Jilted

by Lilah Suzanne

  Matthew leans in closer. “Carter, are you high?”

  “No,” Carter scoffs, hunching his shoulders and turning away. “A little.”

  “Carter,” Matthew says again, gently, reaching out to stop Carter’s angry de-hoarding of his junk drawer. “We should talk. I’ve been worried about you.”

  This is why it was so easy to fall for Matthew, why Carter ignored all the red flags, why he pushed on through all the moments when he knew he would never be enough for Matthew and that they didn’t love each other the way they wanted to, why Carter bent and changed and acquiesced in so many ways in order to keep him. This is why all their friends chose Matthew and not him.

  Matthew is so pleasant, so charming. A natural born leader, with confidence to spare. The guy who tells the best stories, makes everyone laugh, is effortlessly likable. Wasn’t Carter so lucky to have him? But Matthew needs people to like him, and the worst thing Carter can do is hang Matthew out to dry, make him the bad guy, let him stew impotently in Carter’s anger. It’s what he should have done in the first place, back in a New Orleans hotel when Matthew confessed that he was in love with someone else.

  Carter snatches his hands away. “Talk? Let me think…” He taps his chin and pretends to consider having a civil conversation with Matthew. “Mmm, nope.” Carter turns back to his task.

  “Okay, you are obviously not in your right mind, so why don’t you get some sleep, and we’ll talk tomorrow.” Matthew starts to walk from the room. Carter won’t be here tomorrow or any day after that. Perhaps he’s being immature and petty—and is a little high still—but he wants to wound Matthew, make him feel exactly as bereft and rejected as Carter felt when he watched Matthew pull off his engagement ring. All his bottled-up anger finally comes uncorked.

  “I loved you,” Carter shouts, clutching to his chest a handful of wilted flowers and a ribbon from a 5K they did together two years ago. He doesn’t even like running stupid marathons; that was Matthew’s thing. “I was dedicated to you! I gave you everything and you left me. You—” He slams the ribbon and flowers into the trash. “You left me.”

  Matthew turns back. He looks regretful and sad and says, softly, “You told me to go.”

  “What was I supposed to say, Matt?” Carter asks, incredulous. “No, stay with me, I’m happy to be the person you’ve settled for?”

  Matthew deflates; his expression is pained. Good. “Tell me what I can do. How can I make this better for you? How can we fix this?”

  “No, don’t do that. You don’t want to make me feel better, you want to unload your own guilt. Well, you can keep it.” He tapes up the box of his clothes and a few personal items and dumps the rest of the drawer into the trash. “You can keep all of this. I hope you and Jamie are very happy together.” He pushes the box to the front door. Matthew follows him. “Goodbye,” Carter says, gathering his keys and wallet. “Adios, au revoir, auf—shoot what is it?” He opens the door and shoves his box into the hall. The German one, what is it? “Oh. Auf wiedersehen, that’s it.”

  “Carter, can you please—” Matthew says, as Carter tries to remember if he knows how to say “so long, sucker” in any language. “We aren’t together, exactly.”

  Carter pauses. “What?”

  Matthew rubs his face and groans. “Me and Jamie, we aren’t… it’s… complicated. Can you please just come back inside?” His eyes turn pleading; his entire body slumps with misery. Carter wanted to hurt him, but he didn’t want to make him miserable. “Stay here tonight,” Matthew implores, “let’s talk this out. Please, Carter?”

  Sixteen

  “Well, what did you say?”

  Carter and Paige sit at adjacent tables getting manicures at Paige’s favorite salon, after “her girls” had to cancel at the last minute. Manicures with his irritating sister aren’t Carter’s favorite way of spending a Sunday morning, but Paige also treated him to brunch, and Carter will probably never possess the strength of will to say no to brunch under any circumstances. So here he is, two mimosas and an eggs Benedict later, getting a paraffin treatment.

