by Elle Kennedy
“What’s going on?” he asks, watching me for clues. “This about you and Taylor?”
“Not exactly.”
“What’s the deal there? Demi keeps asking if you two broke up, and I don’t know what to tell her other than to mind her business, but you know Demi. She’ll bite my nuts off before she lets me tell her what to do.”
“No, haven’t broken up.” Though it’s getting harder to see much difference. “It’s nothing to do with Taylor. It’s, uhh…” I trail off, suddenly feeling foolish.
This is harder than I thought it’d be. Hunter is my only out. His family’s loaded—the kind of loaded that makes Max’s mansion look like the servant’s quarters—and he’s got access to money.
The whole way over here, I thought I could be cool about it, casual. Hey man, spot me a few Gs. No biggie. But this hurts. I don’t think I’ve been so humiliated in my life, so completely demoralized. Still, I’ve got no choice. It’s this, or let Kai tell Max what I did.
And I can’t do that to my mom.
“Con. You’re freaking me out a little. What’s going on?”
I push away from the door, needing to keep my feet moving, like they’re powering my brain. “Look, I’m gonna be straight with you. I need ten grand and I can’t tell you why. I promise I’m not into it with a loan shark or moving drugs or anything. There’s just this thing I gotta take care of and I can’t go to my family. I wouldn’t come to you if I had any other choice.” I drop to the edge of his bed and sit, dragging my hands through my hair. “I promise I’ll pay you back. To be honest it probably won’t be quickly, but I’ll get you every dime if it takes me the rest of my life.”
“Okay.” Hunter looks at the floor. He’s sort of nodding, like there’s a time delay between the words leaving my mouth and him. “And you didn’t kill anybody.”
He’s taking this better than I expected.
“I swear.”
“You’re not skipping the country,” he says. “Right?”
I won’t lie—the thought has crossed my mind. But no. “Staying put.”
He shrugs. “Cool.”
Before I can blink, Hunter digs around in one of his desk drawers for a checkbook. I sit there, stunned, as he fills one out to Cash. “Here you go.”
Just like that, he hands it to me. Ten grand. Four zeros.
I’m such an ass.
“I can’t tell you how much you’ve saved me.” The sense of relief is instant, the remorse even quicker. I hate myself for this. But not enough to not fold the check up and stick it in my wallet. “I’m sorry about this. You—”
“Con, it’s all good. We’re teammates. I’ve always got your back.”
Emotion tightens my throat. Man, I don’t deserve this. It’s a complete accident I even ended up here. At Briar, on this team. I got it in my head I had to get the hell out of LA, and a couple phone calls later Max had me enrolled at his alma mater.
I didn’t do anything to earn a spot on a D1 team or the friendship of guys like Hunter Davenport. Someone owed someone a favor and I got to walk onto the team as a junior. I’m an okay hockey player, maybe even pretty good sometimes. Less frequently I might even be better than good. But how many other guys were better than good and didn’t have connections? I have no doubt that there was someone else more deserving, someone who doesn’t come asking for handouts from their friends to buy off the guy blackmailing him because he robbed his own family.
That’s the thing about running from yourself—you’re always running straight at the problem.
After I leave Hunter’s place, I just drive. I’ve got nowhere in mind, and I end up at the coast, sitting in the sand and watching the waves. I close my eyes to the sun setting at my back and listen to the sound that saved me once. The sound that normally centers me, connects me to whatever it is we call a soul, a conscience. But the ocean isn’t helping me tonight.
I drive back to Hastings and wait for some voice inside me to offer up a better choice, the right choice, but I’m alone in my head.
Somehow I find myself at Taylor’s apartment. I park the Jeep and sit there for nearly an hour watching the texts fill my screen.
TAYLOR: Getting dinner.
TAYLOR: Going to bed early.
TAYLOR: See you tomorrow for lunch?
I lean toward the glove box and pop it open, rummaging until I find the small tin Foster shoved in there the other night. I pull out the rolled joint, find a lighter in the center console. I light up and exhale a plume of smoke out the open window. Knowing my luck, a cop’ll drive by this very moment, but I don’t care. My nerves need some relief.
