I nodded, and found I meant it.
I powered off the phone and let out my breath. Fuck it. Fuck Aiden. Fuck his need to control me and his jealousy and his fits. I looked good. I felt great. I was out with my friends, we were seniors, it was spring, and I was about to hit the dance floor like nobody’s business. Especially not his.
Thirty-Four
FREEDOM AND GIDDINESS BLOOMED IN MY CHEST AND filled up my brain like helium. By the time we walked into the darkened gymnasium, passing under balloon archways and through the streamer-laden foyer, I was high on the elation of letting it all go. I was sick of twisting and contorting every awful thing Aiden did into the shape of something borderline acceptable. That text had been horrible, and I didn’t have to put up with it tonight.
The room pulsed with each beat of the vibrating bassline that pulled us out onto the dance floor. My friends jerked, bounced, and grooved with abandon all around me, and I twirled and dipped and floated free from every shitty thing that had ever happened. We were sweaty and smiling and beautiful and here. There was nothing but this moment, this everything.
My heart surged with deep love for each familiar face that surrounded me—Jo, Eric, Lexa, and Sydney, but also Krystal and Eleanor, that girl from my junior-year psych class, even Tyson and Cicily and Sharla/Shyla/Shwhatever. And the less familiar faces, too. These people who had been my comrades or nemeses or background extras for the past four years, who would soon go off in their own directions, be part of their own new worlds. I wanted to pull them all close to me and hold on tight. How could I not have treasured every second I’d spent near each one of them? How could I not have realized how limited and precious our time together was, until we had only a few short weeks of it left? These near strangers, these sort-of friends, they’d slogged through years of torture alongside me, and now, in a flash, they would be gone.
But we still had tonight. Tonight would be endless.
We danced, danced, danced, and I beamed at Jo and she shouted something I couldn’t quite make out over the music, but it didn’t really matter because her huge, happy grin said it all. A slow song came on and I watched as she and Sydney moved together, Sydney sliding her arms up around Jo’s neck, Jo circling hers around Sydney’s waist, as if they had always belonged there. Sydney tipped her head toward Jo’s and said something into her ear that made Jo’s cheeks flush with pleasure, and they were so obviously into each other, so clearly perfect together, I couldn’t even be jealous. I had never been so glad to be wrong.
I turned to walk off to the sidelines and there was Eric, heading straight toward me. “May I have this dance?” he asked.
I took his arm. “But of course.” We positioned ourselves near but not-too-near Sydney and Jo. “Where’s Lexa?”
“With Zehra and Marie. I think there’s some junior-class drama going down.”
“Ah.” I looked around at the couples rocking back and forth to the music, some glued close together, others seemingly ready to spring far apart the second the song would release them.
“I know Jo kinda dragged you into this, but I’m really glad you’re here,” Eric said.
“Me too,” I admitted, shifting my gaze back to his face. His hand pressed harder against the small of my back, and for one confusing second I thought he was guiding me in for a kiss, but instead he held on and tilted me back in a dip, and pulled us both upright, laughing.
“It’s like a trust fall,” I said, when I’d recovered from the head rush. He dipped me again, farther down this time, then sent me spinning at arm’s length and curled me back in toward him. We spun and dipped and goofed our way across the gym, twirling faster and sillier from one song to the next, until my face hurt from smiling so hard.
“Air,” I gasped when we reached the side doors, and Eric led me outside, where a cool blast of freshness welcomed us into the night. The relative quiet and moonlit calm were so jarringly different from the chaos inside, it took my brain a few seconds to adjust. It felt like we had stepped into another dimension.
This was not the same old courtyard from my school-day experiences, smelling of hot lunch and gym clothes, spotted with sophomores lounging between classes. Although I could make out the silhouettes of a few other people here and there, and see the glow of someone’s cigarette less than twenty feet away, it seemed like our own private world.
I slipped off my shoes to give my soles some relief, and balanced on one foot while I wiggled my uncaged toes. With my feet bare and Eric’s clad in his signature Sauconys, we were almost the same height, although in reality I was half an inch taller, at least. I wobbled to one side, knocking my shoulder against his, and giggled as he mimicked my one-legged pose and bumped right back into me.
