by Charlee Fam
Lesson learned: never trust anyone who says he’ll be designated driver, especially if he’s driving your car.
Adam had gotten the tickets for my birthday, which was the biggest joke of all. It wasn’t really my scene, it was his thing. He’d always been the one to drag me to shows of bands I’d never heard of. But I went along with it. This time, though, it was Jimmy Eat World, a band I actually liked. He jumped at the opportunity for a mutually beneficial birthday gift. Kill two birds with one stone, I guess. But he justified the gift by buying three tickets. Two for us and one for Rachel. It was my seventeenth birthday, so I should celebrate with my best friend and my boyfriend, he’d said, even if the actual show was five months later.
Things had been tense lately, so the third-wheel scenario wasn’t actually a terrible idea. Rachel had made it very, very clear that I’d been spending too much time with Adam, that I’d been ditching her for years now, that all I cared about was my boyfriend, and it was pathetic.
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“What am I supposed to do, Aub? This is supposed to be our senior year. All you two do is fight anyway.” It was true, we fought a lot. But I also only told her about the fights, never the good stuff. I didn’t tell her how the week before, I’d had to pull an all-nighter for my AP lit paper, and he’d shown up at my house with Starbucks and Magnolia Bakery cupcakes, which he’d driven all the way into the city to get.
So the tickets were a birthday gift, five months after my birthday, a night out, which started out fine, where I didn’t have to feel like I was choosing between him and Rachel.
The show was at Stony Brook. Rachel and I took turns swigging Jack and Diet Coke out of a Poland Spring bottle in the back of my Saab. Adam sat in the driver’s seat, drumming his fingers to “Pain.” Rachel took a long sip, wiped the corners of her mouth, and straightened her shoulders. I caught her peering over her shoulder and smiling at a group of college guys tailgating a few cars away.
“Rach, you’re drinking whiskey and soda out of a plastic bottle. Stop trying to be classy.” I meant it as a joke, but her face twisted and contorted into a classic, pissy-Rachel face.
“Seriously,” she said, pushing the bottle back at me. “You should talk.”
“Okay,” I said. “I was joking.”
“Whatever,” she said. I took a swig and handed her back the bottle. She snapped it out of my hand and pulled herself up into the passenger’s seat next to Adam. “Here, why don’t you drink. You’re gonna need it. Your girlfriend is a real bitch tonight.” She turned back to me.
“He’s driving,” I deadpanned, my arms crossed tight over my chest. “And I said I was joking. Jesus.” Her face softened and she smiled.
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“I know. So am I,” she said. But I still couldn’t tell. I never could with her. She propelled herself back to the backseat next to me and took a strand of my hair in her hands. “You should wear your hair up,” she said. “You actually have a pretty face. You’d look so much better if you let me do your hair.” I felt her hot whiskey breath on my neck. “Right, Adam?”
“I think she’s perfect the way she is.” He craned his neck and winked at me—again it was more like a facial tic. All the years we were together, he’d never perfected the wink. Rachel dropped my hair, turned, and pressed her face up against the window, and I can’t be sure, but I swear I heard her sigh.
I climbed into the front seat next to Adam. “Konstantine” started to play through the static of my speakers.
“Our song,” he said, grabbing my hand, and he started to sing in an exaggerated whiny voice.
“Oh my God, gross,” Rachel scoffed, and promptly opened the car door, stepping out into the dusky February air.
“‘It’s always you,’” he sang, loud and off-key. “‘In my big dreams.’” I shook my head, and he quirked a crooked grin and turned off the car.
We were feeling pretty good when the show started. Rachel and I hung back in the outskirts of the mosh pit, dancing with ourselves, while Adam dove into the mosh, slamming his body into a sea of limbs that stank of sweat and gymnasium. A group of college-age guys stood off to the side with cans of Coors in their hands. I could feel their eyes on Rachel, and apparently so could she. She swung her hips, and turned to face them, flashing her famous bedroom eyes.
