Mom turns back to me. “Are you okay? You seem upset.” And getting more so by the second, I think. I’m watching my brother fade away, and everyone knows Adrienne completely betrayed me; I feel stuck in this same spiral of petty bullshit and games.
I’m going to get out.
“Why would someone who says they’re your friend be horrible to you?” I ask Mom. I haven’t spoken to her this much in three years, and she knows it. I don’t even know why I’m saying it except I don’t know who else to say it to.
She turns around, all the way around, and faces me. Adjusts the glasses on her face. “What did she do?” Mom asks. Mom expects Adrienne to be terrible—she’s told me as much before. She expects Adrienne to dress up as a slutty nurse for Halloween, to write nasty texts about everyone and steal boyfriends and be everything she expects people like Adrienne to be. She once called her a big fish in a small pond, and I couldn’t help but think she was talking about me at the same time.
At the end of the day, what she really knows about me and Adrienne is less than nothing.
I make eye contact. “It wasn’t her. It was me.”
I don’t think she can face me then, face the fact that I am failing to adapt. Ask me, I want to say. Ask me what I did. “I know things are bad right now. I know we’re both … processing. Go easy on yourself,” she replies stiffly. She doesn’t want to know. She can’t face who I really am. In truth, she’s never wanted to know. I turned into a monster somewhere along the way, and she let me be one.
That was why I’d missed Ryan so much when he left. At least if I was horrible, he cared.
I stare at the emptying bookshelf, feeling like now, every last thing he touched will be gone.
Including the good parts of me.
26
TWO AND A HALF MONTHS AGO
Ethan’s dad blew out of town with his “other woman” two years ago and never looked back. That was when he and his mom lived in Charleston, before they moved to Buckley. All his dad left for compensation was an open invite to his lake house. We stayed there more or less all summer, feeling cool and superior and independent until Claire’s mom figured out we were lying about spending the night at each other’s houses and tried to make Adrienne’s mom and my mom care enough to stop us.
The subterfuge got exhausting, but not enough to stop going. That weekend, it was me and Ethan and Adrienne and that guy she was hooking up with from Chesterfield, all sitting around, trying to bounce quarters into Solo cups filled with beer. Ethan had his hand over the small of my back—he was always just barely touching me like that, as if afraid where I might go.
It was then that my phone started ringing, buzzing against my back pocket. I pulled it out, shrugged off Ethan, and wandered into the small hallway before I answered.
“Hello?” I whispered, glancing over my shoulder, not wanting anyone to hear my conversation.
“Olivia?” he said, like he was surprised I was the one who had answered the phone.
“Ryan, what are you doing?” I asked, trying not to sound desperate. Loud music blared in the background, some indie song I’d never heard before.
“Listening to Mike at Night.” He was slurring. “Thought of you.” Someone laughed in the background. There was a smile in Ryan’s voice. Even though he was so obviously drunk off his ass, I was relieved. It was my brother and he was listening to Mike at Night and smiling, and it was like he was right there with me for a minute. And then: “Mom’s a bitch, isn’t she?”
I looked around again as if someone wanted to sneak up behind me and dig into all my horrible family secrets. “Ryan, come on,” I said, hardly convincing.
“No, she is. Remember after Aunt Kate moved out, and Mom’d lock herself in her room to work and forget we hadn’t eaten? You were, like, five, and all I could make were cheese sandwiches. All you ate in 2004 were cheese sandwiches.” I remembered. I remembered Ryan covering for Mom every time Aunt Kate called to check in. Yes, we’re fine. She wasn’t fine.
“She always apologized,” I said. Mom was the one who finally told Aunt Kate we weren’t fine. Aunt Kate lived with us for four years after Dad died, and Mom finally snapped when Kate moved out and left the three of us alone. I barely remembered the six months Ryan and I had lived with Kate, but I did remember the day we moved back in with Mom. I remembered the image of the woman she had been before we left, at her computer, making phone calls and signing documents, coffee mugs sticking to every surface of the bedroom, her thrumming with energy and barely contained emotions. I remembered the taste of gourmet Monterey Jack on Gouda on cheddar. And I remembered when she’d snap out of it, hold on to me as bone-crushingly tight as she could in her bed and sob into my back for hours, and I knew she loved me so much.
