Chapter 14
14
Kayla
We get to the bar a little before 9:00. Mickey’s may be a beloved local institution, the best (and only) hangout in town, but really, it’s a dive. Its dark walls, stained even darker from the decades when smoking was allowed inside, are cluttered with faded photographs of local celebrities everyone has forgotten about. For some mysterious reason, dollar bills are nailed all over the ceiling above the bar. Rumor has it that the original Mickey nailed up the first dollar he ever earned, and high rollers follow suit on their twenty-first birthdays. It can’t be more than a few hundred dollars, but on my more desperate nights, I contemplate tearing them all down and throwing them at Dr. Lim’s receptionist. Mickey’s is the kind of place where you can eat an undercooked burger, dance to thirty-year-old music, and contract gonorrhea all in the space of an hour.
At least the music should be better than usual tonight. Jason, Meg’s husband, steps away from the DJ booth for a second to say hi. Like Meg, Jason is about ten years older than us, and has a kind of aging-hipster-dad vibe. Sleeves of tattoos, day-old stubble, and fingernail polish that was clearly applied by a child.
“Hey ladies,” he says. “What’s going on tonight?”
“It’s a celebration,” Allison says, holding out her hand so he can admire her ring.
“Oh, wow! Congrats! This definitely deserves a special song. Got any requests?”
Allison considers this. “Something romantic but dance-y that will remind Tom and me of an Eastern European disco. I want to see Kayla’s moves.” She elbows me with a grin.
Jason strokes his stubbly chin. “Romantic. Dance-y. Polish disco. So… Madonna? Maybe a remix? I’m on it.” He turns to jog back to his booth, pulling Tom into a quick, congratulatory man-hug on the way.
Tom comes up behind Allison and wraps his tall frame around her, putting a White Claw into her hand. She leans back against him and kisses him with a blissful smile. Tom is the son of Hungarian immigrants and usually has what I call “resting brooding face,” but he bursts into a huge grin when I heartily congratulate him.
“So what kind of magic spell did you use to get this wild child to settle down?” I shout at him over the music.
He grins even wider, if possible, and raises an eyebrow. “A magician never reveals his secrets,” he says, nuzzling Allison’s curls affectionately. I smile back. After all my years of worry, it seems like a minor miracle that she’s ended up with someone who deserves her.
Allison squeezes his forearms and shouts back at me, “Now we just need to get you settled. Where’s—OH MY GOD. HE’S ACTUALLY HERE !”
Surely the entire bar heard that. I don’t even have to ask who she means. I take a mortified peak around the room and yup, sure enough, there’s Gabe, with his asshole brother and his asshole brother’s friend.
“Who’s here?” Tom says, squinting across the room.
“ Gabe Wilson ,” Allison says in the loudest stage whisper I’ve ever heard. “You know, that sweet guy who saved me from those jerks at Steven O’Connor’s graduation party? Back in my wayward youth? I told you that story, right?”
“I think so. Is he the one whose car you puked in?”
Allison laughs. “Yeah, like three times. He didn’t say a word. Just helped me clean up and then poured me into my house. He was such a gentleman.”
“Listen, you puke in my car from now on, understand?” This time he raises both eyebrows and looks at her over his glasses as she giggles.
My head is spinning as I attempt to understand the meaning of their adorable banter. Gabe Wilson? A gentleman? What ?
“Alli,” I shout at her. My heart pounds in anticipation. It sounds like I’m finally going to find out what happened that night, but I’m not entirely sure I want to. “What are you talking about?”
“Steven O’Connor’s graduation party. You remember, right?”
I shake my head violently. “You never told me what happened to you.”
She pinches her eyebrows together. “Sure I did. I must have.”
“ No , you didn’t,” I say adamantly.
“Oh! Well, it’s not like it was a big deal. I had had waaaaay too much—for all I know, someone put something in my drink, I was not careful about those things back then,” she explains as Tom squeezes her protectively. “Three guys from the football team, I can’t remember who, were trying to lead me into the woods behind Steven’s house. Gabe caught up with us, told them he was my boyfriend, and they backed off. Then he drove me home and made sure I got inside safely. Oh, and I puked in his car. Twice. Thrice. He may have held my hair.” She shrugs. “That’s it.”
