“Evan?” Natalie asks.
I sidestep the question, but she asks again. “Did you say Evan?” She’s practically shouting over the music.
“His car is out front.” I try to sound dismissive, like it’s no big deal, but the news makes her stiffen.
“I think so,” Cara shouts back to us. “My brother was asking about you earlier,” she says to me. “He was hoping you’d be here.”
Her brother. It takes me a minute to remember his name and then picture him.
Chase.
He’s the guy who I’d been dancing with at the Silver Springs party. I’d made it pretty clear to him I wasn’t interested.
She doesn’t seem to be bothered when I don’t reply to her, but Natalie remains uneasy when we get drinks. She slugs one down after the other, and I start imagining that I’m going to have to be the one driving home, so I nurse mine and keep my eyes peeled for Evan.
“I’m so fucking nervous,” Natalie says to me after Amelia heads off with a guy she has a class with. “I feel like I could run into Evan at any second!”
I’m nervous too, worried that when I see him, some girl will be hitting on him, or worse, he’ll decide to give Natalie a second chance because he’s tired of waiting for me.
“There are so many guys here,” I tell her. “You’ll meet someone else. Just stop worrying about him.”
She tosses another drink back. “If you say so.”
Cara and Amelia are pretty much lost to us, both of them making out with guys in a corner or on a couch—Cara with Marvin, Amelia with that guy from class—leaving Natalie and I to push our way through the party, dancing and running into people we know and trying to carry on conversations until we get bored or just can’t hear them above the noise and move on. I tell Natalie to slow down with her drinking, but she keeps sneaking drinks when I’m not looking, and I’m really glad I stopped after just the one. I feel like I might have to peel her off the floor before all is said and done.
Eventually we head upstairs. It’s quieter, and people are hanging out and talking in smaller groups. There are a couple of really big open rooms as well as a few smaller ones. I keep expecting to see Evan as we turn each corner, but instead we run into Cara’s brother, Chase.
“Well, hey there.” He says this with a slurred voice and looks me up and down with bloodshot eyes. “I was wondering when the hell you’d show up.”
I think he’s dressed up as Tarzan, and he’s with a group of guys and girls, some of whom I vaguely remember seeing at the last party, but it’s hard to be sure with the costumes they’re wearing.
“Hey, Chase,” I say before looking over my shoulder, hoping to spot Evan somewhere.
He steps forward and grabs the powder-puff on my rear. “Damn, you look good,” he says and wraps his other hand around my ass.
“Don’t,” I say, taking his hands and unlatching them from me.
“Don’t be like that.” Two of his guy friends laugh while one of the girls looks at me like she wants me dead.
“Leave her alone,” Natalie slurs. “She’s not interested.”
“No?” Chase straightens up, grabs my ass again and pulls me toward him. “You feel that dick? Damn, I want it in you.”
I recoil from him, hating the smell of his drunken breath and his unwanted hands on me. He’s like a different guy than the one he’d been at Silver Springs.
“Get the fuck away from me,” I say, pushing at his chest.
“Move it jerk,” Natalie adds.
“But it feels so good,” he argues. His lips are on my cheek, and then I finally see and hear Evan. And just like that, Chase’s entire body is pulled away from me.
EVAN
I noticed Paige as soon as she came upstairs. I’d been hiding out, away from my friends, tired of socializing and deciding it had been a mistake to come out and try to have fun. But when I see Paige, looking adorably sexy in her costume, I feel a spark of joy, and all I want to do is pull her into a dark corner and kiss her until she won’t let me anymore. I’m so tired of side-stepping around her. I just want to give in again like she’s wanted me to for the last month. But I can’t do that if there’s any chance she could go back to Garrett.
I think about at least saying hi, but she’s with Natalie—too awkward. So, I consider my best option for slipping away without her noticing me. I’m dressed as a surgeon, and I’ve got a face mask dangling around my neck that I could use to disguise myself, but when does that actually ever work except for in cartoons or superhero movies?
