Winner Take All

by Laurie Devore

  “Do you know what it’s like, loving you? Even before, when I was giving you every humiliating truth about my useless life? Like loving a natural disaster. You’d ruin something that made you happy if it meant you were the winner. And it feels like, no matter what someone does or who they are or how long they chase you, they’ll never get your attention. They’ll never get all the way in. That’s what you want. How could I ever—ever—have an honest conversation with you about our parents and still keep you?

  “I had already lost before it started. How does someone make up for that?”

  I breathe as slowly as I can, taking it all in, running it methodically through my system. Blink. “Say it again,” I tell him, my voice barely more than a whisper. “Say what you said before.”

  His face changes, softens. There’s that feeling behind his eyes—something like hope. So easy to crush. Because he knows. He remembers, and he thinks maybe for a second that this is where he can finally get it right. “I love you,” he tells me quietly, his eyes dead on mine, the words close enough to touch.

  This. This is what I’ve been waiting for. The key.

  I turn away without another word and take off back toward school.

  47

  I get the text from Taylor right after school. Party at the cove tonight. See you there?

  I study it, running over it in my mind all through volleyball practice. Jackson showing his cards at last. Taylor and the cove and everyone else.

  I think I know how this ends now.

  As we’re leaving I admit to Lia that my conversation with Jackson had gone completely sideways, but it’s over. It ends tonight.

  She says, voice cold, to talk to her when that’s happened.

  I go home to change, eschewing my usual jean shorts and T-shirt for an underutilized tight top and skirt. So many of the clothes I wear are an attempt to hide, make myself smaller.

  Not tonight.

  The hidden cove is right on the river, through some of the trails I run, owned by some rich family or the other. The beach is packed with Prep kids—too many Prep kids—drinking out of Solo cups and groping one another while pretending to dance and feeling generally superior, the way Prep kids do. Something about a weeknight party makes the whole thing feel that much more rebellious.

  I spot Taylor before he spots me. Tall and blond, a breeze off the river ruffling his hair. I look at the people around him, pretty, perfect people with their pretty, perfect, fucked-up lives.

  I sneak up behind him, place my hand on the middle of his back, and he turns around to face me. I keep moving my hand upward, snaking it into his hair, and I bring his face toward me and kiss him. He realizes what is happening fairly quickly and he slides his arms around my waist, kissing me more thoroughly. He pulls back after a second, all eyes at the bonfire on us.

  Someone whoops, and then someone else yells, “Reagan!” and people are laughing around us and Taylor’s staring straight at me, his eyes full of questions.

  I smile. “You looked so good standing over here.”

  His eyes rake down me, my outfit, taking me in as if he’s not quite sure who he’s seeing. “It’s good to see you, too. You’re … looking confident.”

  He’s so kind, it almost hurts.

  The thing is, I do like Taylor, always have. The way he makes me feel. His almost-constant kindness, and even those little moments where he breaks just like the rest of us.

  He makes me feel safe.

  I want it to be real.

  “I’m gonna go get a beer,” I tell him, and then, at the look on his face, “for you.”

  He nods and I head over to the keg on the other side of the beach. Michonne is standing there, and she claps her hands together when she sees me. “You did not just do that.” I glance around and when I see other people watching me, a grin slides onto my face.

  “Nell Becker,” she says, impressed.

  I shrug.

  After that, Taylor is a steady presence and he won’t leave my side, the perfect protector. He keeps his hand placed on the small of my back, like he’s worried what might happen to me.

  Taylor’s been chasing broken women his whole life, hoping to catch them.

  Later that night, we’re standing together talking by the water, the waves washing up to the beach, soaking our toes, and I see Jackson over Taylor’s shoulder. Drinking. Watching us. And when he sees me seeing him, he throws his cup down and walks toward us.

  “Well, this is a new one,” he says once he’s close.

  Taylor turns at the sound of his voice. Exasperated, Taylor says, “What do you want, Hart?”

  “Why don’t you tell him, Nell? What my problem is?”

