I hold back a sigh. I really do not want to do this tonight. I sit across from her at the table and steel myself for The Talk. I look at Megan expectantly.
She drops her eyes, staring down at her hands resting on the table. “Can we try to discuss this as calmly as possible? I can’t get too stressed—it might hurt the baby.”
In other words: I’m going to tell you about the shitty things I’ve done to you, but you can’t get mad ‘cause I’ll break. Sounds fair.
“Fine,” I agree with a nod and smile. I can be pleasant. “There’s obviously something you want to say to me, so why don’t you just say it?”
Megan grimaces slightly at my sugary tone. She takes a deep breath and glances back up. “Okay. First of all, I really am sorry about what happened. I never meant to hurt you. I just…”
She pauses. I continue to nod and smile, which seems to unnerve her. But then I’m not here to make it easy for her. Bravely, she perseveres.
“I always thought of Bran as a kind of brother. He was always just around, right? When we all moved into the apartment together, I started realizing what an awesome guy he was.” Megan smiles tightly. “Remember when I broke up with Liam?”
I search through my memory, trying to put a face with the name. “Liam was the soccer playing with the lisp?”
“He didn’t have a lisp, he was Irish.” She rolls her eyes at me. “Anyway, remember what a mess I was? Well, Bran was actually the one who helped me get through it. He was so sweet. He’d listen to me whine and cry about everything, and he always knew exactly what to say to cheer me up. It kind of got to the point where I stopped seeing Liam’s face in my thoughts—and I started seeing Bran’s.”
Megan clears her throat nervously, flicking a look at me to gauge my response. I continue to smile like I’m a caring talk show host though my nails are digging into my thighs under the table. I wonder why she thinks I need a play-by-play recount of her betrayal. But then I am too morbidly curious to stop her.
“So, anyway, it just seemed to work out that we were always alone together. Nothing happened at first. We just talked a lot. I didn’t even realize what was happening until it was too late. That day—the day we…you know…”
“Yeah,” I cut her off quickly.
“Well, anyway, that day me, Simone, and Ally were going to hang out at Jason’s house. Bran was at home, playing video games and waiting for you to finish work. For some reason, I found myself trying to convince Bran to come with us. He didn’t want to, at first, but then Simone and Ally started in on him, too. You know they’ve always though Bran was cute.”
I raise my eyebrows at this. No, I never realized Megan’s friends thought Bran was cute. Those popular bitches didn’t have much to do with him throughout high school. At least not when I was around. But for all I know they could have been having orgies behind my back. If that’s true, I guess I have some belated bed burning to do.
Kidding. Damn it, Megan is still talking.
“—you couldn’t even taste the alcohol in them, they were so good! We all started drinking and hanging by the pool. Then all of a sudden, Ally pulled me to the side and asked me why I was flirting so hard with Bran. I was honestly shocked! I didn’t even realize I had been. Suddenly it hit me that I was starting to have feelings for him. I totally freaked.”
Megan smiles softly to herself, lost in her special blonde memories. In other news: I’m vomiting in my mouth.
“I lied and said I had a headache so Ally took us back to the apartment. Bran went into your guys’ room, and—I knew I should’ve just gone into mine. But I didn’t. I followed Bran and…I don’t know! We were both drunk, and we started confessing a lot of things to each other—and all these…feelings and emotions came spilling out!”
“We agreed that we couldn’t do anything about it because it wouldn’t be fair to you. But then I ended up kissing him.” Megan looks me in the eye. Hers are shiny with unshed tears. “I kissed him first, Andi. I started it. You know what happened after that.”
“Yes, I do. Sorry my work let me off early that fateful day. By the way, how was it?” I raise my eyebrows at her. “Don’t give me that look; you seem intent on giving me the full rundown on your little love story, so you might as well include the sex scene. Hopefully, it’s not as boring as all the other parts.”
Megan flushes. “Is everything a joke to you?” she says angrily. “Not that I’d expect that you could understand, but I wanted to explain my side of things!”