But as I start to take leave, I see that guy from that party, the one at Silver Springs.
Chase. I remember the name because I wanted to punch him for being close to Paige. This seems to be a repeat of that night with him right next to her. He says something and grabs at her ass, and I take a step forward, pissed off he’s touching her but attempting to control my anger. Next thing I know, he’s pulling her to him, and it sounds like she’s saying no and pushing him away. That’s when everything goes red.
“She said to get the fuck off of her.” I’m sure I startle Paige, but this douche-bag needs to be dealt with. He looks like he’s about to say something stupid, and that’s when I pull my fist back and punch him square in the face.
“Hey, man!” Some guy flails his arms around. “That’s enough! He’s just drunk.”
I don’t care if he’s blitzed on heroin. I can’t let him get away with touching Paige like that. I move forward, ready to pound the shit out of him when I’m held back by a group of guys, all of whom appear to be friends of Chase’s as they hurl punches at me.
I’m lit up now, so I fight them back with everything I have. I don’t care that I’m getting beat down because I’m still landing some good punches.
“Stop!” It’s Paige’s voice I hear, but this time she’s not saying the words to me. She’s going after the guys, not just scratching or slapping them but hauling her fists at them too. One by one, they pull back.
I stand up slowly, my ego bruised. My lip is split, and I’m pretty sure I feel blood coming out from somewhere near my eye.
“Are you okay?” Paige puts a hand on my shoulder, but I brush her off.
“I’m fine.” She can’t be happy that I used violence to deal with someone again, and I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself if she’d been hurt in the melee.
Marvin and Jason and some of my other buddies are rushing up the stairs just as I ease out of Paige’s embrace and brush past them.
I head out back, away from the noise and the people. There’s a crescent moon tonight, and the air is crisp and cool. The quiet helps me think. I wish I’d handled things differently just now. My lack of control when it comes to guys harassing Paige is pitiful. I’m just giving her one less reason to be with me.
“Evan.” She says my name before placing her hand on my back. I’m briefly startled, but I won’t deny it’s a comfort.
“You don’t have to be out here. I’ll be fine,” I say.
“No you won’t. Let me at least make sure Natalie will have a ride so I can get you home and get those cuts cleaned up.”
“I don’t want to go back to that apartment. It doesn’t feel like home to me, not now.”
She steps in front of me and lifts my chin so I can’t look away. “I’ve been trying not to hurt Garrett, but I’ve just been hurting you.”
“I’m getting used to it.” The wall I’ve built between us hasn’t helped or really worked. “You going to hate me for punching that guy out like the one at the coffee shop?”
“No,” she says, adamantly shaking her head. “He grabbed me and didn’t take no for an answer—he deserved it. And so did that other guy.”
She puts me at ease. “Well, that’s good. Now I only have to worry about my hurt pride.”
“For what?”
“For getting my ass kicked.”
“By four other guys? Evan, you were amazing. I’m so thankful you were there for me.”
“Yeah?”
>
“Yes.” She wraps her arms around me, and I do the same to her.
As I’m resting my head on her shoulder, I become aware of the throbbing pain of my cut lip and whatever happened to my face. I loosen my grip on her and look right into her eyes, and that intimacy I felt when we slept together returns. Even though it hurts, I press my lips against hers.
“I fucking knew it.”
I reluctantly take my lips off Paige, then turn to see Natalie who is struggling to remain balanced.
Paige pulls away from me and starts to say something, to apologize.
“You two…” Natalie snarls. “I should have known.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
PAIGE
Halloween Night/Day After Halloween
Natalie is beyond pissed at Evan and me before she bends over and pukes up every last bit of undigested food in her stomach. I rush to her side and offer to get her home, but she refuses, and when a very sober Jason comes out the back door, I fish Natalie’s keys out of her purse and ask him to make sure she and Amelia get home safely.
