by Rebel Hart
“I hate the outdoors,” he said.
“Oh, yeah,” Polly said. “I’m sure being an actual god and universally liked is really hard.”
“It is when you’re an introvert!” Codie yelped.
“Did you really sleep with that guy?” I asked. “I’m 100% gay and even I know that he’s a cup of coffee worth buying again.”
Codie sat up and shrugged. “I guess. He’s all muscles and charm and money. Not really what I’m looking for.”
“What?” Polly, Darton, and I said in unison.
“Who doesn’t want muscles, charm and money?” Darton asked.
“It’s fine, it’s just not a connection, you know?” He looked up at me. “I know you know.”
I rolled my eyes imagining the insanely beautiful Suli who was only ever a good time for me and nothing more because of certain flappable blondes. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Codie frowned, standing up and leaning his head closer to me. “Are you drunk?”
“Not… drunk. I’ve had a few. I’m fine,” I said.
He ripped my current glass from me in spite of the fact that it was empty. “I’m cutting you off.”
“You literally just got here. Can you not be a downer?” I said. “I know my limits.”
“Did you drive?” he asked.
“Yeah, but I won’t drive home. I’ll take a taxi or something and come back in the morning. I’ve done it before.”
Codie flicked a hand through the air. “I’ll just be sober cab. It’s fine.”
“Don’t worry about it, dad.”
“Don’t give me that attitude. All it would take is for one entitled Karen to see you and this whole place would get raided and you’d go to jail, and so would all of us.”
“Oh, the party pooper arrived I see.” Suli pushed into the booth with a drink in her hand. She tried to hand it to me, but Codie yanked it from her. “Knock it off. She’s an adult. She can do what she wants.”
“She’s barely an adult,” Codie said. “And we shouldn’t be inspiring her to be lost causes like all of us.”
“Lost cause?” Polly said. “The sexiest man just offered to whisk you away in his private jet. I think you’re doing just fine.”
“Codie.” I fished the drink Suli brought me out of his hand. “I’m okay, I promise. Come on, it’s been weeks since I’ve been here. I had a long day, I just wanna relax. You’re here, you’re not gonna let me get too out of control, and that’s not my goal anyway.”
He still looked bothered, but he relaxed nonetheless. Suli came over and sat down next to me on the back of the couch. One of her hands drifted dangerously towards my inner thigh as she leaned inwards to flash me the screen of her phone.
“Your reject called me.”
I looked down at her phone and saw a missed call from an unregistered number that I’d memorized long ago as Hannah’s. In a lapse of judgment, I’d given her Suli’s number just in case of emergency. Though the two of them didn’t like one another at all, they kept track of each other because I was at the center. The fact that Hannah still even had Suli’s number was irritating enough, but the fact that she’d actually call her and make some attempt to exercise control over me was infuriating.
“She really doesn’t know how to let things go, does she?” Polly said.
Darton shook his head. “A bit cocky to do it after she was the one who threw you out. I hate people like that.”
My friends didn’t like Hannah very much, and after what she’d done and the stories I’d told them, I couldn’t blame them. I had, of course, told them how she acted when Tristan and Aria started dating and without me even having to say anything about it, they immediately made the same connection I did. How funny that she could stand by his side when she couldn’t stand by mine.
I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t helpful that they also didn't like her.
“Ignore it,” I growled. “Can you dance right now?”
Suli squeezed my leg. “I can do whatever you want.”
“Drug-free, please?” Codie said.
Suli rolled her eyes. “Fine.” She stood up off the couch, grabbing my hand and pulling me up. “Come on. Let me get my hands on those hips.”
Codie tensed up as I passed him, but as I was leaving I heard him make a joke with Polly and Darton and started laughing. That was what I needed, for him to relax as well. Codie and I had been close ever since the conversion camp, but where I learned to appreciate life’s entertainment more to avoid future pain, Codie doubled in how carefully he lived. He said he realized just how close we had both come to dying, and he didn’t ever want to get that close again.
If that’s your thing I guess.
In order to be safe, Suli dragged me to a spot very near our VIP booth to dance. It was later in the night, so though it was a Monday, the dance floor was pretty packed, and it was easy for Suli and I to find a spot to blend in. She wrapped her arms around me, but we weren’t able to get too close before her phone started ringing again. She pulled it out of her pocket, but when she rolled her eyes, I knew exactly who it was. I snatched the phone from her hand and answered it, but rather than saying anything, I just hung up.
Suli raised an eyebrow at me before wrapping her arm around me and pulled me closer to her. She successfully pulled off what she’d been trying all night and set her lips on mine. She pushed her tongue between my lips and I felt the unmistakable feeling of a pill slipping forward off of her tongue and onto mine.
“Not following Codie’s request then, I see?” I said.
“Is that a problem?” she asked, pulling her phone back from me just as it buzzed in my hand, ringing again.
I relinquished the phone as Hannah’s number skated across the screen, and swallowed the pill with a smile. “Nope. That is not a problem.”
