Rikki

by Abigail Strom

  “First tell me what’s wrong.”

  “We’d rather wait until we can tell you in person.”

  I thought of Sam’s father and panic closed over my heart. “Is one of you sick?”

  “No, sweetheart. I promise.”

  “Well, then, what—”

  “We’re only ten minutes away from you, Rikki. Just come and meet us.”

  * * *

  “We’re getting a divorce.”

  It was the second time Beth had uttered that statement. I’d asked her to repeat it because I couldn’t seem to process the words.

  I took a deep breath. “I don’t understand.”

  Charlotte and Beth looked at each other, and my stomach clenched. This was the way they always looked at each other when we had family meetings, and I’d always been simultaneously comforted and resentful.

  Because they were a team. Because their connection ran so deep they could communicate on a level I would never completely be a part of.

  I looked down at my plate, wishing I hadn’t ordered anything and especially not fish. The smell was starting to make me sick.

  No one has cancer, I told myself. No one is dying. Half of marriages end in divorce. I don’t have any right to be this upset.

  I’m acting like a child.

  “Rikki—”

  I looked up, and the sympathy in Beth’s eyes was almost too much.

  “What about the house?” I blurted. “Will one of you move out?”

  They looked at each other again, and my hands clenched into fists in my lap.

  “I’m staying in the house,” Beth said. “Charlotte will be moving out. Not right away, but… eventually.”

  Charlotte was leaving?

  “I don’t understand why this happened,” I said carefully, trying to sound like a reasonable, rational adult and not like a frightened kid. “I mean… I didn’t know anything was wrong.”

  Charlotte leaned across the table toward me. “We didn’t want to tell you until… until we’d made some decisions. But we’ve been having… trouble… for a few months.”

  A few months?

  “What kind of trouble?”

  Charlotte looked upset, and Beth took over.

  Beth always took over when Charlotte got emotional.

  “Rikki, you know we love you more than anything. You’re the center of our universe and always will be. But that doesn’t take away our right to privacy. There are some parts of our lives we don’t feel comfortable sharing with you. Maybe someday, but not now.”

  I could feel the paper-thin veneer of rationality starting to crumble. In a minute, I’d be sobbing like an eight-year-old and begging them to stay together.

  I shoved my chair back and stood up. “Thanks for coming out here,” I said. “But I have to go.”

  “Rikki—”

  “I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  I turned blindly and crashed into a waiter. I mumbled something, an apology maybe, and then ran out of the restaurant.

  * * *

  When I got back to my room Tamsin and Oscar were there. They were lying on Tamsin’s bed with their arms wrapped around each other, lips locked, but when they heard the door open they sprang apart.

  “Rikki! I thought you were—”

  Tamsin stopped, looked at me more closely, and frowned. “What’s wrong?”

  I’d cried a little on the walk back from the restaurant, but I’d stopped at the bathroom and rinsed off my face. I’d been hoping that I looked fine.

  “Nothing.” I sat down on my bed, wishing I had the room to myself, and grabbed a book from my nightstand. I propped up my pillows, leaned back, and opened the book at random.

  The bedsprings sagged as Tamsin plopped down on the bed and took the book away from me.

  “Come on, Rikki. What’s going on?”

  She was wearing a tank top and a pair of men’s boxer shorts. Her eye makeup and lipstick were smeared from the make out session with Oscar, her hair was a mess, and she looked like a woman who’d been interrupted doing something a lot more fun than listening to her roommate’s problems. But there was real concern in her eyes, and instead of brushing her off I found myself saying, “My parents are getting divorced.”

  Tamsin’s parents hated each other and I wasn’t sure if she’d understand why this upset me so much. But when she leaned forward and hugged me hard, I knew she did.

  “Oh, man. I’m so sorry.” She let me go and turned toward Oscar. “Would it be okay if we called it a night? I’d like to spend some time with my girl.”

  Oscar shambled to his feet. “Sure, I understand. Text me later if you want. I’m really sorry, Rikki. Hope you feel better. See you in rehearsal, Tam.”

