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You Say It First

Page 11

by Katie Cotugno


  “No, it’s fine,” Meg said, holding her hands up like an instinct and barely holding back a hysterical giggle; she could feel it lodged behind her breastbone like a bubble of gas. Well, she thought meanly, apparently she and Emily still had more in common than she’d thought. “I just. Huh. Is that why you . . .” She looked at Mason in his glasses and Yosemite hoodie, the rest of the question dangling between them like a hanged thing. “You know what, don’t answer that. It’s okay.”

  “Nothing happened while you guys were together,” Emily said urgently. “You know that, right? I would never, ever—”

  “Me either,” Mason said, solemn as a Boy Scout. Meg could not believe this was happening. They were probably telling the truth, for what it was worth—both of them put too much stock in their own moral codes for them to be lying. But that didn’t actually make it any better. If anything, Meg thought it possibly made things worse.

  The waitress appeared just then, yanking a pen out of her messy bun and flipping to a fresh page in her notepad. “What can I get you?” she asked Meg.

  “Oh!” Meg said, curling her hands around the edge of the laminate table. “I. Um. I think I was just leaving, actually.”

  “No, no, no,” Emily said, “wait.” She turned to the waitress. “She isn’t leaving.”

  “Look,” Mason chimed in reasonably. “Why don’t you stay and hang out, and we can talk about this? We were thinking about ordering a brownie sundae.”

  Now Meg did laugh, a half-insane cackle that echoed even in the crowded restaurant. She clapped a hand over her mouth. “I’m sorry,” she said. “No, I’m good. I actually just remembered I said I’d . . .” She broke off, for once in her life totally unable to think of an excuse, a way to make everything normal and fine. It just always seemed like maybe you weren’t actually that into Mason in the first place, Emily had said. “You guys have fun.”

  “Meggie,” Emily said, her lip pushing out like a little kid in pursuit of a later bedtime. “Come on, wait a second.”

  But Meg was already gone.

  Fifteen

  Colby

  Colby picked Joanna up and they went to Highland Burger Bar, which was new and, Colby thought, a little douchey: exposed brick and soldered copper light fixtures, a live band set up on a low stage at the back of the dining room. The menu had thirty-six different kinds of burgers on it. “You know what you’re going to get?” Joanna asked, setting her purse on the bench, then on the table, then on the bench again. She was wearing a flowered dress and a pair of ankle boots with little heels on them, her jean jacket rolled up to reveal a delicate gold bracelet on one wrist.

  “A salad, definitely,” Colby deadpanned, then grinned at her. “I’m kidding.”

  Joanna smiled. He thought she was nervous, though he had no idea why anybody would be nervous about a dinner with him at Highland Burger Bar. Especially not Joanna, who’d been one of the prettiest girls in their grade. Now she worked at the front desk of a hair salon, booking appointments and refilling the shampoo bottles and sweeping up huge bags of hair, which she explained with a grimace that was cute instead of actually grimace-y. “What is it about hair that it becomes the grossest thing on the planet the moment it’s separated from your head?” she asked as they shared a plate of nachos.

  Colby laughed. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “But you’re definitely not wrong.” It was easy to talk to her—about their friends and how ridiculous they were, about their mean old math teacher Mrs. Cornish, whose son had gone to jail for cooking meth. It was different from the kind of stuff he talked about with Meg, sure, but the truth was that sometimes when he got off the phone with Meg it was like his brain was on fire, like he needed to take it out and dunk it in a glass of water overnight like a pair of dentures in that old commercial. It was exciting sometimes, but also exhausting. With Jo it just felt normal.

  She was halfway through a story about some car Jordan was trying to buy off Craigslist from a guy she thought was probably a drug dealer when Colby’s phone buzzed in his pocket. He tried to ignore the instinctive, animal thunk of his heart against his rib cage. Meg hadn’t texted back at all last night, or today, either, though he’d spent his entire shift at work sneaking his phone out to double-check like a total chump. It was stupid to get his hopes up now, on top of which Colby didn’t even know if he wanted to hear from her at this point. It was probably better in the long run to put an end to things once and for all.

