by Ella James
I say, “I love you too.”
I watch him work his jaw and watch his eyes as tears gleam in them.
“I won’t disappoint you, Am. One day, I’m gonna tell you everything.”
“Everything there is to know about Dash Frasier?”
“Everything there is to know,” he says softly.
“I’ll hold you to that.”
And so it is amor fati that stops us as we walk out of the woods. As if the universe is saying “No more waiting. This is happening right now.”
Dash
August 2011
I want to tell her, so damn much. All night at the lake, I want to tell Amelia. So she understands. So she knows that I would never decide not to write or call her. Not calling my sister this year made me feel like an asshole, but not talking to Amelia made me feel like I was dead. I still feel like that. Like the Dash I used to be is gone, and I’m someone different. Someone who can’t stay in Sandy Springs for longer than a day or two. Someone who can never love Amelia Frank.
When she finds me in the bathroom with my pants down, I’m not that surprised. It feels inevitable. I’m surprised to find that I feel pissed off that she’s at the party. That I want to strangle her date. That I want to pick her up and carry her away and lock her up like a princess in a tower. If I can’t have Amelia, no one can.
And then I can’t even hold myself to that.
Why can’t I have Ammy?
Just for one night…
I’m not strong. I can’t keep my hands and mouth off her. I know what the stakes are, but I’m not being logical. I’m just doing what I want for fucking once, and when I’m inside Ammy, I feel like I can breathe.
I tell her that I’m thinking about leaving school. I don’t tell her the truth about why. I tell her all about my time in Providence. I tell her I missed her, and when I make my confession, the stars feel like they fell back into orbit.
This is right.
Maybe it’s wrong in other ways. Maybe it’s fucked up. But it’s right for me, and I’ve been unhappy for so long, I put myself first.
Like a fool.
Because, sometime around sunrise, my sister texts.
‘Stopped by the house to get some fresh clothes. Why is Manda at our house? She said she’s waiting for you?’
Twenty-Three
Amelia
When I first spot my ex-stepmother standing on the Frasiers’ lawn, at first I just blink at her. She’s like a character in the wrong set. I can’t, for the life of me, think why she would be here—until I remember that Dad’s secretary, Kylie, told me in an email that she’d heard Manda had re-purchased our old house.
Last time I saw Manda was at the courthouse with my dad, that day I told her off, so I’m not pleased to see her now. Especially not right now.
I’m waiting for eye contact, so it takes me a few seconds to realize she’s not giving that to me. She’s watching Dash.
She’s got her dark blonde hair pulled into a tight pony-tail, and she’s wearing more eye makeup than I’ve ever seen her in—as well as lipstick. Weird, magenta lipstick that makes her look like an actress in Rocky Horror. She’s also wearing a pink…robe?
She shifts her weight, and I realize yes—I’m seeing spandex as the robe parts slightly in the front. She’s got a royal blue one-piece on, and for some reason, she’s wearing a bath robe over it.
A few seconds looking at Manda, and I can tell there’s something off about her. Her face, which used to be classically pretty, is not just older now, but bloated. Her eyes are red, and her lips look puffy and chapped. Manda is a former gymnast, so she usually looks elegant, but with one arm folded over her belly and the other reaching slightly out in front of her, right now she looks strange in a way I can’t make sense of.
“I saw your car,” she says to Dash, and I realize she must be making a point by refusing to look at me. “I just had to come over and tell you I’m so sorry for your sister. That girl never could get her head screwed on straight. She was always trouble. I thought you had her straightened out.”
I stop because I realize that I’m yanking on dead weight. I’ve got Dash by the hand, but he’s not moving. I turn back and find him frozen, looking aghast.
Fury kicks through me, and I turn toward Manda. “What are you talking about, Manda? Lexie wasn’t trouble. Who the hell are you to say something like that?” In addition to her extreme cheating—with creepishly young guys, mind you—Manda always had a fondness for booze and pills herself, so who is she to judge Lex?