  “I don’t want to ruin your night,” I protested, but Tamsin shook her head as Oscar left the room.

  “We’ve seen each other a ton lately. We’re good. Now tell me what happened. Did one of them have an affair?”

  I stared at her. “Oh, my God. I didn’t even think of that. Do you think that’s what happened?”

  “I have no idea. Didn’t they tell you?”

  I put my head down on my knees and tried to breathe. Beth or Charlotte have an affair? I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t even imagine it.

  “They didn’t really say. I kind of ran out on the conversation, but before that they said… well, basically they said it’s none of my business. The details, I mean.”

  “That sounds harsh.”

  “I don’t think they meant to be harsh. I think—” Suddenly I knew what I thought. “It was Beth who said that. I think if one of them had an affair it was Charlotte. I think Beth said all that about privacy to protect Charlotte. She doesn’t want me to blame her or hate her or whatever.”

  Tamsin was quiet for a moment. “Do you blame her? It kind of sounds like you do.”

  “I don’t know. But whether or not she had an affair, I think this divorce was her idea.”

  “You don’t know that for sure.”

  “No.” I scrubbed my face with my hands. “I guess I am looking for someone to blame.”

  “It makes things easier,” Tamsin said gently. “When something falls apart, it’s hard to deal with. But if you can be mad at someone it seems… simpler, I guess.”

  “God, that makes me sound terrible. I don’t want to be that person.”

  “It’s not terrible. It’s natural. But I know you love both your moms, and they love you. So maybe you don’t have to blame anybody. Or hate anybody.”

  My face must have changed, because Tamsin grabbed my hand. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  “I just realized you’re right. I do want to hate somebody. To make this easier. Because if there’s no one to hate then it just…”

  “Sucks.”

  “Yeah.”

  We were quiet for a moment. Tamsin started to say something else, but there was a knock on the door.

  “It’s open,” Tamsin called out.

  The knob turned and Sam was standing in the doorway.

  Even in the misery of the last hour, I hadn’t completely forgotten my earlier misery with Sam. But now it hit me full force again, so hard I couldn’t say anything for a moment.

  “Hey, Sam,” Tamsin said.

  “Hey,” he said back to her, before his eyes went to me. “I need to talk to you for a minute, Rikki.”

  He didn’t look angry, which was a relief. He just looked… determined.

  When I didn’t say anything Tamsin glanced at me and then back at Sam. “This isn’t a great time,” she said. “Rikki had some bad news today and we’re kind of working through it.”

  “Bad news?” He came in a few paces and then stopped. “What bad news? Are you all right?”

  I finally managed to put some words together. “I’m fine. I mean…” I shook my head. “No one’s hurt, or anything.”

  But even as I said those words I could feel my eyes filling with tears.

  Sam strode across the room and stood next to my bed, loo
king down at me like I’d just opened a vein in front of him. “If everything’s fine, why are you crying? You never cry.”

  I blinked a few times, rapidly. “I’m not crying.”

  All through junior high and high school, the strictest rule I had for myself was never, ever to cry in front of Sam Payne. Not if he beat me in a test, not if he ripped one of my arguments to shreds in a debate, not if he made a remark barbed enough to draw blood. It had been an easy enough rule to follow because I was usually too pissed at him to cry.

  The few times I’d felt the sting of tears in front of him, I made sure to get away—around the corner, into the bathroom, whatever—before he could see.

  It got so that the combination of Sam’s presence and the possibility of tears would trigger an automatic fight-or-flight response in me. But as I sat there on my bed with my arms around my knees, looking up at Sam with my eyes swimming, I didn’t feel my old instinct to get away from him.

  “My parents are getting divorced,” I blurted out, and Sam sank down to his knees beside me and grabbed my hand.

  “Shit,” he said softly. “Oh, shit. I’m sorry.”

  He looked down at our hands clasped together, his so much larger and rougher and stronger than mine.

