by Taylor Hale
“Why doesn’t he come see me himself? It’s not like I’m hiding.”
“I don’t know, but he’s trying to care. Can’t you see that?”
“It’s not your job to tell me this shit, Faye. He can come say it to my face.”
“Can you please just go see him so he’ll shut up about it? He said he changed his mind about helping with Amelia.”
West grunts. “Fuck’s sake, fine, I’ll go see him.” He faces me. “I’ve got to go, Olive. You need a ride?”
I can feel Miles staring at me. “I’ll walk,” I say.
“All right, see you.” West half smiles and thaws my still-frozen state. He slaps Miles’s shoulder hard enough to knock him back before he takes off, leaving me alone with his siblings. Faye’s anger radiates. I know her well enough to tell when she’s mad at me.
“So you can go on little boat dates with Weston, but you can’t sacrifice five minutes of your day to talk to Miles?”
“I . . .” Of course this is what it’s about. Did Miles even tell Faye the full story? That he tried to kiss me—twice—without my consent before he grabbed me? Maybe she wouldn’t even care if she knew the full truth. I manage to say, “I have my reasons, Faye.”
Miles’s cheeks are splotchy and red, focused on the shoreline beside us. “Stop it, Faye,” he mutters. “Let’s just go. She doesn’t have to talk to me.”
“She’s being a stuck-up bitch, Miles.”
“Stop.” He tugs at her arm. “We’re leaving.”
My lips are zipped shut, but there’s nothing to say anyway. I don’t forgive Miles, and I won’t pretend to. Faye starts ranting at Miles as they take off down the beach, but thank God they actually leave. Miles glances at me once over his shoulder, and our eyes lock as the sea crashes behind me.
The realization hits me like a tidal wave. The man in my dream last night was Miles.
9
I’m starting to think that I maybe, sort of, totally hate parties. Spasmodic pop music pounds my head, and bass reverberates through the walls. Feet thump on the hardwood floor as bodies crash into bodies, drinks spilling on their shoes. It’s chaos.
Dr. Levy has taught me ways to compartmentalize my anxieties, but with people crowding around me and yelling, not even my elastic comforts me. At least this one isn’t on a boat—Cindy Huang’s house is a lot more leveled. It isn’t as huge as the Hendricks estate, but still a massive, three-story Victorian-style home on the waterfront.
Apparently there’s safety on the couch of a party, because I’ve been sitting here with my phone for two hours and only a few people have bothered drunkenly talking to me. I’ve found my corner to hide, to try to calm my breathing, but I really have to pee, and someone might take my spot if I move, or worse—I could run into Miles.
Even though I haven’t seen him, his sneakers are on the mat by the door, so he’s here somewhere. My eyes keep flitting through the crowd, searching for any sign of his face.
Faye and Dean are on the other couch, and my peripherals catch his hand slipping up her shirt. She grabs his wrist. His hand goes farther up anyway, and I can’t help but stare now, hoping Dean will back off if he notices there’s an audience. Faye grabs him, but he only shoves his hand higher. When she digs her pink-painted nails into his forearm, he stops. The music muffles their voices. She mouths something at him with a scowl. Dean’s features harden before he shrugs with an insincere smile and leaves the couch, disappearing into the crowded house.
Faye looks over just in time to catch me watching. I turn away, but she slides beside me on the couch. Purple and green lights from the disco ball flash in her half-lidded eyes, framed by wintry lashes—no mascara.
“Enjoy the show?” she asks. Faye wears her usual apathetic face, but her cheeks are flushed. Her rosacea has always deepened when she’s upset.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
“Why wouldn’t I be okay?”
It isn’t my place to say anything. Faye is her own person, and I’ve been gone for five years. But it’s an itch I apparently can’t control, because I say, “Dean seemed sort of grabby.”
“Am I supposed to be mad my boyfriend can’t keep his hands off me?” Faye laughs, but it’s empty. “Anyway, the real question here is, are you fucking my brother?”
It’s obvious which brother she’s talking about. “No.”
