by Audrey Bell
“Yeah?” I said.
“Yeah,” she said.
Why the hell had she asked me to her birthday party? She can’t have meant it as anything other than a need for moderately friendly faces.
“So, what’s wrong?”
I shook my head. “Nothing.”
“Okay,” she said. She rubbed her hands up and down on her jeans nervously as we pulled up to her dorm. “Look, if I did something obnoxious or said something stupid…” She exhaled. “Just tell me if…”
“You didn’t do anything, January,” I said, scrambling for something to say. “I’m just—I don’t like October.”
She looked at me quizzically. “You don’t like October?”
I shrugged.
“The whole month?”
“Well,” I stopped, shrugged, and swallowed. “My brother died around now. I get stuck in my head a little bit, you know?”
She reached for my forearm and squeezed it. It was more comfort than I’d accepted from anyone in a long time, her hand over my sleeve. “I’m sorry. God, Christian. I didn’t…” She looked at me. Her eyes were so big and so blue it hurt. “I’m really self-centered. I thought I…sorry.”
I smiled tightly at her. She squeezed my arm.
“Listen, I know I’m this financially ruined debutante with a bad attitude, but I have ears. I’m okay at listening if you ever want to, like, talk or anything,” she offered.
I smiled at her.
“And I can get you wasted on something delicious too,” she said.
“That’s a skill you have, yes.”
She smiled. “So maybe we could do that, just…”
“I don’t really want to talk.”
She nodded once and pursed her lips. “Okay. Right. Well, thanks for the ride. Have a good night.”
“You, too. Get home safe.”
Fuck, I thought, as she closed the door. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
She may have taken the I-can’t-go-to-your-party thing okay, but she had not taken the ‘I don’t really want to talk,’ well at all. She had looked like I kicked her pet puppy or something.
I watched her go.
I gripped the steering wheel tightly, like I could squeeze all of my frustration into it.
Fuck it.
I sped out of the Harvard parking lot towards the party at Danielle’s. I’d done a lot of shitty things, but using my brother’s death as an excuse was one I hadn’t tried before.
For fuck’s sake, what’s wrong with you?
It took me a few minutes to find Darrin at the party.
He had ditched his car and attached himself to Danielle’s side. Everyone was already wasted and I was sober.
I stayed ten minutes, talking to a redhead in a pink dress who told me she remembered watching me at the Beanpot three years earlier, when I’d scored four goals and gotten a penalty for taunting the opponent.
I smiled politely and as soon as I saw an opportunity to leave, I took it.
It was late—really late—past 3 AM. And I found myself driving the long way home. The way that took me past January’s dorm.
I could go up to her room, I thought, I could say that I would like to talk. Or go to her party.
The gates to campus were open and I stalled outside, at a red light, wondering if I had the backbone to do it. To wake her up.
I knew I didn’t. When the light turned green, I circled back towards my house, and I started to miss Sam again.
I wanted to tell Sam about this thing I had for January Cooper.
And those things didn’t belong on the same fucking plane. They didn’t belong on the same goddamn planet. But there they were. January Cooper. One unsolvable problem. And Sam Cutlass. One fucking life-shattering tragedy. Side by side. Wrapped up in my brain like a fucked-up little paradox.
January
I don’t want to talk. I don’t want to talk. I don’t want to talk.
Every day up until Halloween, I heard Christian Cutlass saying those words. I also heard the part of the sentence that he didn’t say. To you. To you. To you. I don’t want to talk to you, January Cooper.
Well, I didn’t want to talk to January Cooper either.
And that was too bad, because she was the only person I had to talk to. One formerly rich bitch with a closet full of gorgeous clothing, a father headed for prison for a long time, a mother who wouldn’t speak to her for legal reasons, and a growing crowd of ex-friends who wouldn’t speak to her for personal reasons.
I stared in the mirror some mornings and wondered who would talk to me. I had even stopped hating the sound of Katelyn’s voice. Because at least it was proof I was still around. Still here.
January Cooper. Remember her? She used to be beautiful. You used to want to know her. You used to think she had the loveliest life. Remember that, people?
Yes. Of course they remembered that. That was why they avoided me and ignored me. Because with my lovely life and my perfect parents and my stable full of horses, I had been an unforgiving bitch.
I never thought I would fall.
Not like this.
Not so hard.
Not in a way that every person I had written off and wronged could exact their revenge—and everyone else, people who didn’t know me but hated me anyways could feel like they got theirs too.
And Christian Cutlass—who seemed like the kind of guy who didn’t give a shit about who I was, let alone who I had been, a guy who admitted that he was down because something bad had happened—just didn’t want to talk.
To me.
I took a breath. I needed to talk to people. I needed to go to Olivia’s dumb party and brave the nasty comments and get back in touch with the girl everyone once thought was all the fun in the world.
January Cooper.
They had voted me most likely to succeed in high school.
Isn’t that funny?
Christian
My parents packed up their things on Monday. My mother asked me two dozen times if I was sure I didn’t want to come with them.
I told them that I was positive.
My father only asked once, but it was just as they were leaving, and he gripped my shoulders when he said it. I knew he would’ve been relieved if I said yes and just got into the car.
