Because how? Did she fucking like him? Does she fucking like him? And why, if my intentions are to be nothing more than a friend at best, does the thought make my stomach roll with unease?
“How did he get your guard down, exactly?” I try to keep my voice as monotone as possible.
Carl shrugs. “You know, with the whole friends thing. I told him I…” She looks me over as if she’s only just realized it’s me she’s talking to, and she’s wondering if she should continue.
I raise my eyebrows expectantly.
Carl sighs. “I told him I’d just gotten out of a relationship and I wasn’t really ready to date or anything, and he acted like he was totally fine with it. That we could just be friends. And he really did seem cool with it, you know? He joked about me setting him up with my freshmen girlfriends, and we’ve hung out several times and he’s never tried anything or made me feel even remotely uncomfortable.”
I resist rolling my eyes. For all Carl’s intelligence and competence, she doesn’t get that there just isn’t a straight man alive who wouldn’t want more than a friendship with her, no matter how cool with it he acted.
“So when he handed you those pills…”
“I didn’t even think twice about it,” she admits. “I thought they were aspirin.” She shakes her head in self-reproach. “So stupid,” she adds under her breath.
I scoot closer and take her chin between my thumb and forefinger, pointing her gaze to mine. “He told you they were aspirin?” I ask carefully.
Her brows pinch together in thought. “I’m not sure I remember.”
“Think, Carl,” I order. “This is important.” If he actually told her they were aspirin, then there’s no question his actions were intentional. In which case golden boy Ben Aronin is going to spend his Thanksgiving holiday in jail, with enough injuries to put him out of commission for the year, let alone the lacrosse season.
“I don’t think he did,” she murmurs. “I think I just assumed—”
“Maybe it will help if you start from the beginning. He said you had a headache,” I prompt.
Carl nods. “We were at dinner, and we were drinking, and dancing, and…we did tequila shots.” She throws me a tentative glance.
“I thought I was fine, but then my head started hurting. Devin wanted to come back here to be with Max, but I wanted to go to the dorm. Ben said he’d give me an aspirin—”
I nearly jump off the bed, ready to commit murder, but she corrects herself.
“No. Actually, no. He said he’d give me something for my headache,” she amends.
I stare at her meaningfully. “Are you sure?”
Her eyes hold complete sincerity. “Yeah.” She nods. “I’m pretty sure. I mean, I was drunk, but so was he. We got here and he just got the pills and handed them to me. I don’t think he ever said the word aspirin.”
“Did you ask?”
Carl chews her bottom lip as she slowly shakes her head.
I nod thoughtfully. But I don’t know how to figure out whether Ben is simply a fucking thoughtless idiot or something more sinister.
“What else do you remember?” I ask her.
She shakes her head. “Not a whole lot. Honestly? At first I felt really good. Which makes sense, being as I was apparently high,” she says derisively. “How did you know?”
“Know?”
“That I needed help.”
I sigh. “I was just checking who was still here,” I lie. “And when I saw how fucked up you were, and realized Ben was trying to get you to his room…” I trail off.
In truth, I ran into Devin and Max on my way to the bathroom some time earlier and knew Max was meant to be Carl’s ride home. I went to check on Carl and found her in the living room, talking and smiling with Ben, and spent the next hour or so staring at my ceiling, mercilessly awake. I listened for the sound of a cab outside my window since Ben was in no shape to drive her home, and though I doubted Ben had even a remote shot at getting Carl to his bedroom, I left my door cracked just in case, knowing they’d have to pass it to get there.
At around two in the morning I heard voices outside the kitchen and came out to check on them. I wasn’t even suspicious at first. It wasn’t like there was screaming or anything particularly alarming. Just muffled whispers in the dark, and it sounded like they were just trying not to wake anyone. I launched myself out of bed at the thought of them hooking up, and while there wasn’t time to form a conscious plan, I suppose I hoped my interruption would be enough to make Carl second-guess going through with whatever she was considering doing with Ben. But I’d flung on the lights and my heart froze at the sight before me.