“Calm down, Meegles. Think of the baby,” I remind her. “I don’t want you to explain to me how it happened. I want to know why you decided it was okay to sleep with my boyfriend ON MY…bed. And don’t say it was because you were drunk and in love. I know you better than that. You thought I didn’t deserve him.”
“You didn’t! God, Andi, you were so mean to Bran! Like, I wondered if you weren’t secretly the cause of all those ‘skateboarding’ injuries he always had.”
I gasp loudly and point a righteous finger in Megan’s face. “I have never—purposefully—hurt Bran!”
“Oh, really?” Megan scoffs, narrowing her eyes at me. “You hurt him every time you made faces whenever he’d kiss you or try to be affectionate with you. Or snapped at him, or-or ignored him, and treated him like a naughty puppy instead of a boyfriend!”
Naughty puppy, ha. But I wasn’t that bad—was I? Hmm. “Regardless of how you thought I treated him, it wasn’t your business,” I say coldly. “It wasn’t your relationship. If you thought I was that bad, why didn’t you talk to me first?”
“Because no one can say anything to you, Andi! We all have to tiptoe around you because we don’t know what will set you off. Like setting the bed on fire! Who does that?! You don’t think that was a little—I don’t know—psycho?”
I feel a frown tug the corners of my mouth down. “I waited until you guys were off the bed. I wasn’t trying to kill y’all.”
Megan’s eyes roll to the ceiling. She briefly covers her face with both hands, shaking her head. “You’re cracked—and everyone lets you get away with it because of what happened to your parents. I’m sick of always having to—”
Megan suddenly claps a hand over her mouth, eyes widening in horror. I continue to stare at her like she’s an interesting lab experiment.
“I didn’t mean that,” she says in hushed tones. “Oh, my gosh, I’m so sorry, Andi! I’m such a bitch. I’m supposed to be apologizing to you and I end up saying all these horrible things instead.”
To my alarm, Megan buries her face in her arms resting on the table, and starts to sob. Full on weeping, gasping sobs. I don’t know what to do. I glance over at the couch but Bran’s head is no longer visible. I assume he slid sideways, or completely off the couch in his sleep. Stupid rag doll.
I don’t know what to do, so I don’t do anything. I think about patting her head—and my hand even hovers inches above her, but then I don’t know if she’ll think I’m treating her like a puppy. Apparently I do that. I take my hand back and wait for her to calm down. I’d give her money if she’d just shut up.
Three minutes and thirty-seven seconds later, Megan finally winds down. She’s doing this weird little hiccup-y thing that I bet others would find cute. Of course, she’s one of those pretty cry babies. Her eyes are all sparkly, and her nose and cheeks are adorably flushed. I try not to hold it against her.
“I’m sorry,” she says miserably. “It’s just that everything is so stressful right now—with mom and the baby, and the wedding, and…god, I feel like I’m losing it.”
“It’s going to be fine,” I say awkwardly. I hand her an oven mitt, which she takes with a confused look on her face. I was thinking she could use it to wipe her face, but that’s a really stupid idea.
Megan carefully wipes her eyes with the tips of her fingers. “I don’t know if I can handle it,” she admits tearfully. “Any of it.”
“Well, you don’t have to do it by yourself,” I point out. “We’re all here to h
elp. Your only job is to take care of yourself so just concentrate on doing that. As for your mom, well, she’s one of the strongest people I know. She’s going to be fine. In fact, I think she’s been looking a lot better lately, don’t you?”
Megan gives me a strange look. She drops her eyes and toys with the oven mitt that she’s still holding. “Yeah,” she says softly.
“Also, I accept your apology.” My smile is stiff, but not completely fake. “Let’s just consider this…talk as closure, and leave it as bygones. Agreed?”
She doesn’t say anything at first; then she kinds of laughs and rolls her eyes. “It’s a deal,” she agrees, still smiling. “Thanks, Andi.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Well, it’s getting really late. I guess I better wake Bran so we can get going.”
Finally! “He sleeps like the dead when he’s really tired,” I say, fondly remembering the time I kicked him out of bed and he did a face plant on the carpet, still snoring away.