  “I didn’t say anything,” Carter replies as Babette, the efficient yet rough beauty technician, yanks his hands from a tub of hot wax. “I booked it out of there. Well, as fast as one can book it while pushing a heavy, huge box down a hallway and a stairwell and then through the snow to my car.” Babette covers his wax-coated hands in big, soft mittens. “Anyway, even if I did want to work things out with Matthew, it’s too late. I’ve been approved to work remotely for an interim period. I emptied my savings account and I’m meeting a real estate agent in New Orleans on Tuesday for a house I’ve already put earnest money down on. It’s too late,” Carter says again. It is, right?

  “We’ll let the moisture really penetrate the epidermis,” Babette tells him, turning her attention to neatly arranging the various bottles on the table.

  “Um,” Carter replies.

  “You’re totally gonna go crawling back to him,” Paige says. She’s getting her nails filed; her arms are stretched across the table. “You’ll go back to Matthew because you’re weak and he’s got you on the hook.” She pulls her hands away long enough to mime cranking a fishing pole. “You’ll do whatever he wants.”

  “Wow, Paige,” Carter deadpans. “Tell me how you really feel.” The mimosas were not worth this. “I wish I could talk to Link about it,” he says to his mitten-covered hands. Link would get it. Link would say something to make Carter laugh and give him that dazzling smile, and Carter would forget all about Matthew and his own aching loneliness.

  “What is Link’s last name?” Paige types on her phone with one hand while the other is getting buffed and polished.

  Carter watches her. He’s hesitant to admit it, but, “I don’t remember.”

  “Okay… occupation?” Her thumb flies over her phone screen.

  “I don’t—um. Furniture… artist… sculptor?” He doesn’t know how to explain what Link does, exactly, because he doesn’t understand it completely himself. Something like that.

  Paige’s eyes narrow briefly, then she returns to her rapid-fire typing and scrolling. “You could not be more useless if you tried, Carter.” She flicks him a sidelong glare. “Forget it, I’ll just go through Matthew’s profile and find the ex. Or not ex. Or, like, whatever the fuck he’s doing. Or whoever.” She chuckles to herself.

  “Paige,” Carter starts, knowing the answer, yet hoping he’s wrong. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m cyberstalking your ex to find his ex to find her ex, duh.” She rolls her eyes, then clicks her tongue as she scrolls through whatever she’s found. “Wow. If you had done this before, you probably would have seen all this coming. Jamie’s been liking Matthew’s pictures and tagging him in stuff and commenting on like everything he posts. It’s totally blatant.”

  Carter shakes his head. What does that have to do with anything? His Aunt Diane does the same thing all the time. “So what?”

  “So what? It means this has been going on for months, that’s what. You dumbass.” Paige looks over to her manicurist, Marta, with a look that seems to say, can you believe him? The manicurist seems to agree with Paige. “Ooh, found Link. Hello, cheekbones.” She squints, scanning Link’s “about” page. “They?” she says.

  “They.” Carter confirms. “Link is nonbinary.” He glances over and sees that it’s written on Link’s profile. Slumped in his seat, hands held uselessly in front of him, he awaits her obnoxious commentary. How long does he have to keep these stupid mittens on? Babette has disappeared. He scowls at his hands.

  Would it have mattered if he’d been keeping close tabs on Matthew’s social media and realized what was going on months ago? If he’s as desperate for love and acceptance as Paige says, then probably not. He’d have ignored it the way he ignored everything else.

  Paige tips her head and goes back to her digital stalking. “Mmm-kay.”
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  “No comment on that?” Carter says, needling her, preemptively defensive.

  “First of all,” she says, “I’m like, super woke. Second of all, who am I to judge how other people live their lives?”

  Carter shoots up from his chair. “All you ever do is judge my life!”

  Paige switches her phone to her other hand and waves him off with the freshly manicured one. Her fingernails have little jewels on them. “I said people. Not you.”

  She is so irritating. Carter reaches for her phone with his stupid useless mitten hands, and accidentally bats it to the ground. Paige shrieks and dives for it, knocking down nail polish bottles and shallow bowls of wax and water in the process. The manicurist yelps.

  “Sorry, sorry,” Carter says to Marta, and not to Paige, while he tries and fails to help pick up the mess. Freaking mitten hands. Paige sits up and shoves Carter into his seat. Her always perfectly wavy hair is a staticky mess from diving under the nail table and her left hand is smeared with pink polish. He feels bad—a little.