  It buzzed again a couple of minutes later, though, then again ten minutes after that. Colby tried to focus on what Joanna was saying, but as soon as she got up to go to the bathroom he pulled it out of his pocket. Sure enough, it was Meg: Can you talk? she’d texted. Tonight sucked.

  Then: I miss you. Is that weird to say? That’s probably weird to say.

  Then: Ugh, I’m sorry. You’re probably out having a life like a normal person. Going to eat my feelings and go to bed.

  Colby set his phone facedown on the table. Took a long gulp of his Dr Pepper. Finally, he swore under his breath and picked it up again: Give me half an hour, he typed, then shoved the thing back into his pocket just as Joanna came back from the bathroom.

  “Hey,” she said, slipping back into the booth across from him. She’d reapplied her lip gloss, the pale pink sheen of it catching the overhead lights. “Everything okay?”

  “My mom’s not feeling great,” he blurted, knowing even as the words came out that he was being an asshole. Joanna’s own mom had beaten breast cancer twice already, once when they were in middle school and again the previous fall.

  “Oh no,” Joanna said, frowning. “Do you need to get home?”

  Colby hesitated. They were finished with their burgers by now, though he’d been thinking about asking if she wanted to go for ice cream. “Probably,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

  “No, it’s fine,” Joanna said, shaking her curly blond head. “Do you want to grab her some soup to go or something?”

  Fuck, Colby hated himself. “Nah, it’s okay. I should probably just take off.”

  He paid the check and took her home, the windows cracked to the chilly night air and a Kacey Musgraves album she liked on the stereo. She turned to look at him as they pulled up in front of her house. “I had a good time tonight, Colby,” she said.

  Colby nodded. “Yeah,” he said, feeling like a total dickhead and not sure what to do about it, exactly. “Me too.” He knew he could kiss her, if he wanted. He knew from the way she was holding her face that she was probably hoping he would.

  “I’ll text you” was all he said.

  When he got home, instead of going inside he went around the back of the house and climbed the steps to the rickety wooden deck, plunking himself into a lawn chair that Tris had gnawed all the legs on back when she was a puppy. It was still a little too cold to sit out here comfortably at night, the wind stinging the back of his neck and rustling the trees out at the far end of the yard. He tucked his free hand between his thighs and dialed Meg. “Hey,” he said when she answered. “Everything okay?”

  “I’m sorry,” she said, her voice a little thick and unfamiliar. He thought maybe she’d been crying again. “I’m really embarrassed.”

  “Don’t be,” he said, leaning his head back. “It’s just me.”

  “No, I know, but I don’t want you to think I just expect you to drop everything and talk to me just because I’m having some kind of humiliating existential crisis like you’re my therapist or something.”

  “I don’t think I’m your therapist,” Colby said, frowning. “Do you think I’m your therapist?”

  “No,” Meg said immediately. “Of course not. That’s the point.” She took a deep breath. “Are you mad at me?”

  Colby hesitated. It didn’t feel as simple as a yes-or-no answer. “Are you mad at me?” he finally asked.

  “I don’t know,” she said, which was surprising. He hadn’t thought she’d let him get away with not answering first. “I was, a little.”

 
“Yeah.” Colby bit his lip. “I’m not mad at you,” he said, which was true now, even if it hadn’t been twelve hours ago. He didn’t know how to tell her mad wasn’t the right word. “What’s going on?”

  So Meg sighed and told him: about her dad’s wedding and her friend Emily dating her ex-boyfriend, about walking into the pizza place and realizing things were different than she’d thought. Halfway through the story, Tris started scratching at the door to come out, so Colby reached behind him and twisted the knob, watching as the dog trotted across the yard and peed on a fence post before coming back and lying down beside his chair.

  “That’s totally fucked up,” he said when she was finished, though a tiny part of him was weirdly relieved to hear she probably wasn’t about to get back together with that guy any time soon. “The two of them sneaking around like that? I’d be pissed, too.”