This was why I loved him: Eric was fun. He was fun and mischievous and smart and goofy, and one of the most kind-hearted people I knew. I always felt safe, and safe being myself, when I was with him. He was so beautiful and so good. I couldn’t believe how much I was going to miss him next year.
He reached out both arms to steady me. “Bee,” he said.
“Eric,” I said, imitating the sudden seriousness of his tone, but before his name was fully out of my mouth, I knew—knew I had always been right to love him, knew he could feel this thing between us too.
My heart pounded faster and blood rushed to my brain, and before I could stop to think, I leaned forward, lips parted, to kiss him.
He stiffened and I hesitated right at the moment our lips touched, the softest brush of skin on skin, no more than the opening words of a question I had for so long wanted to ask. Before I could lean in fully or pull away, Jo’s voice cut through the roaring in my ears. “I’ll check outside!” Eric’s hands dropped from my arms and the door banged shut and there was Jo, standing beside us. “There you are! What are you guys doing out here, making out?”
My chest seized but she laughed and I realized she was kidding. “Lexa’s been looking all over for you,” she told Eric. I stared down at my feet to avoid both their faces, squinting to sharpen the image of my toes in the darkness. My skin felt awash with fresh shame. What had I just done?
The doors swung back open and out tumbled Lexa, with Sydney close behind. Lexa sidled up next to Eric and tucked herself under his arm. She nestled against him, tiny even in her high heels, and looking exactly like she belonged there. Relief crept into Eric’s expression and my stomach filled quickly with rocks. What had I been thinking, forcing myself on him like that? I was supposed to be his friend.
“Let’s do the photo booth!” Lexa said, including me in her smile, oblivious to my horrendous betrayal. Jo agreed for all of us while flashing me an eye-roll, and it was so normal and unsuspicious that I wondered at the simultaneous malfunctioning of her twin radar and her best friend radar, that she couldn’t sense my meltdown right beside her, or its cause. But then she grabbed Sydney’s hand and of course I understood. She was engulfed in the shine of falling in love, could see nothing outside that bright bubble that contained them. I had felt the same way with Aiden.
Oh shit. Aiden.
I followed after Lexa and Eric in a daze, but Jo’s arm shot out to stop me. My whole body tensed, waiting for her admonishment.
“Whoa there, Cinderella,” she said, and pointed to the ground. “Don’t forget your shoes.”
Thirty-Five
I BEGGED OUT OF SQUEEZING INTO THE PHOTO BOOTH with them and excused myself by ducking into the ladies’ room instead. I hid in a stall, examining the initials and affirmations scratched into the beige paint, trying to distract myself from facing what a shitty friend, shitty girlfriend, and shitty person I had become. It didn’t work.
If Jo hadn’t stepped outside at that exact moment, I would have kissed Eric for real. As it was, I’d already technically kissed him for sort of, and that sort-of kiss contained so much pent-up hope, such desperate longing for a version of my life so impossibly different from the one I had, it was dangerous to let myself think about what had almost been. Besides, that line of thinking was d
elusional. What had almost been was nothing. Nothing but an even larger disaster than the one I’d already caused.
Thank god Jo had interrupted us before I could fully go through with it—or before Eric was forced to embarrass me further by pulling away to stop it. I couldn’t believe I had dragged him into that. I felt like total scum.
But I couldn’t hide out in the bathroom forever. The dance would be over in another hour, and spending the rest of it locked in here would only draw Jo’s attention to my absence. I released myself from the stall, washed my hands slowly, thoroughly, and leveled with my reflection above the sink. What Lexa and Aiden didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them, but I at least owed Eric an apology for throwing myself at him. The traitor in the mirror agreed.
I found him in the lobby, near the refreshments table, standing mercifully alone. He was staring at a tray of cookies that had been decorated with way too much school spirit. If my stomach weren’t already aching from the thought of what I’d done, that muddy teal and gold-ish frosting would have sent it churning.