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During “Work,” one of the college guys, a short stocky kid with a receding hairline, moved in. He held Rachel’s hips and swung his own stiff body awkwardly behind her, burying his face in the back of her neck. They moved like that for a while, rocking their hips back and forth out of sync.
Rachel grabbed my hand and pulled me toward her. I saw Adam out of the corner of my eye; we made quick eye contact and he disappeared back into the mosh pit.
Can we take a ride? Get out of this place while we still have time.
“Dance with me,” she shouted over the music, the stocky guy still grinding up behind her. Rachel held my hands and we moved together, imitating stocky guy’s awful moves. She leaned into me, her breath against my ear.
“Is he hot?” she shout-whispered.
“Not at all,” I said, still dancing. Rachel threw her head back, almost knocking the guy right in the teeth, and busted into a husky cackle.
And then I felt a pair of hands fall onto my hips. I swung around and my face was in this guy’s chest. It felt like seconds, it must have been seconds, but Adam was already grabbing my elbow.
“What are you doing?” he said, his voice sharp. The guy stepped back and disappeared into the crowd. Rachel kept on dancing, her eyes closed, head back, pretending not to notice, but she had this smug, satisfied grin on her face.
“Nothing.” I jerked my elbow away from his grip. “He just grabbed me. Relax.”
Adam’s face was slick with sweat, his hair soaked. “I saw the whole thing. Don’t give me that shit, Aubrey.”
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“You clearly did not see anything if that’s what you think you saw.” He grabbed at my arm again, and I jolted him back. He wobbled on his heels and came back at me with a shove. It wasn’t hard, but just enough to call attention from the bouncers.
“Is this guy bothering you?” one of the security guards asked.
“No, I was just leaving,” Adam said, before thrusting his denim jacket at me and storming off toward the bathrooms.
So fuck him.
Adam’s precious vintage jacket was now drinking puddle water, he was chatting up some pixie-cut little slut, Rachel had disappeared with that short guy, and I’d been drinking water for the past hour trying to sober up enough to drive us home. Happy birthday to me.
I texted Rachel for the fifth time. Where are you? I knew she wouldn’t answer, she never did, but I needed to look distracted. I couldn’t let Adam win.
It wasn’t until the band started packing up, and Adam was on what appeared to be his seventh beer in two hours that I finally cracked.
“I’m ready to go,” I said. The pixie-cut girl looked up at me, a mix of surprise and disappointment on her squinty face. “Sorry to break up your little party.” Adam shrugged at the girl, nodded at me, and walked toward the exit in silence. I followed him, grabbed his shoulder, and swung him around. He stared, cold and hard.
“He grabbed me,” I said. “I didn’t just spend the whole night flirting with some fifteen-year-old.”
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“Whatever,” he said. He smelled of sweat and beer. He shivered when we got out into the parking lot but never asked about his jacket. “Where’s Rachel?”
“I don’t know. Probably off blowing that short guy. She’s not answering.”
“Of course,” he slurred. “What the hell else is new?” Rachel never answered her phone during her drunken disappearing acts. It was like she was testing me. I was sure of it. She’d ignore my texts and calls so I’d have to spend the night tracking her down, and God forbid I went home without her.
“My phone was dead,” she’d whine. “I can’t believe you ditched me. I would nev
er do that to you.” But her phone wasn’t dead. She’d turn it off; it was her way of controlling me while she was off getting hers.
“Keys,” I said, my voice bitter and cold. He reached in his pocket and jammed them into my open hand.
It was nearly midnight, and the air was thin, in the high thirties. We walked side by side through the parking lot, neither of us speaking.
“Hey, Sullivan,” a nasally voice called from near a red Jetta. Adam turned toward the group of guys, tall and muscular. Someone shotgunned a beer while the others leaned against the car smoking cigarettes.