  “No, I’m not pissed,” Meg protested. “It’s fine; they’re allowed. It’s just—”

  “Meg.” Colby laughed at her a little; he couldn’t help it. “It’s fucked up.”

  Meg sighed loudly. “Okay,” she said. “I guess it’s a little fucked up.”

  “There you go,” he said, smiling into the darkness. “Does that feel better?”

  “Kind of,” she admitted. “Maybe. I don’t know.” He could hear her shifting around on the other end of the phone; he tried to picture her sitting in her frilly bedroom, wondered if she was already in her pajamas. He wanted to ask her what color her hair was, but he didn’t know how. “Enough. You tell me something now.”

  Colby hesitated for a minute, looking out at the scrubby tree line at the far end of the yard and reaching down to scratch Tris on her bristly backbone. I had a date tonight, he thought and didn’t say. He wasn’t sure why he didn’t say it, exactly, except that he liked being the person she called when things were shitty. He liked being the person she told things to. And it felt like if he told her about Jo, that might go away.

  “I heard a really crappy band tonight,” he said finally.

  Meg smiled at that; Colby could hear it. “You did?”

  “Yeah.” He tilted his head back, rubbed a hand over his hair, and told himself he wasn’t lying. “I think they were covering mostly Queen songs, but it was hard to tell.”

  “Did you know that ‘We Will Rock You’ is an LGBT protest anthem?” Meg asked him, and Colby laughed a little.

  “I didn’t,” he said. “But somehow I’m not surprised that you do.”

  “I can’t tell if that’s a compliment or not,” Meg said.

  Colby considered that. “Yeah,” he told her finally. “It’s a compliment.”

  Meg hummed into his ear for a moment, like an engine revving. “Can I ask you something?” she said, the words coming out so fast they were almost entirely strung together. “Would it be totally demented for us to meet?”

  “I . . .” Colby blinked. “To meet?” he repeated dumbly. He had literally never let himself think about it before. He’d never let himself consider the terms of their relationship in anything besides what they were.

  “So, yes,” Meg said. “Okay. Fair enough. Sorry, I didn’t mean to make it weird, I just—”

  “I don’t think it’s weird,” Colby blurted, finally finding his words. “Or, I mean, I do think it’s weird, I guess, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to meet you.”

  “It doesn’t?” Meg asked. “I mean, you do?”

  Colby hesitated. He did and he didn’t, he guessed. He knew it was inevitably going to be a disappointment, that logically none of this was ever going to be whatever he’d been making it in his mind in the weeks since they’d started talking. And yet . . .

  “Yeah,” he said. “I do.”

  “Okay.” Meg swallowed. “Where?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Well, what’s between where you are and where I am?” she asked. “Like, right in the middle? Actually, hang on. I’ll Google it.” He could hear her typing away, the determined clatter of her fingers on the keyboard. Colby’s heart was slamming away inside his chest. “Literally nothing,” she reported after a moment. “Well, there’s a truck-stop diner not too far. But I’m not meeting you at a truck-stop diner. What if I just came to you?”

  “Wait, seriously?”

  “Why not, right?”

  “It’s far.”

  “It’s not that far,” Meg countered. “Google says it’s, like, eight hours.”

  “You want to drive eight hours to see me?” Colby blurted.

  “I mean, why not?”

  “Have you ever driven eight hours before?”

  “Yes,” Meg said immediately.

  “When?”

  “To see Harry Styles last summer, and if you say anything about it, this whole thing is off.”

  “I’m not saying anything,” Colby promised. He couldn’t stop smiling. He also felt like he was about to throw up. He couldn’t imagine meeting her at all, to be honest, but now that the idea had lodged itself in his mind, he couldn’t stop thinking it, couldn’t stop wanting it. Already wanted it more than he’d wanted anything in a long time.

  He thought for a moment. His mom was working a double this weekend. It was conceivable Meg could be in and out without his mom ever knowing she’d been here. “What about tomorrow?” he asked. It was soon—it was too soon—but he also thought it was possible he’d lose his nerve entirely if they waited any longer than that.