KAI: Got it yet?
KAI: Get at me
I take another deep drag, blow out another smoke cloud. My thoughts start to get away from me, almost developing a mind of their own. I’m so deep in my own head, I don’t know how to dig myself out. You hear from people who have near-death experiences that their whole life flashed before their eyes, and here I am, living and breathing, yet the same surreal phenomenon is happening to me.
Or maybe you’re just fucking high, man. Yeah, maybe that.
Another text messages appears.
KAI: Don’t try me bro
It’s almost funny, right? You see a kid across the street. Sit near him in school. Piss off the neighbors doing skateboard tricks in the middle of the street. Get bloody noses and scraped elbows. Then you’re learning how to hold a joint, how to inhale. Daring each other to talk to that cute girl with the fake lip piercing. Giving each other safety pin piercings in the stairwell behind the school auditorium. Stuffing beer bottles down your pants in the 7-Eleven. Cutting through chain-link fences and wedging yourself through boarded up windows. Exploring the catacombs of a decaying city, thirty-year-old darkened shopping malls where the fountains are dry but the roofs are always leaking. Skateboarding past the hollowed-out carcasses of Radio Shacks and Wet Seals. Learning to tag. Learning to tag better. Getting jumped behind the liquor store. Joyriding. Running from the cops and hopping fences.
I take another pull of the joint, then another, as my entire childhood races through my mind. Nothing shapes us like our friends. Family, definitely. Families fuck us up by an order of magnitude. But friends, we collect them like bricks and nails and drywall. They’re pieces in the blueprint, but that blueprint is always under renovation. We’re all deciding toward who we were always meant to be, choosing, mutating, growing into ourselves. Friends are the qualities we want to absorb. What we want to be.
I exhale a cloud of smoke. The thing is, we forget that our friends have designs of their own. That we’re just pieces in their blueprint. We’re constantly at cross-purposes. They’ve got families of their own. Their own orders of magnitude in damage. Brothers who handed them that first joint, first swig of beer.
I look back, and it’s obvious Kai and I were always going to end up here. Because a part of me needed him, wanted to be like him. But then we reached the gut check moment—that sense of survival that makes some of us afraid of heights and some of us jump out of airplanes. It kicked in for me, and it was like fight or flight. An innate animal instinct that Kai would be the death of me, if I let him.
So I ran, and I changed my life—for a time. But maybe people aren’t ever capable of changing once that foundation has been laid. Maybe Kai and I were always going to be each other’s destruction. Right now I’m afraid of heights and he’s stopped wearing a parachute. He’s leaning out of the plane and I’ve got one hand on his shirt and as soon as I let go, he flies. Only, he pulls me with him, and we both plummet.
I flick the joint out the window and reach for my phone.
ME: Friday night. I’ll meet you.
KAI: See you then
I don’t know what happens after this or how I come back from it. If things between Hunter and I will change. What happens when I go home to California and sleep in that house and have to look my mother in the eye.
Then again, I found a way last time, so maybe I should stop
kidding myself that lying doesn’t come naturally and guilt is permanent. Maybe I should stop pretending that if I feel bad it means I’m not completely defective. Hell, maybe I should stop feeling bad at all and embrace indifference. Accept that I’m not, and never was, a good person.
When I get home, I head upstairs to my bedroom and text Taylor to blow off lunch tomorrow.
And the day after.
Because avoidance is easier.
29
Taylor
I forgot what a hassle the Spring Gala is every year. Friday morning I wake up late and have to scramble out of the apartment. From then it’s like the day is on fast-forward.
Spill coffee on myself sprinting to class. Didn’t bring the right notebook. Pop quiz. Haul ass to another class. Vending machine eats my dollar. Starving. Rush to Kappa to meet Sasha. Run to salon; they’re an hour behind. Get lunch while we wait. Get our hair done. Back to the Kappa house. She does my makeup while I do her nails. She does her makeup while I steam our dresses. And finally—collapse on the floor until Abigail starts stomping through the house shouting that the setup crew needs help at the venue.