“I hate that guy,” Adam said under his breath, lifting his hand in a reluctant wave, but the guy was already walking over to us.
“Long time no see,” he said, eyeing Adam then shifting his gaze to me. “Who’s your girl?” Adam shook his head and kept walking. The guy stepped in front of us.
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“I’m Greg,” he said, offering his hand to me. I took it, but he didn’t shake, just held my fingers limply. “Me and Sullivan here went to elementary school together.”
“Come on, Aubrey,” Adam said, grabbing my hand from Greg’s and dragging me toward my car.
“Oh man,” Greg said. “You gonna let this guy tell you what to do like that?” I shrugged and followed Adam. “Guess it runs in the family,” he said. Adam stopped and swung around.
“What did you just say?”
“Let’s go, Ad,” I said.
“I said, it must run in the family. You know, rapists.” Greg let out a dry cackle; his buddies at the car grinned and kicked the parking-lot grit with their sneakers.
I let go of Adam’s hand, and he launched himself forward. It was swift and sudden, and before I could react, he was tackling the guy to the ground. A bone cracked, but I couldn’t tell if it was Adam’s fist or Greg’s jaw.
“Let’s go,” I shouted, dragging him to his feet. The other guys were too stunned to do anything. Greg sat up, his hand cupping his jaw.
We got into my car, and Adam’s knuckles were already swollen and purple.
“I think I broke my hand,” he said, and then he lost it, burying his face into my chest. I could feel his body convulsing under me, his sobs dampening my shirt.
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“It’s okay,” I said. “I can take you to the hospital if you want.” I rubbed his shoulder, my own body stiff. I was never good in these situations, but I traced my fingers through his damp hair until his breathing slowed. I felt my body relax, and my breathing fall into pace with his.
When I look back on our relationship, it was in this moment that I loved him the most. Out of all our memories, quips, our secrets, it was here, with his head in my lap, that I felt my love for Adam swell up in my chest and swallow me. Maybe it was his vulnerability, maybe it was mine, but it felt nice to be needed—to be trusted. And for a moment, just a moment, I let myself believe that I needed and trusted him, too.
“Do you believe it?” he said, his eyes still wet. We’d been sitting like that, with his head tucked into my lap, for a half hour.
“Believe what?”
“What they say about Max. That he was a rapist?” I took a breath and sighed. I didn’t really know what I believed. When I knew Max, he was intimidating. But only because I was so young. We kissed. And that was it. I only have good memories of that day. My first kiss. My first drink. My second cigarette. I could have told Adam this. I could have told him that I knew his brother, and that he had only been gentle with me. But I didn’t. It didn’t feel like the right moment. We’d already been fighting, and now he was opening up to me for the first time, and part of me admired that. Part of me resented him for it. But I didn’t want to say anything that would make him regret trusting me. It didn’t feel right to take advantage of that.
“Does it really matter what I think?” I said. “What anybody thinks? He was your brother, and you loved him. What does it matter now?”
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“I try not to think about it,” he said, his jaw locking. “I mean, I know Max was no saint, but I don’t think he would have done something like that. He was a good guy.”
“Well, maybe he was a good guy, and that’s why he couldn’t live with himself. People make mistakes,” I said. “And that’s why he did it. Killed himself, I mean.” I shouldn’t have said it. I knew the second the words left me. But Adam didn’t say anything.
He just sighed and said, “Maybe.”
“Do your parents ever talk about it?”
“No,” he said. “But Max gave me something right before he, you know. I think it might have belonged to the girl. It was jewelry. Why would she give him that? I don’t know,” he said. “It just seems weird for a girl to give a guy their jewelry.” I nodded. It did seem weird. So maybe he took it, and maybe he did hurt her. That’s the only reason I could think of. But I didn’t tell Adam that. We just sat like that for a few minutes, until my phone buzzed from the dashboard. Rachel.
“Answer it,” he said. I pressed the phone to my ear.