“You should have seen him when he was taking pain meds for his leg. I had to hold a mirror over his nose to make sure he was still breathing some days.” Megan shakes her head as she climbs to her feet.
“Do you really think I treated him that badly?” I blurt out.
She seems to freeze for a second. Her shoulders hunch together uncomfortably. “Um…” she stalls. “I’m sorry I said that. But…you do have this tendency to push people away. Bran used to worship the ground you walked on…and it was pretty obvious that you couldn’t stand it whenever he touched you.”
“That’s not true,” I start to say. But then I think about it. Maybe she’s right.
“You’re different with Lucas,” she offers while unconsciously rubbing her barely there baby bump. “You guys are so in sync. It’s like you’re connected, or something.”
Me and Luke, connected? Ha, I don’t think so. But I do my nod and smile bit. Megan goes to wake Bran, who doesn’t rouse until I pinch his Achilles tendon—my favorite way to wake him up back in the day. He still screams like a girl.
It’s three in the morning and here I am, still awake. I’ve been texting Nate for amusement. He wants me to call him and pretend to be his irate girlfriend so some poor girl he hooked up with will get the hint and get out of his bed. I ask him if I can do it with a Russian accent and he says yes, so I do. It’s fun. I didn’t know nein was German and not Russian until Nate’s hook up schooled me. Also, it means “no” and not “shut up” like I originally thought. I tell Nate she sounds like a keeper, and he hangs up on me. Rude.
Shoot, I was going to ask Nate if he heard from Luke. Not because I want to ask if he said anything about me—I’m just curious how the fundraiser for the foster kids went. I know he was planning on surprising them with a trip to Disneyland. Knowing Luke, he’ll be on every ride and attraction with those kids. But that doesn’t make him super awesome or anything.
I toss and turn in my bed for the next hour. Finally, I grab my phone and swipe it open. I compose a resignation email to Ivan and send it off before I can change my mind, or check for spelling and grammatical errors. I’m not at my professional best at nearly five in the morning. I also send an email to Luke, explaining my reasons for quitting. How can I continue to receive a paycheck from him when our employer/employee relationship has gone to the dark side? It’s just wrong. Luke rarely checks his mail but that’s not my problem. Besides, I did tell him I was quitting. It’s not my fault he didn’t believe me.
With that done, I turn my phone off and hide it under my pillow for good measure. Then I grab my blanket and head to the deck to watch the sun rise.
Luke is going to be pissed.
Chapter 17
It’s a beautiful day today. I’m sitting on a bench outside the medical building where Megan has her obstetrician appointment, and staring at the sculpture mounted in front of the building. I’m trying to figure out what it is. It kind of looks like a vagina with a little sphere in the middle of it. Oh, maybe it’s an oyster. How inappropriate.
Megan and Bran are hopefully going to find out the sex of the baby today. Can you believe they invited me to watch the ultrasound? I couldn’t even step foot in the lobby. What if I accidentally see something I can’t un-see?
So far, I’ve received phone calls and texts from Luke, Ivan, Nate, Jessica, Kelly—and even Micah. I text Luke and tell him to read my email. I decide to answer Nate’s call.
“What the fuck, Andi? Dad’s been blowing up my phone—he wants me to leave this glorious paradise so I can go talk some sense into you!”
I sigh at his overly aggrieved tone. “Don’t you dare come down here,” I say sternly. “Look, all I did was quit, and everyone’s acting like I murdered someone. Luke is a big boy; he can manage without me.”
Nate snorts loudly into the phone. “What happened? Did he finally confess that he’s ass over heels in love with you?”
“He is not,” I snap. “And nothing happened. I just got tired of being a paid groupie.”
“Yeah, right. We have the best job in the world—all the perks of fame and fortune, and none of the pressure,” Nate retorts matter-of-factly. “No, what happened is exactly what I warned Luke would happen if he told you how he feels about you. You freaked and pushed him away.”
I grit my teeth and clench my phone so hard that I can hear its internal parts grinding together. “Nothing happened!”
“Whatever, dude. Luke’s all fucked up about it, so you better man up and talk to him before he does something stupid.”
