by L. Philips
Is that what I want to do? Erase Landon, or, at least, the painful stuff involving him? On one hand it seems like a good idea. On the other, I might wind up in the exact same place I’m in now. Then I would need someone to erase Gus, then someone to replace him, and so on.
I open my mouth to question Gus’s methods, but his phone dings and he stops to fish for it in the pocket of the hoodie he’s wearing. He takes it out, glances at the screen, and grins.
“Friend from home?”
His head snaps up as if he’s surprised I’m still in the room with him. “What? Oh, oui. I zink zey miss me,” he says, and winks.
“I’m sure they do.” I watch him type something back and lean over a little to see the screen, but the words are meaningless to me. For all I know he could be typing back nursery rhymes. “Do you miss them?”
Gus’s face falls a bit, just enough to be noticeable. “Yes. Eet ees ’ard to be away, zough I ’ave found very good company ’ere.”
Yesterday I would have gone all light-headed at the compliment, but today I’m not quite mollified. There’s something nagging at me, in the back of my head. Lots of what-ifs and unanswered questions, and they’re all pestering me in a voice that sounds remarkably like Meg’s.
“Is this the same friend that called you last night? And the night before?”
Gus’s face goes blank and I can’t tell what he’s thinking. He nods slowly. “Oui.”
“And she . . . or he . . .”
“’E,” Gus says, voice muted so that I barely hear him.
“He,” I correct, “is just a friend?”
“Just a friend.” Then Gus gives me a strange smile, a pitying smile. “Samson, you ’ave nozing to worry about. I am ’ere. Wiz you.”
I stare at him for a moment, searching for any signs of lying in his eyes, but I don’t see any. Then he leans in and kisses me. It’s sweet, deep, and reassuring, making my insides go all mushy, and suddenly I don’t give a damn who was on the phone.
Gus is right. He’s here, with me. He’s really and truly mine. And Meg can take all her insinuations and distrust and shove it.
The week passes so fast that it barely registers as a blip on my radar. Gus and I walk home together every day and we talk on the phone every night, but it’s the weekend that means we can spend hours at a time together, and I live for that. That’s when he feels most like my boyfriend; like this is real and not one of my daydreams.
Milo Jenkins is having a party at his house on Friday because his parents left him home alone while they went to Hawaii, which is a really stupid idea, but I’m not going to complain. Athens High hasn’t had a good house party since the summer, and we’re all a little itchy to get out of control and start another fresh batch of rumors.
Gus and I head there (so that he can see how Americans party, I tell him. It’s all educational, right?) and I know Meg and Landon are going to put in appearances too, hopefully sans Michael, but I doubt I’ll get that lucky.
Milo’s house is on the good side of town, close to Landon’s, so I borrow my dad’s car. It’s a five-year-old Toyota Camry but it does the job. Gus holds my hand on the middle console, and I smile all the way there.
Cars are practically parked on top of each other in the old narrow street, and as soon as we get out of the car we can hear the bass line of music thumping in the distance.
“Eet ees almost like ’ome,” Gus says, a mischievous grin on his face.
“Loud music and teenagers drinking?” I chide.
“Somezing like zat,” he says, laughing.
We don’t knock because the front door is standing wide open. The inside of the house is packed. Just one cursory glance around the bottom floor tells me that most of the senior class is here, as well as a healthy smattering of juniors and sophomores. Gus waves to a couple of people he knows from the jazz ensemble, and I tell him to go talk while I grab a few drinks. The smell of cheap beer leads me to the back of the house where a keg is sitting in the center of a sunroom behind the kitchen. It’s quieter here, and surprisingly empty considering it’s where the beer is.
“Should have known this is where I’d find my friends,” I say. Meg’s sitting on Michael’s lap in a little wicker chair, plastic cups in their hands, looking about two seconds away from tearing each other’s clothes off, and Landon’s leaning up against a long window, somehow managing to look both appalled and bored.