“Really? Because you two seemed real cozy on that boat the other day.”
Where is Keely when I need her? My hands shake, but I hold my ground. “I’m not doing anything wrong by hanging out with West, Faye.”
“He’s a player, you know that, right?”
Player. The word bounces around in my head and gets lost somewhere. Keely told me West has had a lot of girlfriends over the years—but he would never try to play me.
“He’ll break your heart,” Faye goes on, “which is something Miles would never do. Why don’t you at least give Miles a chance?”
“Why would I give him a chance when I already know I don’t like him like that?”
“Okay then. I hope you’ve told him that.”
“He knows.”
Now he does, anyway. Maybe I should have clarified sooner. But even if Miles got the wrong idea, that doesn’t excuse him putting that much pressure on me, and not stopping immediately when I shoved him away the first time. And he definitely had no good reason to grab my wrist as hard as he did.
“Okay,” Faye says. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you about Weston.”
“West is a good guy. Besides, like I said, we aren’t together.”
“But you like him.”
I’ve never told anyone about my feelings for West—not even Keely has figured it out. But Faye sees through me in a way no one ever has.
“Even if I do,” I mumble, “that doesn’t mean he’d like me back.”
“He would, but probably not for long. None of the other girls lasted.”
What she really means is you’re nothing special, Liv, and that’s what I’ve feared all along.
Faye ties her long hair back in a ponytail. “If you don’t believe me, why don’t you try asking him about Amelia? I wonder if he’ll be honest. Doubt it.” She leaves the couch and vanishes into the party, limping ever so slightly on her injured foot.
The conversation leaves a sour taste on my tongue. I take out my phone and squint at the light. West’s profile picture on Instagram is his Corvette—not him, just the car. He has one of those Car Guy profiles, where every picture is some engine or a bunch of tools I know nothing about. There’s one of him, though, where he’s standing in front of the ocean at sunset, his skin drenched in orange, his black hair disheveled. He looks beautiful, and I wonder where he goes on Friday nights, or if he ever thinks anything of me at all. I want to message him, but stop myself, afraid it would come off as annoying and desperate.
Maybe someday I’ll work up the courage to ask him about Amelia. Until then, screw this couch—I need to pee. The first floor of the house is a zoo, so I zip around the banister to the upper level. Someone’s elbow slams into my rib as we cross paths on the second floor.
“Sorry, I—”
The distinct smell of citrus reaches my nose. Miles.
My feet almost slip on the white carpet, but I balance myself. It’s dark up here, too, save for the light that comes from the open bathroom door. The party thumps beneath us, yet somehow, we become the only two people in the world. Visions of how he looked in my nightmare sweep into my mind, soaking wet and foaming at the lips.
“Liv,” Miles says, his face drooped in a sad expression as he tugs at his shark tooth necklace.
“I was just leaving.”
He lets me duck past him toward the bathroom door but follows after.
“How long are you going to pretend I don’t exist?”
Clenching my teeth, I face him. “I d
on’t know what to say, Miles. You made me really uncomfortable. You were way too pushy, and you hurt me.”
“Nothing was supposed to go like that. I’d give anything to go back in time and just ask you before trying to kiss you. It was a mistake, I didn’t know what I was doing.”
When Miles takes a step closer, I jolt back and crash into the wall, knocking a picture of Cindy Huang’s father. Miles holds his hands up as a sign of peace while I regain my composure. A couple of drunk girls giggle as they run up the stairs, shove past us, and take over the bathroom. Great, so much for peeing.
“Can we talk now?” Miles says.
“About what?”
“Please, just let me give you this.”
As I eye him suspiciously, he reaches into the pocket of his shorts and holds out his hand. Three opaque stones tinted with turquoise land in my palm. I rub my thumb along their smooth, glossy surface.
“Sea glass,” I say.
“Yeah. When I saw them, I thought, the color is just like your eyes.”
