I shift, try to find a place to fit in among the cozy furniture and family portraits. “And here I was thinking that was vigilante justice.”
She snickers.
“I didn’t make those flyers. But”—I swallow—“the texts. You probably already know. Adrienne probably told you.”
She’s staring at me, eyes all wide like saucers, and I can’t believe of all the promises Adrienne’s ever broken in her life, this wasn’t one of them. I don’t want to say this, and I have to.
“I was pissed at her after she slept with Ethan so I thought I’d forward a bunch of her texts, but I had no idea what they said. I wanted to do something to hurt her because I was hurt. But I’m sorry. I’m so, so, so sorry, and I deserve however you want to treat me.” I’m crying, like it’s my problem. I’m the most selfish, terrible person, but knowing that doesn’t make the tears stop. “Fuck.”
“What?” Claire asks. “Slow down.”
“Maybe it doesn’t matter. I didn’t do it to you, but I’m one of them. I’m just like them. I never try to change anything. I get pissed at what Adrienne does when it’s convenient for me. I’ve spent all this time trying to convince myself—trying to convince everyone else and especially Whit—that I’m somehow better than her. But I’m not and he knows it. I’m disposable—and worse, I’m only getting revenge on them because it’s not fair that I have to stay in Buckley forever.”
Claire stares at me. “Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why do you have to stay forever?”
“I’m not like you, Claire. I’m not brave.”
“Oh, here we go again. What’s brave about being a lesbian? It’s not like I chose to be. I just am.” She laughs bitterly. “God, this is so stupid. All of you—you and Adrienne and everyone else—use me for whatever you need whenever it’s convenient, but what about me? All I want is to be left alone and to kiss whomever I want.
“So be honest. Tell me what you want to tell me, Liv.”
I take a deep breath. “I didn’t print those papers; I really didn’t. I think Adrienne did, but I have no proof. But I’ve done all this terrible, heinous shit, so it might as well have been me. I deserve for you to hate me.”
I can’t really make eye contact, so the bark of laughter startles me right out of my skin. When I look up, Claire is doubled over laughing. When she stops, she starts in on me. “Are you kidding me? All of the shit happening in my life is some sort of pissing contest between you and Adrienne. Are you serious?”
I half nod.
She claps her hands together. I’m wordless. Claire’s not supposed to be all abrasive and cold like this. That’s not who she is. She’s bubbly and apologetic and easy to please. “And here I was thinking someone was trying to ruin my life but no. It’s my two best friends trying to ruin each other’s.”
“Claire, I—”
She jumps up from the couch before I can finish and advances on me. “Are you out of your mind?” she demands.
She’s staring right at me, every curve of her body now nothing more than another tough edge. Her blue eyes are fierce, but I cling to the knowledge that deep down, she’s a marshmallow. That she let me in. When I remember that, my reply comes out honest. “Yes,” I say.
And then I tell her everything.
* * *
“So you’re sleeping with him and acting like you’re dating, but you’re not together?” Claire brushes her fingers over the mattress. The fading sun, filtered through the window, hits her hair and turns her golden.
We’re sitting there, eating cookie dough like we did when we were in middle school, back when eating our feelings could solve all problems. Even though it’s not that simple anymore, sometimes, when life is shit, you might as well put it behind you and eat cookie dough.
Or at least, that’s what Claire says.
I laugh. “Wow, it sounds stupid when you say it like that.”
“It is really stupid!” Claire pulls her legs up on the bed and rests her chin on her knees. “You look so happy together, though,” she says, sounding like I told her Santa wasn’t real.
“He’s…” I shake my head. “He’s Whit.”
She tilts her head slightly, as if debating what to say. “How’s the sex?”
I feel a giggle bubbling up, and my face goes red. Talking about it makes it feel more real than doing it. “It’s Whit.”
“I mean”—she grimaces—“so you’re sort of bribing him with sex, right?”
“Ugh.” I fall back on the bed, letting myself bounce up and down on the mattress. “I’m not sure which one of us that makes grosser. Anyway, now he can’t even bring himself to care that I kissed Ethan. I guess I got what I deserved.”
I expect her to deny it, comfort me the way she always comforts me, but instead she says, “We all got what we deserved.”
“What?”
She leans down next to me on her mattress, propping her head onto her hand to watch me. I fold my arms behind my head. “We’ve all done terrible stuff. I’m not surprised we’re finally getting it dished back at us.”
“Not you,” I argue. Claire doesn’t deserve any of this.
“Of course I did, Liv. I’ve watched you and Adrienne for years. How many times have I stopped you?”
None, I think, letting the silence sit in the air.
“I’ve gotten so used to it,” Claire continues. “Sitting quietly in the background while you two laughed about some god-awful thing. I met Adrienne in preschool. Falling into step with her was never a question because she never cared about the rules. I thought they were so important. I thought I always had to fall in line the way my family did. But she never asked me to. That felt so right.
“But it stopped being subversive a long time ago.” Claire shrugs. “I don’t know. I thought the two of you had my back. I thought it was worth it, to stay quiet, to stay near you.” She almost laughs. “Ellie thinks I have Stockholm syndrome.”
