I tried to remember the first song I’d sung for him, but for some reason, the only song that came to mind was “Everything.” I hadn’t written it for him, but it had come to me the same time he had. They were twined together in my memory: new music, new love.
I skipped the first verse completely and started with the chorus. That was the most important part, the one that told him I belonged to him, that he belonged to me. They were my lyrics, embroidered with his words. They slipped from my lips, pure and alive.
“We don’t have to talk. We don’t have to do anything. Be anything. Be everything. This could all be a dream, some impossible dream we once had.”
Drifting off with a smile, Will murmured, “Love you, Sare.”
And though he was sleeping, I hoped he heard it when I said, “I love you, too.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
Because Jane could talk anybody into anything, she got Simon Garza to agree to provide some narration on her movie. Our fearless school paper editor, and part-time voice-over genius, Simon was the perfect choice. Since I had the recording equipment, he and Jane both ended up at my house on the next Saturday morning.
The music room felt crowded with three of us in it. Jane had carted over her ridiculously huge monitor. Hooking it up to her computer, she cursed under her breath as she tried to get the two of them to play together nicely. That left Simon and me waiting patiently for the director to get it together.
Crowding close to Jane, I motioned for Simon to come closer. “C’mere, I want to take a picture.”
Simon leaned in, and Jane shot the camera a dirty look over her shoulder. In the middle, I made a goofy face and texted it to Will with a quick note: movies are serious business y/y?
“Can I see?” Simon asked, reaching for my phone.
Handing it off to him, I twisted the cap off my root beer and settled back to watch him play with the settings. My legs draped over the arm of the chair, I waved my bottle at the screen. “It’s kind of slow if you don’t download your pics every once in a while. But I like it.”
“I told my parents if they wanted to make sure I never ended up in a ditch somewhere, they should get me one.” Simon sighed heavily. “They just laughed at me. I was wounded.”
“That’s a PAYGO, dude. My mom told me if I wanted a cell phone plan that cost a hundred dollars a month, I could get a job and fund it myself.”
Simon pulled up the Twitter app and snorted. “Don’t you get paid for the band?”
An explosion of profanity rose up, and Jane looked like she wanted to kick something. Hard. And repeatedly. Just to be on the safe side, I slid out of my chair and climbed into the other one. My shins were tender, like veal. And Jane wore combat boots.
Sitting right behind Simon, I rested my chin on his head as he scrolled through my timeline.
“Usually just a couple hundred bucks if we play a party or something. And we get twenty percent of the gate at the Eden, but only net, and only out of a third of it, because most people are going upstairs to the dance club.”
Simon rolled his head back to boggle at me. “Are you trying to make me do algebra?”
“Short version,” I told him with a smile, “it’s not much.”
I flipped the screen to the next page on the phone. “Check it out, DigitalMozart app. I can write music in that on the go. And BuzzTune lets me play a piece of music and check to make sure—”
“Ooh, Instagram,” Simon interrupted. He didn’t want to hear about music software either.
Before I could call him a phone-spy, he sucked in a sharp breath. The small screen filled with color first, then resolved into photos. The first shot turned out to be Will, stripped to his boxers again. With his arms tied behind his back. And Hailey in his lap. There was whipped cream involved.
My face burned, and it felt like someone had slapped me. Gritting my teeth, I stiffened as Simon scrolled through what looked like a series of these pictures. It told a very slow motion story, a flipbook of betrayal. Why Will was tied to a chair in the middle of a party, I didn’t know. Why his next-door neighbor straddled his lap with a can of Reddi-wip, I also didn’t know.
My stomach churned. Our silence attracted Jane’s attention, and she came over to look. She, at least, had words for the situation. “Oh, fuck that noise.”
When she reached for my phone, I stayed her hand. “No, I want to see the rest of them.”
Now uneasy, Simon glanced back at me. “Are you sure?”