The guilt is immediate. For a moment I see the Miles I knew as a kid. That little boy was nothing like the Miles I saw in my sleep. I’ve heard dreams are a way for the subconscious to show what our waking minds can’t see—our third eye. But Dr. Levy said they can be senseless too. They can mean nothing, and I don’t know how to tell the difference. Maybe that nightmare I had about Miles didn’t mean anything. Maybe he really didn’t mean to hurt me that day, and it wouldn’t be such a crime to accept his apology and move on.
“Thanks, Miles.” I tuck the stones into the front pouch of my purse. “This is sweet.”
“You’re welcome. I understand if you can’t forgive me. I just can’t stand us not being in each other’s lives after we were apart for so long. Can we be friends again?”
“I don’t know.” Sadness takes over his face and melts me a little more. I add, “But it’s a start.”
Miles smiles tightly before he goes back downstairs. I wait to use the bathroom before going down, too, but as I’m reaching the first floor, shouts come from the kitchen.
“Turn the music off! An ambulance, we need an ambulance!” Cindy shoves through the crowd and the music goes quiet. The lights go up, and everyone stares at each other with clueless looks on their faces. Shawn barrels down the hall, Keely draped in his arms. Her shirt is covered—and I mean covered—in bright green vomit. It’s fluorescent, like toxic waste.
I don’t think twice, I just run. Shouldering people out of my way, I yell, “Keely! Get out of my way—Keely, are you okay?” I reach Shawn’s side. “What happened to her?”
His normally tanned skin is sickly pale. “I don’t know, we were taking shots, and I don’t know, man, she must’ve drunk too much. Fuck, she needs help.”
“Call an ambulance!” Cindy yells to no one in particular.
“Shit, cops are coming?” someone shouts.
The whole room panics. I’m shoved into a wall as people flood the hallway and elbow each other to get to their shoes and out the front door. Frustration explodes inside of me—I need to call for help, but someone knocks my phone out of my hand, and it gets lost in the stampede of feet.
“Stop!” I say. “Get out of my way!”
But I’m pushed back again. My butt lands with a thud on the staircase. The chaos doesn’t cease until the room clears, the front door left open. Outside, the last few people from the party hop Cindy’s front fence.
My phone is on the floor with a crack in it, but it turns on when I snatch it. Shawn and Keely are nowhere in sight, so I call 911 and stumble to the front porch, relieved to see they’re lying on the grass. I blabber Cindy’s address to the operator and beg them to hurry. Caldwell is too small to have its own hospital, but there’s one just outside of town that surrounding towns use too. The operator talks me through, and I relay the information to Shawn: “Keep her on her side so she doesn’t choke on her puke. They’ll be at least ten minutes.”
Shawn kneels over her as she sputters up more vomit. Cindy places her hand on her forehead beneath her black, pin-straight bangs.
“Are the cops coming?” she says. “Oh my God, I can’t have a girl die at my house!”
“She’s not dying!” I say, but my heart is pounding. If the alcohol doesn’t kill Keely—her parents will.
Lights flash up the long driveway of Cindy’s property. I pray it’s the ambulance, but it’s a cop car that rips up to the house and squeals to a halt.
Roger.
I tell the operator the police have arrived and hang up the phone. Of course I gave them Keely’s name, so Roger must have heard about it. Horror is all over his face when he tears out of his cruiser and is at Keely’s side in seconds. Roger presses two fingers to her neck to check her pulse. Keely shivers in the fetal position. Roger sighs, smooths down her hair, and glances back at us.
I’m totally helpless. I don’t know what to do but stare.
More flashing lights up the driveway. Another cop car, followed by the ambulance, and the front lawn becomes swarmed with officers and paramedics. Roger stays by Keely as they lift her onto a gurney, and I chase them when they wheel her to the ambulance, feeling like I’m out of my body.
“She’s going to be okay, right?” My voice shakes.
“Stay back, Olivia,” Roger says. “Please.”
I do. Cindy and Shawn are already being interrogated as Keely is placed in the ambulance. Roger exchanges a few words with them before they drive away, and then he’s back on me.
“Olivia. What happened?”