  Electricity crackles to life in my chest. “He knows,” I answer.

  “About today?” Jackson asks.

  I drop my gaze. “Not that.”

  “Did you immediately go make out with him?” Jackson asks, disgusted. “Was that the play?”

  “Go away,” I tell him dismissively. “You don’t get to tell me who to kiss.”

  Jackson bends over, pushing both of his hands through his hair like he’s going to scream before he stands back up straight. “How can you not see how wrong this is? Dragging this out? Leaving me hanging?” He points. “Bringing Reagan into it.”

  “Back the fuck off, Hart,” Taylor says then in a gruff voice that doesn’t suit him. I can feel how close Jackson is to crying, and I hate it when he does that.

  “Don’t pick me if you don’t want to pick me,” Jackson says, “but stop this. Please end it now and put every last one of us out of our fucking misery, Nell.”

  “You think everything is yours to take,” Taylor says, pushing in front of Jackson. “Why?”

  “Tell him,” Jackson says, looking at me over Taylor’s shoulder. “Tell him why you kissed him. What you’re using him for.”

  “I kissed him before,” I tell Jackson, my eyes boring into his.

  “What is wrong with you?” Taylor asks him.

  To my mounting horror, people around us are watching. The sides are closing in, and I need to stop before too much of me is on display. I need to turn into one of those herons on the wind and fly away. Evolve.

  “I told her I loved her,” Jackson says to Taylor. “I told her I’m ridiculously, outlandishly in love with her so she went and found you.”

  “Can’t imagine why she didn’t throw herself at your feet like she was supposed to,” Taylor bites back.

  “Taylor,” I say softly.

  Jackson is looking at me again. “If he can’t track the movements of your game right now, he doesn’t really know you at all. Did she even tell you, Reagan? Did she tell you she’s pregnant?”

  And that’s what finally does it. Taylor hauls off and punches Jackson directly in the jaw.

  If I weren’t so deep in despair, it might be satisfying to finally see him laid low, unwilling to fight back. And he goes down hard, landing on the solid dirt of the beach. He has the dignity not to say any more. Taylor turns back to me. “C’mon, Nell. Let’s go.”

  I swallow, glancing down. Jackson’s eyes meet mine; he pulls himself up, wipes the dirt off, and walks away. I look back to Taylor. “I can’t.”

  His face remains totally passive. “Why?”

  Because Jackson is right, I don’t say. I finally got what I wanted—I broke his heart. Or as much of one as he ever had. And that—that’ll be for every girl he’s ever hurt or used or laughed about once she’s gone.

  It’ll be for me, most of all.

  I’d thought, for some reason, that maybe I’d get out of this the good guy, righteous and victorious. That anyone else caught in it would understand eventually. But Taylor is watching me right now, and he’s loved me for far longer than I’ve deserved it.

  I used him.

  I blink. “He’s right. About why I kissed you.”

  Taylor sighs deeply. “Are you kidding?”

  “He told me he loved me and I wanted to make him bleed. I thought i
f he saw you and me together … I wanted to break him, so he’d know what it was like. Can you understand the impulse?”

  He turns away and spits into the dirt. “No,” he says, not looking back at me. “I can’t.”

  And that’s where he leaves me at last.

  Momentarily in a daze, I stand there, alone, the wind whipping my hair. I only have one clear thought: I need a drink.

  I push my way through the people gathered around us, ignoring the murmurs that follow me as I walk in the opposite direction from the way Jackson left. I take the first cup someone hands me and down it so quickly, I don’t taste what’s inside.

  This is not the proper way to deal with my emotions. Even I know that.

  But I never knew what it was like before. To not know how to stop a thing you started. I’ve ruined my relationships with the two people who are my surrogate family. I can barely stand to be in my own house. The only boy I’ve ever loved believes a lie I told and is possibly the most terrible person alive and some part of me doesn’t care.

  And worst of all, I hate myself.

  I guess I always did.