That wasn’t the woman we moved back in with. She sat us down in our new apartment five miles from Aunt Kate’s house, glasses on her face, hair in that messy bun she still wears, and told us she’d had a breakdown. She talked to us like adults. She had a routine now—we ate breakfast at seven thirty, went to school, she picked us up on time, and dinner was at six. Routine, routine, routine. She never again held me the way she used to. “And she always bought really good cheese,” I said softly to Ryan.
Ryan was silent for a minute. I heard the sound of Adrienne and Chesterfield laughing through the door, but I was somewhere else. “I’m sorry I let you down, Liv. When I started—you know—and you had Adrienne and didn’t need me … and Mom. If it were different, I’d come get you. You’d come live with me. You aren’t happy there.”
I pressed my forehead up against the wall as if it would help me think and then fell back with a sigh.
“I’m not happy anywhere,” he said. “We should go.”
I didn’t know what to say. “Go where?”
“Mike at Night.”
“Yeah,” I said, encouraging him.
“I bet it wouldn’t be that great. Once all the mystery is gone, nothing’s that great anymore. It’s all bullshit. I hate this place.”
“We could go somewhere else.”
“Fuck it, Olivia. There’s nowhere to go that doesn’t suck, doesn’t drain the life right out of you. You don’t get it. Sometimes I think Mom had it right, when she gave up on reality. Just let yourself feel fucking everything.”
“Ryan, listen to yourself,” I said, my voice near a shout, forgetting myself for a moment, my privacy. Ethan poked his head into the hallway.
“You okay?” he asked, and I panicked.
“Stop talking like that,” I said to Ryan, trying to keep my voice firm. “I can’t deal with this right now. I’m with my friends, okay?”
There was silence on the other end of the line for a moment and then: “You’re not who you used to be, Liv. You’re so … selfish. You like it there, don’t you? With them. Those people. Those people we promised each other we’d never become.”
“Ryan, shut up!” I yelled, near tears. Ethan tried to creep up on me, to touch me, and I pushed him away. “I had to adapt. I’m the one who has to live here and figure out a way to be happy, and you can’t tell me I’m wrong for that.”
“If you’re happy with them, I don’t know who you are.” His voice was growing angrier and angrier. “I don’t know who you are anyway. You’re just some generic mean girl, aren’t you? That’s what everyone says.”
“That’s not who I am!” My own anger built up. Usually when he was drunk, I tried to talk him down, keep him calm. See what was good.
But he couldn’t say things like that to me.
“Fuck this, Liv. Fuck all of it.”
“Fuck you!” I said, and hung up the phone. Then I turned on my heel. “Go away, Ethan. I’m trying to have a conversation and fix things, and you’re lurking.”
“Why can’t I help?” he asked me.
“Because it’s none of your fucking business,” I said, stepping around him and back into the kitchen. Adrienne looked up when I came in, her dark eyes glinting.
“What’d he do?
” she whispered to me a little while later, when Ethan was talking to Chesterfield about the Panthers’ upcoming season.
I shook my head.
“Well, he must have done something,” she insisted.
I glanced at Ethan, caught his hesitant smile. “It’s, like, not intentional. It’s that whole psychiatry thing.”
Adrienne sneered at him, like him being alive was intentionally pissing her off. “Who was it anyway?”
“Ryan.”
“Ryan is a dick,” Adrienne told me. “The sooner you realize that, the happier you’ll be.”
My phone sat there, silent. I wondered what he was doing. I wondered if he’d even remember any of this tomorrow. “He’s my brother. I can’t abandon him.”
“You can’t fix him, either,” she snapped.
I felt the tears brimming in my eyes again. It wasn’t fair of her to make me cry when no one was supposed to be able to hurt me. No one but my best friend who always seemed to be looking for a way.