I drive Evan’s car with him in the passenger seat back to our apartment. Natalie’s outburst hangs over both of us—it’s obvious in our mutual silence—and as much as I want to forget about the way she glared at us, it’s a reminder to me that our lies are hurting people. Perhaps we’ve had the best of intentions, but I’m sure it won’t feel that way to Garrett, and it didn’t seem to feel that way to Natalie either.
It’s late enough that there aren’t any trick-or-treaters left on the street, and aside from one or two apartments seemingly alive with partygoers, things are pretty quiet as we pull into our complex. I finally feel a little silly in my costume as Evan and I walk up the stairs together, and I can’t wait to get inside and slip into something more comfortable.
“Safe and sound at home,” I say, trying to lighten the mood, but Evan just kind of mumbles something incoherent. “Sit down at the table,” I instruct. “I’m going to see what we have in the medicine cabinet.”
“Just let me sleep it off.” He starts to head toward his bedroom.
I have to grab him by both shoulders and turn him around. “Just let me clean your cuts, okay? Can you at least let me do that?”
I’m not sure what I see in his eyes. Shame? Guilt? Anger? For a moment, I think he’s going to shrug me off and walk right past me, but he relents and sits down at our small dining room table in his surgeon’s costume.
“I’ll be right back,” I say and head into the bathroom. Indeed, there’s dried blood on my shoulder and even on my lips. I grab a wad of tissue, wet it and wipe it off before grabbing the emergency kit Mom sent me in a care package.
I walk across the carpeted flooring in my heels, sit down next to Evan and unzip the kit. I open up iodine packages and start spreading the liquid over his cuts, and other than him wincing a bit, he remains perfectly silent and still for me.
“If these were any bigger, you’d probably need stitches,” I say, noticing discoloration around his eye, a nasty bruise forming.
He doesn’t respond to me verbally or physically, so I just continue cleaning, sopping up the iodine with gauze and then wetting a clean dishcloth from the kitchen and giving his entire face one more wipe-down before slathering ointment over his cuts.
“There,” I say. “I think you’re going to live.”
“Yeah… great.” Evan sounds anything but. He gets up from the chair and starts heading toward the hall.
“Evan, would you please talk to me?”
He stops and turns. “About what?”
“About us.” I stand and walk toward him, putting my body in front of his. “I’ve decided I’ll tell Garrett, okay? I’ll pull the Band-Aid off, like you said. Otherwise—”
“No,” he says.
“No? You want me to wait?”
Evan shakes his head. “I’ve thought about it, and it wasn’t fair for me to ask you to do that.”
A sliver of insecurity embeds itself into me, and I’m beginning to fear the worst. “But… I have to do it… I realize that now. He’ll just end up hurting more.”
Evan laughs like that’s been obvious from the beginning. “You do whatever you have to do, Paige, but I’m going to face him man to man when we go home for winter break. I’m going to tell him myself. I’m going to settle things.”
“But that’s so far away. And what do you mean by settle things? You aren’t going to hurt him, are you?”
Evan may have lost to four guys all at once, but he’s a fighter, and I’m afraid of what he would do to Garrett if he were angry enough.
“Not unless he wants to take it there,” Evan says through clenched teeth.
“But I can just tell him now. I could even call him tonight—it will still be early enough there.” Fear has settled in, and I’d rather have Evan and Garrett at opposite ends of the country when their anger for one another is going to be at its highest.
“Break up with him if you want, but keep my name out of it. I want to see the look in his eyes when he realizes he lost you to me.”
Something draws my attention downward to Evan’s balled up fist. “Is it because he lied to you? About my feelings for you?” I’m upset about it too, but I don’t want it to destroy a friendship.
“What do you think, Paige?” Evan’s anger seems directed at me now. “I tell a guy I’m in love with a girl, and he does everything in his power to keep me from her, including lying his fucking face off. A guy like that isn’t my friend, and he deserves to hear that directly from me.”
I don’t think I can talk him down, and just as I’ve been worried about Garrett’s well being, I’m worried about Evan too.