6
Hannah
I slammed my phone down on the table so hard that I was actually a little surprised it didn’t break. The fork on my plate rattled and some of the water in my recently filled glass sloshed over the top.
Tristan jutted his hand forward as if he could do something to stop the rage from cracking the screen. “Jeez! What’s wrong?”
We were at dinner at my favorite bistro after Tristan canceled with Aria exactly like he said he would. But though the circumstances should have made me very happy, I was so frustrated I felt like my blood was going to boil. Tears actually rose to my eyes as I imagined that seedy place that Arden liked to go to, and thinking of her all curled up with that stupid ass woman that had poisoned her brain.
I wanted to scream.
“Nothing,” I said to Tristan. “I’m fine.”
“Hannah!” he barked.
There were people at the next table over and they jumped and turned to look at us. I threw on a fake smile and waved them down, trying to get them to quit looking at us, but though they did so more overtly, they kept their eyes shifted in our direction.
“Shh,” I said. “You’re causing a scene.”
“I don’t care,” he snapped. “You’re honestly going to tell me that nothing is wrong when you nearly broke your phone in half just now? There are tears in your eyes. Do you think I’m blind or stupid or both.”
My throat clenched up. After how terribly the day had already gone, the last thing I wanted was to be yelled at by my only real friend. “I’m sorry, I just don’t want to talk about it.”
“Why?” Tristan whimpered. “Whatever it is, it’s obviously bothering you. I’m your best friend, aren’t I? It’s not good to keep all this shit in. You should talk about it, and I’m not saying it has to be with me, but I feel like shit. Like you don’t feel like you can trust me.”
I looked across at him, his hazel eyes were wide and filled with concern, and I felt bad. I knew that he cared about me and just wanted to help me through what I was going through right now, but he simply didn’t understand how difficult it was for me to talk about all of this stuff. I spent literal years working
to push all of the Arden stuff down so far that even I couldn’t access it. I couldn’t risk my parents or my friends seeing even a hint of something like homosexuality. Talking to him about it… it would mean admitting to it.
And I just couldn’t do that.
“I do trust you,” I whispered back.
He shook his head. “That’s obviously not true. You’ve been weird ever since that shit went down around Sadie Hawkins. For like six months you’ve been pulling away from me. You barely talked to me over Spring Break. I…” There was a strained desperation in his voice. “Please. I just want to help.”
It was heartbreaking to see how defeated he looked. It wasn’t as if I didn’t appreciate what Tristan was trying to do, or understand the concept of having one confidant. I could tell Tristan. It wasn’t that I thought he would judge me or hurt me, it was just a blanket fear. It sucked that I couldn’t even tell him that.
It was so much better for me to pretend as if this wasn’t as big a deal as it seemed.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’ve been a shitty friend.”
Tristan let out an impatient sigh. “I’m not saying that. I’m not here like, ‘Oh, Hannah won’t talk to me, what a bad friend.’ I know you wouldn’t avoid me or not talk to me unless something was really wrong, ya know? I’m worried about you.” He opened his mouth to say something else, but then stopped.
“What?” I said.
He looked into my eyes. “Is it Arden?”
My heart pounded a couple of times harder than the rest. “What makes you say that?”
“Aria,” Tristan said, sending a streak of irritation through me. “She won’t tell me Arden’s personal stuff, obviously, but I told her I was worried about you and she said she thinks it’s probably Arden.”
Tristan knew some of my history with Arden, but really only in terms of a friendship—nothing romantic. He didn’t even know that, technically, when he and I first started dating, I was still with Arden. Things were already rocky by then. She was upset that I even accepted his request to date in the first place, but it wasn’t like I could say no. The most popular guy in the entire school asked me out, and if I had said no, people would have known instantly it was because I was gay. There was no real option for me, and besides, Tristan was so great. I didn’t think my suggestion to have a mask relationship with him and a real relationship with her would have been so bad. I’m sure Tristan would have understood my position.
It was Arden that didn’t seem to get it.
When everything went down with Aria and her old best friend and my very brief “flame” Lucky, he caught a glimpse of something else. I had come clean that I had Arden’s location saved on my phone, and he wasn’t dumb. That wasn’t something people did for friendships that had been broken for a couple of years, but he was so great, he never pressured me or asked me for more information. He allowed me the space I needed to come to him and tell him the story at my own speed.
I just hadn’t gotten there yet.
My thoughts must have caused me to be quiet for too long, because he leaned back in his chair with a look of total defeat on his face. “I’m sorry. If you don’t want to talk about it, you don’t have to.”
His tone was muted like he was giving up, and it broke me. I felt like so many people had already given up on me. I didn’t want to lose Tristan too.
“I…” I started, but then my voice died. It was like trying to push a square piece through a circle hole. I’d spent so much time telling myself I could never talk about it.
So how could I just talk about it?
“Don’t,” Tristan said. “It’s fine. It’s your personal business. You don’t want to tell me, that’s okay. I’m sorry for making you feel like you were obligated to talk about it.”
