10. “You’re Different” - The Shelters
“You’re Different” - The Shelters
Heath
I got reamed in the head by my surfboard when I was fifteen. I ended up in the hospital with a concussion and ten stitches through my eyebrow.
This feels a little like that.
I may have said I was fine with this, that I’m down with whatever shit Maeve and the others want to heap on Walker, but that was before she was sitting a few bloody inches from me.
That was before I smelled her fucking coconut conditioner and heard her low laugh at some idiotic thing Rhett said.
That was before she looked at me breathlessly and I couldn’t remember what I was supposed to say. Hell, I couldn’t even remember my own name.
There’s some commotion at the table, and I’m snapped out of whatever funk I’ve fallen into. Lux has her arms around Walker and is wishing her goodbye. Then Walker is looking at me and saying, “Does tomorrow at ten work for you?” like we’re colleagues scheduling a lunch meeting.
I must nod, because she turns away. The next thing I know, she’s gone and Maeve is trying to get everyone’s attention again.
“That went exceptionally well,” she says. “I don’t think she suspects a thing.”
Pierce gives her a high-five.
Something churns in my stomach. It feels like the beginnings of car sickness.
“It’s obvious what her weakness is,” Maeve continues.
Lux looks at her blankly. “What?”
Maeve’s brows flicker. She’s trying to decide if Lux is serious or not. “Hello? Her dissertation?”
Lux bobs her head. “Right.”
“So we go for the heart,” Pierce says. “Sabotage the dissertation.”
“Exactly,” Maeve says. “As she was talking, I was thinking.”
Of course you were.
“I think we submit a fake and terrible dissertation before she can get hers in.” She looks at each of us, waiting for congratulations.
Lux folds her arms. “I’m not writing a stupid paper.”
“We’ll get AI to do it,” Pierce says. “We just need to know the topic she’s writing about.”
“Which Heath can find out when he’s with her at the Archives,” Maeve adds.
They both turn to me, looks of anticipation on their faces. “You expect me to do recon?” I say. “I’m just the getaway driver.”
“Not this time, buddy,” Pierce says. If he also slaps me on the shoulder, I’m going to kill him.
They continue plotting, but I block them out. My head feels like it’s stuffed with cotton, muffling everything and making it impossible to think clearly.
Walker was different in a way I can’t put my finger on. It wasn’t that her hair was a little longer, or that her ears had a second set of piercings. She carried herself differently, like she had something to prove to the world.
When I came back into the room and Maeve ambushed the two of us about using my mum’s card to get into the Archives, I thought Walker was going to flip out right there. It was apparent to anyone who cared that she was struggling to keep her composure.
I happen to be intimately familiar with every nuance of her face, including that look. That was the look of a girl who’s been backed up against a tree.
“I don’t think we should do this.” I make the risky decision to interrupt Maeve’s planning session. Everyone looks at me like I’m crazy. “It just seemed really important to her.”
“Duh.” Maeve’s expression leaves no doubt as to her opinion of my interjection.
“You don’t think it’s a little harsh?”
“Heath, that’s the number one rule of revenge: hit ’em where it hurts,” Pierce says.
I hold up my hand. “All I’m saying is maybe we should take it a little easier on her. She’s our friend, after all.”
“Friends don’t walk away without a goodbye or an explanation. And they definitely don’t break other friends’ hearts,” Maeve says.
And there it is. The thing we’ve all been dancing around since Lux dropped her bombshell two nights ago.
You don’t need to be a psychic to know what they’re all thinking.
Poor Heath, had his little heart broken by the love of his life.
She didn’t even have the decency to break up with him.
Now he’s a dysfunctional mess who can’t handle a real relationship.
Even Rhett is looking at me with something that looks suspiciously like pity in his eyes. The fucking traitor.
“Unless there’s something you want to tell us?” Maeve drags the words out slowly, as if I’m a dog that might bite if provoked.
Something I want to tell them. What is she fishing for? The reason behind Walker’s sudden disappearance? As if that’s something I have any business exploring.
I force my face into a mask of indifference and shake my head. “No, you’re right.”
You’re right, and I’m a bloody idiot.
Pierce and Maeve do their little eye communication thing that only people with an IQ over 120 are allowed to be a part of.
“Then it’s settled. That bitch is going down,” Maeve says.