  “What is your damage?” she yells.

  Sympathy evaporating as quickly as it came, Carter yells back, “My damage? What is your damage? All you have done all morning is criticize me and then stalk my ex and tell me that his leaving me is somehow my fault!” He yanks the mittens off, then peels the paraffin away from his skin. He’s trying to look angry and fed up, but the wax is coming off in frustrating, tiny crumbles and he looks like an idiot. “If your mission was to make sure that I won’t miss you a single bit after I move to New Orleans tomorrow, well, congratulations, you’ve succeeded.”

  He stands to walk off dramatically, but Paige stops him with a hand on his chest. “What did I tell you?” she says to her manicurist. “Drama queen.” Marta purses her lips and nods in agreement. “Sit,” Paige tells him. He does. She closes her eyes and takes a long breath, as if she’s steeling herself to do something very unpleasant, like unclog a toilet. “Carter. Matt leaving was not your fault. And you deserve better than someone who only wants you as his backup plan. Okay? Forget Matthew. He was never good enough for you.”

  Carter picks at the crumbly paraffin still coating his hands. “Really?”

  “Yes. And this Link… you two clearly have a connection, so…” She holds up her phone. Link’s profile is pulled up on the screen.

  It’s as easy as a friend request, maybe a quick message. But if Link wanted that, they would have written something more than Carter’s name on that note they’d started at the hotel, or not snuck out while Carter was asleep after that incredible night following one of the best days of Carter’s entire life. He looks away from the screen and shakes his head.

  “I can’t.”

  “Fine,” Paige chirps. “I will.”

  “Paige, don’t,” he swipes for the phone again, but she’s too fast; she taps something on the screen and then looks at him smugly.

  “It’s only because I care, little brother.” She pats his hand and gives him a smile that does sort of look caring. As awful as she is to him—and she is—besides Link, Paige is the only person who has been there for him since the beginning of this whole disaster and the only person who is still there.

  “Thanks for caring, I guess,” Carter mumbles, frowning at his crumbly palms.

  She squeezes his arm, smiles again, and replies, “You know they do earlobe waxing here.” She looks deliberately at his ears, then loudly announces that she has to pee and trots off to the bathroom. Carter touches his ears. They aren’t hairy. Are they?

  Babette finally returns from her leave of absence.

  After finally getting the paraffin wax fully removed, Carter waits on the sidewalk. It’s covered in slushy, dirty snow. His hands are soft and smooth inside his pockets, and his earlobes sting. After paying, Paige joins him, typing away on her phone. “I just had. The best. Idea.”

  “If it’s surgically embedding your phone into your skull, most people just call that a brain,” Carter says, walking to Paige’s car.

  “Ha ha. Shut up,” Paige retorts, but with barely any venom. “No. I’m coming with you!”

  Carter narrows his eyes. “Yes, we drove here together in your car because you think my car is, quote, basic.”

  “All the cars in the world, and you pick a used, tan Toyota Corolla? I—” She stops, adjusts her coat and scarf, and stands taller. “No. I meant to New Orleans. I’m coming with you.”

  Seventeen

  Carter is all set: His boss has agreed to let him work remotely while he “deals with a personal issue,” though he’s left the timeline and details intentionally vague so he can come back if this whole ill-thought-out scheme crashes and burns, as it probably will. He has informed his parents of his plans in a very brief email. He’s put his mail on hold, shipped his summer clothes, and boxed up his winter clothes. He has just enough essentials secured in the trunk of his car to get him started in a new place, he’s removed his name from all utilities and the lease for his old condo, and he’s told Paige approximately eight hundred times that she is not coming with him to New Orleans, no way, no how, not ever. No.

  “You don’t own New Orleans; you don’t get to say who can and can’t go there.” Paige follows him as he brings a final load of laundry into her living room to be folded and packed.

  He ignores her; they’ve had this argument. He’ll explain that he’s moving in order to get rid of his baggage, not bring it with him, and she’ll get offended at being called baggage, and then he’ll have to explain all the ways in which she’s dragging him down and ruining his life, like baggage. But he’s on a strict schedule, he just doesn’t have the time.

