There’s something wrong with her voice. The alcohol is making me crazy and I can’t figure it out, any of it.
“Hey,” Sophia says, looking deeply into my eyes. “It’s all going to be okay.” She’s been running her nails all up and down my arm while we’ve been talking. I should bolt from the room. I should find Hallie and demand an explanation, but the sight of her and him on the roof makes me want to break everything in this room instead.
“It’s not like you guys were really together or anything,” Sophia adds. She’s creeping closer to me and before I even know it, she’s practically sitting on my lap.
She’s right. Hallie made sure that things never went that far. I had thought that it was because she wanted to live in the moment, but it was actually because she just wanted to play with me for a week or before returning to her real life. To be with the person that she was actually in love with.
Sophia’s winding her arms around my neck, curving her body into mine and running her hands through my hair.
“No.” I push her away from me, and she pauses for a moment and pouts prettily.
“You can use me, too, you know.” She positions herself into the crook of my arm, and her mouth is all over mine, her tongue tantalizing, teasing, tracing the corners of my lips.
I push her away again. “Sophia. Stop. Now.”
“You can’t fight history,” Sophia says, running her fingers up the side of my face. “They have history. But we have history, too.”
History meant something to Hallie. I remember the ways her eyes lit up at the Natural History Museum, the way her fingers had lingered on the relics at Ellis Island. History was everything to her, and we had none. Just the present, I think bitterly. I’m staring at Sophia’s open mouth and it’s an offer. Damn it. Damn it all to hell.
“We have history, too,” Sophia repeats. She’s won a minor victory and I feel her mouth curve into a smile as I yank her closer to me. She’s dragging me to the bed and grasping furiously at my shirt.
Before I even know what’s happening, she’s kissing me and she tastes like cigarettes and tequila and not like honey and mint. It’s all wrong, but I keep going anyway.
And then I feel her skin on mine.
I know that this isn’t going to work. It’s never going to work.
Our clothes have fallen to the floor and she’s on top of me and I’m pushing at her to get off, but she’s tangling herself up in my limbs, trapping me beneath her.
“Baby,” she murmurs and it sounds nothing like Hallie. The sounds of her disgusts me. I’m trying to get her off but she’s resisting me. I’m about to shove her harder than a woman should be shoved when I feel the change in the air and look to the doorway. Hallie’s standing there and her face is ravaged. I’m calling her name out desperately, but she’s running away, turning from me, lost to me.
Chapter 25
HALLIE
I manage to erase some of the day’s tears from my face and slide into my most comfortable pair of jeans and the sweater that Sophia insisted that I wear to the party. Ben whistles appreciatively at me, and I giggle at him. “You should have seen the red dress. I was trampalicious.”
He laughs. “I do wish I had seen that.” He wiggles his eyebrows at me, which makes me laugh. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
I take a deep breath. “I will be.” It’s a promise. I have to go to this party, even though I’d rather just curl up on the couch. I have to see Chris. I have to make me forgive me. His text from earlier is a promising start. You’re perfect.
It’s laughable how far from perfect I am, but there are moments that I feel that way, in his arms. Maybe the best that anyone can do is to try to be perfect for another person. I know that I have to try. I’m the object of someone pretty fucking spectactular’s affection and that’s not something that you just throw away.
“Come on,” I say to Ben, pulling him behind me into the elevator. “I’ll show you my newly discovered cab hailing skills.”
Ben’s peppering me with questions about Chris and shaking his head at my answers and I’m shushing him and we’re laughing as the city passes by all around us in the cab. It feels like old times, except for the being in New York thing. He whistles again when we get to Sam’s apartment.
“So, this is how the 1% lives,” he says as I lead him through the party.
“I think we’re actually looking at more like the .1%,” I offer.
As I search for Chris and Sophia, he stares at the girls in towering high heels and party dresses with mingled horror and amusement.
“I don’t see them,” I say, disappointed.
“Didn’t you promise me a spectacular view?” Ben asks. “I mean, this is pretty spectacular,” His eyes linger on a girl in a backless dress. “However…”
“Come on, Romeo.” I drag him behind me, because I did promise him a view. “We’ll go up to the roof for a minute.”
Ben gasps when he sees the city laid out before him. The wind is whipping behind us and I shiver. He puts his arm around me and drags me to him.
“Well, this is absolutely beautiful.” He’s staring at me, checking my face for something which he doesn’t seem to find, because he sighs and releases me from his grip. There’s a long pause and then he speaks again. “Are you sure you’re going to be okay?”
I nod up at him. “I am sure I am going to be okay.”
We stand together for long, silent minutes.
“I could spend forever looking at this view,” he admits, turning to me.
“There’s something to be said for the 1%, then?” I’m grinning at him and he’s shaking his head.
“We’re a long way from Ohio, that’s for sure. Be careful with all of this, Hallie. There’s something to be said for the afghans on your mom’s couch and the garish Christmas displays, too.”
He tells me about the new family down the street from his house and their goal of putting on the most garish display of holiday consumerism ever known to mankind before we fall silent again. It’s a long time before Ben says anything else.
