“It’s not easy for me to say. I hate seeing you this upset, but you’re making this all about you and your feelings when there are really big things going on that no one has control over.”
“You did.”
“How?”
“You could have warned me. Given me a heads-up so I could think about this, digest it. Maybe force the issue with Blake so we could have talked about it when his car engine wasn’t running, waiting for him to just get in and leave me forever.”
“I’m sure he waited because he couldn’t bear to tell you.”
“Or he was afraid. You were all afraid.”
“It wasn’t my place or Kevin’s.”
“And if I knew Kevin was doing some other girl, would it not be my place to warn you?”
Colleen’s nerves tightened, and she was tempted to ask what Bitty meant—but she knew there was nothing there, that Bitty was only making a point. “It would be for Kevin to tell me,” she said firmly. “If you told me something like that, there’s always the risk that it was a misunderstanding and you would have gotten me all upset over nothing. And that’s exactly how I felt in this case, Bitty. I didn’t know the real facts. I didn’t know he was leaving today. I didn’t know anything for certain—it was up to Blake to tell you everything.”
“All I know is that he’s gone, and you knew he was going and watched me skip around on air, all la-di-da, having no idea. I realize you and Kevin have been together only a couple of months and you don’t know what it’s like to be so tight with someone, but Blake was my whole world and now he’s gone. Hundreds and hundreds of miles away. Gone.”
“Bitty, stop, please—it’s really serious that he has to go home for this, and I just didn’t know how I was supposed to give you this news. No matter what, it wasn’t mine to tell.”
“You know how I feel about him.”
“Yes! Which is exactly why it would have been so hard to break news to you that isn’t even my news to break! And which is based on something else also serious that I know zero about. Don’t lose sight of that, Bit—this is a really serious family crisis.”
Bitty shook her head. “You should have told me. I will never, ever forgive you for this.”
“Bitty—”
She held up a hand to say stop, but said nothing.
Colleen halted and melted a little. Bitty looked away and walked to one of the waiting cabs that always sat outside of Henley’s diner.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Tamara
The problem with getting a text from a cute boy was the number of minutes, hours, and—nauseatingly—days that went by where you heard nothing. She had even taken a picture of a statue she saw in one of the restroom stops they’d made in some anonymous town (characterized by a complete lack of character in the gray Jersey walls, skid-marked pavement, and weedy brush) that no one would ever think about, of a dog smoking a cigarette. She’d put her fake Ray-Bans on him and thought that it was a hilarious picture. But the picture had gone unanswered. Why had he asked to play that little game if he didn’t even seem to care?
It had been days since their last interaction, which was making her feel irritable and moody. She hated being a fool over a boy, but there you go. All she had now was Vince texting her. Even he wasn’t texting her that much. Just answered her. Their conversation the night before had gone as follows:
Hey V, how’s stuff?
good, im at this big ass house rite now. the pool is fuckin awesome
Wish I was there, that sounds like fun
No answer, so she went on.…
My trip is kinda boring.
prolly shudnt of gone then
It bothered her beyond belief that he could act like it was her choice. He knew she was dragged kicking and screaming on the trip.
it’s not like I had a choice!
whatever. when u back again?
Really? He didn’t even remember?
Soon, like next week sometime.
No answer again. No enthusiasm at the prospect of her return. Just silence. Desperate for some kind of flirtation, she continued.…
You wont need that video anymore, you’ll have the real thing;)
Even texting that made her feel gross. She stared at her phone, waiting for the three little dots, the telltale sign that he was answering her. But no. Just the time stamp that said he had read it, but that he wasn’t answering.
And he didn’t answer. Not all night or anything.
Tamara wasn’t even aware of Bitty and Colleen. They were all at a BBQ place, and all she could do was check her phone every two seconds. She wasn’t even eating.
She was that girl.
Like, what could Vince even be doing? She knew his phone was always on him. She knew that. She knew he had seen it. She hadn’t done anything to make him mad. What the hell was his problem?