No, I wasn’t. But I had to look anyway. These pictures were public, probably linked up from Twitter, too. Each new shot added another lead weight in my belly. It turned out there were girls stripped down to bras and undies also tied to chairs. And then, when they weren’t tied down, they were all dancing.
Sweaty, red-faced, drunken dancing. Shades of blonde and brunette streaked through the shots, girls in motion. In one, Will was sandwiched between what appeared to be twins. Or if they weren’t twins, they were doppelgängers. Will had his head thrown back, laughing. All three held plastic cups in the air—the universal sign of club or party dancing.
But what angered me the most was that it always came back to Hailey. Hailey with an arm around his waist. Will with an arm around her neck, kissing the top of her head. The two of them standing on a starlit porch, apparently howling at the moon. That one was tagged #hotasswerewolves.
I felt humiliated. I felt furious. I hated them so much.
“I will drive all night to kick his ass,” Jane said. She made the executive decision to close the app and toss my phone onto the far couch. But even that wasn’t far enough.
Though bile rose into my throat, I forced a smile. “That’s Hailey. They’re just friends.”
Simon and Jane managed to swivel in perfect time. Their faces were identical: completely dumbfounded. And they both looked like they wanted to school me in common sense.
Now, I felt like an idiot. That whole setup with the fake fruit and the basket and everything, just to play me? All that big, blue-eyed sincerity, oh he wanted to wait for the real thing . . . Probably an easy thing to say, since it looked like he didn’t have to wait long.
Wriggling out of the chair, Simon slid to his knees in front of it. With imploring eyes, he looked up at me. “Sarah. As a friend, who’s a guy, I want you to believe me when I say this.”
“It’s fine,” I protested.
“That boy is cheating on you,” Simon continued. With Jane as his hallelujah choir, he refused to listen to my protests. Instead, he put a hand on my knee and tried to make me meet his gaze. “Guys let girls sit on their laps for one reason. It’s the same reason they give random, ‘friendly’ shoulder massages. It’s because they want to get some.”
It was so hard to hold my emotions in. Not because I thought Simon was wrong. But because I thought he was right. Of course Will was cheating on me. He couldn’t make it more obvious. Slow callbacks, slow text backs . . . his online accounts full of pictures of other girls—of one other girl in particular.
The one who answered his phone for him and didn’t give him messages from me. The one who giggled in the background when I did manage to get a little face time with him. So cute, with her freckles and her guitar, and her easy access, just one door down. Maybe she was the reason Will wasn’t up for cam sex. He could have already gotten the real thing, then called me up just to make the date.
I was so, so stupid. And so humiliated.
Patting Simon’s face, I looked from him to Jane. “Guys, really. I appreciate the righteous fury, but it’s so not necessary.”
Simon blinked. “Excuse?”
“He’s rushing that frat. They keep posting stupid pictures of their parties. A couple days ago, he had to stand in a corner in a diaper, with a sign that said, Ask me about my grandma.”
The sheer force of will it took to keep Jane from rolling her eyes at me was visible.
I appreciated the restraint, I really did. Her mouth twisting up in a grimace that couldn’t quite make it to a smile, she said, “Would he be okay with it, if that was you in that picture and some other guy in your lap?”
It burned like acid to say it, but I managed to get it out. I even managed to sound convincing. “He would. We trust each other.”
“Uh . . .” Jane started.
“I’m going to see him this coming weekend,” I said suddenly. I didn’t know where the words came from, but they tumbled out of me before I could stop them. It was a lie. A filthy, dirty, 100 percent false lie. But it should have been true. Maybe it could be. I could text Will, or call, or e-mail, or send him stupid semaphore messages on Instagram since he just couldn’t stay off it, and say, How about this weekend? Us together for real. I need this.
Suspicious, Jane narrowed her eyes. “You didn’t tell me that.”
I slid to my feet. “We talked about it last night. I forgot to mention it.”
My friends watched me move through the room like I was a tennis match. I felt cornered and picked apart. It was bad enough that Will was getting whipped cream rides from Hailey, in full, blazing, hipstamatic color.
