by Olin, Sean
When Lilah finally came downstairs, she was all smiles and joy. She’d dressed herself up in a bright red-and-yellow halter-top sundress that showed off her breasts. She’d put on too much makeup—not so much that she looked ridiculous, but enough that it highlighted her insecurity more than it did her beauty.
She took Carter by the hand and led him toward the front door.
Resentment boiled under his skin. He’d definitely been tricked.
As soon as they were outside, Carter unleashed his hand from hers and said, “What the hell, Lilah?”
“Don’t be like that,” she said. “Don’t ruin tonight.”
They were standing directly in front of the door to the house, and knowing that Lilah’s mother had a way of lurking and listening in on their conversations, Carter stalked down the walkway to the curb where his BMW was parked. Lilah followed him, almost skipping behind him. Her body language said that her life was beautiful, blissful. She was putting on a show. Carter wasn’t sure for whom.
“It doesn’t really look like you’re ‘sinking,’” he said.
She plumped out her lower lip and batted her eyelashes at him. “I thought after you saw me all dressed up that you’d maybe rather spend the night with me.”
“Is that what you thought? Really?”
“That’s what I hoped.”
“Hmm. Okay.” Carter twisted an imaginary knob above his ear and made a ticking noise, listening to his brain unwind. “Nope,” he said. “Doesn’t look like I’ve changed my mind.”
Lilah glanced back toward the house. Something broke in her. The tears were pressing under her skin. “Please, Carter,” she said. “What am I going to tell my mom?”
“Why is that my problem? Tell her whatever you want.”
“She’s been putting a lot of pressure on me lately. Haven’t you noticed how nervous I’ve been? She thinks I’m going to . . . I don’t know, hurt myself again.”
“Are you?”
“No. Not now that you’re here,” she said.
“God, Lilah. Why are you doing this to me?” he said.
“Doing what? Trying to keep us together?”
This was blackmail. And emotional terrorism. Carter could barely contain his anger. “Jesus, Lilah,” he said. “I can’t even have one single night to myself? You know? Unlike you, I actually like having friends. I want to see them sometimes.”
Lilah slumped to the curb and held her head in her hands. Her back quivered like she was crying, and Carter knew he had gone too far. He sat down next to her.
“Look,” he said. “We can go another night. Tomorrow if you want. The rides and games will be the same either way.”
No answer. Lilah just kept shaking, burying her head deeper and deeper between her legs. Carter rubbed her back with one hand, trying to soothe her, or get her to stop crying, at least.
“I’ll make it up to you,” he said.
Suddenly sitting up straight, Lilah turned on him. Her eyes were dry—she hadn’t been crying after all. She was tight with fury. “You don’t get anything, do you, Carter? I need you. When you’re not around, I feel like . . . like I don’t have any reason to exist.”
“Do you think that’s fair to me?” he asked quietly.
She just stared at him. She was so volatile that she was quivering. He knew he wasn’t going to get to South Beach tonight. He knew he should be concerned about Lilah, but he was seeing red.
“Fuck it,” he said. “Fine. Lilah, you win.”
She waited until they were downtown looking for parking to speak to him again. “Tell me you’re not going to be mad all night,” she said. “I was hoping this would be special.”
He looked at her. Did she not understand what she was doing to him? “I’m here,” he said. “What more do you want?”
“Oh, I don’t know. A little love. Some sense that you’re excited to be here with me.”
“Well,” he said, “you can’t always get what you want.”
As they wandered through the arcades of Harpoon Haven, Carter felt like he was standing outside his own body, watching himself step over crushed soda cups and half-eaten cones of cotton candy with Lilah. Eating fried dough with Lilah. Listening to Lilah gush over things they’d done years ago, how romantic it had been, how sweet and beautiful those memories were, and with every word out of her mouth, Carter was forced to compare then to now, to the strain and the agony of this prison he was in.
He could see his own future life with Lilah spooled out in front of him like a trip wire. The future she yearned for, anyway. Maybe he’d condemned himself to a life of fear, sitting around in some little house in Dream Point, watching gobs of TV because it was the only thing he could do that didn’t throw Lilah into a suicidal panic, begging her for permission just to even talk on the phone with Jeff.
And he couldn’t help thinking about the last time he’d been here, with Jules. He couldn’t help thinking about how relaxed, how alive, how simply happy he’d been that night. How magical Harpoon Haven had seemed when she was there by his side, how hard it had been to resist kissing her, how much he wished she was here with him right now. It was as though Lilah had engineered this night explicitly to make him as uncomfortable as she could.
Lilah noticed. Of course she noticed. Finally, while they waited in line to ride the Tilt-A-Whirl, she said, “You could at least pretend to be having a good time.”
He stifled the sarcastic responses that flooded his mind and waited awkwardly for the line to inch forward.
“Carter. Why’d you even come out with me tonight if all you’re going to do is brood and make me feel like shit?”
This was too much. “Are you seriously asking me that, Lilah?” he said, almost spitting the words in her face. “You gave me no choice.”
“You’ve always got a choice.”