“Oh thank god,” Landon murmurs and makes his way to me, keeping his voice pitched low so only I can hear. “Save me. They’ve been making out all night.”
“Disgusting,” I whisper back, and grab two plastic cups before pumping foamy beer for both me and Gus. “Come back inside. I’m giving Gus the full American teenager experience tonight.”
“Oh?” Landon asks, and we wave at Meg and Michael as we head deeper into the house, as if they even notice us. “You two doing okay?”
We shoulder our way through, passing classmates who are dancing or laughing, and the music is so loud I have to shout. “Of course. Why wouldn’t we be?”
“No reason,” Landon says, and even with his voice at a yell, I can hear he’s lying.
“Ugh, not you too!” I snap, whirling around to face him. Beer spills on the floor. “Between you and Meg, I don’t need a mother.”
“What? Am I not allowed to be worried about you now that you have a boyfriend?”
I ignore his question and ask one of my own. “Did she tell you about the phone calls?”
Landon winces, sheepish, and that’s all the answer I need.
“It’s nothing. Okay? I talked to him about it and he explained. It’s just friends from home, nothing more. Stop your worrying and stop making me so freaking paranoid. Everything’s fine.”
That shuts Landon up, even though I can tell he’s literally biting his tongue so that he can’t say more. I roll my eyes and continue toward Gus, who I left somewhere in the front room of the house. Landon follows, a few steps behind, as if he’s scared that any minute I could round on him again.
When I see Gus, I have to smile. He’s on one of Milo’s horrid floral-print couches with his back to me, surrounded by his fellow jazz players, and it’s like he’s holding court—a king among peasants. He’s in the middle of telling a story that has people laughing, hanging on his every word, and I don’t interrupt. I lean over his shoulder and dangle the beer in front of his face, and he stops talking to thank me with a peck on the lips.
“Mon amour, do you know my friends?” Gus tugs on my arm, and I let him tug until my free arm is wrapped around him. I shoot a glance back to Landon, whose eyes dart away from me, and he takes a big swig of his beer. Gus introduces me to the jazz ensemble, even though I went to elementary school with most of them, and I don’t bother introducing Landon because I know all of them are at least friendly acquaintances of his. Then Gus goes back to his story and lets go of me. I settle in an overstuffed armchair across from him and make myself a peasant too, listening to his musical voice as he spins a tale about a night involving sneaking into an underground club in Paris. Landon follows because I guess the risk of me yelling at him again isn’t nearly as bad as watching Michael eat Meg’s face, and perches on the arm of my chair.
It doesn’t take long. Maybe fifteen minutes of happiness where I forget about Meg’s suspicions and Landon’s concerns, where all I do is watch my gorgeous French boyfriend work the crowd like a freaking pro, and then his phone rings.
Before his ringtone stops I hear him apologize to his friends for the interruption. I look up, and his brown eyes catch mine, so I stand and walk to him.
“Friends?” He nods, his eyes wide and sad-looking. “Go upstairs and talk. I’m sure there are a few bedrooms that haven’t been claimed yet.”
“I am sorry, Samson.”
I shake my head at him and do my best to smile. “Go. Just don’t miss too much o
f the party, okay?”
I watch him climb the stairs, his phone pressed to his ear, then I sit back down next to Landon. The music seems even louder than before; the thump-tha-thump of the bass is drilling into my brain. I close my eyes and rub my temples. When I open them again, the jazz kids have all moved on to more entertaining things and I feel alone with Landon, even though we’re surrounded by our classmates.
“You okay?”
“Yeah, I think,” I answer him, rubbing harder at my temples. “When he left, did he look . . . I don’t know . . .”
“Guilty?” Landon suggests, using the word I was thinking even though it’s the last word I want to hear. “Yeah, he did.”
Landon’s hand is on my back, comforting and warm, and I lean into his touch. “I like him so much, Landon. He’s charming and he’s smart and he’s wonderful.”