  I’m in a group of people, riding the wave of the crowd. Everyone, having seen Taylor punch Jackson in the face, is now staring at me. Someone hands me another drink and I take it.

  Everything is loud, but I can’t hear any of it.

  Someone grabs my shoulder.

  “Nell,” she says. Lia is alone and in the shape of something angry. I’m sorry, I should say. You were right you’re always right. “Where the hell is my brother?”

  I shrug sloppily. And some deep, dark part of me knows I should care, but I can’t. I don’t want to. I’m so goddamn sick of caring about everything so much.

  “He’s supposed to be my ride home.”

  “Guess you’ll have to find another ride,” I say. “He left.”

  She grabs on to my arm. “What did you do?” she asks, her voice edging into desperation.

  She’s always thought I am too much, even if she’d never say it. Someone to be looked after. Someone who would never fit in.

  I think she’s my best friend because she was afraid what would happen if she left me on my own.

  I feel someone else come up beside me then, Michonne’s skin shining in the light from the fire. “Are you okay, Nell?” she asks, looking at my cup of some kind of alcohol. Her face is serious, but she had been laughing with me a couple of hours ago. “You shouldn’t be drinking that. I mean, everyone is saying … that you’re…” She drops her voice. “… pregnant.”

  My heart stops.

  Someone else hears her. Some boy laughs. “So Hart did get Nell Becker pregnant. God, I can’t wait for school tomorrow.”

  No.

  Someone else is like, “You’re LYING,” and there are voices, voices everywhere.

  Sad Nell Becker. Pathetic, try-hard Nell Becker. Look at her now.

  Nonononono.

  “No one is pregnant. I’m not pregnant.” Then I take a huge swig of my drink as if proving the point. When I move the cup away from my lips, I see him like a blurry mirage through the fire. Jackson. Watching me and seeing me and I see the way his face changes when he watches me, the way the anger falls away to … nothing. He’s glowing in the firelight, tan and easy and blank, his eyes locked on mine. Then he’s gone.

  There are so many people staring at me, picking me apart with their eyes. Seeing who I was and who I am now and thinking they’re so glad not to be me. And there’s Lia right there, waiting for me to say it. Admit that I’m a liar. That I’m that girl, the pathetic one who would use my body as a weapon—even if it was the only one I had left.

  Everything I’ve done in my life and this is what I’ll be remembered for.

  I grab a drink out of the closest person’s hand and down it, too. “See?” I toss the cup on the sand, swaying ever so slightly.

  It’s an odd silence around us. Quiet enough in our immediate circle but conversation buzzing from outside and even more from outside of that. I make myself look at Lia, who is looking back at me. I’ve never seen her face so closed off. So done.

  “The nerve of you to call Jackson the liar.” I can feel how much she doesn’t want to look at me. “You used Taylor, after how much we’ve always cared about you. After this summer. You are the worst kind of narcissist. No wonder you and Jackson think you’re made for each other.”

  “Lia, wait—”

  She stands in front of me, fists clenched, daring me to speak. The fire is burning in the distance behind her, haloing the tendrils of her wild hair. I realize I don’t know what to say.

  “That’s what I thought,” she says. “God,” and she gets choked up. She blinks one time, a tear escaping her eye, and says to me, “I am so finished with you,” and then walks away in the other direction. I want to call after her but I’ve got no more explanations. I know what I did. I planned it, calculated. Jackson’s words from earlier run through my mind. I treat everyone like collateral damage.

  I have to get out of here.

  Jackson is walking toward me and Michonne is watching me like she is both sad and disgusted. I get that. I open my mouth to tell her just how fucked up I am, but instead I say, “Will you please take me home, Mich?” and her face softens a little and she nods and walks me over to her car. We pile in and she nicely doesn’t talk until we are in front of my house.

  “It doesn’t have to be like this,” she says.

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know,” she tells me. “Like, you don’t always have to win every argument.”

  “You don’t understand,” I tell her.

  “Don’t I? You think you’re the only one at this school who has to protect herself? Me—I’m not straight. I’m not white. Money doesn’t fix everything.”

