by Geneva Lee
“Poppy, doesn’t this seem like...you know?” Cyrus says, casting a worried glance at me.
Poppy sighs, clearly understanding what he meant. “It does. Look, Sterling, you should probably prepare yourself. I know things have been rough, and I’m sure Adair tried, but we’ve seen this before. Somebody falls for someone on the wrong rung of the social ladder, and their parents go mental. Payoffs, boarding school, you name it, it’s on the table.”
“Adair wouldn’t…” But I already know she would, because she just did. I just don’t want to accept it.
“Wait until you can get in touch with Adair. She’ll come around. You know what her father’s like. Maybe she has to make it look like she’s playing along.”
“Yeah, that’s probably it,” Cyrus says, jumping on board. “Things will get back to normal, but only as long as you don’t make the situation worse.”
“Exactly,” Poppy agrees.
“Sure, cool.” I don’t mean it. Have I been infected with the faux politeness of the South, too? Or am I too busy dwelling on what rung of the social ladder I’m on in their minds?
Or am I on it at all?
“Poppy, I’ll be over in an hour or so, okay?” He ends the call. “Back to the dorm room?”
I slump in my seat. “Can you stop at a liquor store on the way?”
Why the fuck not? There’s nothing left to lose.
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?”
“You got a better one?”
He doesn’t argue with me after that. Why would he? We both know the answer. There are no good options. No choices left to make. He can see that, even knowing half the information. I never stood a chance, which means that they’re all right about me. So, why not enjoy the little time I have left?
7
Adair
“Adair, you have to get out of bed today.”
Poppy’s voice, muffled by the closed door, cuts through the musty air in my room, waking me up from a nightmare. Sterling and I were in New York. We’d been struggling to get by, I think. He wanted us to charge people money to watch us have sex. He kept saying it was the only way. I’m clutching the covers to my neck when I wake up, drenched in sweat, and bolt upright, my nerves as ragged as the moment I fell asleep.
It was just a dream. Just another nightmare.
How can anyone sleep as much as I have and still be so tired? What time is it, anyway? Day? Night? Dream? Nightmare? It’s all blending into one endless black stretch.
I know my phone died a couple days ago. I forgot to bring a charger from my place on campus. I know I’ve been at Windfall for about five days, meaning it’s been two since Sterling came by. So it’s...Wednesday?
“Adair, can you hear me? I’m coming in.”
“No!” I yelp, trying to leap up from the bed, but my body is stiff and slow to respond. I’ve barely managed getting my feet on the ground when Poppy’s golden silhouette appears in the door.
“Jesus, it’s like a cave in here! How do you see?”
My eyes, acclimated to the dark, have no trouble seeing Poppy stalk across the room toward the blackout curtains blocking the outside world. “Don’t!”
“Hush. It’s for your own goo—” Her foot clips a stack of pizza boxes sitting on the floor, and she almost falls face first on them. The smell of mushrooms and cheese waft over to me, and my stomach grumbles so loudly Poppy can actually hear it.
She reaches the curtains and pulls them back a little, letting sunlight in the room. “There. That’s better.”
The light is headache-inducing, forcing me to squint. “What time is it?”
“Do you even know what day it is?” Poppy says, her brow creased in a way that reminds me of mom.
For a second, I let myself pretend she is Mom, that we’re about to talk—that things are about to get better. But it only hurts more. “Wednesday, I think.” I leave Poppy standing by the window and shuffle toward the ensuite to brush my teeth. I love a supreme pizza, but the onions are killer the next morning. So, is the heartburn.
“It’s fucking Friday!”
I bite back a rare smile at the sound of fuck coming from her. There’s always just a second of hesitation before she curses. “Alright, already. I’m up. What more do you want?”
“What’s going on, Adair? Sterling and Cy tried to come by and see you, but Windfall security threatened to arrest them both. They were going to pepper spray them! You aren’t returning anyone’s calls. People are worried.”
I knew this moment would come. I can’t keep avoiding people forever. But here, in my room full of all my things, with the doors closed, with the gates of Windfall manned by security—at least I feel safe. “One sec, let me brush my teeth.”
When I come back into the bedroom, Poppy has fully opened the curtains, grabbed all the pizza and takeout boxes littered around the room, and plopped them in the hall outside my door. I nearly start to cry. Other than Felix, no one’s bothered to check in on me. I feel more like a prisoner than a victim.
When Poppy sees me, her expression softens. She sits on my bed, patting the space next to her. “Whatever it is, I’m here for you, hon. No judgem—”
“I have a sex tape.”
“Oh,” she says, all color draining from her face. She opens her mouth to speak, but the words get lost in transit. Apparently, I found her mute button.
“Yeah. I found out from my father. He received a blackmail email.”
“Oh.”
“The message was sent anonymously, but it instructed him to send $1,000,00,000 to an address in Queens.” I list each fact as emotionlessly as possible, because that’s what these are: facts. I can’t change them. Sleeping hasn’t changed them. Ignoring them hasn’t changed them. Time to start facing them. I watch Poppy’s expression like a hawk. I’ve turned everything over so many times, I don’t know what I think anymore. Because, although, these are the facts, I can’t quite decide if I believe all the information behind them. Maybe Poppy’s reaction will help me figure out what’s real and what’s a lie. God knows I haven’t been able to figure it out on my own.
