by Rachel Del
Alex
I knew why she did it. I knew her, knew that she needed to find a way to feel alive. To find a way to prove to herself that her father leaving didn’t mean the end of her. I knew why she did it, but I so wish she hadn’t. Because I thought she was better than that. I thought she knew that a relationship was sacred.
“Do you feel better?” I asked, doing my best to hide the judgment in my voice.
She looked at me sadly. “I thought it would be a good thing, Alex. I thought that a night out of my comfort zone would somehow change me. I hadn’t gone out expecting to go home with someone. It kind of just happened. And as it was happening I thought, maybe this is just what I need, that being with someone other than Matt would change me.”
“And? Did it?”
Her shoulders dropped. “It did, just not the way I hoped it would. Instead of feeling empowered I feel … torn open.”
“I mean, what did you expect, Pen? That turning into someone else for a night was going to solve your problems?”
“No. No that’s not what I thought at all.” Her brows furrowed. “Why are you being like this? I thought you would understand—”
I tossed my hands into the air. “Why would I understand? I’ve never cheated on anyone before.”
She fell silent and I closed my eyes, wishing that I could take back my words. “I’m sorry, I just … I get that you’re feeling lost since your dad left, but I just want you to be smarter, Pen. There are other, better ways to find yourself.”
Her tears caught me by surprise. In all our years of friendship I had never seen her cry. As emotional as she was, that was one thing she simply didn’t do, at least not in front of me. I slid over on the couch and pulled her into my arms.
“Can I say something without you jumping down my throat?”
Her response came in a whisper against my chest. “That depends on how much of what you’re about to say is going to anger me.”
I felt her smile.
“I think your mom is right about therapy. I think it might help you. I love you, but you’re different.”
She pulled her body away from mine, swiping a hand across her wet cheeks. Her eyes darted away from me. No matter how I felt about what she was doing, it was evident that she was waging an internal war with herself.
“Okay.”
My eyebrows jumped. “Okay? What does that mean?”
“It means that I don’t disagree with you. But …” She paused for effect, “I like that I’m different.”
I looked at her sadly. “Okay.”
“Okay,” she said and closed her eyes as she leaned back against my chest. I wrapped my arms around her and allowed my eyes to flutter closed.
I knew why she did it, but I so wish she hadn’t.
Chapter 6
Penny
I was back in that beige room, sitting across from Dr. Scott, telling him how I fell from grace.
“So, what happened then?” he asked, I thought, unnecessarily.
I locked my hazel eyes on his. “After the bar, Nick took me back to his place.”
Dr. Scott nodded, encouraging me to continue, and it’s almost as though I’m back in Nick’s bedroom. I can practically feel his stiff, cheap sheets under me; can almost smell him under my fingernails. It felt so real that his thick, soft lips may well have been traveling down the curve of my body at that very moment.
“We slept together.”
I was relieved that his face seemed to reveal little emotion. After Alex’s reaction, I welcomed it, craved it. I wanted a relief from the judgment.
“Are you still with—” he glanced at his notepad briefly. “—Matt?”
Again, there was no judgment behind his words.
“I am.”
He rested his chin on his hand and watched me silently.
“I know it’s bad,” I said.
“Why do you think it’s bad?”
“Because I cheated on him. I cheated on him with someone I just met and don’t care about.”
“Would it have been different if you had been with someone you knew? Someone you cared about?”
I shook my head. “Of course not. Cheating is cheating.”
“Have you told Matt what happened?”
“It’s only just happened. I don’t quite think I’ve even had time for it to sink in.”
Lie.
Dr. Scott scribbled something on his notepad. “Are you thinking of telling him?”
I shrugged, though, of course, I already made up my mind.
Dr. Scott’s mouth formed into a tight line. “Do you regret it?”
“Not really. I know that sounds bad, but hear me out. Even though it hurts like hell, being with Nick was freeing in a sense. It was as though he had noticed a tiny little tear in me, stuck his fingers in and ripped me right open.”
Dr. Scott cocked his head to the side. “Do you think you’re broken, Penny?”
“Broken, no. A little empty … yes.”
“And Nick helped fill you up … pardon the pun.” He smirked at me. It was the first time he had spoken to me as though we were two friends simply having a conversation instead of a patient talking to her therapist. I had to push the idea of sitting across from him over coffee from my mind.
“Oh God, no. He was just something I needed to get out of my system.”
He considered this for a moment.
“It’s kind of like I’m looking for someone or something to make me whole again.”
He smiled kindly. “You know I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t tell you that only you can fix yourself.”
I thought of Matt.
“Why do you love me?” I had asked him one night, months before I’d known that my family was about to implode. We were in the middle of watching Donnie Darko for what felt like the hundredth time. True to his nature, he paused the movie and turned to me, giving me his full attention. He didn’t ask why I wanted to know. He wasn’t annoyed that I had interrupted the movie with such a mundane question. Instead, he smiled. “You’re beautiful, Pen. And you’re smart and driven. You keep me on my toes.”
