WE ARE US

by Leigh, Tara

  “What are you doing tonight?”

  “Tonight?”

  “It’s New Year’s Eve.”

  Right. I’d forgotten. But I don’t need to think about my answer because I haven’t made any plans. “Nothing much. I’m staying in.”

  “Can I pick you up, bring you into New York City? I was going to hit up a few parties.”

  I must still be dreaming. Because the last time I went to a party with Tucker, I woke up in a nightmare.

  “Um, I don’t think that would really be—”

  “Please, Poppy. Just hear me out.”

  I take a breath and push it out through my teeth. “Okay.”

  “What happened last year, that’s not… that’s not who I am.”

  “I know, Tucker. It’s fine. We’re fine.”

  “No, we’re not. Every time you look at me, I see myself through your eyes. And I hate who I see.”

  I bristle. “That’s really not my problem.”

  “I’m not— That’s not what I’m saying.” He sighs, and it occurs to me that, while I have forgiven Tucker, I haven’t truly moved on.

  It’s been over a year, fourteen months, since I went to that fraternity party with Tucker, and yet in some ways, I’m still there. Still lying in a hospital bed, naked and confused. Still reeking of vomit and drowning in shame.

  “Give me a chance to set things right, Poppy. It’s a new year, let’s start it off together, with a clean slate.”

  A clean slate. Is that even possible?

  If it is… if there’s even a chance, isn’t it what I want?

  To finally disconnect the guy who undressed me from the guy who dressed up in a bunny suit.

  “Does it have to involve a party? Can’t we just—”

  “Just what?”

  “I don’t know. Go for a walk or ice skating or something?”

  “You skate?”

  “No.” A nervous laugh slips from my mouth.

  “How about this—I come pick you up, we’ll drive into the city, and we’ll figure out what to do together?”

  A red flag goes up, my nerve endings twanging in alarm. “And then what? I’m not—I won’t stay—”

  “What? No. God, of course not. I’ll get you a hotel room and bring you back home in the morning.”

  A few long beats of silence pass. “My own room?” I ask, my voice sounding tinny and strained. Am I crazy for even considering this?

  “Yes. I promise.”

  “I-I don’t know, Tucker. We go back to school in a few days. How about we just get together for coffee then?”

  “That’s not the same.” He exhales heavily. “And I don’t want to wait until we’re back at school. Come on, say yes. New year, new beginnings, a chance to reset the clock. Please.”

  I cave. “Okay.”

  “Okay? Yes?”

  I cave because I want that fresh start, too. I want to rewrite what happened last year, replace it with something different. Something better.

  I want to be more than just a drunk girl who flirted with Tucker, kissed him, and then woke up in a hospital bed, told she’d been sexually assaulted.

  And it’s clear Tucker doesn’t want to be the guy who brought that drunk girl back to his bedroom, gave her a beer she definitely didn’t need, and thought her inability to say no was the same as saying yes.

  “Yes.” I say it now, immediately feeling lighter somehow. Like I’ve shed some of the weight I’ve been dragging around for the past fourteen months. Not all. Not even a lot. But some.

  * * *

  Later that afternoon, Tucker pulls up to our modest house in a sleek black Porsche. Sliding out of his sports car, he saunters up our icy walkway wearing a thick black overcoat, a cashmere scarf draped around his neck, and expensive looking leather gloves. “You didn’t tell me Tucker was picking you up,” Sadie hisses, turning away from the window to gape at me.

  I’d forgotten that she met him last year, and I don’t have time to respond before my sister races to the front door and throws it open. “Hey,” she says, popping her hip and running a hand through her hair.

  “Hey. Sadie, right?”

  Her eyes gleam with pleasure. “Right.”

  My mother wanders in from the living room, stopping short when she sees Tucker stepping through the narrow opening.

  “So nice to meet you, Mrs. Whitman. I’m Tucker.” He comes across like a young Manhattan mogul, all traces of the lacrosse-playing frat boy he is at Worthington erased.