She got on Facebook and typed in his name. Maybe that would explain something.
“Tam?”
She looked up. “What?”
Bitty gestured a little shyly at her plate. “I asked if you were going to eat your fries.”
Colleen piped in. “Or your sandwich—you haven’t even taken a bite!”
“I’m not really all that hungry. You can have the fries, Bitty.”
“We aren’t leaving until you eat half of that,” Colleen said matter-of-factly.
“But—”
“Uh-uh. You heard me.”
Tam groaned and took a big bite. She was hungry, she realized, but eating just didn’t feel like something she could really handle right now.
She started as she saw a picture posted of Vince. Posted by Lauren Fellows. Lauren Fellows? Who was that?
She clicked on her profile picture. Oh no. No, he did not.
The redhead from the party. The one who Tamara figured probably hated the music and who was just so freaking cool with her crazy Paramore hair and her quirky interests, and use of the words “dude” and “chick.”
That stupid red-haired bitch.
She went back to the picture. It was him, surrounded by thick smoke, on a balcony of some kind. Just looked like one of the crappy apartment complexes that littered Towson University, his favorite place to go get messed up. Tamara scanned the picture for any signs that might give her more of an idea of what he had been up to. Her eyes stopped when they landed on a foot with pink toenails. On his thigh. Barely making it into the frame.
Her head spun a little, and she pushed the sandwich away from her, suddenly feeling simultaneously weak and bursting with rage.
She got up from the table, saying something that hopefully sounded like, “I’ll be back in a minute.”
It was hot out, and that only made her flushing red cheeks feel more like they were burning. She crouched against the wall at the side of the building, phone still tight in her hand. She was tempted to throw it. Oh, how good would it feel to just hurl that stupid little rectangle down the alley, into the puddle that had formed in the middle from God knows what. But she didn’t. Only because she knew the shit-fit her dad would throw if he found out she broke it. Make up an excuse or not, he would be livid and scream at her until she crawled even further into herself. If that were even possible.
So instead, she just leaned against the wall, piecing it all together.
He hadn’t answered her. The second she’d left town, he hung out with that girl. That meant either he had got her number that night, while she had been right there, or he’d asked about her. How embarrassing for her to be the stupid fool of a girlfriend off on a road trip, while other people knew that Vince was asking around about some hot little thing from some stupid party?
What had it all been for? All the countless, endless nights and days she had hung around him, basically acting as a lapdog. She had sat and watched him play his stupid games for hours without complaint. When she wanted to go to the movies or something, she would pay, because she’d rather get him to go than not be able to go at all. She had admitted to having a boyfriend, never
trying to move on or meet someone new, because she had promised to be with him.
But why? For how long? Until they got married? Until he knocked her up? Until someone else saved her?
Shamefully, she tried not to admit to herself that the last part was the right one. She wanted to be saved. She wanted someone to come along and tell her she deserved better. Someone who she could hang out with like normal people do, who would do cute little dumb surprises—even if it was as small as grabbing a bag of her favorite candy when he filled up his crappy old car. She wanted the Prince Charming on a white horse to come in, maybe even have a little showdown with Vince. How would it be to be desired and wanted so badly that someone would fight for you? She both could and couldn’t imagine it. She could be out on some cute date with this imaginary guy, getting ice cream and walking around Old Ellicott City, with its stone walls and cobbled streets, and that one store that she had never been in, filled with glittery girlie things.
They’d go to the movies and on the way run into Vince, skateboarding with his stupid friends, and New Boyfriend would stop and give Vince a piece of his mind. Something that included sentiments like, “I don’t know who you think you are,” and “This is the greatest girl I’ve ever met, and you were lucky you got even a moment of her time.”