“All right, well, let’s get out of here before you freeze. I’m sure Mr. Perfect is waiting.” It’s a new name each time and I’m laughing and joking with him about being jealous as we ride down in the elevator.
“There’s also your potential sugar mama,” I say as we make our way through the throngs and into the kitchen.
“There is always that.”
The apartment has gotten even more crowded and I groan. “Why don’t you wait here?” I ask. “I’ll try to find them.”
“I think I can handle that.” He’s eyeing the girl in the backless dress, who gives him an oversized wink.
“Susan? Your girlfriend?” I say, poking him in the gut.
He opens his mouth to say something, but promptly closes it and nods at me. “Go. I’ll manage to entertain myself for a few minutes.”
I glance back at Ben as I make my way out of the kitchen. Part of me wonders whether or not this is a good idea—the whole mixing-of-worlds things, introducing him to Chris and Sophia. I really hope he doesn’t call Chris Mr. Perfect to his face. He does owe me some payback for some of the things I’ve said to his former girlfriends, but I’m hoping that he and Chris can at least make some effort to get along.
I’ve made my way through the crowd on the dance floor before I realize that I have no idea what I’m going to say to Chris when I find him. Thank you for the good times? Maybe I’ll see you again? I love you?
And then I remember his words, desperate: “Come to Prague. Promise me that you’ll be with me forever.” The glint of a diamond on a silvery chain claws at my memory. Fairy tale notions.
Don’t I deserve the fairy tale?
There was need in his voice, and something else—love, I think—when he said those words. I suddenly know for a fact that he was serious about Prague and forever. I’ll have to explain what happened, why I freaked out, but I’m strong enough to do that now. And it can wait until after I fall
into him, to tell him that practicality be damned, I’m coming to Prague and letting the chips fall where they land, for once in my goddamn life. Ben suggested therapy, and while shrinks have never held much interest for me, it’s worth a shot.
But the first, and most important, part of my being okay is to tell the boy that I think I’m in love with (I might have to take back my whole love at first sight is crap thing) that I want as much of him as he can give. It seems crazy, but I’m pretty sure that he’s in love with me, too—miraculously, incredibly, ridiculously in love with me.
Neither Chris nor Sophia is in any of the obvious places. I don’t want to leave Ben alone for too long, because I remember exactly how out-of-place I felt that first night on Sophia’s balcony. So, my eyes are laser beams, glancing and disregarding anyone who isn’t one of the two people I seek.
I turn the corner, and I hear a voice whispering something. It sounds like Sophia. Unfortunately, the walls in our suite are paper-thin, so I had to listen to a couple of loud nights before investing in some noise-canceling headphones. Probably another conquest, I think to myself, with a little smile. Apparently, she wasn’t waiting to seduce Ben after all.
“Baby.” Her voice is low and soft and needy. For a second, I think it might not be Sophia, because of the need in her voice that’s never been there before and because of the word itself.
“Come on,” she said to me as we watched a girl wrap herself around a guy in the cafeteria. “I hate that word. Someone needs to tell me why some girls think it’s cute to totally emasculate their boyfriends by comparing them to helpless, crying, totally dependent creatures. I want a man who doesn’t feel the need to sob all over me and girls like that just ruin them for the rest of us.”
A smirk crosses my face even though no one is around to see it.
The next sound I hear makes me stop in my tracks.
“Mmmm.”
It’s a single noise, but it’s all I need to hear. I know exactly what has happened, but everything seems slow and fast at the same time and I can’t breathe.
He wouldn’t, couldn’t, not with her, when…
I know before I reach the door what I’ll find inside, but I have to see it for myself or I’ll never forgive my cowardice. I crack the door open slightly.
I’m going to throw up, right now, right here, oh god, thiscan’tbehappening.
I could have swung the door open and slammed it against the wall. They never would have noticed.
She’s on top of him, and her skirt is in a heap on the floor and her shirt is gone and her long, beautiful hair is thrown back, and she’s murmuring little sounds and groaning.
And his head is turned and his eyes are clenched shut and his hands are moving slowly, quickly, over her back and I know what it feels like and how and why and what happened are the only things I can think.
Don’t let them see me, I manage to think to myself. Maybe I said it aloud. How long, why, what, who did this?
I want to flee, but my feet are stuck.
He peers up at me and those beautiful green eyes meet mine. There’s shock there at first and I don’t care what else. I turn around, trying to find anything to look at but what’s in that room and I fall into a sturdy pair of muscular arms.
“Ben,” I gasp. That’s all I can manage.
Ben quickly takes in my face and then glances back into the room. I hear the sounds of Chris pushing her away like he didn’t want it, or her, but it’s too late. I saw everything. He’s saying something and I hear my name, but I can’t look at his face. It would break me entirely.
Ben’s turning me around to get me out of there, and I can’t help but to glance back once. I meet his eyes, because I will not be that pathetic. I will not let them laugh at me. I remember all of the silly, sentimental things I had said to him and my face flushes at the memory. I remember all of the little “hmmms” she (who doesn’t deserve a name) offered in response to my endless musings about him. I was so stupid.