But I didn’t. I watched the old station wagon disappear out of the driveway and head up towards Cape Cod.
I didn’t blame them. It would’ve been bad to have Sam die on any day, but Halloween made for especially grim anniversaries. My mother, who had always carved up a family of pumpkins—little jack o’ lanterns, cats and dogs—and who loved to deck the house out with swaths of spider webs, had spent the first anniversary of Sam’s death on edge.
She sipped Bourbon from a glass tumbler that night, dressed as one of the fairy godmothers from Sleeping Beauty, same as every year. And I’d sat grinding my teeth on the couch, two days after the second round of surgeries and refusing painkillers because the pain was like penance to me, and my father had paced, trying to convince her that we’d run out of candy long before we actually did.
My mother’s heart broke twice in the first half hour—two blond pirates, maybe six years old, like pictures of Sam from so many years ago. And then there was the eight-year-old Power Ranger, which I didn’t think she’d have to deal with—who knew kids even dressed up like Power Rangers anymore?—and the tiny tow-headed Dalmatian, who screeched in delight when his father swung him in the air, but the most fucked-up thing was the gap-toothed second grader dressed up as a Boston Terrier hockey player. Dressed up as me.
My mother had gasped. He was wearing my jersey. He asked for my autograph. I wanted to throttle the kid’s parents. He couldn’t stop asking about when I’d get off crutches and did I know I was his favorite player. It was brutal.
My mother had spent the next three days in bed, crying whenever anyone tried to get her to eat something.
This year, my father had put his foot down. They’d go to an inn on Cape Cod, where the
y wouldn’t see any trick-or-treaters and they wouldn’t be trapped in a house that reminded them of Sam.
I felt lighter when they had finally left. And I settled down for Halloween, turning out every light, and locking up the doors, and leaving a bowl of candy, with a sign that read: “We’re not here. Please take one.”
My mother might have been willing to break her own heart in the name of Halloween, but I sure as hell wasn’t.
January
I got ready for the party at the bar. We closed early on Halloween—there had been too much damage to the bar in past years—and I could tell why. College kids in costumes didn’t drink that much more, but they acted twice as stupid.
I didn’t dress up as anything. And I was terrified about going to the party.
Olivia had been furious about the email. She promptly forwarded it to Katelyn and Clarissa and copied me, with the text JANUARY IS OUT.
But the one thing I’d learned from being popular was that nine-tenths of everything was the perception that you didn’t give a fuck. So I pretended not to care.
Darrin, who seemed to sense that I was nervous, told me not to worry. “I’m gonna find some stuckup Harvard babe.”
“There are no babes at Harvard.”
He smiled. “Coulda fooled me.”
I rolled my eyes. “Where’s Christian?”
“Why do you ask?”
“I asked him to come to this party. He said he had plans,” I explained.
“You did?” Darrin asked.
“Yeah. I think he hates me. Like, I thought at first he hated me. Then I thought, he mostly liked me and sometimes hated me, and now I’m back to thinking he hates me again.”
Darrin didn’t laugh. And Darrin always laughed. Even when things weren’t funny, he laughed. It was his version of breathing. “Halloween is tough for Christian,” he said after a beat.
I hesitated as we reached the party. It was off-campus, at a rented house. It would be a shit show and I was going alone. I was twenty-two and it was my birthday and I was walking into a house where people either hated me or felt sorry for me.
"Why?" I asked.
Darrin bit his lip for a long moment. "You know his brother died, right?"
I nodded.
"It was a car accident. On Halloween. Two years ago. I don't think..." his voice trailed off.
"Jesus," I said. I rubbed the back of my neck. "So, where is he?"
"House sitting. His parents left town," Darrin said. "I shouldn't talk to you about this. Sorry. I just shouldn't. Christian's really private about..."
"We should go see him," I said. I imagined the empty house and Christian in it.
"January."
"No, we should go see him," I said. I gave one last look at the party. I didn't care if they thought I was scared.
"January," Darrin said. "Christian likes you, but he's not going to want to see anybody tonight."
I looked at Darrin, knowing he was right. "Right." I nodded. It was fucking heartbreaking though, for some reason, imagining him alone in a house on the two year anniversary of his brother's death. I stared up at the house. "Let's go see him."
Darrin shook his head, but he drove towards Christian’s house. I drummed my fingers on the window. "He hurt his leg, right?" I asked.
He nodded once. "Yeah. He was driving."
"God," I said.
"He blames himself," Darrin said. "He didn't do anything wrong, but it's what anybody would do. He was driving."
I rubbed my hand over my face and thought about that while we drove.
When we reached the driveway, Darrin hesitated. "Look, January," Darrin said. "I've known Christian a really long time. He doesn't want to see me. I don't think he wants to see you. I can't stop you from going up there, but I'm not coming with you.”
I stared at the house. The first night I'd seen it, it had scared the hell out of me. I had no idea who I’d just taken a ride from.
Now, knowing Christian was inside, it made me nervous. But not afraid.
I looked over at Darrin. “You don’t have to wait for me.”
He nodded.
I walked up the driveway and knocked on the door. I recognized Christian’s scrawl on the sign above the empty candy bowl.