“I’m sorry,” I stutter, “we lost each other . . . I don’t know, I don’t know what happened. Last time I saw her she was fine, then she was with Shawn.”
Another officer talks to a drunk, blubbering Shawn, and another to Cindy. Roger glares at them, and he twitches like he’s on the verge of an eruption. But he says, “I’ll deal with them later. I need to make sure my daughter is okay. Come on, Olivia. You’re riding with me.”
Keely has to get her stomach pumped. That’s all the nurses tell me before I’m forced to stay in the waiting room alone. Minutes tick into an agonizingly long hour as I sit with my pounding head gripped between my hands.
Please let Keely be okay.
There’s a mural of fish on the wall, and the movie Up plays on a tiny flat-screen TV. I haven’t been in this hospital since my fall. All of those memories are dreamlike and hazy now. I remember waking up and thinking I was dead, and my parents were hovering over me. There were doctors, but their faces are blurry. Miles, Keely, and Roger were sent in once I was stabilized, and Miles cried because he blamed himself.
But whatever happened after that is blank. I must have gone home, and soon after, my parents and I were packing up our lives.
“How much did she have to drink?” Sun’s voice sounds from up the hall, and I stand at attention. Still wearing her robe from home, Sun enters the waiting room with Roger. They both look exhausted.
“They say it must have been a lot,” Roger says, calmer than he was before.
“Is Keely okay?” I dare to ask.
Roger nods. “It’s alcohol poisoning. She’ll pull through, but we need to have a word with you, Olivia. Come here, please.”
Sun stands back and watches as Roger and I sit. My throat knots up. Roger’s still in his uniform from work; he might as well have put me in an interrogation room.
“Olivia, how long has she been drinking like this?”
I tug at my elastic. I’m terrified for Keely, and it’d be for her own good if I spilled everything right here, right now. But that would be totally betraying her.
Roger senses my hesitance. “Listen, Olivia. I’ve always trusted Keely. Now I’m learning the hard way that I can’t. I know what I’m asking you to do, but we could really use your help on this one. I can tell you haven’t been drinking.”
“I haven’t been,” I murmur. “Honestly, Keely took off at the party and I couldn’t find her. I had no idea how much she was drinking . . .”
“Keely isn’t the first teenager to get her stomach pumped in this hospital, but she’s the last one I ever expected to see. I need to know how long this has been going on. How long has my kid been drinking under my nose?”
Tell them. It’s the right thing to do.
But I can’t do that to Keely. I just can’t.
“I don’t know . . . I’m sorry.”
With a disappointed sigh, Roger turns away. “You girls have a curfew from now on. Ten p.m. sharp every night. No exceptions.”
I nod obediently. Roger goes to Sun, and guilt twists the knife in my gut. For the first time, I feel homesick for my bedroom in Hell’s Kitchen, for my spot at my parents’ little round kitchen table, for our balcony that faces the brick walls of another apartment building. Leaving Sun and Roger behind in the waiting room, I head outside into the cool night. Insects buzz around the faint lights. Plopping down on the concrete edge of a garden, beneath a tall glowing sign of an H, I take out my phone and call my mom.
“Livvie?” she answers, and I sigh in relief.
“Mom. Hi.”
“Are you okay?”
When I fill her in about what happened, she bombards me with questions about my safety and if I’m okay.
“I’m good,” I tell her for the fiftieth time. “Mom, I didn’t drink anything, I promise.”
“Good. Poor Sun and Roger, I can’t imagine what they’re going through.”
“I promise I won’t make you find out. What’s Dad doing?”
“Sleeping. Long day at work.”
“How’s the shop?”
Mom pauses. She’s probably at home, legs crossed on our couch with the TV muted in the background. “I won’t lie, things have been a little rough. The air conditioner broke down, so we’ll have to come up with the money to repair it, but don’t worry about us, sweetie.”
“Okay. Tell Dad I said hi?”
“Will do. I’m so worried about Keely. I’ll have to call Sun and Roger in the morning.”