But that guy didn’t exist. She had never met anyone who even seemed to consider doing something like that. No. And why would they? Meeting Conor was a case in point. To them, she was just some burned-out—or at least burning-out—pothead loser with a record. She’d gotten caught with weed, big surprise, got probation because it wasn’t that much, and then made the mistake of being the “mostly sober” driver home from a party. Without a license. Right in her neighborhood. It was dumb, yeah, but it was hard to get in too much trouble going twenty miles per hour on empty streets. She hadn’t even been pulled over. Her mistake was in not noticing the bored cop sitting on the street corner, whose eye was caught by a car unloading a bunch of teenagers.
And now she was a jailbird.
At least she didn’t have crazy piercings or wild hair. Wild, stupid, red hair. She did have the two tattoos, though. One was her favorite quote, YOU ONLY LIVE ONCE, BUT IF YOU DO IT RIGHT, ONCE IS ENOUGH. From Mae West. Supposedly. She had gotten it because it seemed to support and justify her desires to party and not give a damn about anything or anyone. But it was still true. Perhaps maybe her definition of “doing it right” was the part of herself she wanted to change.
Or the part of herself that she was desperately begging someone to help her change. Whatever.
And now, her crappy, unloving boyfriend—that, let’s be honest, she didn’t even like—had cheated on her. She knew it. Even if he hadn’t hooked up with Lauren Fellows, which she just knew he had, he did lie to her. And he had ignored her. And that was cheating enough.
So if she was expecting some Romeo to come along, did she really expect him to act like that? She couldn’t even hang on to Vince.
And the part that killed her the most—the part that had flown to her mind like a bullet to the head—was the fact that he had that video. He had that fucking video of her demonstrating her blow job technique and her stupidity all in one fell swoop.
She let her head fall into her crossed elbows, and gritted her teeth hard as the tears started to come. With Tamara’s fury always came tears. An exasperating trait she wished she could be rid of. The number of times her dad had screamed at her or been harsh, and she had burst into weak tears was too many to count. And if you want to argue with a level head, gasping for breath in between sobs was not the way.
“Tamara? Tamara…” Colleen had rounded the corner and was walking quickly and officially toward her.
Tamara took a deep breath and tried to wipe away the tears with her shoulders as if it weren’t obvious from her crouched position what was going on.
“It’s nothing, not a big deal, I’m sorry—”
“Why are you saying sorry? And I’m sorry, but I’m calling b.s. on the fact that nothing is wrong. Tell me.” She crouched down in front of her.
“No, I don’t want to talk about it.”
“You can tell me anything that’s going on.”
“I don’t want to! Okay? Jesus Christ.” Tamara stood, getting a surge in her chest at spending some of the anger that was building in her.
“Hey!” Colleen said, standing too.
“Just stop! I don’t want to talk about it, and it doesn’t have anything to do with you, so can we just fucking drop it and go?”
“Watch your language, Tamara.”
Tamara laughed. “Right. Yeah, no, I’m gonna go ahead and say fuck that. Don’t tell me what to do. You’re not my mom, and you don’t know what’s going on, so just— Ugh!”
She stomped off toward the car. She knew she shouldn’t be yelling and acting like this. But it was all she knew how to do. Close into herself and keep a repellent force field around that blasted people back when they tried to edge in.
They rode in silence for the most part. Bitty and Colleen tossed a few words back and forth, but Bitty seemed to have as much on her mind as Tamara did, and Colleen just seemed kind of over it all.
Whatever. Tamara didn’t really blame her for that. She also didn’t have it in her to do anything about it.
She couldn’t decide what to do. Text Vince, ripping him a new one; write to redhead and rip her a new one; or—she was still kind of considering it—throw the phone out the window. Instead, she was finding that she was just sitting angrily in the backseat, torn between crying and screaming.
The worst part was that she couldn’t freak out. If she made him mad, he might do something with that video.
Her phone buzzed. Her heart leapt, and she wasn’t sure why. What exactly was she hoping to hear, and from who?
CONOR, TEXT MESSAGE (1)
She took a deep breath before opening it. Finally, something. Something to take her mind off Vince and all the humiliation.