“Where are you?”
“Aubrey,” she slurred. “I’m at the beach. I need you to come pick me up.”
“You’re at the beach? How the hell did you end up there?”
“Just come pick me up. Please, Aubrey. I need you.”
Adam sat up in his seat.
“It’s fine,” he said. “I’ll be fine. Just drop me off.” He closed his eyes and leaned back in his seat, cold and detached, like he hadn’t just been sobbing in my chest about his dead brother.
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I PULLED MY Saab up to the opening of the tunnel that separated the parking lot from the shore. The headlights illuminated the Atlantic, all black and foam. I flashed the brights three times—two quick and one long. A sort of Morse code, hoping she would just come and get into the car without a struggle. Two quick, one long, and no response. So I shifted into park and started down the tunnel—the headlights glowing behind me. The wind swept through the hollow path—dust, sand, and even particles of snow swirled at my feet like crawling ghosts. Ahead, I could see the Atlantic, a fog clinging to its surface. My shoulders twitched and I pulled my coat closer to my body.
When I reached the other side of the tunnel, the moon slung against the black sky like a slivered hangnail, and I could see Rachel’s shadow, small and unmoving about a thousand feet away. When I got close enough to see her face, I could tell that her lips were kind of blue and she was breathing slow, like a whimper almost, her knuckles whitening around the neck of a bottle of Pinot Noir.
“What happened?” I asked, plopping down in the sand next to her.
“Nothing,” she said. “That guy was a jerk-off. I gave him head and then all of a sudden he had to go,” she slurred. “Fuck that. I said I’d find my own ride home.”
We stood up and started back toward the car lights, but she’d stop every few steps, the bare balls of her feet pressing into the sand, and her head tilting like it was on a swivel. Her hair stuck to her Pinot-stained lips.
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“You’re my best friend, Aubrey. I love you so fucking much,” she said.
“I know. But it’s freezing, so let’s go.” She fell back into the sand and let out a maniacal giggle that morphed into a high-pitched squeal.
The February wind swept the sand into my face, sharp particles stinging my hands. I reached over Rachel and into my coat pocket for my gloves.
“Did I ever tell you about my first kiss, Aub?”
“With Frank?” Rachel had made out with Frank Webber in eighth grade at Ally’s birthday party.
“No,” she said, still giggling. “My actual first kiss. I was twelve,” she said. “I met the guy online. In a chat room. Remember those? You know A/S/L?”
“Um, no,” I said. “I never heard about this.”
“He said ‘18/m/Queens.’ I said ‘16/F/LI.’ We were both lying, I think.”
“Jesus, Rachel,” I said. “So what happened?” My voice cracked and got really low, and I’m not sure i
f she even heard me. I wasn’t sure if I wanted the responsibility of hearing the answer, but she went on with her story anyway.
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“We talked for a week, or so. Every day after school, when my mom was still at work.” She sounded amused as she recalled the details with such a casual, drunken elegance. “I just really wanted to kiss someone, you know? Or at least to say that I kissed someone. I kind of thought that was a normal thing to want.” She pulled her coat tighter over her shoulders and let her body fall back into the damp sand. “So we made plans to meet up. He said he’d pick me up in the movie theater parking lot. I honestly thought that I would get into his car, we would kiss, and I would leave. And that would be it. We’d both be happy. Maybe we’d see an R-rated movie or something and kiss some more. I remember The Exorcist was playing that week, rereleased. How stupid was I?”
“Rachel, you were twelve. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Twelve and stupid,” she slurred. “Anyway. I was really lucky.” She scooped a handful of sand. “I got into his car. He had the radio on, it was something grungy, like Nirvana, but not Nirvana. If I heard the song, I would know.” She opened her fist, and the sand sifted through her fingers. “He seemed really confident, and I felt really sick. Like, as soon as I shut the door behind me, I just felt like I’d really fucked up, you know?”