“Oh.” Or maybe she’s caught on repeat.
We sit in silence, and then, after a long pause, she says, “Isn’t that where…”
“Yeah, it’s Sterling’s address.”
“Oh.” Poppy’s face is inscrutable. I watch her wheels spin, but there’s nothing there. Figures.
“Would you please stop saying that. It’s not very helpful.”
“That bastard,” she says, but her eyes dart to me when she says it, like she needs me to signal how I feel about it before she can figure out how to be supportive. She’s taking my side—just as soon as I show her what side that is. So far, this conversation is as illuminating as talking to a mirror.
“I don’t know what to believe. I’ve seen the video. It was taken the night of my brother’s wedding.”
She pulls me into a hug, and for a moment I feel only skin-crawling violation. No one has actually touched me since I got the news. After a moment, though, the anxiety vanishes, and I find myself sobbing into my best friend’s shoulder. By the time two large, wet spots have soaked through her jacket, I simply have no more tears inside me.
I’m a champion crier, I realize. I wonder if there’s an Olympics event for it. I’d be a shoe-in. I’d get all the best sponsorships. Kleenex. The Grand Ole Opry. I can actually see this life, complete and rounded and real, inside my head. The last week has been like that. Every black thought conjures its own reality. The future I was headed to—the one with Sterling—is gone forever. Everything feels futile. Pointless even. And worse than that? I can’t help thinking I’d always known we were doomed. I might as well acknowledge the cosmic joke in it.
“Do you think Sterling actually did it?” Her voice is tentative, but soothing.
“Who else would?” It’s the same question I keep asking myself, hoping to find an answer. “You know what would be helpful?”
“What? Anything.” She
pounces on the opportunity to do something.
“What was your first thought when I told you? I mean at the exact moment you put all the pieces together.” My judgement is obviously impaired. I want someone else to tell me what kind of man Sterling is. I’m not sure I know any more.
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah.” I’m not, though. “Gut check time.”
“I thought—he wouldn’t,” she says slowly, “but…”
“But who would ever expect anyone to do something like that?” I finish for her.
“Pretty much, yeah.”
“And who else would?”
“Also that,” she agrees.
“I don’t know what to think, Poppy. It’s hard even telling you. Like, I worry—will you ever see me the same way?”
Poppy’s face bursts like a dam. It’s a strange thing, to watch someone else’s heart break for you. To watch them come apart, because your pain is just too much. “No, darling. No. No. Never. Nothing about this changes how I see you.”
“I know you love me. I know you wouldn’t abandon me. And I know you would never want it to change how you see me. It’s just, I wonder, you know? When people find out, does my name change from ‘Adair’ to ‘Adair with the sex tape?’ It’s just always there, this ugly feeling. Like an enormous monster. And to do anything—just get up and go to the bathroom—I have to pretend it’s not there, just waiting to rewrite me into a person I don’t want to be.” The last words escape through a sob, but I don’t want to feel sorry for myself. I just want her to understand.
“I will never, ever tell anyone.” Of course, Poppy understands. Of course, she does. What would I do without her? Why didn’t I share with her sooner? “And who else knows?”
“My father. My brother knows the video exists, I think, but he hasn’t seen it. Which means Ginny knows about it.” I feel queasy again.
“No one who will hurt you,” she says with a relief I don’t share, because I’m not certain she’s right. “And Sterling?”
“I had a whole day where I decided he made the video, but that he never intended for anyone to actually see it—besides my father. Basically, I convinced myself he thought the writing was on the wall, and this was his way of getting us enough money to keep us free from my family.”
“But it didn’t make you feel any better,” Poppy says knowingly.
“Worse, actually.” It took me an embarrassingly long amount of time to realize how stupid this line of thinking was. “Because it would mean he made all the choices, used me without bothering to discuss it with me. It would mean that, whatever it is we have, it wasn’t enough to make him see what it would do to me.”
“Do you love him?” Poppy says, putting her arm around my shoulders.
It should be the biggest question of all after everything he’s done—the one that I have to consider. But I don’t. “Yeah. With all my heart. No question.”
She sighs like she was hoping for another answer. “I thought so.”
“But how do you tell if someone loves you back? I thought I knew…” I trail off. It’s too raw, and I’m too full of self-loathing. Another step in that direction and I feel like I’ll fall through a hole I’ll never claw free from.
“You always know, deep down,” Poppy says, her voice suddenly small and sad. “My dad loves my mom. My mom doesn’t love him, I think. And Cyrus doesn’t—”
“Of course he does, he just—”
“No, it’s fine. He doesn’t love me yet.” Poppy’s face brightens, and I recognize the signs of someone taking my mom’s advice and making diamonds. “You can grow to love someone. And Cyrus is the one for me. He just fell in love with himself first. He’ll get there. He just needs to grow up some more.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
“I said hush. You have nothing to be sorry for. But you should do what you had me do earlier. The first thought that jumps to mind when I ask ‘does Sterling love you?’ is…”
“He loves me.” In the end, it’s simple. I know Sterling loves me.