“What is your deal, Adrienne?” I asked. “I am going through some serious shit with my brother, and I can’t get so much as a sympathetic nod from you. Look at me!” I snapped, serious and hurt and confused. My voice was hard, sharp edges, punctured syllables. “It’s not fair. That’s not who you’re supposed to be. You’re supposed to be the one who makes things better.”
She pushed her lips together. “You can’t fix everything, O. Sometimes it’s easier to give it up or you’ll end up as miserable as they are.” She lifted a hand, pushing a piece of hair back behind my ear like she was comforting a child. “Look at everything you have. You’ve got the best friends who would do anything for you, you’ve got the stars shining on the lake on a Friday night, and you’re the kind of person everyone our age wants to be. Ryan needs to figure his own shit out. It’s sink or swim right now, and we’re living, bitch!” She thrust her drink up into the air and took a swig, laughing all the while.
For a beat, I couldn’t look away from her. Disbelief covered every edge of my vision. It was that simple for her.
Just don’t care.
“Fine,” I said quietly. “Fine.”
27
I cram some books into my locker, crushing balled-up papers in the process. For the first time in two days, I glance at the pictures on my locker door. Then I start taking them down.
A voice floats in from the other side of my open locker door, a conversation not meant for me. “Have you talked to Adrienne?” It’s a voice I would recognize anywhere—the sound of our morning announcements. Michaela Verday—class president, local overachiever, and cheerleader hater. I lean into my locker so I can keep listening.
“No,” someone—I think it’s Meghan Stanley—replies. “It’s—she isn’t going to like it.”
“Well,” Michaela continues as if she were guiding a wayward soul to the Promised Land, “you have to change stunt groups. You can’t keep working with Claire. What if she, like, gets off on it or something?”
I slam my locker shut and stare straight at Michaela. She doesn’t turn away as she says, “I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s not the only cheerleader who enjoys mounting other girls.”
That’s it.
I throw my book bag down on the ground in front of a locker and shove Michaela.
She startles, gasping, then regains her balance. “Are you out of your effing mind?” she demands.
I get in her face. “Wanna find out?” I say, a fist clinched at my side.
“Olivia, what are you doing?” I whip around to find Claire next to me, looking between Michaela and me.
“I—said something I shouldn’t have,” Michaela tells Claire, gently backing away from me. “I’m worried about you. Those texts!” The more she talks, the more people slow down to listen. I have to stop her.
“Don’t push me, Michaela,” I say.
She laughs as if I bore her. “Don’t be so dramatic. Everyone’s worried about Claire. A lot of people aren’t quite as accepting of alternative lifestyles as I am.”
Claire grabs my arm to stop me from lunging at Michaela.
“Claire, hey, what’s going on?” With that greeting, Alex Cox steps out of the crowd and to the other side of Michaela and me, facing Claire. I think they call this an escalating situation.
Coxie—the boy Claire lost her virginity to in ninth grade. The boy who thinks they’ve been destined to be together since middle school and spent half his life trying to prove it to her. She’s never loved Coxie, but they have always been “a couple.” Even when Claire was with Ellie.
I can tell that whatever their last conversation was, Claire isn’t eager to continue it. “Claire?” he asks more sharply.
I shake my head. “It’s just Michaela being a bitch. Lay off,” I order. Because I don’t like the tone of his voice or anything else about his bleached-blond head right now. I slowly start to back away from Michaela.
He glances at the crowd, which seems to be holding its collective breath in anticipation. “Why?” Like he’s that clueless.
Michaela’s giggle behind me matches everything about her: her white hair and cool stance and inferiority complex. I swear to myself I won’t re-engage. “Like you don’t know, Alex,” Michaela says. “We were talking about Claire and her issues twenty minutes ago.”
“Shut up, Michaela,” Coxie commands, desperation creeping into his voice.
“It’s fine. I don’t care what either of you say about me. If you want to go out with her, Alex, go ahead,” Claire says to Coxie. “It’s not like Adrienne hasn’t seen you together.”
A swift nonverbal exchange between Michaela and Coxie seems to say it all. Suddenly things make sense—Michaela wants Claire out of the Coxie equation, and the solution fell right out of the sky into her lap.