Now Sasha and I are in the banquet hall hooking up the rented sound system with her laptop. Our heads are dropping bobby pins while we crawl around on the floor in our sweats before we have to run back to Kappa house to take a baby wipe shower and get our dresses.
“Don’t we have pledges for this or something?” Sasha gripes while we haul another massive speaker inside from the loading dock because the dolly has a flat tire.
“I think the freshmen are in the kitchen folding napkins.”
“Seriously?” she says. We drop the speaker in place and take a moment to catch our breath. “Shit, I’ll go sit on my ass and fold fucking origami. Get that lacrosse chick out here to throw a couple of these on her back.”
“I think you told Charlotte you didn’t want any plebes getting their grubby hands on your gear.”
“Yeah, well, I didn’t mean the heavy shit.”
I grin. “Come on. One more. Then I’ll run the rest of the cables while you do a sound check.”
Sasha takes a deep breath and blots the sweat from her hairline with her sweater. “You’re a good friend, Marsh.”
While we’re carrying the speaker in, a familiar face appears in our path. It’s Eric, the basketball boy from Malone’s, carrying six large boxes of donuts. We set the speaker in place and meet him at Sasha’s DJ booth with feral hungry eyes.
“Help yourselves,” he says easily.
“Oh my God, you’re the best.” Sasha shoves a donut in her mouth and takes two more. “Thank you,” she mumbles with her mouth full.
Like a swarm of locusts, the other sisters descend on the donuts. Everyone’s been surviving on green juice and carrots for a week or more so they could fit into their one-size-too-small dresses tonight.
“I have to run into the city to pick up my tux,” Eric tells Sasha while she’s licking icing off her fingers. “Just thought you girls might need a sugar boost.”
“Thank you. We really appreciate it.”
“For real,” I agree.
Just as quickly as they arrived, the girls pick the boxes clean. There’s not a sprinkle or dab of jelly filling left as they scurry away to their tasks.
I glance around the massive room in approval. Huh. This place is starting to look halfway presentable. Tables arranged. Banners and decorations hung. We might actually pull this off.
“Meet you back here at eight?” Sasha says to Eric.
“Yes ma’am. See ya then.” He gives her a kiss on the cheek and waves bye to me as he leaves.
My head swivels toward her. “Um. I didn’t know he was your date,” I accuse.
She shrugs. “I was gonna go stag again, but this way I have someone to get me drinks while I DJ.”
We cram the empty donut boxes in a trashcan, then head off in search of the alleged cooler where supposedly there’s bottled water for everyone. We try the kitchen first, where eight freshmen sit in the dark amongst piles of white cloth napkins, hunched and weary. It’s like a fucking sweatshop in here and we back away quietly. Freshmen are scary.
“What about Conor?” she asks as we walk down another corridor.
What about Conor… It seems like since I met him, that question has consumed a little more of my life every day. The two of us have been caught in a constant evolving state of uncertainty.
“I don’t know,” I reply honestly. “He’s canceled our plans for the last two days.”
A frown mars her perfect lips. “Have you talked at all?”
“A little. Text messages mostly, and he doesn’t say much. Just that he’s busy, dealing with something, yada yada. And of course, he’s always sorry.”
“He wouldn’t just…not show up tonight, right?” Sasha watches me closely, as if monitoring for some sign or signal that I might snap into a rage or have a total nervous breakdown.
“No way,” I say firmly. “He’d never do that.”
“Hey, Taylor.” Olivia comes around the corner from the loading dock. “You left this outside. It was buzzing.”
I take my phone from her, and relief slams into me when I notice a missed call from Conor. Finally. I need to know if he’s picking me up or meeting me here.
“Speak of the devil,” Sasha says.
I’m about to call him back when a text comes through.
CONOR: I’m not gonna make it tonight
I stare at the screen. Then I type a response with shaky thumbs.