  “Oh! Um.” Meg sounded surprised, and he wondered for a moment if she’d been counting on him saying it wasn’t a good idea, if possibly they were playing some weird game of chicken he hadn’t copped onto until it was too late. “Yeah,” she said. “Tomorrow could work.”

  “Are you sure?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” she said. “I’m sure.”

  Sixteen

  Meg

  It was barely light the next morning when Meg filled her Kleen Kanteen and tucked a few packets of trail mix and an apple into her backpack, then tossed it into the back seat of the Prius and cracked the windows to the warm spring air. She’d told her mom she was going to Dorney Park with Emily’s family. She hadn’t told anybody the truth. On one hand, it felt kind of wildly liberating, the idea of not having to answer to anyone but herself for the next thirty-six hours.

  On the other, she was extremely worried about getting chainsaw murdered.

  Well, Meg reassured herself, she’d packed the portable charger for her cell phone. She had three hundred dollars in cash from her bank account and the Mastercard her dad had cosigned for her when she started her job so she could start building credit. She wasn’t an idiot. Not that you had to be an idiot to get chainsaw murdered, obviously, but—

  Anyway, this whole line of thinking was irrelevant, because Colby wasn’t a chainsaw murderer.

  Meg was, like, 99 percent sure.

  She headed west on I-76, digging her sunglasses out of the cup holder and turning Janelle Monáe up on the stereo. Her heart thumped with anticipation to the beat of the drums. She peed at a rest stop near Allentown, pulling a bottle of kombucha out of the cooler and smiling at the clerk, a girl about her age who was reading a sci-fi novel at the counter. It occurred to Meg that a rest stop would be a great place to do a voter registration drive, and she made a mental note to mention it to Lillian at work next week.

  It was another couple of hours before she crossed into Ohio; she passed power plants and farmland and a giant billboard that just said HELL IS REAL in huge black letters on a white background. She wanted to take a picture and text it to Emily, but then Emily would want to know what she was doing all the way out here.

  Also, Emily had stolen her boyfriend.

  Meg blew a breath out, making a face at herself even though there was no one to see it. God, she wasn’t Taylor Swift circa 2009. She knew that nobody could steal a boyfriend who didn’t want to be stolen, not to mention the fact that she was literally crossing state lines at this very moment to go see some other guy entirely. Still, the idea
of Mason and Emily lying to her—the idea of them strategizing over the best way to let her down easy, like she couldn’t be trusted not to fall apart or make some big public scene—made her want to throw up all over the inside of the Prius. She was an adult. She could handle herself. She was fine.

  Colby lived in a small town called Alma an hour or so outside Columbus. Meg pulled off the highway and followed the GPS with her bottom lip clamped between her teeth, passing a post office and a Dollar General and a strip mall with a CVS and a hair salon, her nerves getting thicker and more viscous as the landscape outside the window began to thin. Finally, she turned onto a quiet street in a residential neighborhood full of modest houses that looked like they’d all been built around the same time, pulling to a stop in front of a neat brick split-level with a wrought-iron screen over the front door. “You have arrived at your destination,” chirped the GPS.

  Meg turned off the engine and sat in the driveway for a long moment, hands still curled around the wheel. For all the times she’d imagined meeting Colby in real life—and she had imagined it, daydreaming in the middle of calc class and lying alone in her bed late at night—for some reason the idea of marching up the front walk and ringing the bell felt impossible. It occurred to her all at once that there was still enough time to drive away.

  Instead, she fished her phone from the cupholder before she could talk herself out of it, scrolling through her recents and pressing her thumb to Colby’s name. “Um,” she said when he answered, swallowing her heart back down into her chest where it belonged, “I think I’m here?”

  “Oh!” Colby said. He sounded surprised, as if he hadn’t actually believed she was going to show up. “Okay. Um, hang on.”

  The screen door screeched open a moment later, and a brown-and-black pit bull darted out, her stocky body trundling down the steps and across the lawn to where Meg was standing by the open driver’s-side door. “She’s friendly,” a deep voice called, even as the dog skidded to a stop in front of her, howling enthusiastically as it jumped.

 

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