“He is all that,” Landon agrees. “But that doesn’t mean he’s not a liar.”
He leans down, resting his head on mine. I feel his unruly hair against my curls. “Tell me what to do.”
“I can’t do that.”
I nod slowly, understanding. This isn’t Landon’s battle. I sit with him a few minutes longer, stalling. Someone needs to turn down the music. My brain is pounding in time to some rapper I don’t even recognize and every beat thrums against my nerves and makes me want to jump or scream.
Then suddenly I’m standing. “I’m going to go find him,” I hear myself say.
“I’ll be here,” Landon promises, and I know it’s more than a mere promise to stay in one place.
Meg and Michael emerge from the kitchen as I’m heading up the stairs, and even though I can tell she’s a little tipsy by the way she’s clutching Michael, her face flashes concern up at mine.
The stairs seem too steep, as if my muscles are having trouble putting one foot in front of the other and pulling my body upward. When I reach the top, my chest is tight and my lungs are burning. There’s only one direction to go. Milo’s second floor is just a long hallway with a lot of doors, and though a few are closed (and goodness knows I don’t want to interrupt what’s going on in those rooms), some are ajar.
I don’t want to look. I don’t want to find Gus, and yet my feet are moving me forward anyway.
As I tread with careful, soft steps down the hall, the familiar, velvety tones of Gus’s voice rise up over the rap music and my own haggard breathing.
He’s laughing.
I follow the sound until I reach one of the ajar doors, and somehow I bring myself to peer through the small opening. Gus is lying on a bed, head supported by a few frilly pillows. I can only assume the bedroom belongs to Milo’s little sister, as everything is purple and covered in lace, but Gus looks completely unaware of his surroundings. He continues to laugh, then babbles a little in French, words moving so quickly I can’t catch even a vague meaning. But it’s not the words I’m concerned about, it’s the way Gus’s voice dips down low and buttery, a whisper that borders on sultry and is, without a doubt, intimate. It’s the kind of voice that, if used on me, would make me blush; it’s the kind of voice Landon and I would use with each other when we would catch each other in the hallway between classes and make promises about what, exactly, we could do in our time alone after school. It’s a voice I want Gus to use with me. Only me.
I watch him for another minute, noting not just his voice but his dreamy smile and the way he runs his fingers across his chest, as if mimicking someone else’s touch. Then I push the door open and step inside.
Gus’s face freezes when he sees me. Slowly, he pulls his phone away from his ear and ends the call, then he sits up and holds a hand out to me, which I don’t take.
“Sorry, a friend calling to say—”
“Don’t lie,” I say, and my voice is quiet but also threatening, my words carrying a warning. “Who is he?”
Gus folds his hands into his lap, over his phone. He stares at it, tracing the edge of it with his index finger.
“A boyfriend?”
“Yes,” Gus answers levelly, raising his head to look me in the eye.
“Are you in love with him?”
“Yes.”
All the fears, all the suspicion, all the dread I’ve been feeling since Meg got me thinking about it combine and form a heavy, bruising knot in my stomach. Part of me wants to scream at him, call him names, kick him, but another part, a bigger part, wants to sink to the floor and cry in a little ball.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Samson,” Gus says, a bit of laughter trickling from his throat, and I want to wipe the little smirk he has off his face, “eet ees not important. When I left, ’e and I agreed zat we would see ozer people while I was ’ere.”
“See other people? Even though you’re in love with him?” I ask, my voice rising with disbelief.
“Oui. Neizer of us like to be alone, so it was for ze best.”
“So I’m just the American guy you’re leading on and keeping around for company so that after a few months you can go back to . . . Jean-Luc or Pierre or whoever the hell—”
“Gabriel,” Gus says, and despite the fact that his voice is soft, it halts me midsentence. “’Is name ees Gabriel.”
“I don’t give a shit what his name is!” I bellow.
“Zere ees no reason to be upset.”