The streets were empty too. It was too late for trick-or-treaters, but I could imagine it here when it was still light out, the laughing and screaming children. I could imagine Christian watching TV with the lights out.
I rang the doorbell. And I waited. And then I rang it again.
And then I put my flip phone to my ear and called him.
He answered on the third ring. "Lo? January? Everything okay?"
“I'm outside your house.”
“What?”
I rang the doorbell again.
"Jesus. One second."
He opened the door in sweatpants, a bottle of cheap tequila in one hand. He wasn’t wearing a shirt and I could see the lean curve of every muscle as clearly as I could see that was wasted.
"Trick or treat?" I whispered.
Christian
I thought for a moment I was drinking moonshine. The kind that made you hallucinate.
She was all done up, hair down, skin glowing, eyes glowing blue, burning like a gas flame.
She put a hand on my bare chest, and pushed me into the house. She turned and waved to Darrin's waiting car. And I could only imagine what he was thinking as he pulled out of our driveway.
"What are you doing?" she asked me.
"Drinking,” I said stupidly.
"Want some help?"
"No.”
She took the bottle of tequila from me. "I hope you're mixing this with something." She held up the bottle and looked at the label.
“Too cheap for you?”
She took a swig from the bottle. “Nah. It’s not bad.” She took the bottle and walked into my kitchen. I padded after her.
"Why do you have a smoker's voice?" I asked. I sounded wasted. Which I was. But I knew I had to sound really wasted if I noticed it.
She smiled and shrugged. "I don't know."
"I like it."
She opened my refrigerator and found a bottle of grapefruit juice and soda water. She grabbed a salt shaker by the stove and two Collins glasses after she'd opened a few cabinets. "Good," she said, pouring the tequila first.
"What are those?" I asked.
"It's called a Paloma," she said, mixing them with a spoon. She put a cap on the bottle. "I don't think you're going to stop drinking."
"No," I said thickly. "I'm not.'
She nodded. She took a sip of hers. I took a sip as well. It was good. They were good. She was good. She was good and she was beautiful and she was making me drinks.
"Why are you at my house?"
"It's my birthday," she said. She shrugged. “Olivia’s party sucked.” She grabbed two bottles of water from the refrigerator and jerked her head towards the sound of the TV. "C'mon."
I sat down next to her. It was a Bruins game. I let my head fall to one side, feeling the room spin.
"God, you're wasted," she said.
“Yes.”
She looked at me. She was so pretty it was stupid. She ran a hand through her hair. "Does it kill you? Watching this?" she asked, nodding at the screen.
"What? Hockey?"
She nodded.
"Yeah. Pretty much it does," I stared at the screen flatly. "But I'm blitzed, so it's okay."
"You were amazing," she said neutrally. "From what Darrin said. And your dad. You were an amazing hockey player."
I looked at her. I shrugged. “I guess.”
"That fucking sucks and I'm sorry," she sipped her drink.
"I feel like you should have better things to do on your birthday."
"Why?"
"Because I'm fucked up."
She smiled. "You'll be sober in the morning. And I'll still be fucked up. For once, we're on even ground." She clinked her glass against mine. "Tell me about your brother."
"I don't want to talk about my brother."
"Tell me about him.”
"We were twins."
"Identical?"
I shook my head, running a hand through my hair. I really had gotten unbelievably drunk, my hand felt rubbery, my voice sounded strange to my own ears. "No. Some people thought we were. He looked a lot like me. I'm older. I was older." I smiled. "Two minutes. When I was younger, I used to say, best two minutes of my life. Some big joke. Not so funny now that he’s been dead two years."
"That doesn't mean anything," she said.
"Yes, it does."
"No. It doesn't."
"I was the one driving. Did Darrin tell you that?"
She nodded. “Doesn’t matter,” she said.
Rage surged through my veins. "Yes. It does matter. If I'd been going five miles per hour slower, I'd have seen the truck swerve sooner. I could've stopped. If I’d been paying closer attention, he wouldn’t have been dead. If I hadn’t run to the bathroom, he’d be here. Don't tell me it doesn't fucking matter."
"It doesn't fucking matter,” she said defiantly.
"Hey," I said. I took a shaky breath. She seemed indifferent to my rage. "It does fucking matter. He'd be alive and I'd be in the NHL and none of this shit—” My voice broke.
"Christian, if you knew there was any chance when you got on the road that your brother would die and that your hockey career could end, you'd never have gotten behind the wheel," she said.
"He wanted to leave earlier, but he couldn’t find me.”
She shook her head.
"Now, he's fucking dead. And I don't want to fucking hear about it from you. You don't know." I started to get up. "You should get out of here. Call a cab or Darrin."
I tried to get up and she pushed me on the sofa.
"Are you kidding me? You really think you're stronger than me?" I demanded.
She pushed me on the sofa and straddled me. She took the drink out of my hand and put it on the table. She took grabbed my wrists, and held them down on top of her legs, and stared me in the eye. "Shut up."
I was quiet. I couldn't tell what she was doing. If she was trying to seduce me, or if she was just really this weird, but she stared at me and I shut up.