“Not when you threaten to hurt yourself if I say no, I don’t.”
“I never threatened to hurt myself.”
The other people in line were noticing. They turned their faces away and cocked their ears. Smirks and frowns played over their faces.
“Sure, whatever, Lilah,” Carter said. He took a step forward, keeping up with the line.
Lilah kept up with him, pressed like a yappy dog at his heels. “Don’t whatever me.” When he didn’t acknowledge her, she repeated herself. “Carter. Don’t whatever me. It’s like you don’t even love me anymore.”
“Jesus Christ,” Carter muttered.
This acting like he was above it all just egged Lilah on. She stomped on his foot to force his attention.
“Hey!” He turned on her.
Maybe he was pissed, but at least he was paying attention to her now. “What’s the point of your being here if all you’re going to do is punish me the whole time?” she said.
He wasn’t sure who he pitied more, her or himself. And in that moment, while he struggled to control his rage, he realized that there was nothing he could do—nothing he’d ever be able to do—to save Lilah from herself.
“You know what,” he said, “you’re right. I’m done punishing you.” He ducked under the metal barricade and stepped off the line.
As he walked away, he heard her shouting after him, “Hey! Carter! Where are you going?!”
He turned and called back to her, “Where do you think? I’m going to South Beach.”
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29
As he sat in front of his meticulously organized desk, Carter watched the minutes click by on his computer screen. Finals were set to begin the next week, and though he’d already been accepted to UPenn, he still worried about bombing them. He wasn’t the kind of guy to coast through the finish line. He’d lined up his textbooks and notebooks in an order based on his testing schedule, and created a careful plan of action for himself, blocking out the time needed to study for each subject. But each time
he attempted to review his notes, they seemed like they were written in a foreign language.
His chest wouldn’t stop throbbing. It felt like it was going to burst, a feeling like people describe when they talk about heartbreak, but Carter’s heart wasn’t breaking. It just hurt. He’d started feeling this way that night with Lilah at Harpoon Haven, and in the four days since, the feeling had intensified. It was constant, a mixture of anger and resentment and worry and fear that congealed into a dark image of Lilah in his head. A pressure so extreme that he could hardly concentrate on anything else.
Carter forced himself to stay in his chair, becoming more and more frustrated with himself. He’d already played thirty-six games of Spider Solitaire—the only thing he could bring himself to concentrate on—and he knew if he kept this up, he’d end up still staring cross-eyed at the screen at three a.m., winning nothing but a few digitized fireworks and the promise of a bleary day at school tomorrow.
What he needed was Jules. Just to talk to her. Just to be in her presence for a while.
He sent her a text to remind her he existed, but she didn’t respond.
Ten more games of Solitaire and still no response.
He yearned to tell her she haunted him each and every day. To tell her he’d been wrong. He’d made the wrong choice. But he knew he couldn’t do that. Not while he was still caught up in this mess with Lilah.
He sent her another text.
Nothing.
He couldn’t stand it anymore. If he’d broken up with Lilah way back in March, after that perfect “nondate” with Jules, maybe Jules wouldn’t have forgotten him already. There was no way he was going to be able to save Lilah, anyway. He was just making himself miserable trying.
He had to move. He had to fix his life.
He sped through the backstreets toward Lilah’s neighborhood. It was just ten. Her parents would be nodding off to the evening news. She’d be upstairs in her bedroom, avoiding them.
When Lilah’s mom answered the door in her pink flowered pajamas and her fuzzy white slippers, she gave a pinched little sigh. “Oh, Carter, we weren’t expecting you,” she whispered. “We’re all in bed right now.”
“I know. I’m sorry. I’ll be just a second. I’ve, uh, got something I forgot to give her earlier. A book, uh . . .” He was winging it. Making it up as he went along. “The Grapes of Wrath.”
He wondered what she saw as she gazed at him with her sleep-weary eyes—the quiet, gentlemanly guy who answered her daughter’s every beck and call, or the rabid dog that he felt like tonight, burning with pent-up rage. Did she see the sweat beading on his forehead? The spite flashing behind his smile?
She nodded and stepped away to let him into the house.
Avoiding eye contact, he squeezed past her and tiptoed upstairs. He knocked softly and then pushed open the door to Lilah’s room.
Lilah, who had been sitting at her computer, but not really working, saw him in the mirror above her makeup table—so awkward there in the doorway, his hands patting at his waist like they didn’t know where to go, his whole body tense. She could tell just by looking at him that he wasn’t here to say sorry for his behavior at Harpoon Haven.
“Hey,” he said.
It took her a long time to respond. She had to wait until all her shields were in place. She didn’t want to surrender to her tears all at once. She didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of seeing that.
Once she was composed enough to enter the battle, she turned slowly, slowly away from her computer.
“Hey,” she said.
And so there they were. A warm relief swept through Carter’s body. He was finally doing what he should have done months ago.
“Think you might have a minute to talk?”
She tipped her head ambivalently. She was going to make this as hard as she could for him.
“Should we go outside?” he said. “Maybe sit out front?”