ME: That’s not funny.
HIM: I’m sorry
“What’s wrong?”
I try calling him.
Straight to voicemail.
“He didn’t,” Sasha says, her voice grim as she reads my expression.
I ignore her. Call him again.
Straight to voicemail.
ME: Talk to me
ME: What the hell is going on?
ME: Fuck you Conor
I wind my arm back to hurl my phone across the room, but Sasha catches my wrist before I can let go. She grabs the phone out of my hand and fixes me with a stern look.
“Let’s not make any rash decisions,” she advises, before pulling me into the restroom across the hall. “Talk to me. What did he say?”
“He’s not coming. No explanation. Just, sorry, bailing on you again,” I say, seething, gripping the edge of the sink to stop from putting my fist through the mirror. “I mean, what in the actual fuck? He didn’t just decide this today, he couldn’t have. He’s been blowing me off all week. Which means he knew he wasn’t coming. He could have just told me! Instead he waits until the last second to really drive the knife in.”
I let out a scream and punch the stall door instead. Not quite as satisfying when the door just flies open from the force. It still hurts, but at least I didn’t shred my knuckles.
“Okay, She-Ra, settle down.” Sasha corrals me in a corner with her hands up, as if she’s settling a cranky rhino. “You really think he’s doing this to hurt you?”
I push away from her. I can’t stand still. “What other explanation is there? This is probably all part of some long con he was running on me. Maybe I was the dare all along. Some bet with his teammates. Now the game’s over and they’re all laughing at me. Poor pathetic fat girl.”
“Hey.” Sasha snaps in front of my face to stop my furious pacing. “Shut the fuck up. You are not pathetic and there’s nothing wrong with the way you look or the shape of your body. You’re beautiful, funny, kind, and intelligent. If Conor Edwards has some fucking malfunction, it isn’t your fault. It’s his loss.”
I can’t hear her. Not really. There’s a white-hot ball of rage in my gut and it’s building with every second that I don’t have an answer.
“I need to borrow your car,” I burst out, holding out my hand.
“I don’t think you’re in any condition to drive right now—”
“Keys. Please.”
Sasha sighs an
d passes the keys over.
“Thank you.” I dart out the bathroom door like my ass is on fire, with Sasha hot on my feels.
“Taylor, wait,” she calls after me in exasperation.
Rather than wait, I tear down the hall toward the lobby. My pace is so fast that when I skid around the corner, I slam into one of my sorority sisters. Half a dozen or so Kappas are milling in the lobby, along with a couple of Sigma guys lugging chairs.
The brunette I just bulldozed stumbles forward. With her long hair falling over her eyes, it takes a second for me to realize it’s Rebecca.
“Shit, I’m sorry,” I tell her. “I didn’t see you there.”
Regaining her balance, she instantly casts her eyes downward at the sound of my voice. I’m already testy thanks to my anger over Conor, that Rebecca’s mopey scowl triggers another rush of ire.
“For fuck’s sake,” I snap at her. “We made out freshman year and you felt up my boobs, Rebecca. Get over it.”
“Meow,” cackles Jules, who’s standing a few feet away and overheard me.
At her, I snap, “Shut up, Jules,” and then brush past her and Abigail’s douchey Sigma boyfriend, leaving their wide eyes in my wake.
Sasha catches up to me just as I’m throwing open one of the double doors at the entrance.
“Taylor,” she orders. “Stop.”
I force myself to stop. “What is it?” I ask.
Worry playing on her face, she touches my arm and gives it a soft squeeze. “No guy is worth losing your self-respect over, okay? Just remember that. And wear a seatbelt.”
30
Taylor
Conor’s Jeep is in the driveway when I get to his townhouse. Foster answers the door, donning a big dumb grin when he sees me. He lets me in without a question, saying Con’s upstairs in his room. For a moment it crosses my mind to interrogate Foster. If any one of the roommates were to crack, spill the tea for a glimpse of some cleavage, it’d be Foster. Right now, though, I just want to nail Conor to a wall.