“Hey,” I said.
It was subtle, but I saw him flinch. “Hey,” he said back.
I had never felt awkward around Eric in my life, but I was making up for it tonight in spades.
He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Bee, I—”
“No,” I cut him off. “I’m sorry. I am so, so sorry and I feel like such a jerkwad—I don’t even know what I was thinking. I’ll understand if you need to avoid me forever, but can we please just pretend it never happened? I swear it will never happen again.”
Eric stared at me for an endless moment, then pressed his lips together and nodded. “Okay.” He looked like he wanted to say something more, but didn’t. I stood there, miserable in the knowledge I might have ruined everything good between us. A bouncy, happy pop song blared behind me. It felt like an attack.
Lexa appeared and slid her arms through both of ours. “Hey, you guys. Oooh, cookies!” She released my elbow and helped herself to one of the nauseating treats. “They’re our school colors! Too cute. I bet that was Cicily’s idea.” If she noticed that neither Eric nor I seemed capable of responding, she didn’t comment. She wiped the crumbs from the corner of her mouth and looked up at him. “Dance with me?” Eric nodded and Lexa reached for my hand. “Come with us.”
I forced my voice to sound normal. “I’m taking a breather. I’ll join you guys in a bit.”
Lexa gave my hand a squeeze. “I know you miss Aiden. It sucks he couldn’t come.”
Tears pricked my eyes. “Thanks,” I managed, and watched them walk away. She was right. I did miss Aiden, desperately. Standing alone in that stupid lobby, overwhelmed by guilt and regret, I wished so hard that I could fold myself against him, feel the warmth of his body and the sturdiness of his touch, as he wrapped his arms around me and made everything all right. If we had only been together, the way we were meant to be, none of the rest of tonight would have happened.
Not being near him felt suddenly unbearable. I had to get out of there and find my way to his side.
I turned away from the snack table and, as if by magic, there he was. Like I’d conjured him by wanting it so badly.
I blinked to clear the illusion but no, he was real, this was real, my own twisted fairy tale, complete with a prince strolling in under a wobbly balloon arch. I ran toward him. “Aiden!”
He gave a one-shouldered shrug. “Surprise.”
I pulled him into the dark of the gym before any chaperones could spot him. In his T-shirt, jeans, and leather jacket, he didn’t exactly fit in with the semiformal crowd. “I’m so happy to see you,” I said over the music. “I was just—” He silenced me with a kiss. His tongue thrust into my mouth and rammed against mine and I leaned back to get some space, my body realizing before my brain did that something was off. He swayed like we were sailing on a boat across the ocean. I put my hands against his chest to steady us both. “Have you been drinking?” I asked.
“Maybe.” He flashed a smile that was almost a sneer. “None of your business.”
But I could taste it now, and see it. He was drunk.
This was bad. I had to get him out of here before he caused a scene and got noticed. I kept my hands on his torso and guided him toward the door.
“What about you, what have you been doing? Having fun with your little friends on the dance floor? You like shaking your ass for the high school boys? Rubbing it against them and proving you’re a slut?”
He swung his hips back and forth in an awful imitation, and I looked away, furious, but that spark of fury was doused with guilt before it could turn into a flame. It sputtered into nothingness with barely a hiss of protest as I pushed open the door and stepped into the courtyard.
I’d deserved that. I deserved his anger and his jealousy and his horrible accusations. Everything he was saying about me was, in some way, true. He was drunk, but he was right.
I moved away from the doors, into the darkness. He followed. “Outside! Good idea. First you hide me from your family, now you’re hiding me here, too. Do I embarrass you? Are you embarrassed to be seen with me? You’re too good for me now, is that it?”
I put my hand on his arm, trying to calm him down and stop the shouting, but he shook me off. “Aiden, don’t—”
The slap was such a shock, I almost didn’t feel it at first. The ache in my jaw and the sting on my cheek were more surprising than painful. Mostly what I registered was the hot burn of shame.