That’s it. Just half an hour of Allison Ambrose’s misspent youth. Even the appalling fact of almost being attacked by three men barely registers with her now. But Allison was never the type to dwell on what might have been. I, however, feel like the room is spinning around me. It’s like my entire worldview has changed in a split second.
“I need to sit down,” I mutter, leaning onto a bar stool.
“Babe, are you okay?” Allison takes a step towards me, full of concern.
“Yes—no—I thought—so he didn’t take advantage of you?” I croak out in a hoarse whisper.
She laughs incredulously. “ Gabe Wilson ? Take advantage of me? Of course not! He was always so into you!”
“And you didn’t… you and he didn’t…”
“Kayla, what on earth are you implying? No . He was a total sweetheart. A perfect gentleman.”
He’s a sweetheart. And I’m the psychopath. Or, at the very least, an extreme asshole. Hands shaking, I pull out my phone and somehow use the Force to complete the multi-step process to unblock Gabe’s number. Recover our message history. Look, finally, at the texts from him that I had ignored that night. And it’s all there, everything I did and didn’t want to know:
I found Allison and she’s a mess. I think we should take her home. I can drive her or you can
Did you see my last message? I just helped her into my car. I’ll wait for you to come out
Okay, she’s going to start puking soon, I can feel it. I’ve got to go, but I’ll come right back, all right? And don’t worry, I’m totally sober—you know I would never drink and derive
I drop my phone on the bar and bury my head in my hands. He’s the boy I always thought he was—funny and kind and dependable, capable of producing a calculus pun at the drop of a hat—and I threw him away. I treated him like shit because I was so afraid of falling for him, and never once— never once —did I think about what that did to him . He had only ever gone out of his way to be nice to me, to make me laugh, to please me. What must he have thought when I dropped him with no explanation? God, what must he have felt when I shouted at him at the café just a few weeks ago? Any normal person would have told me to fuck off. They certainly wouldn’t have turned around and helped me save my house . I feel so enormously guilty that I think I might be sick.
“Head between your legs,” Allison says, instantly recognizing the signs. “Why are you freaking out? Did you not date him after high school because of me ?”
I nod weakly, bent over the bar stool.
“But I barely even knew him,” she continues, rubbing my back. “Why didn’t you just ask one of us what happened?”
“I didn’t want to embarrass you,” I mumble into my knees. “I didn’t read his texts from that night and then afterwards I blocked his number.”
“Oh, babe, why ? I’m so sorry if I did anything to keep you two apart. I had no idea. It was nothing. It’s barely even a story.”
“I think I was just scared,” I whisper, too quietly for her to hear me over Jason’s thumping romantic-dancey-Eastern European beats. Queasiness sweeps over me in waves as I realize what I have to do.
“I have to talk to him,” I blurt out, snapping my head up so quickly that I almost clock Allison in the chin.
“You may want to wait a minute. It looks like he’s arguing with his friends,” Tom interjects.
“No,” I insist. “He’s a good guy, and I acted like a piece of shit. I have to clear the air with him. Now.” I lay my hands flat on the bar and push myself to my feet. I take a huge swig of my beer, for courage, and decide to take it with me as a security blanket. I have no idea what I’m going to say to Gabe. But my conscience, previously burdened by being attracted to someone who might have hurt my friend, now feels like a burning stone inside me. The only way I know how to cope is to come clean. He deserves that much. Even if he hates me for it.
“K—” Allison calls after me, but I’m already making my way across the dance floor, moving like I’m underwater. I feel a strange sense of purpose. I can see that he is, in fact, having some kind of altercation with Adam and Ryan Hutchinson, but feel no misgivings about interrupting. I stop just behind Gabe’s broad back and clear my throat.
“Wilson, can I talk to you for a sec?”