  “H-Hello,” my mother stutters out a greeting, then turns to Sadie. “Sadie, for God’s sake, close that door. No need to heat the front yard.”

  My sister’s cheeks flush at the rebuke, but Tucker distracts her. “A house full of gorgeous women, why haven’t I been here before?”

  Sadie swats me. “Because my sister kept you from us.”

  Already dreading the firing squad of questions I’ll get when I come home, especially from Sadie, I grab my coat. My sister didn’t get into Worthington, and the financial aid packages she received from other schools were almost laughable. She decided to enroll at a community college for now and reapply next year. But I know it bothers her that I’m at Worthington and she’s not.

  Growing up, if I got a cookie, I’d give her half. If I had a shirt she liked, it was hers before I’d even outgrown it. But I can’t give Sadie an acceptance letter and it’s an unspoken point of contention between us.

  Tucker takes my coat from my hands, holding it by the collar for me to slip my arms into the sleeves. My hair gets caught beneath the heavy wool and he pulls it out, smoothing it down my back. “Ready to go?”

  My mouth suddenly dry, I can only nod.

  Sadie doesn’t have that problem. “Where are you going?” she asks.

  Tucker offers a mischievous smile. “I’m sure she’ll tell you everything tomorrow.”

  My sister only scoffs as we walk through the door. “I doubt that.”

  Halfway to his car I slip on the walkway, my heel coming out from under me. Tucker catches me by my elbow. “Gotcha,” he says.

  It’s not just the ice that has me feeling off balance and tentative. It feels like Tucker and I are entering strange, uncharted territory. We moved from mutual avoidance to stilted cordiality when Dean Johnson brought us together to work with TeenCharter. And now, it seems like Tucker wants to move beyond that, too.

  But I don’t know what beyond will look like. What kind of relationship am I willing, or even capable, of having with him?

  After sliding into Tucker’s low car, the steady thrum of the engine buzzed through my veins as he merges onto the highway. Two hours later we are on the Henry Hudson Parkway, then in Manhattan.

  Tucker navigates the crowded city streets with the ease of a veteran cab driver. Meanwhile, I act like a typical tourist, pressing my forehead to the window and admiring the skyscrapers pointing their steely tips at the sky.

  He is comfortable in his role, and I am almost, or at least pretending to be, comfortable in mine. But the truth is—I’m scared to death I’m making an even bigger mistake today than I did that night.

  “Here we are,” Tucker finally says, pulling up outside the most iconic hotel in New York.

  I blink at him. “The Plaza?”

  He flashes a playful grin. “Don’t all girls grow up wishing they could be Eloise, at least for a night?”

  My wishes had been so much more complicated than having the run of this enormous Manhattan landmark, but I nod in spite of the knot of anxiety twisting my stomach. “Of course.” Am I stupid to trust Tucker? Did he reserve separate rooms?

  My thoughts are coiling their way around my throat, cutting off my air supply, when a uniformed bellman opens my door. “Good afternoon, miss.”

  “Good afternoon,” I manage to whisper, feeling lightheaded.

  My boots tread silently on the red carpet covering the entrance stairs, a doorman ushering us inside.

  Immediately, the noise and grittiness of New York City fa
ll away. It’s as if I’ve walked into a French chateau, or at least what I imagine a French chateau would look like. Endless marble, crystal chandeliers, velvet sofas, gilded everything.

  I barely notice when Tucker says, “Wait here,” and leaves me standing in the center of the enormous lobby. My neck cranes up at the ceiling as I turn in a small circle.

  He comes back a few moments later, a discreet envelope in his hand. “Ready?”

  And just like that, I’m back to reality.

  Are there two key cards in there? “Um, Tucker.” My feet are rooted to the floor. Even though we’ve just spent two hours in the car together, I cannot make myself walk into a hotel room with him. “I don’t think…”

  There’s a flash of hurt on Tucker’s face, but it fades almost immediately. “Of course. I understand.” He hands the envelope to me. “The room number is on the front. My parents’ place is just a couple of blocks away. I was going to walk up with you before heading back home to change, but if you would rather—”

  Suddenly, I feel ridiculous. Tucker invited me here for a fresh start, and I want that too. “No. It’s fine. I’m sorry. I didn’t realize— I thought—”

  I stop talking as Tucker’s arm lands on my shoulders and he steers me toward the elevator bank. His touch sends my senses into overdrive—a disconcerting mix of pure panic and unexpected pleasure. “I’ll only stay a few minutes.”