  “That’s why,” he muttered.

  “Why what? What do you mean?”

  He looked over at Tamsin. “Would you mind if I talk to Rikki in private? Just for a minute.”

  “Is that cool with you?” she asked me.

  I nodded, and she got up from the bed.

  “I’ll go across the hall to Claire and Dyshell’s. Knock on the door when you’re done.”

  Once Tamsin was gone I pulled my hand from Sam’s and scooted back on the bed a little. “What did you mean when you said That’s why? That’s why what?”

  Sam rose to his feet and sat down on the bed where Tamsin had been. “That’s why you were so weird today,” he said. “You were upset about your moms. But why didn’t you just tell me, instead of—” He stopped.

  “Instead of what?”

  I was almost afraid to hear the answer—afraid to hear how he’d characterize my behavior that afternoon. But at the same time, I had to know.

  Sam frowned a little, as if choosing his words carefully. “You weren’t acting like yourself,” he finally said. “It seemed like you were… I don’t know, playing a game with me or something. It wasn’t like you. I didn’t know what was going on, and…” He shook his head. “I was pissed.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, looking down at my knees.

  Sam cupped my chin in his hand and tilted my face up. “I’m the one who’s sorry,” he said. “I should have known something was wrong. I should have tried harder to figure out what it was. I should’ve known you would never…” He shook his head again. “I’m sorry I snapped at you.”

  He was apologizing to me? Because I’d acted like an asshole?

  Because he thought he knew why.

  Of course it wasn’t true. But faced with the choice of trying to explain the real reason I’d acted like an asshole—which, to be honest, I didn’t completely understand myself—and letting him believe I’d been upset by the news about my parents, well…

  Maybe it made me a coward, but I didn’t care. I was just grateful for anything that would let us be friends again.

  And this time, I wouldn’t do anything to screw it up.

  Which meant not letting Sam know that his touch made me shiver, or that I knew the angle of his jaw and the texture of his skin and the shade of his eyes as well as I knew my own.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Sam left a few minutes later, after telling me to call him if I needed anything.

  “Thanks,” I said. “I’m sure I’ll take you up on that sometime, but tonight I think Tamsin’s got plans to cheer me up.”

  “I don’t know if that’s reassuring or terrifying.”

  When Tamsin came back in she had Claire and Dyshell with her. I told them I didn’t really feel like talking, so we decided to drink Southern Comfort and sing four-part harmonies. Or, to be more accurate, Claire and Tamsin drank Southern Comfort and attempted to sing all four parts of the four-part harmonies while Dyshell and I drank soda and applauded.

  I felt better.

  Or at least, I did until we finally called it a night at two a.m. I was sure I’d be out once my head hit the pillow, but as soon as the lights were off and I heard Tamsin’s deep, even breathing in the other bed, everything that had happened came rushing back.

  After half an hour of staring at the ceiling I called Charlotte’s cell phone.

  “Rikki?” Her voice sounded sleepy but she’d picked up on the third ring. “I’m so glad you called. We didn’t get a chance to—”

  “Did you have an affair?”

  Silence.

  No. Of course not. How could you even think that? I would never hurt you and Beth that way.

  I wanted her to say those things so much. I tried to will it to happen, to pull a denial from Charlotte with sheer desperate longing.

  But it didn’t come.

  “It wasn’t an affair,” she said. “I fell in love.”

  Her words were like a punch in the gut.

  “You fell in love with someone you weren’t married to. How is that not an affair?”

  I didn’t recognize the sound of my own voice. It was cold and hard and dry.

  “Rikki, listen. Whatever is going on with your mother and me doesn’t have anything to do with you. We love you, and that love is the most important thing in both our lives. Okay?”

  I tried to remember what Tamsin had said about not blaming or hating anyone. At the time she said it, I’d felt the rightness of her words in whatever part of myself housed the better angels of my nature.

  But I couldn’t reach those angels now. I felt the heat of anger sweep through me, burning away every other emotion.