Hey … sorry I haven’t answered your picture. It was pretty funny, ha. But I just didn’t really know what to say.
Oh. Well I mean I only sent it cuz you told me to take a picture of five different cool things, so … idk that’s what I was doing I guess.
She watched him type via the little ellipsis that showed up during messaging. Then he stopped typing, and her heart sank, before he started up again. Then finally the text appeared.
It’s just, I don’t know, I saw this thing … you did? And I’m not sure if like you know about it or what, so I haven’t known what to say, and it’s not like I know you like that.
Her stomach fell with a gush into her shoes.
What are you talking about …
Her fingers were trembling. Her eyes were blurring. Her heart was pounding. No. No no no no …
Then he sent a link. There was no telling what the link was from the jumble of letters he sent. No real words, just a shortened URL.
She glanced up at the front, and then plugged her headphones into her phone before clicking the link.
With a shudder, a video popped up. With a little tag that read MY DIRTY XGF on the bottom right, her video started to play.
Her eyelashes, slightly furrowing brow, the freckle on her right cheekbone, and her … doing what she did to Vince. Doing what she already couldn’t have imagined doing again. It played in front of her eyes like a slow-moving car crash.
The view of the top of her head, then some of her face, then her realizing the video was on. Her weak, “Hey—?” as her eyes widened with fear and her lashes sank with sadness and embarrassment as he said, “Babe. It’s okay. It’s just for me. I’m not going to show anyone. Now, finish.”
And the look in her eyes as her gaze dropped from the camera and Vince’s face down to nothing, and then as they shut and she did as she was told.
She watched the video, feeling sick, from start to end.
When it finally stopped, she saw 71 COMMENTS.…
That would be too much. She closed
the window and looked through tears at the text from Conor.
She started to say a million things, but then gave up and shut the phone off. She covered her eyes and cried, making 100 percent sure that no one would hear her.
* * *
THEY GOT INTO their hotel room, got settled, and then Colleen suggested they all go to dinner.
“There’s this Cajun-sounding place called Harry’s downstairs and around the corner—it looks good.”
“I’m actually not all that hungry,” said Tamara.
“You aren’t skipping another meal.”
“No, just … Do you think you could bring me back something? I’ll be hungry later, and I kind of want to be alone.”
It was like feeling sick and knowing you had to wait to throw up until you got to the bathroom. She was filled with unspent tears and probably a good scream, but she had to wait to be alone to spend it all.
And, to be honest, puking was not completely out of the question.
Colleen made a face. “I don’t know—”
“Look, no offense, but I could do with being alone for a little bit. It’s been pretty close quarters.”
Tam knew Colleen couldn’t argue that. She seemed to be torn before finally saying, “All right, but don’t go anywhere, please. And keep your phone charged and on you.”
Tamara raised her eyebrows in agreement. She was suddenly melancholy for the carefree moments with Colleen, where she wasn’t being a snotty teenager. Or, whatever, carefree moments in general. Any moment before she had porn on the Internet that even people like Conor had seen. If it had been sent to him, that meant everyone had seen it. It’s not even like she had friends, really, but anyone who knew her had seen her at her most vulnerable.
The door shut, leaving Tamara alone with her everything. She didn’t even get a breath in before her chest started to convulse with sobs. She cried her heart out for a good minute, and then the tears started to subside. She was almost disappointed. She felt like there was more in her that she wanted to get out but she couldn’t.
She sniffed and walked over to the mirror to right herself. God, she looked ill. Better, honestly, than when she had left. But she had once been quite pretty. Now her skin was verging on yellow without a hint of pink in her cheeks, and the bags under her eyes were gray and blue and sunken. She was probably looking at herself in extremes and seeing things worse than they were—but maybe not. Maybe she was just seeing herself accurately. Complete with damaged, overprocessed hair, it was safe to say she was the worst physical version of herself that she had ever been. She was an “after” picture in a “What Drugs and Drinking Could Do to You!” article.
Driving With the Top Down Page 17