“No, no reason at all,” I spit. “Just that you lied, and you’re in love with someone else, and you’re going to go home to him when this is all over and you’ll be fine and it won’t matter how much I like you because you already have someone.”
Gus sits up on his knees and reaches for my hand, and this time I let him take it. I turn away from him, embarrassed at my outburst. “I am sorry,” he says gently. “I did not realize zat you felt so strongly.”
I want to ask how he could have missed that, but I can’t. My voice is bone dry. I hate this. I hate the knot twisting in my stomach, I hate the feeling that I’m just a replacement, a second best; I hate that I thought he was perfect and he thought of me as something to pass the time. And more than anything I hate that I’m sure he can read all of that on my face and I just want to get out of here before I make a bigger ass of myself.
“I like you too. You ’ave been ze best zing about America. We can still be togezer.”
“No, we can’t, Gus.”
Gus makes a tsking sound and tries to pull me closer to him, but I won’t budge. “Don’t be unreasonable. We could ’ave a lot of fun.”
“I don’t want to just have fun with you. Why don’t you get that?” I snatch my hand away from his. “I don’t want to be with a liar, and I don’t want to be with someone who’s in love with someone else.”
“Why does zat matter?”
“Why doesn’t it matter to you?” I ask, and my voice breaks a little. “I want a guy who’s in love with me. And you can’t be, so this is over.”
“Reconsider.” He says the one simple word so adorably in his accent that I almost do.
I can’t pull myself together enough to speak the word no, so I shake my head and leave him there in Milo’s sister’s room, sad among the lace and purple.
Landon’s sitting at the top of the stairs, waiting on me. He must be able to gather the entire story from the look on my face because he scrambles to his feet and pulls me into a hug before I can say a word.
“Want to punch something?” he whispers into my ear, and I nod against his shoulder.
“Get me out of here, Landon.”
“Come on. I’ll drive. We can pick up your car tomorrow. Want Meg too?”
I nod again and walk with him downstairs. He’s leading me like a child, his hand in mine, and I couldn’t care less that practically all of Athens High turns to watch the spectacle. I’m sure it must be more than a little confusing, my ex holding my hand after I’d just snuck away to see Gus, and me so c
lose to tears I can taste the snot in the back of my throat. Sam Raines will once again be front-page news in the high school gossip column, I can count on that.
I don’t see Landon signal to Meg, but I see her push away from Michael and say something dismissive to him, and the three of us step out of the front door at the same time. Meg’s hand slips into my free one.
“You were right,” I say to her. “He has a boyfriend in France named Gabriel.”
“That’s a stupid name,” I hear Landon mutter, and his anger on my behalf nearly makes me smile.
“I’m sorry I was right. I didn’t want to be right,” Meg says, squeezing my hand.
We pile into Landon’s car and he makes the short drive to his house. We don’t bother being quiet on the way to Landon’s room—his parents are out, or away for the weekend or whatever, and Landon’s on his own as usual. We settle on his bed, and Meg and Landon sandwich me, hugging me between them. I tuck my head in the valley between Meg’s chin and shoulder and put up a valiant fight against tears. We sit like that, in silence, breathing each other in, for what feels like half the night. I feel like I’m soaking in their strength; I feel like it’s already beginning to repair me.
“He was so perfect,” I finally say.
“Perfect wouldn’t have lied to you,” Meg corrects me.
“Or hurt you,” Landon adds.
“Well, I thought he was.” I sniff against Meg’s shoulder, trying to keep those persistent tears back. “He seemed so wonderful. I think . . . I think I could have fallen in love with him.”
“Lucky you didn’t, I guess,” Meg says, and I feel her lift her head, probably exchanging a look with Landon, and they’re probably both as relieved as I am that it didn’t get to that point.
“Sure,” I mumble. “Lucky.”
Then Landon’s hands are warm on my back. “You can cry in front of us, you know. We won’t tell.”
I lift my head up. “I’m okay.”