I squeeze Dash’s hand. “I think you’ve said enough. We’d like some privacy now, please.”
Manda throws her head back, laughing. “Oh, you would?” Her voice is low and hoarse.
“Have you been drinking?”
“Drinking?” She shakes her head, looking amused and smug. “I’m going to need a drink!”
I tug on Dash’s arm, as if to say let’s keep walking. He doesn’t move, so I turn fully to face him.
“Dash?” He looks like a statue, one carved out of alabaster.
He blinks slowly at me, seeming to wake up a little. He shifts his gaze to Manda. “Nice to see you, Amanda. I hope you’ve been doing well.”
Amanda?
“Always. Always, my boy. I’m very happy in the house again. I’m soon to be remarried.”
I watch in shock as Dash nods robotically and gives my ex-stepmom a strange, stiff sort of smile. “Congratulations.”
Why does he seem so…concerned with her? And why does she keep staring at him like that?
“Thank you, Dash. It pleases me to know you’re happy for me.”
“Of course.”
I give Dash’s arm another tug, because like, why? There’s no reason to drag this out—Manda is crazy, and I hate her. I don’t think Dash should have to worry about niceties at a time like this, even if it does look like Manda has some kind of weird interest in him.
I’m confused when he still doesn’t move. When I glance at him again and find him stone-still, staring at Manda.
She’s holding her head higher now, looking serene and happy. “So, how have you been?”
“Not great,” he says, blinking.
“Well, of course not. I made a cake for you. A lemon cake. Your favorite.”
I frown, because lemon cake isn’t my favorite; then it dawns on me, she’s still looking at Dash.
“How would you know if it’s his favorite?”
Manda laughs, and finally, she looks at me. “There’s a lot I know that you don’t, Amelia. When you were just a little girl, I knew your neighbor very well.”
“It’s not my favorite,” Dash says flatly.
I let go of his hand, gripped by a strange flush that starts in my chest and quickly spreads through my head and body, like smoke from a fire. “What do you mean, you knew him well?”
Dash still looks like someone froze him, and my heart is beating wildly, fueled by crazy thoughts.
“Why don’t you tell her, Dash?” Manda smiles. She narrows her eyes. “Unless he has already. Are you two an item?” She says “item” in a high-pitched, sing-song voice.
“What are you talking about?”
“Are you fucking him, Amelia?” Her tone is eye-rolly, as if she can’t believe she’s having to explain what “item” means.
“I’m not telling you that! Dash—” I try to catch his gaze and figure out what’s going on, but he’s not looking at me. He’s not looking at Manda, either. He’s staring somewhere off behind her shoulder.
I realize that he’s dropped my hand.
“I take it you must be,” Manda says knowingly. “I heard all about your internship,” she says. “Kylie told me.”
“We’re working together,” I tell Manda in a fuck-off tone. “C’mon, Dash. We need to go.”
I’m not sure what is wrong with him, but warning bells are peeling in my head. I tug his arm, and Dash finally moves. His eyes meet mine—they’re huge—and then I’m dragging him toward hi
s house.
“Bye, Manda,” I call, not looking back her way.
“Nothing else to say? You’re done with me like that?” I whirl around to tell her off, and find her eyes on Dash. This time, I can read her face: she looks like a jilted lover.
Queasiness sweeps through me like a poison.
I can’t see Dash—he’s looking toward her—but I see Manda’s face, I see her eyebrows raise, her mouth stretch into a thin smile. “I can help you,” she says quickly. “I can make you feel good. Not like Amelia. I can help you forget, the way I used to do.”
I sense, more than see, Dash losing it. I see his shoulders rise and fall with mounting frenzy; I can feel his hand tense. “No, Amanda. I don’t need your help.”
All at once, I feel Manda’s attention shift—toward me. “He doesn’t, but he did. Just ask him. Ask him who taught him how to treat a woman. Dash was climbing in my window when you were just a little girl.”
