Chapter Twenty-Seven
You’re a good teacher.
On a handout of “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe
Sometimes I forget I live in middle-of-nowhere North Carolina, but there are moments like these, when I’m literally sitting on a bale of hay in someone’s grandpa’s barn, that make it painfully obvious.
“Here.” Hayes hands me a bottle of water because I just spit out whatever godforsaken mess they’re passing around in clear plastic cups. It tasted the way gasoline smells.
“Thanks,” I mumble. He’s not drinking the battery acid either.
It’s Saturday night, and that means technically, midterm week starts in, like, three hours. I should be at home studying or sleeping, but I’ve somehow been convinced to join my friends at this overly loud, obnoxious party. I don’t know what I was thinking.
If I’d known whose party this was, I would’ve instinctively and rightfully said no. I shouldn’t be here.
“This song sucks.” Luke stumbles in our direction, having had just enough of the mystery booze to make him lose whatever few inhibitions he has. He falls into Piper’s side, and she absorbs his weight in a way that’s pretty impressive given her own tipsiness.
“What’s going on here?” Esha sneaks up behind me, resting her foot on the hay bale Hayes and I are sitting on. Her boots are covered ankle deep in red-clay dust.
“I’m not sure,” I tell her truthfully. I don’t know what’s happening between Piper and Luke. But they seem to be having fun. I roll my eyes as they gravitate toward each other again, barely seconds after separating. They start slow dancing to a song no one else can hear.
“How did we end up here, anyway?” I ask Esha, grabbing her elbow and pulling her down to my level.
I was probably too trusting. Hayes said there was a party happening tonight, and he wanted to bring me.
That was all it took for me; I agreed to come, and I invited Esha, too.
Next time, I’m asking more questions. Like my parents would if they knew where I was.
Hayes bumps his shoulder against mine, silently asking how I’m doing.
“I’m okay,” I say, on instinct.
I look up, and I’m not okay, because my gaze finds those greedy blue eyes. That hard mouth that I used to long for in a thousand different ways. That face I used to think I loved, now contorted in what can only be described as an expression of derision. I haven’t seen him in over a year.
“Oh God. Of course they’d both be here.” Esha squeezes my arm. Her face is a stony mask.
It’s only then that I notice they are indeed both here. Standing next to each other. Him and The Other One. So nice that they’ve become friends. So nice that literally every boy I’ve ever been attracted to is right here in this barn that smells like actual bullshit.
I overhear Him asking The Other One if I still think I’m going to make it out of this town. The Other One says I might, if they’re letting professors wear skirts that short nowadays.
“Is that your—” Hayes starts to ask.
My sharp intake of breath cuts him off.
That, or Esha’s wide-eyed expression that’s basically begging him to shut up.
My ex-boyfriend. That’s what he was going to say. And yes, it is. They are. Standing there together like they walked right out of my nightmares.
“Let’s get these two home before they hurt themselves.” Esha pulls Piper up off the dirt where she’d been lying kind of on top of Luke. Hayes helps Luke up.
“You smell like vanilla.” Luke sniffs Hayes’s hair. Hayes does often smell like vanilla.
Piper and Luke start to follow Esha unsteadily out of the barn, Luke punching the air for some reason and Piper giggling about how she might need to throw up.
I’m frozen on the hay bale. Rooted in place by two sets of eyes that have already seen way, way too much.
“Come on, Novella.” Hayes steps in front of me, blocking their gaze, holding out his hand. “Let’s go.”
I thread my fingers through his and let him pull me to my feet. My skin crawls as I still feel their eyes on my back. Hayes’s car is close; I can see it outside the barn. I can see Esha pushing Luke into the back seat of her own car, and I can still hear Piper giggling.
Hayes steps closer, rests his palm on my lower back. That makes it clear that we’re—something. That I’ve chosen someone else. That I’ve moved on. All at once, I feel the burden of those horrible boys’ gazes fade away. It’s like the weight of a too-heavy coat falling off my shoulders.
My lungs heave in as much farm-scented air as they can, and I let my shoulders relax. “Yes,” I say loudly. “Let’s go.”
“Meet at my place?” Esha asks, as we reach her car.
“Great idea.” Hayes nods.
“Drive safe,” I say, careful to keep my voice casual.
I climb into Hayes’ car, and I can’t help it. I look back one more time. They’re still staring. Smirking, like they’ve won something. Hayes starts to pull out of the makeshift parking lot that’s really just an overcrowded field.
Eventually, they fade away. Until I blink, that is. Then they’re right behind my eyelids. So much more vivid than those bad dreams, because I never dream about them together.
When we get to Esha’s house, Luke is fast asleep in the back of her car.
“Come get your friend, please,” she huffs at Hayes as we make our way to the door to her basement. This is why we come to her house: Her basement is basically its own apartment, and the separate door means no awkward midnight interactions with her parents.
“You look better,” I tell Piper as she walks past me. There’s a certain awareness in her eyes that I haven’t seen in a couple of hours.
“Yeah.” She burps, right in my face. Gross. “I threw up.”
I chuckle, counting heads as everyone makes their way down the stone path to the side of the house. Hayes has to practically carry Luke. He’s going to be desperately hungover tomorrow.
Esha unlocks the door and holds it open while we all file in. The space is dark and drafty, but the quiet is blissful. Hayes throws Luke down on a corner of the sectional, and he curls up in the fetal position.
“Well, that was fun,” Hayes mutters darkly.
“I’ll get them some water and let you guys … talk.” Esha shuffles to the mini fridge in the kitchenette.