  We take the elevator to the fourteenth floor and walk halfway down a corridor painted the color of butter and adorned with gilt-edged paintings. Chandeliers, smaller than the ones in the lobby, hang from the ceiling at even intervals.

  Tucker opens the door to my room and I step inside, standing awkwardly by the dresser. He brushes by me and sinks into one of the chairs by the window, pulling out his phone. “We have options for tonight.”

  “Options?” I’m staring at the wide bed that dominates this room, but I’m remembering a different room, a smaller bed.

  It’s soft. Too soft. My stomach lurches, and I edge forward, lowering myself to the floor, needing to feel something solid beneath me.

  Tucker looks at me quizzically. “You okay?”

  His face breaks apart into two, then fuses back together. “Yeah.”

  “Yeah.” Tucker’s real voice takes the place of the echo inside my head. “New Year’s Eve parties.”

  My mouth is dry, the hairs on the back of my neck are standing on end. “Oh, right. Okay.”

  “Or, if none of them sound appealing, we can go for a walk, like you said. See the tree, even go ice skating.”

  Tucker glances up from his phone. “You don’t want to see the ball drop in Times Square, do you?” At my pause, he adds, “I mean, we could. If—”

  “No.” Times Square is packed with drunk tourists on New Year’s Eve. It’s the last place I’d want to be. “Anywhere but there.”

  We share a smile and I take my duffel bag from where Tucker left it by the door, setting it down on the bed. Unzipping the top, I begin pulling out the clothes I brought. Once the mattress is obscured, I feel a little better. “Does Wren know I’m here?”

  Tucker shrugs. “Dunno. Can’t remember if I told her or not. Anyway. There’s also…”

  I pretend to pay attention as he itemizes the various invitations. But when he asks, “Do any of those sound good?”

  “Ah, yeah.”

  “Which ones?”

  “Um.” I make up an answer. “The first and last sound great. Really fun.”

  He sets his phone aside and stands. “What’s wrong?”

  Me. Him.

  Not every story has a happy ending. And not everyone deserves a new beginning. What if we’re beyond a fresh start?

  What if, no matter how badly Tucker wants to be the hero of our story, he’ll only ever be a villain?

  Chapter 22

  New York City

  Holiday Break, Sophomore Year

  After Tucker heads back to his parents’ place to change, it takes forever before my heartbeat returns to normal. I’m walking the edge of something that’s either dangerous, or stupid, or both.

  But it’s better than the way I’ve been living. Dismissing memories that aren’t real and yet won’t be suppressed. Ignoring emotions that don’t make sense and yet can’t be denied.

  Maybe I’ve been approaching this all wrong. Maybe what I need to do is accept what happened, take control of it, and shift the narrative.

  Can I bury the Tucker of the past—the Tucker who hurt me, who took something from me? Separate that guy from the Tucker who invited me into New York City to celebrate New Year’s with him.

  If I allow Tucker to move on from who he was, maybe I can become a different person, too.

  Stronger. Less naïve. Maybe even… brave.

  Last year, I didn’t go out on New Year’s. I certainly wasn’t in the mood to celebrate.

  It was a far cry from the year before. After Sadie left for a sleepover with a friend and my mom passed out on the couch, I snuck Gavin into my bedroom. We had done plenty of celebrating then.

  Gavin. I rub at the familiar hollow ache in my chest that plagues me whenever I think about the beautiful, broken boy I once loved, sending up a quick prayer that he’s safe. That he’s happy. My anger at being abandoned has faded, but the hurt is still there. I will always love Gavin, probably always long for him. But I am done mourning him. I have to be, because I cannot go on living a half-life, feeling like half of me—the best part—is missing.