“Sure.”
They took the long walk down the hallway, down the steps through the darkened foyer to the crystal-inlaid front door. There was no touching, no eye contact, no discussion as they marched. They wandered past the rosebushes and the azaleas and all the other nonnative flowers displayed on Lilah’s family’s artificially lush, landscaped lawn, and found two spots, not quite next to each other, on the white concrete curb.
The time had come. Lilah braced herself. She felt dead inside, cold as stone.
Carter adjusted his position so he was facing her. “I’ve been thinking and thinking about this,” he said, “and you’re right. There’s . . . everything’s screwed up.”
Each fumbled word out of Carter’s mouth hit Lilah like a separate punch in the gut.
“And after what happened on Friday . . . it’s just . . . it’s not going to work. It’s never going to work.”
She knew he’d been thinking this for a long time, but hearing him say it out loud still stunned her. Her heart had no room in it for these words from him. Yes, things had been hard; things had been pretty horrible. But that other thing that had sustained them throughout the previous three years still existed. It had to exist. She could still remember it, so it must exist.
“I really tried. I can’t tell you how hard . . .”
But it didn’t exist. The new reality was sinking in. She excised her hands from his with a snap.
He said it again. “I’m sorry.” That’s all he could say. Like saying I’m sorry did anyone any good.
She’d tried so hard. She’d put up with so much. And she’d managed the Jules situation so carefully. How dare he? This wasn’t allowed to happen to her.
“Did you?” she said. “Did you really try? Is that what you call fucking that bitch Jules Turnbull behind my back while I’m vomiting my guts out at home?” She was losing control. She didn’t care. “’Cause that’s what you did, isn’t it? Isn’t it?”
Carter didn’t respond. He refused to make eye contact with her.
“You thought I didn’t know about it, didn’t you? You thought, Lilah, she’s just a naïve little girl. I can get away with any shit I want to with her. But guess what? I’m not as stupid as you think.”
The way his eyes bulged at this revelation told her that she’d scored a point on him.
“I don’t think you’re stupid,” he mumbled.
“What, then? You obviously thought you could get away with it.”
Carter ran his hand through his floppy, sandy hair. “Does it really matter?” he said. “I was trying . . . What was I supposed to do, Lilah? I was afraid of what you might do if I broke up with you.”
The way he was spinning his guilt, denying nothing, but implying that this was all somehow her fault, disgusted her. And still, she was desperate to get a confession from him. “So it’s true. Just admit it. We both know it’s true. You’ve been screwing that skank behind my back all this time.”
Warring with him was better than nothing. Better this than the howling winds of loneliness that would sweep through her once he left.
Carter looked Lilah dead in the eye. Whatever compassion he’d been feeling before, whatever instinct he’d had to protect her emotions, was gone.
“She’s not a skank,” he said.
There was a beat, a delayed reaction, then Lilah felt everything inside her turn to liquid. She was seeing spots, surging with adrenaline, no longer aware of anything in the world except his taunting presence there in front of her. Her ability to think had been flushed away.
She shoved him, and when he didn’t tip over she shoved him again harder, slapped at his shoulder, his chest.
“Fuck you!” she hissed. Then she shouted it. “Fuck you!”
She leaned back and kicked at him with her heels.
He just sat there, watching her, so dispassionate, his face so empty of emotion. She felt a hatred beyond anything she’d ever felt before.
“You lied to me,” she said. “YOU LIED TO ME! And I loved you.” She wasn’t sure if she was pleading with him to change his mind
, or accusing him, or what. “Say something, you asshole,” she said. “Don’t just—say something!”
But he didn’t say anything. He just kept on watching.
She hated his face and his stupid preppy clothes and his high-tops and the way he seemed to have so much pity for her.
She leaped up and stormed away—three, four steps—then the rage broke in her again and she turned and ran back to him. She slapped and shoved at him again. She kicked him. She was howling. “Why?” she said. “Why? What does she have that I don’t?”
“Lilah,” he said. He was so above it all.
“I’m not your Lilah anymore. You said it, not me. You . . .” Coherent speech was beyond her. She was uncontrolled emotion.
“Lilah, stop it. Calm down.”
“No. You don’t get to decide when I calm down.” Another surge of rage and she went at him with all the strength she contained. When he held her off with a stiff arm, she clamped her fingers into his arm and dug into his skin with her nails. He’d hurt her; why shouldn’t she hurt him back?
The answer was: because she couldn’t. Now that he’d told her and it was all over, she’d lost her power over him. This final lashing out just made clear to him how right his decision to leave her had been.
Finally, exhausted, totally emptied out, Lilah dropped to the curb and imploded into sobs.
She’d hate him forever, and maybe he deserved this.
He stood up. He took her in one last time: sprawled, half-coiled on the curb, her face flushed and streaked with mascara and tears. He felt bad for her and he wished he could comfort her, but he knew he couldn’t.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m really, truly sorry about everything.”
And he was gone, leaving her there in front of her parents’ house with nothing but her jealous rage to console her.
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