“Okay,” I say after a long pause. “I won’t tell him anything. I’ll let you talk to him in person.”
“Thank you,” he says quietly, walking past me without another word.
It’s a week past Halloween, and I haven’t heard a peep from Natalie. She hasn’t even shown up in the one class we have together. Amelia and I still meet at Mona’s, and all Amelia will say is that Natalie needs some time. And to help pass it, I dive right back into my work, school and running schedule. I run every morning for at least an hour and, after a shower, either head to work, school or the library or Mona’s to study. Evan and I are keeping our distance. It’s not as bad as before because we both seem to be on the same page about the fact that we will be together, that it’s just a matter of time until everything can fall into place. But I still have an uneasy feeling, like we’re wasting precious moments, all so Evan can have his face-to-face with Garrett, a meeting I’ve decided I have to be at to ensure they don’t kill one another.
Every time I talk to Garrett now, I feel an extra stab of guilt for keeping so many things from him. But as his father has gotten better, Garrett has gotten busier with school and practice, and he doesn’t seem to notice as much when I cut our conversations short or make excuses why I can’t video chat with him. We promise one another we’ll have plenty of time to catch up when I’m home over winter break.
“I thought that was you.” Natalie’s voice interrupts my thoughts. I’ve been studying alone in a corner booth at Mona’s. A huge plate of nearly untouched fries lies at the center of the table. “Mind if I join you?” she asks.
“Sure,” I say, watching her sit down and waiting for her to unleash a torrent of obscenities at me.
“Don’t look at me like that.” She pulls her laptop out of her book bag.
“Like what?” I ask, still waiting for her to go off on me for lying to her about Evan.
“Like I’m going to be a real bitch and blame you for stealing a man that was never even mine.” She laughs a little. “Seriously, Paige, I just needed a few days to get over it, but I’m all good now.”
I let my mouth fall open. I’m not sure what to say, and I wait a few more moments to make sure this isn’t some kind of trick.
“I am sorry,” I finally announce. “Admitting my feelings for Evan has been d
ifficult, at least admitting them out loud to other people.”
“I get it,” she says, sneaking a few fries and waving the waitress down. “I knew I was wading into dangerous territory going after him, but it felt worth it to me at the time.”
The waitress comes over, and Natalie orders a Coke and some mozzarella sticks.
“So, you really don’t hate us?” I’d been horrified at the idea of losing Natalie as a friend, even if Evan remained more important to me.
She waves her hand dismissively. “I kissed him a few times, Paige. I guess I just was hurt by the lying, like I really kind of thought he was fair game when I went after him, but matters of the heart are complicated.”
I finally allow myself to sigh with relief at what feels like forgiveness. “Garrett still doesn’t know,” I confess. “We’re waiting to tell him in person.
Natalie gives me a stern look. “I wouldn’t wait if I were you. The sooner he knows, the better.”
“Yeah, but—”
“But what?”
“It’s complicated.”
“So make it less complicated. Get it off your chest. You’ll feel much better once you do.”
I weigh what she’s saying, and of course she’s right. I don’t have to bring Evan’s name into it, but I can still tell Garrett this isn’t working. I’d rather him be hurt and heartbroken now than to have to endure that right before Christmas.
“I’ve only had to break up with one guy before in my life,” I say, “and he couldn’t have cared less. He’d been talking about breaking up before we got to college for months.”
“Oh yeah, Mike, right?” The waitress brings out Natalie’s Coke and mozzarella sticks, and she digs right in.
“I checked up on his Instagram. He’s got a boyfriend, and he’s happy. I’m not sure Garrett will move on so quick.”
“Well, that’s up to Garrett,” Natalie says. “You can keep drawing this out or you can put him out of his misery. I for one am glad I saw you and Evan instead of pining over him for another month.”
I’m about to apologize again but just nod, thankful to have my friend back and grateful for her advice. “I’m glad you don’t hate me,” I say.
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