He continued to watch me, apparently waiting for a follow-up comment or question. But I had none. Instead, I said, “you can un-pause the movie.”
He did, and for the next forty-three minutes I watched Jake Gyllenhaal take orders from a deranged rabbit and did my best to swallow down the knot that had lodged itself in my throat.
From the very beginning, our relationship was one built on trust and honesty. There was nothing that I could say that would scare him off, nothing that we couldn’t talk our way through. So when Monday rolled around and he picked me up in his beat up, old Honda Civic for our weekly movie night, I had barely planted my butt on the passenger seat before I word-vomited all over him. “Do you ever feel like you’re so far from being the person you want to be?”
“Not really,” he said, cool as a cucumber as we backed out of my parent’s driveway and drove off.
I thought about all the parties I hadn’t gone to, all the men I hadn’t met, all the drugs I hadn’t done. All the times I had said no without so much as a second thought. All the adventures I had missed. And suddenly, I was angry. With myself. With Matt. With life.
I was determined not to waste one more minute living life the way I had for the past twenty-one years.
“Is that how you feel?” he asked, keeping his eyes glued to the road.
I sucked my bottom lip between my teeth, thinking. Finally, I said, “There’s just a lot about my life that I wish I could change. And I wonder if I would’ve been happier if I had made some different choices.”
“Like what?”
I wasn’t sure how to answer his question. “I don’t know. A lot of tiny things.”
“I think you should always do whatever it is that makes you happy, Pen.”
I looked out the window and watched the houses and palm trees roll by. “Maybe I’ll spend the summer traveling,” I said.
Matt was quick to respond. “That’s great. I think that everyone should take time off after college.”
I frowned. “But you aren’t.”
“That’s true,” he said, “but you should.”
I hadn’t thought of it at all until recently. I hadn’t thought of a lot of things until recently. But it seemed my mind had known what was coming just around the corner.
“Maybe I should go out with the girls more. They’re always inviting me out and I always say no.”
“Do you think that spending more time drinking with Ash and Natalie will make you happier?”
“Well, no, but I should spend more time outside of my own head and with people other than you,” I said.
“You should go. You’d have fun.”
I’d already turned down their invite for the following night, but there was still time to change my mind. “What I’d really like to do is write a book.”
Matt pulled up to a stop light and looked over at me. “Really?”
I don’t know why it felt so strange to admit it to him. “Yeah,” I said, shyly.
His large eyebrows furrowed together. “What would you write about?”
“I don’t know,” I said, trying to brush it off. “Life?”
“Your life?” he asked, and pulled away from the intersection.
“Sure, why not?”
He did that thing he always did; where he pinched his tongue between his front teeth. It was his way of biding time.
“Am I not interesting enough for you?” I asked.
His face softened. “It’s not that at all. I just… don’t take this the wrong way ok? But you haven’t really done much, have you?”
I had been a weaker version of myself then. One who didn’t stand up for myself. One who let people walk all over me because I didn’t know I had any other choice.
“You don’t know everything about me,” I had said. Whispered, really.
“I know, Penny. I didn’t mean it that way,” he said. We pulled into the expansive parking lot in front of the theatre. Matt quickly found a spot and turned off the ignition. “I mean, you read a lot, you know what books are usually like. Some grand adventure, some great love. Sex, drugs, rock and roll.” He smiled when he said the last part. “Your life is just more… textbooks and plaid, button down shirts.”
I hadn’t disagreed with him. I hadn’t said anything, really. Because his words were true. They were so true that I felt them pierce my skin, implanting themselves in my bones.
I lifted my head slowly, and met Dr. Scott’s gaze. “You’re right.”
And I thought of Matt again. Your life is just more… textbooks and plaid, button down shirts.
Well, I’d show him.
Chapter 7
Alex
My car wouldn’t start, the damn thing. This was nothing new. It had been my mom’s car for a few years before being passed down to Patrick, then Amy, and finally, it recently landed in my lap. Honestly, I’d rather have no car at all then be seen driving that heap.
Besides work, I didn’t really go anywhere. And Penny, who had easy access to her mom’s car, spent most of her time at my place anyway. Other than that there was only the odd night out with Talon to worry about.
I released a deep breath and turned the ignition once more. The car slowly sputtered to life.
I made it halfway down the block before my phone buzzed on the seat next to me. A picture of Amy, my older sister, popped up on the cracked screen.
I hit the accept button and lifted the phone to my ear. “Hey, Ames.”
“Hey, you busy?” I heard the unmistakable sound of screaming children in the background.
“Nah, just driving to work. But you sound like you have your hands full.”
She huffed. “Just another day in the life over here. I don’t blame them, really, do you like going to the doctor?”
“Nope, never.”
She laughed.
“I don’t know how you’re around sick kids all day and then have the energy to go home and do anything but veg out on the couch for the rest of the evening. You’re basically my hero.”
I could tell she was smiling.