  “Don’t you dare talk about love,” I said, my voice shaking. “You don’t have any right to talk about love.”

  I hung up on her then, powering off my phone so I wouldn’t know if she tried to call me back. Then I lay in bed and stared at the ceiling again, full of rage and misery and about as far away from sleep as I’d ever been in my life.

  I turned my head to look at Tamsin, asleep on her stomach with her arms flung out to the sides. I knew if I woke her up she’d try to be there for me, but she’d drunk a lot of whisky and she should probably sleep it off.

  Even if she hadn’t drunk all that whisky, I realized suddenly that Tamsin wasn’t the person I wanted to talk to right now.

  I didn’t stop to think. I just got out of bed, pulled on a pair of sweatpants, and slipped out of our room. I padded down the empty hallway in my bare feet, took the stairs, and went along the second floor hallway to Sam’s door.

  I knocked softly, telling myself if that didn’t wake him up I’d go back to my room.

  It didn’t wake him up. But instead of going back to my room, I knocked louder.

  A moment later the door opened and Sam stood there, his hair disheveled and his eyes blinking.

  “Rikki,” he said, his voice rough with sleep. “Is everything okay? What are you doing here?”

  I didn’t have an answer. Whatever had carried me out of my bed and down to this room had deserted me, leaving me feeling foolish and vulnerable and weak.

  “I don’t know.”

  I felt tears stinging behind my eyes, and this time my fight-or-flight response kicked in.

  “I should go,” I said. “I’m sorry I bothered you.”

  I took one step back, but before I could take off Sam grabbed my arm and pulled me inside.

  “Come on, Rikki. You came down here for a reason. What is it? What’s wrong?”

  I looked around his room for a moment, and my eyes settled on the bottom drawer of his bureau.

  I wished I’d never looked in there. I wished I didn’t know that Sam had taken my panties.

  Knowing that had ruined everything
. It had made think about things I wasn’t ready to think about, things that took my neat, predictable life and turned it upside down.

  I sat down on the bed I thought of as mine. “I couldn’t sleep,” I said.

  Sam sat down on his bed and looked at me. He was wearing sweatpants but he was bare-chested, and I’d never been more aware of each and every muscle in his torso.

  I had to look away. This time my gaze fell on a framed picture on top of his bookcase—a photo of Sam and his father.

  “Because of your moms?” he asked.

  I nodded. “Charlotte had an affair,” I whispered.

  Sam was quiet for a moment. “Are you sure?”

  I nodded again. “I asked her, and she told me. But I wish I didn’t know.”

  I wished I’d never called her. I wished I’d let my parents keep on protecting me.

  I wished I could go back to when things seemed simpler. Before I knew about Charlotte. Before I knew about my panties in Sam’s drawer.

  Before I knew that the people in my life thought and felt and did things I wasn’t ready to deal with.

  Sam ran a hand through his messy hair and sighed. “I’m so sorry, Rikki. I honestly can’t believe this happened. Your parents always seemed so happy together.”

  I felt my shoulders sagging. “I know.” My eyes went to the picture of Sam and his dad again. “I feel kind of selfish being so upset about this, especially in front of you. A divorce must seem like a pretty minor disaster compared to—”

  “Hey! Don’t do that.”

  I looked back at him, startled. “Don’t do what?”

  “Don’t compare our situations. There’s always going to be someone out there who’s got it worse than you. I mean, I was lucky enough to have a dad who loved me and who was in my life for eighteen years. Compared to a lot of people in the world, I have it pretty good.”

  My eyes welled up. “Can I tell you something stupid?”

  Sam got that expression again—the one he’d gotten earlier that night, in my room. It was like seeing me in pain actually hurt him, somehow.

  “Sure,” he said gently.

  “Nothing really bad has ever happened to me. I’ve never lost anyone I love. I’ve never even been to a funeral. I’ve never been assaulted or raped. I’m not poor, I’m not a war refugee, I’m not sick. So many people have awful things to deal with, like you said. And compared to them I have it really good.”