I avert my gaze. I don’t want Carl to see how affected I still am by the memory of her eyes, distant and dazed—when they actually managed to open—and lined in fear. I can’t bear to think of her so helpless.
I make my way over to my window and check for Ben’s car. His usual parking spot is empty. Smart move on his part.
I stretch my arms over my head and turn back to face her, sighing. “We should get moving,” I tell her. Cap’s family will be expecting us in a couple hours.
Carl peeks sheepishly up at me from her place on my bed. I try not to think about how it feels to have her there. Not to let myself picture an alternate reality—one that not so long ago I believed would be my future, where she’d wake up in my bed every damned morning.
“Do you think you could give me a ride back to Stuyvesant?” she asks hesitantly.
I glare at her. I thought that was implied.
“I mean, I don’t want to impose after—”
“You’re not,” I cut her off. “I’m just surprised you thought you had to ask,” I admit.
That earns me a small smile.
“Let me just grab a shower and throw my things together. You can shower here if you want. I’m pretty sure everyone’s gone by now anyway. Or I can wait for you back at your dorm.”
Carl blinks at me. “Wait for me?”
“I’m driving you to Cap’s,” I clarify.
Her mouth gapes slightly before she catches it. “Tuck—”
“Don’t start, Carl.” I’m really in no mood for one of her arguments.
“But—”
“You already admitted you feel slow and lightheaded. I’m not letting you drive to Port Woodmere. Period.” I try to unclench my jaw, but what the fuck? Does she want to get away from me that fucking badly?
“I’m supposed to pick up Billy at a quarter to three.”
“Then we’ll pick up Billy.”
Carl nods tentatively, and I breathe a silent sigh of relief.
* * *
Two hours later, Carl is fast asleep in the passenger seat as I drive us to her house to pick up Billy, and she doesn’t stir as the three of us make our way over to Cap’s for Thanksgiving like everything is perfectly normal.
Somehow I get the feeling that today is going to be one of those days where everything changes, and I think to myself that I’ve had far too many of those in my life.
But after that one day just over five months ago, I guess there isn’t much that can shock me anymore.
It was a gray, wet day when my phone rang far too early, Cap sounding all hesitant and somber. I remember thinking something must have happened with Rory, or Bits, and my heart raced in dread as I demanded he tell me what was going on.
“My dad called this morning,” he said.
I don’t know how, but I knew then it was about Carl’s father. I’d recently had the idea to have Cap ask his dad—who is a high-powered attorney—to use his resources to find out what he could about William Stanger. I hated the look that Carl got every time he came up, and when he didn’t show up to graduation, I’d begun to suspect something more than work was keeping him away. I’d been looking around for him when it hit me that I wouldn’t even recognize him if I did see him. And I’ve known Carl most of my life. I’d tried to get her to talk about it, but I could tell it hurt her to even mention him, s
o for some reason it made sense to me to find out on my own. For some reason that didn’t seem like sneaking around behind her back…
But the moment I thought I was going to learn what was really up with him, I felt suddenly uneasy. Still, I couldn’t imagine what Cap’s dad could possibly have learned that would have Cap sounding like someone died.
Now I can’t count how many times I’ve wished I could go back to that moment before that call—before I knew anything at all—ignorance being bliss and all that.
“Tell me,” I demanded.
“Let’s meet up,” Cap countered. His insistence made my stomach drop—not only because he wanted to discuss it in person, but because he didn’t seem to want to tell me anything until then.
I lost my cool. “Just fucking tell me, Cap!”
“He’s in prison, man.”
Still, I didn’t know then what it meant. Had no idea what kind of bastard had fathered the girl I loved. No idea what she’d been so careful to lie about from the very beginning.
“Prison?”
“I’m on my way over.”
Chapter Eighteen
Carleigh
Present Day
“Shh, kid. Let her sleep. There’s some flu going around campus and she hasn’t been feeling well.” Tucker’s voice breaks through my dreamless slumber.
