by Ivy Smoak
She didn’t respond.
“Liza, are you still there?” The reception was terrible in Eli’s bedroom. Much worse than it was in my room.
“Yes.” She sounded annoyed now, like she usually did when talking to me.
Had I missed something? “Is everything okay?”
“No, everything’s not okay! How could you not tell me that you two are engaged? You’re my best friend.”
Her words hung in the air awkwardly. Best friend? I thought she hated me. “Eli and I aren’t engaged… he didn’t like get down on one knee or anything like that. There’s no ring on my finger.” I shook my head. Not that a ring mattered to me. I didn’t need anything like that.
“But you talked about it.” She sounded so accusatory. Like I had killed her puppy or something awful.
“Yeah, we talked about it.”
“Well, he’s on a lot of painkillers but clearly he thinks it’s a done deal. You should have told me right after it happened.”
“I would have if I thought it was official. You’d be the first person I’d tell.”
“Really?”
“Of course.” Who the hell else would I tell? I wasn’t allowed to leave the apartment. I wasn’t allowed to see Kins or…anyone else. Miles had popped into my head, but I dismissed the thought of him. Why would I tell Miles anything? He was the freaking worst.
“I hope you know how much I value our friendship,” Liza said.
I did now. And the fact that Liza didn’t hate me made me smile through my splitting headache. “I do. We should do a girls' night soon,” I said, knowing she wouldn’t take me up on it. Despite what she said, Liza did not like being around me. She preferred hanging all over V. I eyed the door. I needed to get out of this apartment.
“Um…yes! How about tonight?”
Huh? “How about what tonight?”
“Our girls' night, of course. We should make it a weekly thing. Saturday’s are probably better, but it can be Sunday just this once.”
What the hell had I just done? “Liza, you should probably stay with Eli. He needs you.”
“Why? He’s not my fiancé. I’ll be home tonight for dinner. I’ll get takeout. This is going to be so much fun!”
“Okay, but how is Eli doing?” I stepped to a different spot in the room to try to get better reception. It sounded like my call got dropped. “Liza?” The call had definitely ended. She hung up on me! I still had so many questions for her. Was Eli feeling better? Was he going to be arrested? Would it be safe for me to go to him soon?
I sighed and sat down on the edge of Eli’s bed. I didn’t want to have a girls' night with Liza. All I wanted was to be snuggled up to Eli.
I stared at the door to his room. Not believing that V was Don would be nice too. And my headache vanishing. And Don being behind bars. Or dead. Really I wanted a lot of things to change.
Ow. I massaged my forehead with my fingers. If girls' night involved drinking I was going to have to pass. I should have listened to V and drank some water last night. I hated that he had been right.
But maybe tonight wouldn’t be a total loss. If there was one person who was as eager as me to figure out who V was, it was Liza. Tonight could be more of an investigation instead of being filled with pointless gossip. Besides, two seconds after spending time with me and Liza would remember that we weren’t friends. We were acquaintances at best. Who lived together. And ate most meals together. And… my train of thought stopped. When the hell did Liza become my best friend?
Chapter 21
Sunday
“I’m so excited,” Liza said and set down the Chinese takeout containers on the coffee table. “I just need to go change real quick.” But instead of leaving, she just stared at me.
“What?” I lifted up one of the containers. “Thanks for bringing the food.” It came out as more of a question than a statement because she was making me feel uncomfortable under her scrutinizing gaze. “I’m excited too,” I added. What did she want me to say?
“Aren’t you going to change too?”
I looked down at my sweater and jeans. “What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?”
“It’s girls’ night.”
“I know…” I let my voice trail off. Did she want me to put on a dress and stilettos and pretend we were the cast of Sex and the City? That wasn’t happening. I broke a pair of chopsticks in half.
“So you have to put on pajamas.”
I laughed. “It’s not a slumber party.”