“Listen, I heard about Penny’s parents. How’s she handling it?”
I chuffed. “Oh, my God, word sure does get around fast in this family.”
“You know mom. She’s basically the gossip queen. Someone with that kind of memory and that much time on her hands has nothing better to do than spread idle gossip.”
I’d forgotten how good it felt to have someone on my side, someone who knew what it was like to have my parents. “Penny is being Penny.”
I heard some shuffling and then she said, “What does that even mean?”
“It means that besides a little bit of acting out, she’s being pretty mute about it while she works it all out in her head. I give it a few more days — a week, maybe two, before she has a meltdown. I’m just trying to stay close and keep in her ear so that I can be around to soften her landing when she falls.”
Amy clicked her tongue. “You’re such a nice friend.”
“Yes, I am a nice friend, aren’t I?”
She exhaled loudly. “You mark my words, little brother; one of these days you’re going to realize that Penny’s the girl for you. You better make it soon before she marries that dolt of a boyfriend of hers.”
“Actually,” I said, choosing to ignore most of her comments, “I think she might finally be realizing that the dude is about as exciting as a rock. She’s been pushing him away lately, which I will admit makes me pretty damn happy.”
“Oh I bet it does.”
I chuckled, and moved the phone to my other ear as I pulled into a parking spot and killed the ignition. “I’ll let you go, Ames. You sound like you have your hands full over there.”
“Always. Listen; come visit before the end of the summer, okay? It’s been months since we’ve seen you and your nieces miss you.”
I smirked. “They’re three, Amy. They don’t know what it means to miss someone.”
“Nice try. Get your ass out here as soon as you can.”
I hit the end call button and tossed my phone back onto the passenger seat, sighing. I would love to visit them in Boston, but I simply couldn’t afford it. Road trips to California where you survive on beef jerky and beer, I could do. Plane tickets and airport food, I could not. Not unless my boss had a lobotomy and started paying me what I was worth.
I glanced up at the building, and the job, that continued to suck the life out of me for two years running. One day soon, Alex, you’re going to have to get a hold of yourself, of your life, I reminded myself. One day soon you need to move up and on to better things.
Chapter 8
Penny
I had no choice but to get the hell out of Las Vegas. I tried, I really did. I tried to talk to Matt, to find comfort in him, but it hurt too much. How could he help me when every time I looked at him, I saw my father’s reflection in his eyes? How could he help me when I was doing everything in my power to push him away? Running away just seemed like the best option.
Except, I wasn’t really running away. I was just getting some air, like Alex had suggested.
“Not that I care, but where are we going, anyway?”
I directed my question towards Alex, but I was looking at his shorter, red-headed friend whose name I couldn’t remember. Tyler. Travis. Something like that. It didn’t really matter. All that mattered was that he had a beat up 90’s Mustang with peeling paint and was currently transporting our sorry asses out of the state. Alex’s car wasn’t road trip worthy and I hadn’t wanted to use my mom’s car. This left us with only one choice, to bring in someone else.
“We aren’t sure yet,” Alex said, looking briefly at his friend and then back at me with a smile.
“When you told me you wanted to get out of town, I called up Talon and told him we needed him.”
I was thinking about what kind of parents name their kid Talon when he c
ut through my thoughts.
“I suggested we just drive into California and see where the road takes us.”
I sighed and sat back into the seat. “As long as I’m out of that house and away from Matt, you could drive me to Hawaii for all I care.”
Talon caught my eye in the rearview mirror. “Hawaii’s an island.”
“It was just an expression.”
He shrugged. “So your parents are getting divorced, huh? That sucks. Were they fighting a lot?”
It was a valid question, and the truth was that I didn’t know. I hadn’t paid enough attention. “My dad would’ve had to have been around for them to fight.”
“Ah, so he cheated.”
I heard the unmistakable sound of fist meeting bicep.
“Ow, shit. Sorry.”
My face crumpled. “Nah, it wasn’t like that. At least I don’t think so.”
Talon took his eyes off the road to look back at me huddled in the backseat. The car swerved slightly to the right but he quickly corrected it. “Los Angeles or San Bernadino?” he said suddenly, “left or right?”
Alex and I both said right.
It had to be annoying being around us. We were constantly finishing each other’s sentences. I even spent more time with him than I did with Matt, which drove Matt absolutely crazy, but I wasn’t about to be one of those girls who gave up her life and friends once a boy started paying her attention.
“I can’t believe your mom let you come with us. No offense.”
“She doesn’t know.”
Talon looked at me in the rearview mirror again, as Alex craned his body around to face me. “She is going to shit a brick.”
I released a long, deep breath. “I know.”
I hadn’t thought much about what I was doing, getting into the car with them that morning. But I didn’t want to. I wanted only to feel something. I wanted to do something I wouldn’t normally do. I wanted to chase that high and the ultimate feeling of giving up control. And this time I knew enough to know that I couldn’t find it between some new guy’s legs.