“But we’re almost there,” Billy whines.
My eyes flutter open to trees and telephone poles flying past the car window my head rests against. I groan.
“Finally!” Billy exclaims.
I lean around back to look at his adorable face—thirteen, yes, but never more than seven or eight in my eyes. “Hiya, Billy boy,” I croak. I clear my throat to rid it of the residual sleepiness.
“Carski.” He uses his childhood nickname for me. “Are you sick? You kinda look like shit.”
“Billy!” Tucker and I chide in unison, but Tuck’s lips twist into an amused smirk. “You never say that to a woman,” he admonishes.
“She’s not a woman, she’s my sister,” Billy corrects him. “And she does look…under the weather.”
I flip down the vanity mirror and determine that Billy actually had it right the first time. I look like shit. I grab my overnight bag from under my feet and rifle through it until I find my emergency makeup kit and blend some concealer under my eyes. I brush some bronzer and blush onto my cheeks to counterbalance the lingering pallor. Then I add a light shimmery shadow to my eyelids and smudge a deep brown line above my lashes, finishing off with some mascara.
I turn back to Billy and raise my brows.
“Much better,” he approves.
I slip Tucker a tentative glance as I turn forward again, and his smile of appreciation makes my chest swell.
“Beautiful,” he mutters.
I turn away so he can’t see my smile.
We pull up to Cap’s right on time, a beautiful red-brick mansion, impressive in its own right, yet still only about a quarter of the size of my own monstrosity of a home.
Billy heads straight to the guest bathroom off the Caplans’ grand foyer, and Tucker and I head around the bend toward the kitchen, where I expect people will be. We both stop in our tracks at overhearing what seems like a mildly heated conversation between our respective best friends, and we exchange an uneasy glance.
“I just don’t get why you’re being so fucking stubborn!” Cap growls.
“I’m not being stubborn, Sam!” Rory replies, her swirling southern accent sliding off her words as it does when she’s worked up over something. She’s the only one besides Cap’s immediate family who calls him Sam, and it comes out more like Say-um in this moment. “I’m never around anymore, and it’s Thanksgivin’, and it just isn’t right!”
I feel bad for listening; Rory is such a private person that she can barely kiss Cap in front of someone without blushing bright red. I take a step forward to make ourselves known, but Tuck catches my elbow and shakes his head. “Let them finish.”
I acquiesce, but it unsettles me. They’re not the kind of couple you’d expect to break up over some petty fight—or at all, for that matter. When two people are so inherently created for each other, you like to believe their love can endure any hardship, great or small. But I know better than most—sometimes it isn’t enough.
I’m so put off by the thought of Cap and Rory fighting that I actually start to sweat. Tucker’s hand squeezes my shoulder.
“They’ll be fine,” he assures me, careful to keep the rumble of his voice below a whisper.
My gaze swings to his as I try to regain control of my emotions—something I used to excel at. What the hell is wrong with me? “How can you be so sure?”
Tucker scoffs, his mouth slipping into an ironic, crooked smirk, obviously trying to put me at ease. “Because, Carl. Cap loves that girl more than his own life. He isn’t letting her go—not for anything,” he assures me.
My breath blasts from my lungs in a sudden rush of air. It’s like a sucker punch to my stomach. Because he’s right. Cap would never leave Rory. I’ve seen his love for her firsthand. And when you love someone like that, you don’t let anything steal that from you. Not a fight, not a lie—even a devastating one. Nothing.
And for the first time, I consider that maybe I’m not entirely to blame for my and Tucker’s downfall. Because I know I loved him like that. So if we couldn’t make it, then it’s very possible Tucker never loved me that way in the first place. Not like Cap loves Rory. Not like I loved him.
Love him.
The realization shatters the tattered ruins of my heart all over again, and I know I have to escape before the moisture in my eyes becomes too much to pass off as concern over our friends. But by the way Tuck’s eyes widen and his mouth parts, it’s apparent he’s realized not only what he just said, but its implications. But he can’t even bring himself to deny it; he just watches me with a mixture of pity and regret.