“I’m pretty sure junk food, pajamas, and reality TV is the definition of a girls’ night.”
“Really it’s probably going out and getting wasted. But alas I’m not allowed to leave the apartment.”
No response.
“Is the whole junk food, pjs, and TV thing what you usually do with your friends?”
“Um…yeah.”
The awkward silence made me look back up at her face. Liza stared down at the ground instead of at me.
A pang of guilt seared through me. Had Liza ever had a girls’ night before? I wasn’t really one to talk. The number of friends I had were limited at best growing up. Kins had been my first real friend in years and she thought I had moved back home. All Liza and I had were each other now. There was no reason for me to act like a stuck up bitch. Besides, I wanted tonight to be fun. “Your friends know what’s up,” I said. “Let me get out of these uncomfortable clothes. I’ll be right back.”
“Yeah?”
“Absolutely. What show did you have in mind?” We started walking down the hall together.
“Well, we have a few options," said Liza. "American Idol, Real Housewives, The Bachelor…”
“I’m really good with whatever. How about you choose.”
“Are you sure?” She pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose.
“Mhm. I’ll be back out in a sec.” I walked into my bedroom and closed the door behind me. The only time I ever seemed to go in here anymore was when I needed clothes. I expected my room to be dusty and depressing, but it wasn’t. The bed was even made, which I hadn’t remembered doing. Weird. Regardless, the room felt empty. Eli’s room felt lived in, even without him there. It felt like home. I smiled to myself as I quickly changed into a pair of plaid pajama pants and a tank top.
I wanted to give Liza whatever girls’ night she'd dreamed up in her head, but I really needed to talk to her about how Eli was doing. Maybe she’d have an idea about how to sneak me out of here so I could go visit him tonight. And I definitely needed to team up with her to uncover V’s secret identity. I had a list a mile long and none of it involved watching Real Housewives and gossiping like teenagers.
I laughed out loud and it sounded sad in the empty room. Technically I was a teenager. But I had never really felt like one. Not in an "I’m an old soul" sort of hipster way. Just in a "my childhood was robbed from me" kind of way. Maybe tonight would actually be fun.
Regardless, I needed to give her a little bit of us time before I started asking her all the questions I needed to. It seemed like a fair compromise. When I walked back out, Liza was sitting on the couch in bright pink flannel pajama bottoms and a matching top. There were cute little panda faces all over them. She had the top buttoned all the way up to her neck, which couldn’t possibly have been very comfortable. But she looked happy enough.
There was a box of chocolate doughnuts already opened on the coffee table and there were two cases of Mike’s Hard Lemonade. I didn’t know much about girls’ nights, but this was definitely not a Sex and the City kind of girls’ night. This was one for teenagers who didn’t really like the taste of alcohol yet. Which was technically me. But there was no way I was drinking tonight. My headache had only just gone away from last night’s escapades.
“How’d you score those?” I asked as I sat down next to her and lifted up a chocolate doughnut. I was down to eat dessert first at least.
“I’m 23.”
“Oh. Right.” How did I not know that?
&n
bsp; She laughed. “Shut up, slut, you had no idea how old I was.”
Slut? Rude. I laughed it off. “Yeah, I guess we never really talked about that.”
“Well, you’re eighteen. But I only know it because of the background check I ran on you after we first met. Although, your birthday is coming up in a few weeks. The big one-nine.” She winked at me.
Why was she being so weird? “Yup.” I didn’t want to talk about my birthday. It was the last thing on my mind.
“Do you have any special plans for it?”
“No, not really. Although, Don’s head on a platter would be nice. Or Eli getting out of the hospital. Or seeing V’s face.”
Liza laughed. “I feel like we’re still a long way off with Don. Eli’s not leaving the hospital anytime soon. And I kind of like the whole sexy masked man thing V has going on. If you know what I mean.” She winked at me, lifted up one of the Mike’s Hard Lemonades, and tried to hand it to me.
