20. No More
Eddie finds me in the bathroom staring in the mirror.
“Sorry, Lainey. I’ll leave you to it.”
“Uhmmm” is all I manage to say. With the whole separation of my parents, the stress of the list with Brandy, and now Cameron, I feel anything I say would come out as a jumbled mess that would send Eddie running for the hills.
He looks at me through the mirror. “Is everything okay?”
“Did you hear what Cameron said at the keg?”
His thick eyebrows raise. “Over the deafening hollering and cheering people, no. What’d he say? I’ll kick his ass if he was a dick.” Despite his threat, he’s laughing. He knows Cameron would never. I still shake my head.
“You’re really good friends with him?” I ask.
Eddie shrugs and leans in the doorway with his arms crossed. “Not really. I don’t even like that guy,” he deadpans.
“I’m so confused.”
“Why?”
It’s strange how comfortable I am around Eddie.
“I know we just met, but?—”
He pushes himself off the door frame and walks to the toilet right beside me. “Do you mind if I…” He motions to the toilet.
“Oh no, sorry. I’ll go.”
He laughs-snorts. “I’m asking if you mind if I go while you tell me what’s up. I don’t need you to leave. Unless you want.”
Heat rises to my cheeks.
He bites his cheek, holding in a laugh. “My bad. Forget it. Please continue.”
I nervously laugh off the awkwardness. “He said ‘I fucking love you’ and I don’t really have a clue what to do with that.”
No apparent reaction. “He gets damn emotional when he mixes weed and alcohol. He literally goes around telling everyone he fucking loves them.” After he notices that it does nothing to ease my mind, he says, “Or maybe he really means it. Aren’t you two together?”
“We never put a label on it.”
“But you smoked him like a bong and made out with him.”
I swallow the lump in my throat. “I’ve never been in a relationship. I don’t know how to do this.”
“Fake it ’til you make it.”
“You get how unhelpful that is, right?”
He clears his throat. “Maybe you need to have the talk. It might be in your best interest to take a break and find out what the deal is.” There is a beat. “Does he know about your to-do list?”
“That’s what got me into this mess with him.”
He cocks his head.
“It’s a long story.”
Someone knocks on the open door of the bathroom, and I whip round to see a wide-eyed Cameron with a drink in hand. “Coleson.” He breathes as if he just ran a ten-kilometer run for charity. “I think you should see something.”
I give Eddie a last glance.
“Sorry I couldn’t offer much serenity. I hope you figure things out,” he tells me.
I leave with Cameron so Eddie can urinate in peace, and he leads me to the overcrowded living room area. There is a large group of people lingering by a round, wooden coffee table with a girl on top. A girl I recognize. Brandy. She holds a bottle of beer in her hand, and I watch as she pours some on her chest. She then bends to pour the remainder into some random guy’s mouth. Now that her shirt is drenched and see-through, I get the motherly instinct to run up there and pull her off again. She isn’t drunk. She’s high. As Cameron and I are glued to the floor, she starts dancing like a stripper. Again.
She sinks down on all fours on the surface of the table, pokes her ass out like she’s doing the cow yoga pose. She slowly sits on her ankles. I hope she’s tired out and exhausted enough that she’ll get off that table.
Some guy at the rear side of the table slaps her ass and tucks a wad of cash in her waistband. More follow in his footsteps, not just tucking money but chucking it in her general direction. I fear this might be the same crowd as Cameron’s party.
“Get her down,” I tell Cameron. When he doesn’t respond to me, I whack his arm.
“I don’t think she’ll want to get down. She’s having fun.”
“Of course you’d think that. You’re a dude. You like what you see, but I’m her friend, and it’s my job to protect her.”
Cameron frowns at my insult and then rakes a hand through his hair. “It’s fine,” he slurs.
“It is certainly not fine,” I spit back. I turn back to the scene and notice the figure of a familiar man. He pushes his way through the crowd of people. I can instantly see who it is based on his blond hair and side profile. Stef.
He folds up a couple of bills and pulls on the front of Brandy’s shirt to tuck the money in her bra cup. His reward is a flirtatious lip bite. He leans close to her and whispers something in her ear. It makes the hair at the back of my neck stand up. She wears a huge smile, but the scene is appalling.
I find the strength to move my legs, and I push myself through the crowd, ignoring the glares and insults people toss at me for stepping on their giant feet. I can tell Cameron is following me, but I don’t look back.
When I reach Brandy, she’s pulling off her shirt to expose her tiny pink bra, Stef’s money shamelessly visible. A few boys whistle at her, and she tosses it to someone I don’t care to identify.
“Brandy!” I call, shoving a couple of boys out of my way as they come between us.
As she whips her head to see me, her hair hits her in the face. “Lainneeyyy!”
“Please get down!” I yell over loud music and horny guys.
“Oh, no. I can’t stop now, girlyyyy.”
“You are not a stripper,” I remind her.
She runs both of her hands through the length of her hair, making it even more untidy.
Stef, still thoroughly enjoying the presentation, pivots to see me. “I know you,” he says.