Well, now I know.
I murmur something about needing the bathroom and head in the opposite direction, through the den, before I realize I can’t go any farther without either running into Cap and Rory or turning back and returning to where Tucker still waits. It’s just as well, since my legs need a moment before they can be depended upon anyway.
I mold myself to the wall and suck in deep breaths, telling myself nothing has actually changed. The knowledge that Tucker never quite loved me the way I thought he did should make our breakup easier to stomach, shouldn’t it? If anything, it should at least explain why he was so quick to end us. No discussion, no chance to explain—nothing.
God! Why does this hurt so damn much?
Cap and Rory have been arguing this whole time, but Tucker was right; it doesn’t sound like anything they won’t resolve by the day’s end, and after another minute or so, Rory tells Cap she’s going to help his mother in the kitchen and for him to “just let it go.”
I peek around the corner to see if the coast is clear, but not only is Cap standing there running his hand through his hair in aggravation, not two seconds later, he’s joined by Tucker.
Fucking great.
“Trouble in paradise?” Tuck asks.
“Fuck off,” Cap snaps back.
“Whoa, man. Chill.”
Cap sighs. “Sorry,” he mutters under his breath. “She’s just being fucking stubborn. She’s giving me a hard time about staying here tonight. She wants to go home with her mom after dinner.”
“And you’re worried about her nightmares?”
Rory suffers from night terrors. Debilitating ones. But she confided to me—and Cap to Tuck—that somehow when she sleeps with Cap, he manages to keep them at bay. Maybe it’s knowing he would kill to protect her. Maybe it’s simply the comfort of his love for her. I remember what it was like to feel that secure, brief as it may have been.
“She says they’ve gotten better,” Cap replies. “But she hasn’t spent a night without me since I moved into the apartment. Since we moved in.”
“
She’s still keeping the dorm?”
“I think she’ll give it up next semester. The fucked-up part is she’s worried about me. Like I’m suddenly going to feel pressured and it’s going to fuck with us. You know—backfire on our relationship or something.”
“And it pisses you off that she still doubts you.”
“Yeah,” Cap says simply, but the word carries weight. “How’s Carl feeling?” he asks.
I startle at the tone Cap uses, and I realize Tucker must have called Cap at some point today and told him what happened last night.
Tucker sighs. “Better now, I think. She slept in the car.”
“You figure out what the guy’s deal was?”
“No.” The single word hums with frustration. “But I motherfucking will.”
“I still say you report him either way. It’s not your job to play detective, man. He put her in danger—he should pay for that whether he intended to or not.”
“Yeah, Cap. And he will. But it’s his intentions that I need to figure out. Because if they were what I suspect, then you know I’m not going to handle it by fucking reporting him.”
Shit.
“You could lose your scholarship.” But Cap’s warning is half-hearted. I know it wouldn’t stop Cap if he were in Tucker’s shoes, but that’s different. Cap loves Rory. “You could end up in jail.”
And then I hear Billy’s voice echo through the foyer, his end of a phone conversation—what must have kept him so long—and judging by the way he lowers the cadence of his voice, I suspect he’s talking to a girl, and I almost let loose a giggle, grateful for the comic relief he’s unwittingly supplied. My baby brother.
He ends his conversation and calls out a greeting to Cap.
“Billy the Kid,” Cap replies, and I retreat back into my hiding spot while they exchange playful male teasing and friendly ball-busting comments. Moments later Cap’s sister Beth emerges from the kitchen and joins in on the fun.
I need to get myself together.
Billy instantly focuses his attention on Beth, who very much resembles her older brother in her own feminine version of his trademark gorgeousness, only her hair is dirty blond where Cap’s is chocolate brown. Billy targets her with a smooth smile, and asks her what she’s been up to, telling her how much better school would be if he had her beautiful face to pass in the halls. Beth doesn’t take him seriously since he’s three years younger, but she’s clearly amused by his attention.
In Ruins Page 20