“Oh, no, that’s okay.”
“You have to drink.”
She was a stickler for these random girls’ night rules she had made up in her head. “I had some wine last night and I only just got rid of my hangover. I really shouldn’t. Besides, we have lots of work to do tomorrow. We need a new plan for Mr. Crawford and…”
“No work talk,” Liza said, cutting me off. “That’s why I closed the wall to the headquarters. There’s girls’ night rules.”
I glanced to my right and sure enough, the apartment could have passed for any other one in this building. “Liza, I have so many questions about Eli though…”
“We can talk about all that later. I know that sometimes it’s fun to break the rules. Technically I could be arrested for serving someone underage alcohol.” She whispered alcohol even though it was only the two of us in the room. “But I’ve been breaking lots of rules recently and I’ve found it very liberating. I bought these with the sole purpose of serving them to a minor.” Her eyes suddenly got huge. “Oh my God. That sounded so bad. I did not mean that in a sexual way. At all. I just literally meant that you’re under the age of 21 and therefore it is illegal for you to drink libations.”
“I got what you meant.”
“Good.” She popped off the top and this time forced me to take it from her. “I’m feeling very rebellious ever since I joined this group. But girls’ night is sacred and we are not breaking any rules tonight. Drink up.”
“I really shouldn’t…”
She got the same look on her face as when I told her it wasn’t a slumber party.
“You know what, you’re absolutely right.” I took a tiny sip. Honestly it was a whole lot better than the red wine I’d had last night with V. Not that I really drank it with him. I kind of stole it from him and drank it alone in Eli’s room. I shook away the thought. “We only live once, right?”
“Exactly.” Liza grabbed the remote and brought up the recordings on the DVR. There were several episodes of The Bachelor and she clicked on the oldest one.
“Since when do we have DVR?”
“Chill, slut. You have a ton of money. You’re not going to miss ten bucks a month.”
“Can you please stop calling me a slut? I’m not a slut.”
Liza laughed and took a sip from her drink. “I don’t mean it in an actual slut way. I mean it in a girl, you funny way.” She pulled her legs up on the couch. “Although, you have slept with quite a few guys. Way more than me. Don, V, Eli, Miles…”
“Who told you that I slept with Miles?”
“Eli talks a lot in his sleep.”
I had been sleeping over in Eli’s room. He had never talked in his sleep before. Had they been talking about me? “Don doesn’t count,” I said.
“I’m sorry, I know. I don’t know why I included him.”
“Thanks. And for the record, three guys isn’t exactly a lot.”
“Mhm.”
She didn’t sound convinced though. “Well how many guys have you slept with?”
“None of your business.”
“You literally ran a background check on me. The least you can do is tell me your sexual history. Slut,” I added.
Her smile grew tenfold. Apparently she enjoyed being called a slut. Me on the other hand? Not so much.
“I don’t have one.”
I laughed. “You know what I mean,” I said. I know it’s not technically history. I put history in air quotes. Just tell me your number.”
“Zero?”
No one? Seriously? “Is that a question or a fact?”
“It’s zero.” She took a huge sip from her bottle and turned to me. “That’s bad, right? No one wants to sleep with a virgin. And I’m not just a virgin. I’ve never even kissed a boy. Let alone given him my flower.”
Her flower? Really? She was so naïve. Or maybe I was just bitter. Because I never got to give anyone mine. It got taken from me. “Don’t call it your flower, that makes it sound creepy.”
“Oh. Okay.”
“You’ve really never had sex, Liza?”
“No.” She pushed her glasses up her nose. “I knew it was bad. What 23 year old has never had sex?!” She pressed her lips firmly closed and looked behind her down the hall. “God, do you think he heard me?”
“Who? V?”
“Who else?” She lifted up a pillow and put it over her face. She started talking into the pillow, but her voice was so muffled that I couldn’t even hear her.