I couldn’t take Simon’s pity. And I didn’t want Jane’s sympathy. She wouldn’t even be a big enough bitch to say, “I told you so.”
Pointing down the hall, I said, “I’m gonna grab some sodas. You guys thirsty?”
I didn’t wait for them to answer.
~
The way I saw it, I had a choice. I could text Will once and wait for him to get back to me. Or I could text him 1,200 times in four hours and let him think I was crazy. I settled for once every hour, which was more than splitting the difference.
Though I wanted to fling accusations and demand answers, I kept my cool. At least, I kept it cool digitally.
Jane’s doc is coming along, think u’d really like it.
Sleeping late?
That was some party on instagram. More rush stuff?
Where are you?
As the hours ticked by, I grew more and more livid. Each text that went unanswered only fueled my anger. He hadn’t been too busy to upload an entire night of debauchery from his phone, but he couldn’t be bothered to respond to me.
I must have been pacing too loudly, because suddenly Grace appeared at my door. Leaning in, she squinted at me. “Everything okay? Sounds like you’re boxing an elephant up here.”
With that simple question, she opened my Pandora’s box. Everything I’d kept in. Everything I’d refused to say to Jane and Simon. Perhaps because I knew exactly how Grace would react. I wanted someone to rage with me. I felt so stupid for trusting him.
Sweeping over to her, I pulled up whipped cream and bondage on my phone and thrust it at her. With a defiant tilt to my chin, I splayed my hands on my hips and said, “You win. You were right.”
Grace’s expression faltered. She might have even paled a little. I guess I’d forgotten that she was the modest sister. The one that had never owned a two-piece bathing suit in her life and didn’t like going to the beach because everyone else did. She’d probably just seen more of my boyfriend than she’d seen of hers in the last four years.
Handing the phone back, she looked at me sadly. “I didn’t want to be.”
“You want to know what’s crazy?” I asked her.
“What?”
My voice rasped furiously. “I’m not hurt. I’m pissed. At him, because he said all the right things. From the very first time we kissed, it was like he knew me. I did so many things I shouldn’t, because I thought we were soul mates or something. But apparently, he just has a deep, sociopathic ability to figure out what a girl wants to hear.”
Stepping into my room, Grace frowned. Concern dotted her brow as she held a hand out to me. “Sweetie, what kind of things?”
As angry as I was, there were some things I didn’t want to admit. It haunted me that Will and I cheated in order to get together. I felt that with a raw, rising shame now. What he was doing to me right now, I’d done to Dave. He’d done to Tricia.
Sucking in a sharp breath, I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter. I knew what I was doing. So shame on me. And shame on me, because you warned me. Oh my God, you warned me, and I bit your head off about it. I’m so sorry.”
Grace folded her hands together primly. “I don’t hold grudges.”
“So what do I do?” I asked her. “You’ve been here. What happens next?”
Carefully, Grace said, “Well. First you have to talk to him. Confront him, because you won’t be able to move on until you know the whole truth.”
Bitter laughter bubbled out of me. “That would be so great, except he won’t return my calls!”
“Then, you make a good faith effort. Give him a reasonable amount of time to answer. And if he doesn’t . . . then consider that his answer.”
Before Grace could say anything else, my phone rang. Or rather, it purred, “Hey, Athena.” Pointing at it, I told her, “That’s him,” before turning away to answer.
~
The connection was terrible. Not only did static run the line, loud music blared in the background. The unmistakable sounds of yet another party roared on, and I wondered, how many parties could one person go to in twenty-four hours?
“Will?” I said. Then I raised my voice. “Will, are you there?”
The line broke up. There was a flicker of silence, then Will’s voice finally filled my ear. “I can barely hear you!”
Obviously. Why move to a quieter spot to talk to his girlfriend? It was like he oozed contempt for me. Stalking the edge of my rug again, I knotted my hand in my own hair. “What the hell is going on over there, Will? Have you seen your Instagram account lately?”