My stomach falls into my knees. I cannot breathe. My heart is booming in my ears as I look desperately at Dash.
He looks like a deer in headlights.
“What’s she talking about?” My words sound high and hollow.
“Dash was half in love with me,” Manda continues, walking toward us. “It was just a little crush,” she says, contradicting herself, “but it was more than that to me. I took it as the highest compliment, that someone smart and talented like Dash would turn his eyes on me. It wasn’t well between your dad and I—you know that now—so I took affection anywhere I could. Dash was of age, so—”
Manda’s words contort as they are sucked into the vacuum of my shock. I look at Dash, prepared to see his face stretched out in rage, and find his features slack. He’s staring at something behind me.
“What is she talking about?”
“Tell her, Dash.” Manda is standing right beside us now. The yard folds around her, like she’s a figure in a snow globe. “Tell her your little secret.”
His eyes shift to mine, blinking dully.
“Tell me what?” I look from him to Manda. “I’m confused!” I want to be confused. “What the fuck is going on?” I think I’m going to be sick.
“I was his first lover. His first love.” Manda grins. “It wasn’t you, Amelia. I know all about your night of passion at the lake when you were young, you little whore. But you came after me.”
And that is all that I can fucking take.
I slap her hard across the face, then turn and run.
Even in chaos, there is logic. I can’t take his car—that much I know—and if I were to hoof it, there’s too many people here who know me and might stop and find me sobbing—so I rush in through a side door, praying that the Frasiers are still gone, and bolt upstairs, where I consider the home theater but opt for the roof. I can’t bring myself to go near Dash’s room, so I fly into Lexie’s, fumble through the window, and start to sob as soon as I get out onto the roof.
“I was his first lover. His first love.”
Can that be true?
What is this?
Oh God, oh my fucking holy hell, shit fuck shit! I get up, needing to move, needing to flee, but I hear car sounds. It could be the grieving Frasiers getting home, so I have to stay put. I crouch and creep on shaking legs around the roof, searching for some spot—for any spot—where I’ll be hidden from the lawn.
I settle on a wide, white windowsill. It’s a laundry room window, a place we never sat when we were kids. With my butt on the window’s ledge and my feet on the tilted shingles, I put my head in my hands and squeeze my temples.
Fuck. Fuck! I can’t believe that this is real! I hate him! I hate HER! Dash was with horrible Manda! I can see her leering at me over one of those monogrammed, insulated cups she uses for her daiquiris. “You look ghostly in that. Green is not your color, Amelia. I don’t think you have a color.”
Dash—with Manda!
I curl my palm over my mouth as bile laps up my throat. Oh, shit. Oh fucking shit, I start to really sob. I should be quiet…because the Frasiers—but I can’t. Because I can’t believe this. Dash is mine, and I feel like he can’t be mine…he wasn’t really mine. My mind races as puzzle pieces snap in place, showing me a picture of my past that I have been denied for years.
Why he went to Rhode Island for college.
Why he never came back home.
Why he couldn’t be with me—“It’s so wrong”—why he left, what Manda must have found out… She found out somehow, I know she must have, why else would he— And I know: he wouldn’t have left me. He wouldn’t have left after the lake if not for Manda. Manda had him first! She was pulling strings! That fucking, fucking whore, that lying whore who cheated on my dad their whole damn marriage!
Dash!
I want to scream that it’s not true, but since it is, I clench my teeth and try to picture younger Dash with Manda, and I can’t. I can’t, I won’t. Why her? She’s so shallow, Dash is smart and…Dash. Why would he want her? Did he even want her? Or did she…?
“Fuck!” I cradle my head in my hands. Why does this kind of shit happen to me?
Fresh tears fill my eyes—and then I hear a car crank. I make it around to the other side of the roof in time to see Dash drive away.
Twenty-Four
Dash
I drive around the neighborhood a few times, wanting really fucking badly to go somewhere and get drunk. I know I can’t. Amelia deserves better. She has always deserved better. And I have always been so fucking selfish.