There’s a chorus of whoops around the table. Rhett announces that he’s going to hunt for food in the kitchen. Lux pulls out her phone and fiddles with her hair before taking a selfie. Maeve and Pierce talk in hushed tones.
I should move, get out of here, hit the surf or do something to clear my head. But I can’t. I swirl the amber-colored liquid in my glass. Even whiskey holds no appeal tonight.
The memory of Walker’s bare wrist comes back. I couldn’t even see a scar. She must have had it removed soon after she left. Without thinking, I rub my thumb over the tattoo on my own wrist. Half of the Big Dipper, missing its counterpart.
I expected the awkwardness, the pain, the sadness. I didn’t expect the joy. It’s stupid, the way my body reacted when she sat down beside me. It was like hitting the crest of a wave and performing a flawless aerial, sheer adrenaline and euphoria.
I should be upset. Angry even. She left two years ago without a single word, a few weeks after we’d all returned after graduation. I had to find out from Maeve, who found out from Walker’s mum, that she’d gone back to Oxford.
I tried calling, of course, but she didn’t answer. I sent texts every hour until I got a notice that the number had been disconnected from service.
She hasn’t posted a single thing on her social accounts in two years. I used to check multiple times a day. Eventually it lessened, until I forgot to do it at all. I expected her to block me on those too, but she never did.
“You okay?” Lux reaches a bracelet-encrusted arm across the table to touch my wrist.
I give her a goofy smile. “Fine.”
“You know there has to be payback for what she did, right?” she says.
I nod to show her that I agree.
“If we don’t punish her for leaving that way, what’s to stop her from doing it to someone else?” Lux keeps her fingers on my arm. “Consider it community service.”
It’s sick and twisted, but I don’t say anything.
“Lux, what happened to your wrist?” Maeve asks.
Lux immediately removes her hand from mine and pushes her bracelets back down. “Don’t kink shame me,” she says to Maeve, a wicked smile on her lips. “I told you Carter missed me.”
Maeve’s brows still convey skepticism, but she drops it as Rhett walks back into the room, carrying more snacks than I knew could fit in one person’s arms.
“Did you leave anything in my pantry?” Pierce asks.
“I had a blunt on the way over here. I’m starving.” Rhett dumps the entire load onto the poker table.
Lux scoffs. “You smoked it before coming? Rude.”
He winks at her and digs around in his pocket before producing another one. “I also came prepared.”
“Is there anything edible in this pile?” Maeve rifles through it with a curled lip. She’s intolerant of gluten, lactose, and idiots.
Pierce hands her a package of gluten-free crisps she loves.
“I could kiss you,” she says.
“Please don’t,” he retorts with a look of disgust .
“That stuff will rot your organs.” Lux looks at Rhett’s snack cache like it’s a live skunk. She’d rather die than let anything made in a factory pass her lips.
“You know what we need to do?” Rhett says as he hands the lit joint across the table to Lux. “Host a food-based orgy.”
“Fuck me now,” Maeve mutters, and bites into a crisp with a loud crunch.
“It’s actually not a bad idea,” he says.
“It’s probably the worst idea you’ve ever had,” Pierce says. “And that’s saying something.” He snatches the joint from Lux before Rhett can take it back. He inhales, then offers it to Maeve.
She declines, even though she could use it more than the rest of us put together.
I accept it from him and take a long drag.
“Did you guys think Walker seemed different?” Lux asks.
“Different how?” Pierce says, already slipping back into CEO mode as he waits for her answer.
“She had bangs,” Maeve says.
Lux leans onto the table. “Not her hair. Something else.”
“She didn’t talk about any conspiracy theories,” Maeve offers. “That was new.”
“Do you guys remember when she was so sure people landed on the moon?” Rhett says.
Pierce cocks his brow. “They did land on the moon, mate.”
Lux cackles. “How are you this high already?”
“What about her theory that the earth is flat?” Maeve says. “We spent an entire weekend trying to prove her wrong.”
A thousand memories threaten to surface, but I shove them down into the black hole of my mind. Now is not the time to dwell on them.
This, right here, is what friendship looks like. Not sneaking off to another country without telling anyone you’re leaving. Not enacting radio silence while everyone loses their mind trying to find out what happened to you.
Like it or not, they’re right. Walker does need to learn her lesson. If I’m the one who has to teach it to her, then so be it.
The faster she returns to Oxford, the better.