  My stomach turns over. I’d never even considered that. “I feel like shit,” I tell her.

  “Don’t,” Michonne replies, her voice easy as ever. “Just stop acting like the rest of us are removed from all of this. You’re not a damn island, Nell.”

  I swallow and open the door of her car to walk on unsteady legs to my house.

  I should probably do something. Hide. Try to sneak in. Anything so my parents won’t see me the way I am. But shit, I’m tired. And I don’t care.

  So I go through the front door.

  It looks dark but when I go into the den, I see Mom sitting next to a lamp, reading a book and sipping a glass of wine and looking perfect. We both stare silently at each other for a minute. I push a piece of hair back behind my ear.

  Mom stands up. “It’s a Tuesday night. Where have you been?”

  I blink. “With every other fucked-up teenager in Cedar Woods,” I tell her. I’m so tired. I only want to go to bed.

  “Are you drunk?” she demands. “What is going on, Nell?”

  I do some mental math in the “what is going on” department. The reputation I’ve worked for my entire life is shattered, and I’ve lost my best friends.

  It’s all her fault.

  I laugh.

  The sound catches her by surprise, I think. I watch her face change, fall, looking at me like an unsolvable problem. “What’s wrong, Mom?” I ask. “Don’t you think this is hilarious?”

  “I don’t know what’s wrong with you,” she says, sounding like a person who can be hurt. “Your father and I barely see you. You don’t talk to us. You can … You can tell me anything.” She braces herself. I can’t, I realize. Tell her anything.

  If she knew who I was, it would probably break her.

  Instead, I say, “You? You don’t know what’s wrong with me? How can you ask me what’s going on?” My voice rises, hatred the last thing I have to hold on to. “Every terrible thing that’s happened to me this year is because of you. I don’t ask about your terrible choices.”

  She blanches.

  “Look at me, Mom,” I finish, my voice breaking. “Being a selfish bitch runs in the family.”

  She doesn’t answer me.
I head up the stairs and collapse into a heap on my bed.

  * * *

  I wake up to my phone ringing. My head spins, my brain pounding angrily against my skull. For a minute, I’m not sure where I am. I answer my phone.

  “Nell?” someone says on the other end. Taylor.

  I’m so shocked to hear his voice, I wonder if the past twelve hours were a dream.

  “Yeah?” I answer. It’s still dark outside.

  “Have you seen Lia?” Taylor asks me. His voice trembles precariously. “She never came home from the cove.”

  I miss a breath. I throw back the covers. “She’s not answering her phone? Did you try Columbus?”

  “No one knows where she is. I’ve been driving around for an hour.”

  “I’m going to go back to the cove,” I tell him, sliding on a pair of shorts. “Call me.”

  “Okay,” he says. “You, too.”

  I’m back at the cove in record time. It’s after three in the morning—Lia would never stay out this late without telling anyone. I feel my hands shaking.

  Embers remain where the fire burned earlier, driftwood collapsed, cups thrown into the sand. The moon is bright on the beach and the water, the night eerily still. Someone is lying on the beach next to the burned-out fire, staring up at the sky with their arms behind their head. Like a person that time forgot, waiting for the night to give them answers. I hurry forward, calling out “Lia!”

  The person gets up, looking at me as if I’m a mirage. It’s Jackson. Because of course it is. Of course he’d be here posing like the happy ending. But it doesn’t seem like the time to rehash the past—none of that is particularly important right now.

  “Lia?” he asks.

  I feel near tears. I had been so hopeful for that moment between heartbeats when I’d seen him. “Taylor says she never came home from the party. She was mad at me. I don’t know, she walked off and now no one knows where she is.”

  “Okay,” he says, his voice the embodiment of calm, “it’s okay. We’ll find her.” And he says it so confidently, I actually believe him. We’ll find her. He’s always been good under pressure. “Do you know which direction she went in?” he asks.

  I’m not sure, which almost sends me into another panic.