Since we were kids, I wanted her. I jacked off to thoughts of her when I was fifteen and she was twelve. She barely even had boobs, but I wanted her. Wanting her, not being able to even dream of having her, has been one of the worst trials my life. She’s why I know about amor fati, about philosophy of suffering.
Her stepmother is the other reason.
I drive in circles around Chatham Hills and try to tell myself to calm down. I can tell her. She’ll listen.
Will she, though? What if she doesn’t?
Fuck.
I’m sweating as I drive back home and go in through the front door, so I can avoid my parents.
I check the movie room first, and when she isn’t there, I pray she’s waiting on the roof. She could have called an Uber. Fuck, I hope she didn’t…
I climb out my window, but I don’t see her. I walk carefully across the roof to Lex’s window—and that’s open.
Okay. Shit. I stop a minute. Try to take a few deep breaths. Then I move slowly and carefully around the corner.
I find Am sitting on the ledge of a big window that goes to the upstairs laundry room. She’s got her head down on her knees. When she hears me, I see her body tense. She doesn’t lift her face.
I’m shaking as I sit down, near her feet. Goddamn, my heart is pounding. I want to touch her, but I know I can’t. I don’t deserve to.
“Am…?” She doesn’t move, just shakes her head a little. I shut my eyes, and for a second, I don’t think that I can do it. I can’t talk about this shit—but I push through…for Am.
“Fuck…” I heave a big breath out. “I know you probably hate me right now.” I have to stop and swallow just to keep my fucking voice from breaking. “I just want to talk to you. If you don’t want to hear from me, get up and I won’t follow you. I’ll do anything you want…”
She doesn’t move, so I inhale and exhale, then begin.
“I was…” Fuck. I lick my lips. “I was a junior when your— Manda first came up to me. I was swimming and she came over. You were gone with…Lex somewhere.” I swallow again, because saying my sister’s name makes my throat tight. “I told her that, and she sat down and…watched me swim.”
Amelia lifts her head and glances at me before looking back down at her shoes.
I grit my molars. “She hung around. I didn’t know what the fuck to think. She had a mixed drink, some sort of daiquiri or some shit, and when I got out of the pool, she asked me if I wanted some. I didn’t. She said, ‘maybe just th
e liquor next time’ and winked, and yeah, I thought it was kind of weird and funny that she acted that way. When you’re sixteen, it doesn’t take a lot to make you feel excited about a woman wanting you. You can’t figure out if you’re the shit or nothing. You want everyone to want your dick.”
Her face tightens, and I want to kick myself in the fucking face. I rub my head, clenching my jaw.
“She would come over sometimes, always when no one but me was there, and she would bring shit. Food, one time this lemon cake. Another time a screwdriver. She said she got it for me since she knew I didn’t like the fruity shit.”
“An orange is an actual fruit.” Amelia eyebrows arch, and I let out a nervous laugh.
“Yeah, it is. So that was fucking stupid. Anyway, I got the message that she…liked me. She told me that your— that she heard I was a good artist. She wanted to see my stuff. I still thought she was just being really nice, some kind of proxy mom gone overboard or something. Everybody knew my parents were never here. I kind of liked the mom attention.” I let out a long breath. I can’t look at Ammy anymore.
“She started coming over more. It was the fall of my senior year, and she would wear her bathing suit. She started getting in the pool with me. One time she asked if I could help her with her backstroke. She would ask about school, my friends. She acted like she…you know…gave a shit. About me.” Telling Ammy this shit makes me want to shoot myself, but I continue. She deserves the fucking truth. “She would offer me advice and tell me how mature I was. Tell me I was a man.”
I take a few more breaths, because it’s so fucking embarrassing. So humiliating, even now.
“I was fucking stupid, okay?” My gaze flickers to her face, finding it grave. “When I think about this shit now, Am, it makes me want to claw my fucking skin off, but I didn’t know this then. I was…just stupid.”
