. This is such classic Kai behavior. I shouldn’t even be surprised. Other people care about people’s feelings. Other people actually have feelings. They actually have real relationships instead of just fake ones.”
“This is a real relationship!” he says, crumpling the p
aper tightly in his hands. “Penny, please.” There are tears in his eyes, which kills me. All I want to do is hold him closer, wrap him tightly in my arms and take some of that pain away. I hate that despite everything, my first inclination is to make him happy. “I’m so sorry, Pen. Please, look at me.” He tries to reach for me and I duck away from his hand. “What about last night? We don’t hate each other anymore, remember?”
I turn away from him. “I will never stop hating you.”
NOW
WHEN I GET IN the house, I walk right up the stairs, past Seb and my mom, who are sitting at the kitchen table waiting for me. I am in no mood to talk to them about everything that just happened, to get into yet another fight.
I spend the next few days successfully avoiding everyone—telling my mom to go away every time she knocks on my door, ignoring calls from Kai, and feeling miserable for myself.
The thing is—Kai can tell me whatever he wants, but how am I supposed to believe his words when his actions show me just the opposite? This is probably for the best anyway. Whatever was blossoming between us—whatever stupid feelings made me kiss him for real in the Jeep—would never have worked. There’s too much history, too much I just want to forget. But the memories keep replaying themselves, kisses looping over and over again in my head.
I hide in my room for as long as I can, scrolling through Pinterest and trying to let some DIY crafts distract me from thinking about anything at all. But it’s not working. By Friday night, I’m exhausted from not doing anything and I feel disgusting.
So of course I open Instagram—the place where all dreams go to die. My last post has been taunting me. It’s the picture of Kai kissing my cheek at dinner. There’s the one of Kai and me at the lake too, smiling and cuddling against each other, our stupid matching red and white bathing suits. This was back when it all started, maybe—when I realized I kinda enjoyed the feeling of his arm around me, felt relieved on that boat to have someone in my corner. Turns out he was never actually in my corner at all.