  “If I come, you won’t be alone,” Paige says, trying a different tactic, but not one she hasn’t already tried. And he’s already told her that he needs to be alone, that’s part of the point. Part of what Stan the security guard—and Paige herself—helped him see is that he doesn’t even know what he wants, he just knows he needs time to figure it out—alone.

  “I heard back from Link,” Paige says. Carter pauses his folding and packing. He’s thought about contacting Link so many times; Link would get it, why he’s doing this. And he’s also desperate to know how Link is doing. Has Jamie come back, the way Matthew did? Is Link happy? Does Link ever think of Carter?

  Carter drops a pile of clothes into his suitcase. “It doesn’t matter now.”

  Paige crosses her arms, then sits on top of his suitcase. “Well, I’m coming with you, and you can’t stop me.”

  So mature. “Look, I know you’re gonna miss me.” Carter grunts as he tries to push Paige off his suitcase. “But maybe this will be a good time for you to focus on dating, finding someone special, and making them miserable instead of me. Get. Off.”

  There’s a brief scuffle, and some yelling, a little cursing, and then both Paige and his suitcase fall to the floor. Carter has to repack everything. He is now officially behind schedule. “I thought you’d be happy to see me go, Paige. What is this?” Carter tosses clothes back into his suitcase while Paige sulks nearby.

  She mumbles something.

  “Sorry? I didn’t catch that.” Ugh, all his clothes will get wrinkled, and he left the iron back at the condo.

  “I said,” Paige starts. She uncrosses her arms and fixes a few flyaway hairs. “I lost my job.”

  “Oh.” Carter closes his suitcase; that’s gonna have to be good enough. “That’s too bad.”

  “It is, and, like, I was depressed so I bought some shoes to cheer me up, but it didn’t work. So I bought some more shoes.” She chews at the end of her thumb and looks at her feet. “Then I sort of lost control and spent all of my money and couldn’t make rent so they’re evicting me and I don’t have anywhere else to go. I had to put our manicures on four different credit cards. I’m the pathetic, desperate one. Me.” She slumps onto the sofa, once again knocking his suitcase to the floor.
r />   She looks sad. Actually, really, for real sad.

  Carter sighs, looks up, and rubs his palms over his face. “Dammit.”

  * * *

  They haven’t even crossed the Illinois state line before Carter is ready to drop Paige off at the next rest area. First, she had a loud, hour-long phone conversation with someone—whom, Carter never figured out—in which her contribution to the discussion was mostly sudden exclamations of “No way!” and “Shut up!” Then she took her shoes off and put her bare feet up on the immaculate dash of Carter’s Toyota. And now she’s flipping through music stations while texting: talk radio, pop, country, commercial, commercial, religious talk radio, country, rock, rap, polka, alternative, jazz, classical, R&B, political talk radio.

  “Can you just pick something?” Carter snaps; his fingers clench on the steering wheel.

  “Wow, jeez.” Paige widens her eyes at him, pretending to be innocent. “Okay, fine, here you go.”

  They listen to an ‘80s hair-metal station until the signal fades. Carter’s jaw clenches to match his hands. They cross the border into Missouri as the morning sun rises high, then make a stop just past St. Louis so Carter can get some coffee and gas up the car; he hates going below half a tank. Paige goes inside to use the restroom and get a snack while Carter pumps gas, and she still isn’t finished when he buys his weak, too-hot coffee, still isn’t finished when he buckles up and puts the key in the ignition. She’d probably be fine in St. Louis. Paige is adaptable, makes friends easily. And she has her cell phone with her, so—

  “What are you staring off into space about?” Paige drops into the passenger seat with a can of Pringles tucked under one arm. “Do you need a nap? ’Cause I can drive.”

  Carter starts the engine. “Like hell you’re driving my car.” Paige is a distracted driver of the worst kind with her cell phone glued to her ear and her mind everywhere but on the road. He’d like to make it to New Orleans alive and preferably not maimed. Planning ahead this time, Carter plays NPR through the app on his phone and lets a story about an electric carmaker in China settle the tension in his shoulders. The traffic is light on this stretch of 55, and Paige is on a quiet social media binge while she scarfs down Pringles.