It didn’t help at all that Tristan was like the world’s greatest guy. He was patient, respectful, and kind. Above all, he loved me. Maybe he didn’t love me as much as he loved Aria. At some point how much he cared about her would eventually wedge between us, I’d come to accept that. But he was here for me now, and that was more than I could say for most people in my life.
Maybe I was just delaying the inevitable by not opening up more about it?
“It’s a really long story,” I started softly. “I’m just not ready to talk about everything yet, but today specifically… I approached Arden after school. I asked her if she and I could work on being friends again. Just cordial at least, to make things easier for you and Aria. She was really mean about it. Said that she doesn’t need to be friends with me to make things easier for the two of you. She said it’s awful being around me. Well, she said that at lunch, but… yeah. It hurt.”
Tristan frowned. “Wow. That sounds like a very different person from the one Aria’s described. She says Arden’s nothing but a sweetheart.” Then he reached forward and put a hand on mine. “I’m not saying I don’t believe you though. I do. I just can’t believe she has such a different side.”
“Yeah… that’s kind of why I got so angry just now.” I poked at my phone. “She’s at this place called The Undersound.”
“You can see it?” he asked.
I nodded. “I have her location on my phone. Some bad stuff happened in the past and we agreed to share our locations with one another in case anything ever happened again.”
* * *
“Share my location?” Arden asked. “I don’t even know what that means.”
“You’re an aspiring inventor. How are you this bad with your phone?” I asked. “Look.” I shared my location with Arden in a text message and then took her phone and clicked the link to add it to her circle and maps. I handed the phone back to her and pointed down at the dot. “See that? That’s me. You’ll be able to open this app whenever you want and see where I am.”
She furrowed her brow. “I don’t need to see where you are. You’re always right here.”
She made such a painfully cute face when she said it that I couldn’t resist the urge to lean forward and peck her on the lips. She smiled and I took her phone back and just shared her location with me for her. I looked up at her and tried not to kill our good mood by being a downer.
“Last summer, I woke up to find out that you were in the literal worst place in the world. You almost died because some people shoved you in a closet and refused to feed you.” My nose was already burning as I fought hard to keep the image of Arden’s emaciated form out of my brain. “I don’t want that to happen again. This,” I held up my phone, “is how I always know where you are, so that if anyone ever tries to take you from me again, I can come find you.”
She curled her hand into my hair along the side of my head. “You found me fine without a location before, my little hero.”
“Yeah, well let’s let technology keep me from guessing next time,” I said. “I can get to you sooner. Before it’s too late.”
“You don’t have to worry, beautiful. I’m not going anywhere. You’ll always be able to look over and see me sitting right next to you.” She kissed me then. “I love you too much for anything else.”
“I love you too,” I said. “Thanks for this. It makes me feel better.”
“Then it was worth it.”
* * *
“When we stopped being friends, I assume she took my location off, but I could never remove hers. I know that she can be self-destructive, and this place that she goes, there’s this woman there, Suli. She’s like six years older than Arden, and I know they’ve…” I swallowed hard.
“Yikes,” Tristan said.
“She gives Arden drugs, and booze, and…” My hands balled into fists. “Yeah. She’s a shitty person. I don’t like her very much, but she’s my only connection to Arden right now. Arden has my number blocked on everything, but I was calling to try and appeal to Suli. It wasn’t going well though. It—”
Almost on cue, my phone buzzed and I flipped over to see that I got a text message from Suli. I opened it and scoffed. It was a picture of her with her arms wrapped
around Arden. They both had their tongues sticking out, and there were tiny whtie pills sitting on the tips of both of their tongues. I shoved my phone away from me and Tristan picked it up.
His eyes widened. “Is that ecstasy?!”
“I don’t know, I think so,” I huffed. “She’s gonna do something dumb. I’m so afraid she’s going to get herself killed. She doesn’t have value for her own life. It’s terrifying.”
“I have an idea. You’re probably not going to like it,” Tristan said.
I twisted my head to the side. “Okay?”
“You have the actual location, right?” he asked. “We can send it to Aria. She can get through to her, I’m sure.”
The thought that Aria could succeed where I’d failed made me feel like shit. If I woke up in the morning to find that Aria had actually gotten Arden out of The Undersound, it was going to mean that Arden was officially deferring to her judgement more than she ever had to mine. Aria was already such a barrier in my life—so much more in so many areas than I could ever hope to be—I didn’t really want to give her this one thing. It felt like it was the last piece of Arden that I had, and if I gave it to her, I’d lose Arden forever.
“Hey,” Tristan said, bringing me back to attention. “We don’t have to share her actual location so that Aria can always see her, we’ll just tell her where she is. We don’t even have to tell her how you know that. Just that you got a tip or something.”
Tristan immediately identifying my hesitation and understanding it made me emotional. With tears rising to my eyes, I nodded. It wasn’t the time to be selfish. Suli didn’t have Arden’s best interest at heart, but whether or not I liked to admit it, Aria did. Tristan was right.
Aria could get through.
I navigated in my phone to the locations screen and got the exact address of where Arden was, double checking that she hadn’t left the club yet, but she still appeared to be there. I slid it over to Tristan who picked up his phone and started dialing.