He reached back and hit me again with a crack. This time, I felt it, every bit of it, and with a rush of terror, I felt how far he was from done. I had to make it stop. “Aiden, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” I said, but who knew if he could hear me over the shouting, because somehow now here was Jo, shoving in between us, pushing Aiden away from me, screaming at him, then at me, as I tried to pull her off him.
He was gone, he was gone, and she wouldn’t let me go after him.
“Tell me this is the first time he’s hit you,” she growled, her grip pinning my arms like a straitjacket. But I couldn’t do that, I was too sick of lying. I said nothing. “Fuck.” The straitjacket released into a hug.
“It’s not his fault,” I said into her hair, numb from how inadequate the words were. “I know what it must have looked like, but it isn’t like that. I shouldn’t have—”
“No.” The fire in Jo’s eyes could have burned the whole place down. “Listen to me. This is Not. Your. Fault. Do you hear me?”
I looked away. She didn’t know Aiden. She didn’t know us. She didn’t know the half of what I’d done.
She pressed my cheek gently. “Does it hurt?”
I shrugged. Everything hurt. My stomach, my heart, my face, my pride. I was splitting open and bleeding love. Who knew if he would ever forgive me.
“You need ice,” she said. “Stay right here. Do not move from this spot. Let me get the keys and we’re leaving.”
I gave in. I stood right where she’d left me, in the spot where I had stood with Eric, then with Aiden—the same spot where I’d ruined everything—and waited for whatever would happen next. I allowed the numbness creeping over me to sink inside, deep enough so I barely felt the relief of letting Jo take charge.
I waited where she’d left me and when she returned, I held the can of cold juice to my jaw as instructed and followed her back through the gym, where the music was still blaring and the dancers were still dancing and everyone else’s life was continuing on as usual, uninterrupted by the fact of mine falling apart. I didn’t feel grateful for the gift of invisibility. I didn’t wonder what Jo had told Eric and Sydney, or how they would get home. I let her guide me out to the Wildebeest, lead me upstairs to her room, coax me into the ducky pajamas, and tuck me into her bed. I let the numbness swallow me whole in an approximation of sleep or death or whatever, because I knew—I’d lost Aiden and there was nothing left now but surrender.
Thirty-Six
JO’S HAND ON MY SHOULDER
PULLED ME OUT OF A thick sleep with no dreams, no emotions, no sense of self. I didn’t try to fight it—at first touch, I was awake and resigned to the reality of existence. But I held still for an extra moment, imagining her hand as an emotional paperweight keeping all my scraps and pieces from flying away. When she lifted it, I opened my eyes and, to my surprise, did not disintegrate.
“Hi,” she said.
“Hi,” I echoed. She quirked her lips but it wasn’t a smile. “What time is it?” I asked.
“Ten thirty.”
“Shit.”
I scrambled to disentangle myself from the blankets but she was already shaking her head. “You’re not going to work. I called Mr. Sugarman and asked Lexa to cover for you. You have a horrible stomach bug.”
I sank back down. “Thank you.” I knew she hated lying to anyone about anything. I added it to my tally of debts.
It was hard to know where to even start apologizing. “I ruined your date with Sydney.”
Jo gave me a pointed look. “Sydney should understand why I put my best friend first. And if she doesn’t, then forget her.”
That stung but I didn’t have it in me to stand up to the attack. I looked away and saw my phone in her hand. “Aiden . . .” It was half question, half prayer. I couldn’t finish either.
“He sent thirty-two texts,” Jo answered, and I thanked whatever gods had carried him home safely when he had been in no state to drive. “I deleted them all. He’s sorry and he loves you and you’re a whore, how could you do this, he doesn’t mean it, please forgive him, he loves you, where the hell are you, and it will never happen again. I told him damn straight it won’t because if he doesn’t stop texting or if I catch one whiff of him anywhere near you, I’m calling the police. I should be calling them anyway. This goes against every good instinct I have.”
I shook my head so hard it almost came loose.
“I know,” she said. “But if you talk to him, I will do it. And I’ll tell your parents, too, though I really think we should tell them anyway. I’m serious about this. It’s over. He can’t come near you again.”
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