Letter Seventeen #5
“She believes your story to be a ruse—to hide what really happened between you and Michael. She believes he wouldn’t allow her to think he cheated unless he actually did cheat on her.” Your jaw ticked. “With you.”
Even though I knew myself to be innocent—of this accusation, anyway—my heart pounded so hard I shook with it. “And what do you believe, Casey?”
“I don’t know what to believe. All I know for sure is, you’ve snuck off to Michael’s three times now—that I know of.” You paused here, gaze steady on mine. “Which means you’ve made a habit out of lying to me.”
Tears pricked my eyes.
In a voice so quiet it pierced the back of my throat, you asked, “Did you sleep with him?”
“I have a better question,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady. “What makes you think you have any right to ask me that?”
“I don’t have the right. But I’d still like to know the answer.”
“Why? What does it matter to you?”
I wanted you to say it mattered because I mattered. Because you didn’t want me with him any more than I wanted you with Sienna—or anyone else.
But you only continued to hold my gaze for an uncomfortably long time before saying, “I guess it doesn’t matter. Forget I ever asked. Let’s just…forget this whole conversation ever happened.”
“Happily,” I said, yanking on my covers.
You stood. “I should be going, anyway. You need your rest for school tomorrow.”
I turned my back to you, hoping the darkness had concealed the tears in my eyes.
“Goodnight,” you said softly.
But I didn’t respond, worried you’d hear the devastation in my voice.
Later that morning, I pushed eggs around my plate while you washed dishes at the sink. “I’m going to Tinsley’s later,” I muttered, “so you don’t need to meet me after school.”
“Sure I do,” you said, infuriatingly calm, pausing to grip the edge of the sink with both hands. “I’ll be there at the usual time.”
I dropped my fork. “I’m going to Tinsley’s,” I repeated, holding your gaze.
“No,” you said, giving a slow shake of your head, “you’re not.”
“Are you being serious right now?”
“Very,” you said. “We made a deal, and you broke it. I can’t trust you to be where you say you are—and I’ve recently been in trouble with your dad—so the deal’s off. From now on, you’re to meet me outside straightaway, and we’ll make our way home.”
There you were, Casey, back to treating me like a prisoner. Like a child. I stood with my plate, giving you the deadliest death glare I could muster as I rounded the island and scraped those eggs you’d just made me into the sink. I dropped the plate so hard it shattered into three jagged pieces.
That afternoon, when school let out, you watched from across the street as I climbed into the car with Hal, looking wounded in a way that should’ve made me feel bad, but only deepened my satisfaction. Because you needed to see: I didn’t take orders from you.
Meet me outside straightaway? Fuck that.
Hal drove me around while I stared out the window, willing myself not to cry. How had we gone from being blissfully content at Christmas to this? I felt stupid for thinking we had something special.
“What’s wrong, Ell?” Hal asked, his soft gaze meeting mine in the rearview mirror. “Why don’t you want to go home?”
“Boys are stupid,” I said—admittedly, like a child—pressing my forehead to the cold glass.
“In that case,” he said, switching on his blinker to parallel park, “we need hot chocolate.”
“It’s not a special occasion, Hal. You can only have hot chocolate on special occasions and holidays, remember?”
“That’s your rule. Mine is that I’m allowed to break my diet when you’re sad.”
“I’m always sad.”
“But this is different,” he said, still eyeing me in the mirror. “I can tell.”
So we drank hot chocolate. And while it cheered me up a little, all the hot chocolate in the world couldn’t help me forget about you.
When I walked through the front door an hour later, you were waiting on the stairs with a book.
“Hey,” you said, pulling off your reading glasses. You rose to greet me, dropping the book to your side, marking your place with a finger. Once again, no fucking bookmark in sight. “Can we talk?”
I stalked past you and mounted the staircase, heading for my room.
“Elliot,” you called after me. “Don’t run off. Just—talk to me. Please.”
Above my head, I waved my middle finger in the air.
“Stop acting like a child,” you snapped.
The word child enraged me, and you definitely knew that. I turned, gripping the stair rail. “Then don’t treat me like one.” My voice trembled as I added, “And give me my freedom back.”
“You lied. I can’t trust you.”
“Oh my God,” I said, laughing to keep from crying. “Do you not understand how totally warped this is? You shouldn’t be allowed to tell me what to do. You shouldn’t be allowed to take anything from me. You shouldn’t have control over any aspect of my life, yet you have almost as much as my father.”
“Yes,” you agreed, staring up at me, gripping the book so hard your knuckles turned white. “But we made a deal. With very specific terms. And you broke it.”
I shook my head sadly as I turned to leave, all the fight draining from my body. “Then there’s nothing left to say.”