I do laugh.
“I don’t want to let it go,” Claire says at last. “I love Buckley. I love cheerleading and the idiots at the Rough House and eating ice cream with my best friends. But I have to because Buckley doesn’t love me anymore.”
“I still do, though,” I say.
“I can’t even decide what to think. About you and Adrienne. I want to be so mad, but I also … don’t want to be? Like, I want this to be over.” She looks at me. “Can it end now? And we be fine?”
“I don’t think so,” I answer honestly.
She watches me closely. I can see it behind her eyes—she’s already made up her mind. “I think Whit likes you,” she says as if this were any other conversation. It only hurts a little.
I snort, following her cue to drop it. “He thinks I’m a loser of the highest caliber. He can’t believe he’s stooping down to a girl who’ll peak in high school.”
“Then why would he do it?”
I stare off at the ceiling. “I don’t know.”
“See?” She sighs.
“We’re calling it off on Friday. That was the deal.”
“Ade was right, then.”
My head snaps up. “What?”
“You know, she can sense stuff. She said something wasn’t right with the Whit thing. That it didn’t make any sense.” Claire combs her fingers through her hair. “But then when she saw you together the other night, she kind of looked confused. She had that look.”
“What look?”
“She wanted to know.”
Claire holds the cookie dough out to me, and I break off a piece. “She always wants to know. But I have to call it off. I’m breaking up with Whit on schedule.” I’ve told her almost everything. Not the part I played with Mrs. Baker. Not that I’m the reason her job and her family are in jeopardy. Even I can’t face that.
Claire stares at the comforter for a minute. “If you like him, why don’t you tell him how you feel?”
“It doesn’t work like that. I’m dangerous.” I rub my fingers over t
he thin skin on my wrist, feeling for danger like a spark underneath. I must be. When I met Whit, he was nice and stuck-up and innocent, and now he’s like every other boy who thinks sex is the least complicated thing there is. He doesn’t care.
If he cared, I’d know. I wouldn’t feel so small and cheap and wrong right now. I wouldn’t feel so stupid for thinking he felt the same way I did. This is worse than all the Jack Daniel’s showers in the world.
“Tell him,” Claire says. “Tell him for me. Please.”
“Yeah,” I lie. I can’t, I think. I’m not a good person. I don’t get a happy ending.
“Come on, Liv. I need to believe in love right now.”
“I know. I will. It’ll be great.”
She laughs and buries her forehead into my arm. Her flyaway hairs tickle me, but in that second, I don’t care.
At least somebody loves me.
61
“I give up.” I write it in neat script on a slip of notebook paper and sign my name at the bottom. After, I fold it up and slide it into the vent in Adrienne’s locker.
Claire and I talked about it, but in the end it was my decision. I was tired of hurting everyone in my path. Really, I was just tired.
I walk out to the parking lot, slow and deliberate. Whit is standing next to his Jeep, leaning against the bumper. He straightens up when he sees me walking up to my car. “Hey,” he says, his voice tentative.
“Hi,” I answer.
He looks me up and down. “Are you avoiding me?” he asks.
I lean in next to him against the Jeep. “No. I was just doing this thing. That I was doing.” I wonder why it matters anymore—if I’m avoiding him or if I feel anything about him at all. I’ve given up on beating Adrienne, and I’ve given up on Whit and me. I should tell him now.
“Are you okay?”
I shrug. I wish he’d stop asking, like he cares how I feel.
“Listen.” He leans down toward me, talking softer as he does so. “My mom’s home today, so we can’t go over to my house.”
I nod. Should’ve seen that one coming.
“So, can we go to your house and study or whatever?” he finishes. I don’t know whether to be relieved or disgusted. Turns out, I can be both.
It’s funny, but I think I already miss him, already anticipating the moment when this will all be over, whether it’s from something I do or something Adrienne does. The thought of that moment makes me say it. “Yeah. Sure.” I start to walk away to my car, then stop. Looking back at him, I ask, “Why did you agree to this?”
He glances around, unnerved, before answering. “You asked me.”
“So?”
He does this annoyed head bob. “So that’s why.”
I take a step back toward him. “You remember that day when you fixed my hand?”
“Yeah,” he says slowly.
“What did you think of me?”
He shrugs.
“Everyone saw me as this Adrienne clone,” I tell him, “all wrapped up in her games and serving her every whim. I wanted—I wanted someone to know that wasn’t me. That I could do whatever I wanted, be my own person. Without her.”
“So I’m the only one who knows you?” he asks.
I turn my head. “I’ll see you later,” I tell him.
* * *
As I wait for Whit to show up at my house, I keep wondering if I really want to see him like this again. Alone, where I might be tempted to kiss him again and drive the whole thing off the rails. I start to type a text to him into my phone, staring at the empty message screen. I know I should stop this. I wait for words to come to me, hurt words or hurtful words or something.
I’m still staring at his name when the doorbell rings.
I feel self-conscious as I open the front door to my house. He asks, “Where’s your mom?”
“A client meeting,” I tell him. “She has clients.”
He nods.
“Do you want something to eat?” I ask. “I know you like to eat after practice.”
