Chapter 43
THE FOURTH SUMMER, TWELVE YEARS AGO
Didion had a boyfriend, and it wasn’t Austin.
She was dating a tall, brilliant Austrian guy named Felix, who could do long division in his head, but could also make a party out of even the dullest night.
He was hot, smart, and nice. It wasn’t exactly the heart-stopping addiction she’d had to Austin, but that was first love, she figured.
That was the insane hormones of being young.
She was growing up. Maybe love changed as you got older.
In fact, she knew it did. Of course it did.
At the end of last summer, Didion had been the one to end things with Austin.
Then, she was choosing to be optimistic about college.
Didn’t want to be the girl who showed up with a boyfriend.
Knew how much stress that would put on them.
She had foolishly thought he’d be around when she came back for him.
But then, instead of going to college twenty minutes away and sticking around Mercy, a famous tennis coach took him under his gilded wing, and now Austin was becoming a household name.
The problem was, Felix was not on Mercy that summer. And Austin was.
If anything, the heat between them had gotten spicier with the new obstacle of her unavailability.
The fact that they weren’t together wasn’t a good enough reason for him to stay away.
After all, so many summers had passed by then, and Matt, Sammie, Austin, and Didion were friends.
Real friends. Matt and Austin picked up some odd jobs in town together, Austin and Sammie nerded out about music and movies, and Austin and Didion …
well, Austin and Didion didn’t hook up. Which was, somehow, as richly intoxicating as when they did.
Their breakup had not been dramatic. They both knew their lives were in different places.
Literally. He was traveling so much for tennis, his face suddenly gracing the pages of Sports Illustrated and screens of ESPN.
She was … wasting time in college, wishing things were different, but not knowing exactly how.
All to say, there was no bad blood. Just no relationship.
Instead of neutralizing the attraction, it seemed to make it more intense.
Every moment alone felt scandalous and fraught with danger.
Didion had asked her sister what drew her toward Johnny, because it seemed so foreign, so different from what she had with Austin.
The answer was always a troublingly undetailed I love him, and Didion got the feeling that there was a web of strings attached that had somehow convinced Sammie she was the most integral piece in his delicate Jenga tower, and that it would all crash down without her.
And why wouldn’t she believe him? Terrible sadness surrounded him like quicksand, and if she was the only anchor aboveground, well, who was she to let go?
The thing that made Johnny so bad was his insidiousness.
He didn’t hit her or anything. He didn’t verbally abuse her, though he wasn’t exactly Romeo.
Whenever Didion tried to tell Sammie how she felt about Johnny, she came up empty.
Said something weak like, He just … sucks.
It was more about all the things he wasn’t.
He wasn’t warm. He wasn’t smart. He wasn’t kind.
He wasn’t funny or fun to be around. He didn’t fit in with the rest of them.
Not in a cliquish way, but in a chemical, oil-and-vinegar way.
He wasn’t positive or uplifting or good-natured.
He wasn’t good enough for Sammie. He wasn’t going anywhere in life.
He wasn’t aware, seemingly, of anything that came before his lifetime, vintage for him meaning whatever cartoon he watched as a kid.
And when she was with him, it seemed like bad things happened.
The people he hung around were trashy and dangerous, so stories of hard lives or dark nights crashed through into Sammie’s world.
Stories of overdoses or criminally bad family dynamics, girls crying to her about abusive boyfriends they refused to leave—and it all left Sammie weighed down.
She thought she could help all those people, she anguished over all of it, and every night it was something else.
On this particular July night, they were at a party in someone’s enormous house in Savannah. Matt and Sammie were there, too, but Sammie was off somewhere with Johnny, and Matt was flirting intensely with the guy who had invited them.
This left Austin and Didion very much alone in the crowd, buoys in the unfamiliar ocean. They both tried, really hard, not to spend time only with each other. It only made them more aware of every single breath the other drew.
Didion took a handful of sour cream and onion chips from a bag on the kitchen counter and looked into the ornate living room where a ridiculous girl in no bra and a miniskirt was bent over the piano, talking to Austin.
Jealousy coursed through her. Unfair. Unwarranted. She had no right to feel that way. None at all. And yet …
He was flirting with her. There was no mistaking it. That posture. The challenging, amused look he wore.
She touched his forearm, running a finger down the vein that wrapped around the bone—girls loved that vein. Didion loved that vein.
He lifted his hand, and Didion thought for a moment he might be pulling away from her, but instead, he touched her spaghetti strap, straightening it out where it was twisted.
Didion felt possessive, but strangely unintimidated. It made her mad, but in a way that … turned her on, just a little? Maybe? Somehow, it felt like this was still a part of Austin and Didion’s story. In a way that intrigued her, and made her want to mess with him back.
She went over to the phone plugged into the aux cable and queued a song. Not their song, not some “What a Wonderful World” romantic song they might one day dance to at a wedding. They had a million songs for a million moments. She picked one that said what she wanted to say.
“Blind” by Hercules & Love Affair. No messaging in the lyrics. No, but it was a trigger to a memory.
Last summer. A dark club they’d ventured to after hearing they didn’t card.
Just the two of them. The place was lit only by a disco ball and purple, blue, and green flashing lights.
It reeked of weed and it was sweaty and claustrophobic.
Didion had felt like she was in an episode of this British show she’d binged, Skins, rolling on hard drugs, but she was only high on Austin.
That, and off sticky pink shots.
They danced together. She leaned back on him, hand on his neck, in his hair—sweaty and intoxicating.
He kissed her neck, right where she liked, and moaned against her.
She shut her eyes and sank into the sensory overload.
They were among strangers and no one watched them.
He ran his hands down her jean shorts, farther, and farther as she writhed against him, until he put pressure on her in a way that made her let out a sound no one but he could hear.
They had gone to the bathroom, racing through the crowd, and had sex right there.
All while this song played.
Didion walked up to a group of guys at the house in Savannah and started talking to them. When the song started, she could feel Austin’s eyes on her. After a long swig of her spiked sweet tea, she looked across the party to him. He smirked, gave one small shake of his head.
She gave him a look. Who, me? What did I do?
His eyes said, You know exactly what you’re doing.