Claire blows out a tired breath and looks down at the floor.
“Claire.” Coxie sounds defeated. He grabs Claire’s wrists and I barely hear him. “It’s not like that, and I’m not mad, I promise. It’s what everyone was saying—I thought you’d been using me as, like, some kind of cover-up, but I know that’s not true now.”
Claire looks up at him, angry. “Get off,” she tells him. “I’m so sick of having to explain myself to you.”
He doesn’t stop. “Please listen.”
“She said get off her,” I repeat.
He turns on me then. “You stay out of this, Olivia. You’re always determined to draw so much goddamned attention to yourself. This is your fault.” He gestures around him at the people watching. This is more my fault than he’ll ever know.
And that really pisses me off.
“She doesn’t want you, so get off her,” I snap at him.
He’s a good half foot taller than me, and his letting go of Claire and rounding on me makes me a lot more nervous than getting into it with Michaela, but I want them to leave her alone. I want everyone to leave Claire alone, and if I have to make a spectacle of myself to get that, I will.
He gestures wildly. “Well, if she didn’t hang out with those girls at work and act like a—”
I grab on to the front of his shirt and yank him toward me. “I dare you to finish that sentence.”
I can feel the angry rhythm of his heart; his eyes are alight with murderous energy. God help me, I wish Adrienne were here.
“Hey.” A calm voice breaks through the silence, extracting my hand from Coxie’s shirt. Coxie and I both glance up at the same time, and I imagine the baffled look on his face closely mirrors my own. “Maybe you should chill out, Olivia.”
Whit’s looking right at me with his big brown eyes. I didn’t see him arrive, but now I see him with painful clarity. So close, I can make out the green-gold streaks in his eyes again, lit by the dingy overhead lights.
“What’s it to you, DuRant?” Coxie asks, but I can already tell that he regrets the whole confrontation. None of it does much for my heart rate, though. I can’t stop staring at Whit, inexplicably coming to my rescue.
Whit glance
s back at me and makes a decision. “I don’t like it when people get that close to touching my girlfriend.” Like it’s the most normal thing in the world for him to say. There’s this jolt right in my midsection, a change in the atmosphere. A shift in the power.
Claire studies the two of us carefully—even she can’t believe it. Coxie’s eyes flit between Whit and me as if he’s not quite sure that can be correct.
“She just needs to…” Coxie trails off, looking lost. Even though I hate him, his feelings have been used far more than he knows, and he’s always been just dumb enough not to notice. But he has no right. “Whatever,” Coxie finally finishes, leaving the way he came. Not really like he’s going anywhere at all. I sigh in relief.
I glance back at Whit, watching me. Then Claire and everyone else, watching the two of us. I gesture at him kind of helplessly. “Claire, you okay if I go?”
Her eyebrows knit together, but she nods anyway. The crowd around us begins to disperse. Whit leans down, picks up my bag, and throws it over his shoulder. I smile weakly.
Totally normal.
We walk past a line of lockers in silence. Out to our assigned parking spots, where my mom’s beat-up Bronco sits in my space next to Whit’s Jeep. He hands me my bag. “That was—” I scratch the back of my neck. “Thanks.”
He sighs. “I have no idea why I did that except if that guy hit you, I was going to feel like shit.” He checks the time on his cell phone like he already can’t wait to be away from me.
“Thanks,” I say, but this time it comes out cold.
He leans his hand back into his car. “So that’s done.”
“Yeah.” I’d feel a lot better about this if he didn’t seem to be so repulsed by our nearness.
“Okay,” he says.
“Okay.”
We stare at each other. We’ve reached the end of our scripted lines here, but neither of us knows the next stage direction.
I’m turning to leave when he says, “That’s what’s bothering you, right? Why you’re so scared of me? You thought I would tell someone you’d sent out those texts and Claire would find out? You actually feel bad about hurting her.” I keep noticing all these little things he does—shaking his arm so that gold watch on his wrist slides around, running his hand over his three o’clock shadow. “You didn’t mean for her to get outed like that.”
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