So fucking stupid.
His eyes are pleading with me, but I can’t find any part of the boy that I thought I knew in there, despite the guilt and shame written all over his face.
And that’s it. I am broken.
Chapter 26
CHRIS
Shit.
I have really, really fucked this up, backwards, sideways and all ways.
Sophia is saying something to me, whispering in my ear, but I have no earthly idea what she is talking about and I don’t care.
The only thing that matters right now, the only thing that will ever matter, is Hallie.
I had seen her face, her beautiful face that can’t hide anything, fall into pieces before. Her face was broken the night before when she had fled from me. But it was nothing compared to the shattered look in her face when she had seen Sophia and I. Christ, the shattered look I had put there.
What we had was inviolable, but I just violated it.
I scramble to find my clothes, and my t-shirt is backwards, but I don’t care. All I want to do was find her to tell her that I’m sorry, that I’m a jealous, stupid asshole. Even if she was with someone else...
Even if she was with someone else, maybe we could be friends again if there was some way she could forgive me. That way, at least I wouldn’t lose all of her forever.
If she was even with someone else, my head said, trying to make sense of her and Ben.
Before Ben hustled her out of the room, he had looked at us once. If there had been a gun or a blade nearby, both Sophia and I would be dead right now. The hatred I had seen in every muscle of his body was for Hallie. I still can’t figure out his reaction. He didn’t seem angry at her, just for her.
I rush out the door, completely oblivious to anything that Sophia is trying to say. I’m running through the party and everyone is looking at me like I’ve lost my mind and I have, I think. I catch them at the elevator. His hands are on her shoulders and he’s saying something to her, but I’m not close enough to hear what it is. She’s shaking, pressing the button over and over again, and fat tears are pooling on the floor beneath her.
“Don’t go out the front,” I say, and my voice sounds much more normal than I feel. “The cameras are out there. The side door should be open.”
Christ. That’s all I can think to say? There has to be something I can to do fix this, some way of atoning for the dumbest thing I’ve ever done.
He’s shielding her body, blocking any chance I have of appealing directly to her. I know that’s his intention. I won’t hurt her, I want to scream. But that’s not true—I already did.
“Hallie,” Ben says, cupping her face in his hands. His thumbs move over her temple, forcing her to look at him. “I need you to go downstairs now.”
The elevator dings and he stands in the frame of it, shifting his body so she is looking at him and only him. God help me, I want to kill him, even if she is in love with him. Especially if she’s in love with him.
She nods.
“Go downstairs and wait for me there. Do not go outside.”
She slides into the elevator.
“Hallie,” he says again, sharper this time. “Do you understand me?”
I see her visibly pull herself together and she nods once before disappearing.
He watches the doors shut before he turns to me. Without hesitation, he pulls back his fist and punches me directly in the face. Blood is coming from my nose and he shakes his fist out.
“You will never touch her again. You will never come near her again. You will never speak with her again. That girl’s been through hell and back and she does not need you in her life. You’re scum. Scum.”
I open my mouth to say something, to ask him what hell and back means. His eyes, flashing with anger, had darkened over those words. He hadn’t meant to say it. I need to know what it means.
I don’t know whether he punched me because I fell in love with his girlfriend or if he punched me because she’s hurt or if it’s some weird mash-up of the two. Hi
s face tells me that I’m not getting any answers.
I’m still staggering from the blow, when he gives me one last murderous look and then disappears down the stairwell.
Chapter 27
HALLIE
A few minutes ago, I had been running, almost skipping, through the apartment, with a little shiver of happiness for the fact that my favorite people in the world were all in the same place.
I didn’t realize that two of them were really in the same place.
Too soon for a bad joke. It might always be too soon. The bile is coming back up my throat.
She doesn’t even like him, I think to myself, calling her every nasty name I can think of, and then I realize I’ve been yelling “Whoreslutwhore” to myself in an elevator.
I want to make them the villains. If this was a movie, she would be a completely evil and unhinged psychopath and Chris would be the complete asshole who gets hit by a bus. That could work, I think.
And then the reasonable part of me takes over. Real life is not a fucking movie. Because there’s a little hero and a little villain mixed up in everyone, I think. No one is either entirely good or entirely bad; we just all live somewhere in the middle.
I am making entirely too much sense to myself right now. The rage comes back.
So, what does that make Chris?
A fucking asshole.
I slump against the wall of the lobby and I don’t care that the doorman is staring at me like I’m the deranged psychopath. I want Ben now. I want him to hug me and to tell me that it will be all right. And I want to get the hell out of this fucking city and I never, ever want to come back.
Ben bursts through the doors and gives me a long, even look, even though he is barely disguising his anger. After another second, he lets out a long sigh, crosses the room in a few steps, and throws his arms around me. “It’s going to be okay,” he says, whispering it into my hair.
We stand like that for a long time, and I remember a thousand other moments like this where he’s been there, and even though I still want to throw up and it feels like the world has just fallen off its axis, he’s right—it really is going to be okay.
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