Bits and spikes of sound came through the line: “. . . initiation . . . Tyler Stackhouse . . .”
“I’m not okay with this,” I shouted. Then I hunched my shoulders, looking back at Grace. She was kind enough to be mortified for me. Receding into the hall, she disappeared from sight.
“Wanted to talk to you before you saw those,” Will said.
A shriek blared through the phone, and I held it away from my head. Between the music and the people, I wasn’t sure I was hearing everything Will had to say. Then again, what could he possibly say that would fix any of this? Nothing. I couldn’t think of one single thing.
Short, I said, “Then you probably should have called me back last night.”
“. . . give me the benefit of the doubt . . . just a couple more things I have to do, and things will be back to normal.”
I sat on the edge of my bed. “I don’t know what normal is for us anymore.”
Will said nothing. The quiet stretched out, and though I could make out the crush of the party on the other end, I wasn’t sure the connection was good anymore. Or if Will was just ignoring me. Either one seemed so imminently possible that I just sat there. I waited.
“Will?”
Still nothing. So I pressed my thumb across the face of my phone to hang it up. All my emotions drained out, ushering in a quiet, cottony indifference. Numb instead of pain, and I welcomed it. Staring down at my own toes, I didn’t look up when Grace reappeared.
“What did he say?” she asked. She had to; all she could eavesdrop on was my side of the conversation.
Flatly, I repeated what little I’d heard. The benefit of the doubt. Things would be back to normal. He wanted to warn me about the pictures. With each non-explanation, Grace murmured her commiseration. Trailing her fingers along the frame of my door, she waited until I finished talking.
“You know what?” she said. “Somebody incredibly wise once told me, ‘You’ll get through this. Something better is waiting for you.’ I didn’t believe it at the time. But I do now. I really do, and I believe it for you, too.”
I stilled.
Maybe she was right. Maybe something better was waiting. Someone. I thanked her and waited for her to leave. And then I carefully typed out a few words and sent them into the ether. Can I come over?
Then I counted, one-Mississippi, two-Mississippi, and on three, I got my reply.
Absolutely, Dave replied. I’m always here for you.
TWENTY-NINE
At night, Dave kept the garage door half-open.
It let in slants from streetlights and the glow of moonlight. The concrete floor flickered when cars drove by. A couple of lamps on the workbench illuminated a small circle, and the rest of the studio space faded into dark. It was quiet—peaceful. I was glad that my spot on the couch fit as perfectly as ever.
“I was surprised you texted,” Dave said, offering me a cup of coffee before sitting down. Pulling his right ankle up onto his left knee, he spread out in his corner of the couch. Arm trailing the back of it, his fingers plucked at the old plaid upholstery. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad you did.”
Curling around the heat of my mug, I nodded. “I appreciate it. I know things have been rough for you lately.”
“Actually.” Dave’s brows lifted thoughtfully. “I’ve been all right. Better than I have been in a long time.”
With a sip from my cup, I peered at him. “I’m glad to hear that.”
“I’ve had some time to sort myself out. Clearing out the studio, breaking out of old habits . . . it’s been good.”
“You look good,” I told him.
It wasn’t a lie. No matter how many times I noticed his new clothes, the way he stood now, the way he walked into a room with the calm assurance that he commanded it—it all still surprised me. All this time, this next, best version of himself had been waiting to appear. I couldn’t help but wonder if it was my fault it had taken him so long to get here.
Thoughtful, Dave said, “You look tired.”
Closing my eyes, I nodded. Weeks of staggered schedules had caught up with me. My face showed all those nights that I’d gone to bed after two just to get back up at six. It seemed reasonable. My last year in high school was mostly a formality. It was imperative that Will do well his first year of college. So I was the one who bent, and bent, and now I was in Dave’s garage, slightly broken.
While You're Away Page 21