  No matter where Gavin is now, why he left, or who he’s with—I deserve to welcome this new year to come. I deserve a new beginning. He would want that for me, I know he would.

  An old memory pops into my mind. The magazine article I’d shown Gavin all those years ago. Photographs of a beautiful couple I’d found so intriguing, their sheen of glamour and sophistication shining from the pages.

  They look so perfect.

  Meant to be.

  Like nothing bad has ever happened to them. Like nothing bad ever will.

  The woman in that photograph wouldn’t be rushed to a hospital, her blood the alcohol content of a wine cooler. She wouldn’t learn that a condom had been found beneath her clothes. She wouldn’t cry herself to sleep, night after night, for weeks and months on end.

  “Imagine the person you want to be, and then be her,” I whisper feverishly, just like the child psychologists advised when I was younger. Their version of fake it till you make it, I guess.

  A few hours later, when my phone lights up with a text from Tucker, I take a last look at myself in the oversized, cheval mirror tucked into a corner of the room, running my hands along my sides. I had to cut the tags off my dress because I’d never worn it before. It had been shoved to the back of my closet, something I bought on impulse because it was so deeply discounted. But I’ve never had a reason to wear it. Until tonight.

  The black material hugs my curves, but not too closely. The sweetheart neckline isn’t too low, just barely skimming the rise of my breasts. The hem is a little shorter than I’d like, a few inches above my knees, but I’d borrowed a pair of stockings from Sadie that were almost opaque, but not quite, so the effect isn’t as racy as it could have been. And my heels do nice things to the shape of my legs, even though they pinch my toes.

  Simple studs adorn my ears, but my throat is bare. My arm lifts, my fingers automatically tracing the hollow of my collarbone where Gavin’s necklace should have sat. That familiar sting of loss makes me meet my own eyes in the glass. They look very green tonight, the gold flecks glinting brightly. I see sadness and fear. But also… hope.

  Sadness for the man I’ve lost and the girl I used to be.

  Fear that I’ll never recover. Never move on.

  And hope that I will. That tonight really will be a fresh start. A new beginning.

  I take a deep breath, pushing a smile onto my face. It trembles a bit, but it stays.

  “I want to be happy,” I say to my reflection. “And I want to be whole.”
>
  And then I grab my wrap and meet Tucker in the lobby. He’s wearing a perfectly cut black suit that accentuates his broad shoulders and slim hips. His snowy white shirt is open at the neck, unencumbered by a tie. He looks entitled and arrogant, and too handsome for his own good.

  “You look fantastic,” he says, wearing a pleased expression as he takes my hand.

  “Really? Are you sure?” I glance down at my dress, smoothing out the fabric as fresh needles of doubt and insecurity prick my spine. “I know it’s not all that fancy—”

  “It’s perfect,” Tucker answers easily, his gaze skimming my figure before returning to my face. “When you came out of the elevator just now, you looked for me. And from the moment our eyes met, you never once looked away.”

  A half-laugh makes it up my throat. “Well, I don’t—I don’t know anyone here.”

  “True. But you’re different than other girls who seem to travel in packs. Always surrounded by other girls. It’s the first thing I noticed about you. Your… comfort at being alone.”

  I don’t bother explaining that it’s not comfort so much as acceptance. Because being alone gets really lonely.

  But Tucker takes my silence as agreement.

  He shakes his head, his lips curving into a soft smile. “You’re very focused, Poppy. And I like when you focus on me.”

  * * *

  The first party Tucker takes me to can only be considered “small” by State Dinner standards. At least a hundred people meander through expansive rooms, although security guards with earbuds and closed-circuit mics are posted every few feet and at the openings to certain hallways. The crowd is a mix of young and old. I try oysters for the first time, a cold and slimy mouthful I don’t intend to repeat, and caviar, which tastes like a briny, delicious bite of the sea. We are offered champagne several times, though we both stick with club soda.

  After an hour of pretending like I don’t feel horribly out of place, Tucker nudges me with his elbow and bends down to my ear. “Please tell me you’re as bored as I am.”