“Sure.”
I walk across the living room where no one lives to the kitchen where no one eats. It’s like a set on some play my mom and I have to live out.
I wonder if Whit believes it.
“Sit down,” I tell him, pointing to our breakfast nook.
“You’re serving me?” he asks as the chair scrapes across the floor.
I pull open the fridge, rummaging through the little Tupperware squares. “Don’t I always?” I return.
“Please don’t say things like that.” His voice comes out flat. Even he knows I’m all bravado and bullshit.
“My mom’s really into health food. Just go with it.” I slam the fridge door shut, pop a top off a Tupperware full of grape salad, and pull two forks out of a drawer. Hand a fork over to Whit and sit down in the chair next to him. I fish a grape out of the Tupperware with my fork.
Complete and total silence as I chew. And then he says, “I like that picture of all of you over there.”
I’ve never tried to kill myself with a grape before, but I think I could. If I tried, I wonder if I could get myself to choke.
The picture on the desk. Mom and Ryan and me when Aunt Kate visited last year. We’d gone to a cabin near Stone Mountain. Mom half smiling like always. Ryan looking like he was a couple beers in. And me—the picture of high school perfection.
Funny how you can capture both everything and nothing at the same time.
“Yep. It’s a good one.” I eat another grape.
“How old—?”
“He’s twenty,” I tell him before I even realize what I’m saying. “He was twenty. Now he’s dead.” When it catches up to me, I hate myself for not being able to react like a normal person. I’m not sure what to do. All I want is for him to ignore it, and all I can do is draw more attention. But I try to recover. “Twenty.”
Whit nods. Not much he can do with that information.
“He was drunk. When he wrecked.” I eat a grape. “If you were wondering.” Eat another. “You probably guessed from the Jack Daniel’s prank. He drank a lot.”
Whit’s quiet as I finish all of the grapes. Demolish them, shoving them into my mouth one by one and then all at once. They’re drenched in sweet cream cheese that makes my fingertips sticky, so I bring my finger to my mouth, licking away the last of it.
I’m going to be sick. Without a doubt.
My feet slide across the floor, pushing me back slowly from the table. I stand up and stroll to the bathroom off the foyer hallway.
And I throw up. Everything. Everything in me, right down to the bones, ends up inside that white porcelain bowl. Pathetic.
I fall back against the cabinet and sit.
First, he peeks around the corner. Then he dares to come inside. Slowly, scared. He sits down next to me. I blow out a breath and lean my head back. “You don’t have to stay.”
“You don’t do anything small, do you?” he asks.
“What does that mean?” I return.
“I don’t know.” He breathes. In. Out. Sighs. “Yes, I do. It’s always everything to excess. If you do something, it has to be the biggest, most ridiculous thing ever. And it scares me.”
I stare straight ahead. “You don’t know shit.”
“Olivia—”
“I have to!” I interrupt him, swallow back my pride. “I have to do the biggest thing ever because this might be all I have. If I get lost in this godforsaken town, everyone will forget me.” I don’t look at him because the thought weighs on me. “I’ll be nothing.”
“How can you say that?” he asks, his voice deadly serious.
“Because I saw the way you looked at me before. Like I was helpless. I always thought there was this huge world out there waiting on me, but I’ve been so terrified it might disappear. That I might get left here alone forever. But what if that’s not the point? What if the girl who gets stuck in Buckley is exactly what I was always meant to be? What if this is who I really am, and I’ve been t
oo terrified to admit it?”
“Seriously. How could you say that?” he asks me. “You’re not terrified. You terrify me.”
I am so cold and afraid, my teeth almost chatter. “What does that mean?”
“You’re so…,” he tries to say, runs a hand through his hair. “Assured. It’s like nothing in the world actually intimidates you. You’re so much bigger than Buckley. Everything goes on around us, all this horrible stressful shit, and you don’t care. And you’re gorgeous and you say these things—like, sometimes you’ll say something, and it’ll be so simple, but it’s perfect. It explains the exact thing I’ve been thinking. And you do the biggest things ever, and it’s amazing because I’d never—I’d never imagine these places and these things you dream up. I’m not like that. I walk in a straight line and I follow the rules. And that’s it. Without you, I never would’ve picked Clemson. I never would have done any of this, and there’d be nothing to make me different from my brother.”
“Whit”—I turn my head, leaving our faces inches apart—“how can you not see that everything about you makes you different from your brother?”
He looks down at his lap. “What about Ethan Masters, then?”
I hold my breath. He hasn’t said anything about Ethan. Not since it happened. Not since he’d started looking at me like nothing I did affected him. “What about him?”
Whit kicks out his foot. “After everything he did, you kissed him. He slept with your best friend, and he’s the reason we had to set up this whole arrangement to begin with. You couldn’t let people think you had lost the smallest bit of control. You still can’t.”
“Stop it,” I say.
“How could you do that? If I’m so special and different from my brother—can you—would you not lie to me for a minute?” He stares across at the wall. “Do you still want Ethan?”
“It’s hard,” I blurt out. “No, I swear I don’t, but—I don’t know what I want. I’m so fucked up.”
How to Break a Boy Page 24