“Liza.” I grabbed the pillow and yanked it down from her face. “You shouldn’t be embarrassed. Honestly I still wish I had my…flower.” I tried not to cringe at the word. It was laced with such innocence that it made me feel sick to my stomach. Nothing about my first time had been innocent. But I did mean what I said. I wished I was still a virgin.
“Really?”
“Yes, really. I never got the chance to choose, you know. And I always had one person in mind.” I pictured Miles’ face and tried my best to squash down the feelings threatening to emerge.
“I want to give V my flower. Desperately.” She hugged the pillow to her chest.
“V? I feel like you should choose someone who’s comfortable enough to let you see his face.”
“V doesn’t wear a mask because he’s uncomfortable with himself. He wears it because he’s uncomfortable around you. But I know him really well. He’s sweet and caring and…”
“And cruel.”
“No, not at all. He’s one of the nicest people I’ve ever met. And he cares so fiercely for those in his life.”
“He doesn’t care about Eli," I said. "V hasn’t visited him in the hospital. He hasn’t let me leave the apartment to go visit him either.”
“That’s not true, V has visited Eli.”
“What?”
“He came last night after all the nurses left for the evening. Eli was sleeping, but he sat with us. I’m telling you, Summer, V is a stand-up guy.”
He was nice to everyone but me. Was it really because he was uncomfortable around me? There were more reasons why Liza shouldn’t sleep with him. The most important being that V confessed that he loved me a couple nights ago. But I didn’t want her to know that. We were just starting to get along. “Liza, I really think you could find someone sweeter.”
“Like Eli? He really is the best. No one’s ever listened to me like Eli does. He doesn’t grow impatient with me or anything or call me names. We’ve had such nice conversations about life the past few days. What we’ll do after this whole thing is over and everything. It’s easy to talk to him because he’s not still in the college scene like some people I know.” She smiled at me and then took a sip from her drink. “But girl, haven’t you heard? He’s taken! My bffl just got engaged to him.” She looked down at my hand even though I'd already told her we weren’t actually engaged.
I laughed. “Seriously, we’re not engaged.”
“Did you talk about getting engaged?”
“Yes, but…”
“Did you talk about the future?”
“Do you want to marry him?”
I swallowed hard. “Yes.”
“Oh my God, you hesitated.”
“I didn’t hesitate.”
“Yes you did. You waited several seconds before saying yes.”
Had I? I took a sip from my bottle. And then another as her eyes scrutinized me.
“You two are good, right?” Liza asked.
“Absolutely. And I miss him terribly. All I want to do is visit him.”
“You really should. He asks about you all the time. I think it’s been hurting his feelings that you haven’t come.”
“Could I call him next time you’re there? You can give him your phone?”
Liza shook her head. “No, they won’t let him use a cell phone near all the machines, but he’s dying to talk to you.”
“What about the other day when you called me by his bed?”
“I told you I recently got into breaking the rules. But I got in so much trouble. The cops caught me red-handed. I’m lucky they didn’t confiscate my phone like they did with his.”
This was my chance to find out more information. And I wasn’t even the one to bring it up. Perfect. “How did that conversation with the police go? You told them you were his fiancé, but did they tell you anything about what would happen to him? Is he going to be arrested once he gets better?”
“I was waiting for tonight to tell you so that we could properly celebrate.” She leaned forward and tapped her bottle against mine. “He’s in the clear.”
“What? How?”
“It was all my idea really. We told them about how he was undercover for so long and didn’t want to blow it because he was really close to getting the information he needed.”
“Information?”
“Mhm. Getting you to confess to everything. The murder. All that. They totally bought it. I think they’re even considering letting him go back undercover. I’m pretty sure we convinced them that his cover wasn’t’ blown. They said they’d let us know soon.”
He turned the tables on me? My throat constricted. I guess it’s what I would have wanted him to do in order to get out of this mess. So why did it sting? “So he’s not going to be arrested?”