Other than the sofa Piper and Luke have sprawled all over, there’s really no place to sit. So I let myself lower to the one of the carpeted stairs leading to the rest of the house. Hayes sits down next to me, and I rest my feet on the step below us. He rests his two steps down.
“Did they … do something to you?” Hayes asks. He’s not meeting my eyes, and that’s a me thing to do, not a him thing, so it worries me. “I’ve never seen you look like that.”
I stare up at the shadowed ceiling. My fingers pick at frayed strings in the carpet instead of picking at my skin. It’s not the same.
“Yeah,” I say, because I don’t know how to tell anyone about this.
Esha is the only one who knows. I just know I can’t tell him no, because they absolutely did do something to me.
“They weren’t good for me. Either of them.
I should’ve seen that earlier and realized it sooner, before I’d almost destroyed my entire life. Twice.”
His eyebrows raise. I’m still staring at the ceiling, and I see it in my peripheral vision. I can feel his surprise.
“Destroyed your life. What does that mean?” He shifts closer, drops one elbow to the stair above where we’re sitting and leans back on it.
“It wasn’t so bad at first. With him.” I still can’t say either of their names. “He was just wrong for me. I was naive. He couldn’t handle anyone being smarter than him. And, God, I was smarter.”
Hayes chuckles, and he’s close enough that that rush of air hits my neck.
“Or maybe I wasn’t. Maybe I just worked harder.
But either way, he couldn’t take it. He was at Campbell winning awards and being the best at everything, but he hated that I was at Endeavour succeeding in the accelerated program.
I couldn’t mention college or school in general or anything I cared about without him giving me shit.
‘Do you really think the early college program at a community college is that impressive?’ Stuff like that. ‘It barely counts, Nova, calm down.’ “
Hayes nods. I finally search for his eyes again, and they’re oddly sad. Kind of forlorn. “I remind you of him, don’t I.” It’s not a question; it’s a statement. A foregone conclusion.
Except it’s absolutely fucking not. “No.” I almost spit. “You’re nothing like him.”
We’re silent for a second, then a horrible memory takes over: sabotage.
“Okay, once,” I tell him. “Once, you were like him.”
He inhales a sharp intake of breath, and I don’t think either of us can believe I’m actually bringing this up. We’ve never talked about it, not really.
“Your car,” he whispers.
“Yeah. That was something he’d do. When that happened, it was right after he and I had broken up, and it felt like I couldn’t get away from him. Like he’d always win. And then—like you’d always win.”
His face falls forward into his hands. It’s hard to reconcile the guy sitting next to me with the one who did that. It’s almost like they’re different people entirely.
But then I hear Esha’s voice in my head, telling me he’s still someone I have to be careful around.
“I’m so sorry.” He looks me right in the eye, as if he’s pleading with me to understand.
This is an apology I thought I’d never get, so I listen.
“I should’ve never done it. I just knew I’d lose, and I kept thinking about how disappointed my parents would be.
And instead of being pissed at myself, or them, I put all of that on you, and I decided it was acceptable to undermine you.
It’s incomprehensible to me now. Nova, I regret it.
It was wrong. It was so wrong. Why couldn’t I accept losing?
What’s so fucking bad about losing? I’ve asked myself that a lot, and I’ve decided I would rather lose every time than be that kind of guy.
I will never, ever, ever be disrespectful to you like that again.
Ever. You are brilliant. And you deserve to be brilliant. ”
Hayes begins running his fingers through his hair, tugging at the ends. He’s always so calm and collected, it’s strange to see him rattled like this.
“Okay,” I say. I don’t know what else to say. My brain doesn’t have the space to process all of that right now. The best I can do is acknowledge it.
I move forward; he moves back. I’m trying to get closer, and he’s pulling away. For a millisecond, I stop to wonder how we got here. Talking about my worst regrets in Esha’s basement. How we got to me leaning in and him leaning back.
“You reminded me of him then … but only then. And since that day, you’ve been kind and generous and funnier than he could ever hope to be. Consistently. That counts for something.”
Unless this is another mistake?
Hayes wraps cool fingers around my ankles and pulls my calves to rest in his lap.
I like that.
I like this. Being in a dark corner with him. Him moving forward and me not moving back.
“You know, with him …” Across the room, I hear Piper giggle and Esha immediately shush her. I lower my own voice in response. “It took me months to realize he was sucking the life out of me. But I hadn’t thought about him in forever until I saw them both tonight.”
“Right. So that explains one of them,” Hayes whispers.
I suck in a burst of air through my teeth, and my chest is so tight it hurts. This is the part that I don’t think I can say. That would require me to understand it and accept it, and I don’t know if I can do that.
“The other one was worse.” My lowered voice sounds broken and kind of unhinged. Like I’m in a horror movie and I’m just begging the bad guy to come and get me. “I can handle being undermined and underestimated and stifled.”
Another breath, this one somehow even less calming. Hayes is running one of his fingers up the side seam of my jeans, over my ankle, then my calf, then my knee, then back again. It’s soothing. I didn’t think I could be soothed right now.
“He wasn’t threatened by me. He used me. He manipulated me and pushed me to do things I can never undo. Things I’ll always be haunted by.”
As if he knows exactly what I mean, Hayes pulls his hands away. He tries to move his knees out from underneath mine. Tries to make more space in this shadowed staircase.
“No,” I murmur. I hook my ankles around his legs again. Thread my fingers through his and rest them on the stair beside us.
There was no way I could have ever been ready for what happened tonight. Seeing the one who oppressed my mind and the one who used my body … and now, sitting beside the one who almost has my heart.
“I understand. And if you ever want to talk about it more, I’ll listen,” he responds, rubbing my knuckles with his thumb. He doesn’t have to say anything else. Neither do I.