“Nope.”
He laughs a cocky little laugh that makes me queasy. “You’re that girl I met at Cameron’s party. David’s sister. I saw that picture of you on Brazely’s Insta. Maybe you’re a whore deep down like your girl here.”
I swear, I am one second away from giving him a bloody nose.
I feel Cameron beside me. “Fuck off, Stef. I hear there’s coke on the deck.”
Stef lifts an eyebrow, intrigued, and backs away.
“Nice show,” Cameron says flatly to Brandy.
Brandy smiles as she lowers one of the straps of her bra. As to be expected, she gets even more whistling in return. “Take it off, baby,” someone yells to her.
“Get down,” I say again.
She pulls up her strap, resulting in booing from the crowd of perverts. She swings her legs around and hops off the table. Some of the guys back away and leave the scene now that there’s nothing more to see. “At least your boyfriend likes it.”
I groan. I really do not know how much more of this I can take. “He’s not my boyfriend. You have no idea what these guys are thinking about you in their heads. It’s disgusting and unsafe.”
“What is the big deal?” she asks, her tone growing impatient. “I was having fun, and you’re judging me for that. I didn’t judge you with the Mikey incident, and that was worse than my innocent dancing.”
Innocent.
“That is completely different.”
“Mikey incident?” Cameron asks beside me. Shit. I had forgotten he was there. One day I’ll explain, but today and right now is not going to happen.
“I know where you’re coming from, but it’s not your body. You’re so worried because most of these guys are in a frat but so is Cameron. It’s freeing.”
Part of what she’s saying is correct. I am not so simpleminded to ignore that, but the sick feeling I get seeing her expose herself to a potentially dangerous situation overpowers anything else.
“It’s freeing to act like a slut?” I let that word slip out by accident. It must be the annoyance and adrenaline because the last thing I want to do is start talking like my mother.
A scowl forms on her face. An expression I have never seen on her. “I’m no worse than you.” Her eyes flick to Cameron, and it’s like I’ve been hit by a bus.
“Hey,” Cameron says, stepping between us. “That’s enough. No one here is a slut.”
“If only you knew,” Brandy says, not even trying to lower her voice.
Cameron looks to Brandy quickly then to me. “What?”
Brandy darts laser eyes at me. “Shall I tell him, or would you like to?”
I flare my eyes and shake my head, but it’s no help because Cameron is staring right at me. Idiot.
“If I’m a slut, so are you, Lainey Coleson,” she says coldly, retrieving our list from her bra, the cup free of Stef’s dirty money.
She grabs Cameron’s hand and slaps it on his palm. He takes a step back and opens it. I wish to God that there were no checks on it. Moments ago, I dreaded Cameron finding out how pathetic I was. That suddenly feels so much better than the alternative. Him being completely crushed after seeing that second check. I reach for the paper, but he reacts like a cat, yanking it from my grasp.
He stares at it in silence and for longer than needed to read all the items. I doubt he made it very far anyway. I cannot analyze his expression. It’s blank, and he has not blinked for a long time.
Finally, he looks up to me. His teeth are clenched, his jaw bolted shut. He blinks, and there’s a new shine in his eyes. I hate how his eyes watering makes mine do just the same. “Impressive,” he says, his tone completely unimpressed.
“It’s just a stupid list,” I say. I mean to say something else, something to wipe that hurt from his face, but all other words go out the window.
He nods. “Stupid is one word for it.”
He shoves the list to my chest, hard. “Fuck me, Coleson,” he whispers before he walks away from me. I give Brandy my middle finger and follow him out the front door.
“I need you to leave me alone,” he says, sensing me behind him.
“Can I explain?” I plead.
“No.”
I ignore him. “That was Brandy’s idea.”
“I don’t give a shit about that list. I don’t care!” He is quiet for about four seconds then he continues. His volume decreases and his tone is calm. “You had sex with Mikey. You lose your virginity to him after you kiss me. You can fuck whoever you please, but I just don’t get it.” The way his voice breaks at the end feels like a dagger twisting in my gut. “And you so emphatically say that I’m not your boyfriend. I guess the joke’s on me for assuming I meant more to you.”
“Can I speak?”
He glares at me as if he thinks I’ve ignored the things he just said. I most definitely have not. “Do you even like Mikey that way?” he asks.
“No.”
His shoulders fall, and I can tell he would rather have had me say the opposite. Maybe then it wouldn’t have been for nothing. “Do you even like me that way?” A tear spills onto his cheek, and he curses as he wipes it away.
My vision becomes blurry with tears of my own. I wish to God I could speak at this moment. That my body could react to his question.
Yes, I do. I just don’t know if I love you yet…
Yes, that’s why I didn’t choose you to lose my virginity to…
Yes, I do.
Literally any of these would be better than what I give him. Silence. I am paralyzed.
He scoffs and looks me dead in the eye. “Message received. Good luck with your list, Lainey.”
He leaves me with a knife in my chest and no ride home.
“I do like you like that, Cameron,” I say out loud. Too little too late.