“If it were anyone else, you’d advise me to run in the other direction,” I say with a sigh.
“Yeah, well, it’s not just anyone else. It’s Lucas Greyson,” he says. “And like it or not, you care about him. So quit being a little girl, and bang him.”
Why did I think it was a good idea to talk to that dickhead? Now I’m pissed. And, look, here comes the happy couple with ear-to-ear grins on their faces.
“How did it go?!” I snarl. “Did you find out the sex?!”
They both are taken aback by my vicious tone. “It’s a girl!” Megan says happily, her eyes shining. “We’re having a baby girl!”
She shows me a picture of a little hollow-eyed monster. I’m not very impressed, but then I don’t like babies much. Nevertheless, I extend my congratulations as we head toward the parking garage.
“Megan!”
All three of us turn toward the female voice. It belongs to a tall dark-haired girl about our age. She struts up to us with a fake shiny smile pasted on her face, and a big black binder in her arms. She looks vaguely familiar but I can’t place her.
Megan obviously recognizes her, and baby glow quickly fades. “Riley. How’s it going?”
“Oh, my god, I haven’t seen you in forever!” the girl squeals. “How are you?”
Blah, blah, blah. Pleasantries are exchanged. I begin to suspect I’m supposed to know this person from high school though I honestly can’t place her. She’s talking to me like we were at least acquaintances, so I smile and nod along. No one likes to feel like they’re forgettable.
“So, it really is true,” Riley says. I suddenly start paying attention, alerted by the nasty tone in her voice. She looks between the three of us with a smirk on her face. “You really stole your cousin’s boyfriend—and now you’re making her be in your wedding! How messed up is that? I’m not surprised, though. You’ve always been a backstabbing bitch.”
Bran quickly puts an arm around Megan, who looks like she’s been slapped in the face. “Megan and I have been together for two years,” he says firmly.
Riley just looks at him like, “And?” Then she turns to me with a raised eyebrow. “You must be a better person than I am, Andi. To stand up with someone who betrayed you like that? But then Megan’s really good at getting people on her side.”
My eyes narrow in irritation. Okay, I remember this bitch. She was Megan’s biggest rival in high school, always coming in second place. She was responsible for the viciou
s rumors spread about my cousin in junior year—and the reason why she almost quit cheerleading.
I pluck her binder from Riley and throw it in the nearby bushes. She just stares at me in astonishment for…several seconds. I raise an eyebrow, waiting for her to say something. She just flushes and avoids my glare, deciding to venture into the bushes to hunt for her binder. We leave her to it.
“Thanks,” Megan says softly, catching up to me.
“Yup.”
I wouldn’t say I was a bully in high school. People left me alone because I had a reputation for being unpredictable, and surprisingly athletic. I used to hang out with this girl named Lily Silva, who was two hundred and twenty pounds of awesome. Together, we ruled the school. Then towards the second half of senior year, Lily lost a ton of weight and got herself a stick of a boyfriend. She was never the same after that, and we lost touch. I kind of miss the way she used to pick me up and shake me around like a maraca.
The ride home is quiet, all traces of joy now completely gone. I don’t mind since I was already in a pissed off mood, but I guess I feel bad for the not-so-happy couple. Instead of nodding and clapping along with Riley’s attack, I wanted to punch her in her perfectly pretty face. But I refrained from doing so. I think progress is being made.
My eyes pop open, and immediately land on the digital clock on my nightstand. No one calls at two in the morning with good news. I fumble for my phone and check the display. It’s Luke.
“What’s wrong? What happened?” I answer anxiously.
A long pause, and then: “Hey, Andi.” His voice is extra raspy and hoarse, the way it gets when he’s super hung over.
I sigh audibly, shifting into a more comfortable position on my bed. “What did you do now, Luke?”
“I fucked up,” he replies, sounding absolutely miserable. Another long silence. “I slept with Kat last night.”
A lightning bolt of pain singes me through the chest. It takes a few seconds for me to find my voice to respond. “Why are you telling me this?” I ask coldly. “It’s not my business.”
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