But he’s like the ocean. Powerful and brooding and mysterious. What difference does it make if I know the tide will come in again—if that same tide washes me away? And that’s what it’s like with Sterling. Whatever I grasp is just a small part of a whole I can’t see—and it’s dangerous to make assumptions with a force as powerful and uncontrollable as that.
“Then you should at least talk to him,” Poppy says. “If it helps, we can do it at our place with Ava and me there.”
“Maybe.” It’s not the worst idea. I’ll need closure, one way or the other, right? “But I don’t know what I would say. Not yet.”
“Then take your time. He’s not going anywhere. And if he does, well, at least you’ll have your answer.”
I take a deep breath, and enjoy feeling like there is something fixed in my future. It already feels like a tether to reality. “Okay. That’s the plan, then. But there is something I’d like you to do for me.” I open the drawer of the nightstand next to my bed. “I wrote him a letter. Well, more of a note, really. Whenever we do end up talking, I think it will help if he reads it.”
“I’ll get it to him,” Poppy says, giving me a kiss on my temple, which makes me fall to pieces. Dry sobs rack my whole body, and my friend keeps her arm around me. “We’ll get through this. You don’t have to do it alone.”
I do, though.
8
Sterling
“Is something wrong?” Francie unspools the words without bothering to pause between them. I can’t tell if she’s worried or teasing. We haven’t talked much on the phone since the holidays.
“What? Why would you think something’s wrong?”
“Because you’re calling me!” The edge to her voice is replaced with exasperation.
“Give me a break. I just wanted to talk,” I say.
“Jesus, Sterling. Now I’m really worried. What happened?”
This was supposed to be the call. But it’s already off the rails.
Over the last couple of days, I thought a lot about how to tell her. How to talk her down from wanting to fight the administration. How to tell her things are going to be alright. I never did figure that one out, actually. Not that it matters. Apparently, my carefully selected explanations flew out the window before I said a single word.
You’re getting better at fucking up. You’ll have a degree in it soon. Then you won’t need this place.
I take a steadying breath, wondering if Francie can sense that, too. “It’s just...trouble with Adair.” It’s not a lie, anyway.
“Ah, that explains it.”
I can feel the outrush of Francie’s tension through the cell phone’s speaker. I could probably guess where she is in the house, what expression she’s wearing.
“Well, is it advice you’re calling for?” Francie continues when I don’t.
“I’m not sure there’s anything left to advise about.”
“Oh, Sterling…” She fills the two little words with so much love and sympathy.
I feel better. And worse.
I really didn’t think this through. What was I going to tell her, anyway? That I was losing my place at Valmont, at least in part because I lost my temper—again. Because it’s definitely not the first time Francie watched me make that mistake. And somehow, every time I disappoint her, it gets harder to do it again. Maybe that would be a good thing if I were ten and she were my mother, helping me figure out how to grow up. But I’m nineteen now, and still making the same mistakes. What’s left to say?
Isn’t that the problem with letting other people get close to begin with? You give them power over you. Then, they mostly just use it to make themselves happier. That’s how it’s been for me with nearly everyone. And if by some miracle they keep loving you despite your repeatedly fucking up? You have to watch their heart break for you. You have to know you caused it. You can’t escape.
I know I’ve already stuck the dagger in Francie. I just can’
t bear the thought of watching her turn around to see me standing there holding the handle.
“Sterling, this is an uncomfortable pause, even for you.” Francie’s voice floats over me.
I’m not sure other people are built like me. I have a place I go to, far on the other side of Drunk Sterling. Somewhere there is no pain, no sadness, and no regret. When I go there, I make rules for my brain to follow—rules that keep the pain away. When I was little, it would be stuff like: No food for Sterling until Sutton eats. Or, later: No lying to Francie. It always works. I have no idea how, or why. It just does.
I make one now, in two parts: I will ruin Angus MacLaine, and I will never burden Francie again.
“Francie, I just needed to hear your voice,” I admit to her. “You’ve always been there for me.”
“You just wanted to feel home?” she offers.
“Yeah, I think that’s it.”
“I’m glad you called, Sterling. I like to give you your space. I know you need it, but it’s still nice.” From Francie, this is almost sappy. Neither of us is comfortable implying we need the other, let alone saying it.
Which is what makes this even harder.
“I don’t think I ever properly thanked you,” I begin.
“You’ve thanked me. And even if you hadn’t—I always knew.” Francie’s voice is warm and light. Will she look back on this moment and remember it with darkness?
“It’s just—I’m not easy to love sometimes.”
There. She’ll probably think I’m referring to problems with Adair. But if she looks back…
“Ha!”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I ask.
“You are so easy to love. Just...hard to understand.”
“Right,” I’m not sure how to answer, and it feels like we’ve done enough sentimentality, anyway. “Listen, I have class…”
“Alright. Scoot. Love you.”
“I love you, too.”
I end the call, considering what to do with my new rule. Ruining Angus MacLaine will take years, no delusions there. But what can I do to keep myself from being a burden on Francie?