Chapter 6 – “Illicit Affairs” - Taylor Swift
AUGUST
“ILLICIT AFFAIRS” - TAYLOR SWIFT
AGE FIFTEEN - JULY
“I told you—I didn’t fucking send that text”
“I saw the screenshot! It was your name.”
“Okay? So she changed someone else’s name to mine.”
Elena rolls her eyes. “I’m so sure. Because Brooke Williams is so obsessed with you, she’d go so far as changing a name in her phone to convince me you’re sexting her.”
Leaning over the railing, I stare down at the whitecaps of the sea as they crash against the columns, wishing I was literally anywhere else.
We’ve continued our stupid Saturday tradition of jumping off the pier, but Everett got caught with a girl in his room last week and had to mow lawns early this morning as punishment, and Leo is picking up his new friend, Darby, before meeting us down here.
Which means I’m stuck third-wheeling with Zach and Elena, and today seems to be an off day for them.
They’re constantly fighting—screaming and crying and slamming doors—whether that be lockers at school, the door to Zach’s car, or his bedroom when she’s at our house.
They’re like a natural disaster happening in front of your face that you’re too stunned to look away from, and we’re all collateral damage.
Elena cries in my arms, her brothers threaten to kick Zach’s ass, and she swears she’ll never speak to him again. Then, the next day, I catch them making out in his car during lunch, or I find her sneaking out of his bedroom early in the morning before my parents wake up.
I don’t know why they thrive off each other’s toxicity. I don’t know why they continue to torture themselves. I don’t know why I stand by and watch it happen, why I continue to comfort her after each falling out, knowing it’s tormenting me too.
Today is no different. They’re fighting, and I’m pretending I can’t hear it as we wait for the rest of our friends to show their faces.
Despite their lack of respect for my boundaries, they at least stay away from each other in the presence of Everett and Leo, who are both all too happy to pretend their best friend isn’t fucking their sister and repeatedly breaking her heart.
“We were in a fight, Elena. I’m sorry, all right?”
“So you admit it then? You were sexting her.”
“It was the same weekend you decided to make out with Derek at that party because you were pissed at me, so I don’t understand what you’re even upset about.”
“You blocked my number!” she screams.
“And you sure moved on quickly.”
A growl and a loud stomp signals Elena is about to start throwing a literal tantrum right here in public.
Although, I don’t know if I can blame my brother for that jab.
I was pissed at her that night too. After a particularly ugly spat between the two of them, Zach blocked her number, and Elena tagged along with Everett to a house party, which ended with her straddling the lap of one of our classmates and sticking her tongue down his throat in front of everyone.
I might just be mad because I wish she would’ve used me instead, and I don’t know what that says about the kind of person I am.
“You are such a fucking?—”
“Hey, bitches!” Everett’s voice rings out in the distance. It’s his warning that he’s arrived and Zach and Elena need to get their shit together. He doesn’t address their fucked-up relationship so long as they keep it out of his face.
My head snaps up, and I catch him making his way down the pier from the Boardwalk, waving in our direction. Thank God .
Elena huffs, leaning back against the railing next to me and crossing her arms. Zach lets out a sigh of relief, and I damn near match it. “Sorry,” Elena murmurs, shuffling closer to me.
“It’s fine,” I mutter.
“I hate fighting in front of you. I don’t want you to feel like you’re choosing sides.” She loops her arm through mine, tugging us closer as she stares after me with soft, chocolate eyes.
I instantly melt. “I’m always on your side.”
The insistence that I’m essentially a kid watching my parents bicker and not her best friend pretending he’s not in love with her while constantly picking up her broken pieces—her fallen flower petals—is insulting.
She smiles, and a small laugh—the first she has let out all day—escapes her.
Zach cuts me a glare, and if I have nothing else, I know I can make her smile in a way he can’t.
I may not set her life, her heart, or her body on fire the way my brother does, but I can make her feel safe.
And, as always, I force it to be enough.
“Where’s Leo?” Everett asks, jogging up to us.
His eyes—the twin color to his sister’s— dart between the three of us, taking note of the unspoken tension wafting through the air.
Elena and Everett look so much alike, though he’s about twice her size.
Their parents say he stole all the height and Elena stole the beauty. I agree.
“Picking up the new girl,” Zach says.
“He’s so obsessed,” Everett says with a chuckle.
“So obsessed,” the rest of us agree in unison before busting up with laughter.
Leo stumbled upon the granddaughter of Diane Andrews, one of the Ramoses’ neighbors, a couple of weeks ago.
She’s our age and staying with her grandmother for the summer.
He seems to have become instantly smitten with the girl, because he hasn’t shut up about her since, and now, he’s begging her to hang out with us any chance he gets.
“Honeysuckle.” Everett snorts. “Dumbest nickname I’ve ever heard.”
“I think it’s cute,” Elena counters.
“Do you, Rosebud?” Zach smirks. Elena’s middle name is Rose, and we all know she doesn’t like it. She says being named after a flower is cliché.
“Fuck off.”
“Rosebud. Yep. That’s sticking.” Everett nods. “Because it’s your middle name, but also, you’re like,” he waves a hand up and down, referencing her stature, “small. It’s perfect.”
“I’ll actually slit your throat,” she snaps.
“Careful, she’s thorny.” Everett smiles tauntingly.
“More like—” Zach starts.
“Finish that sentence, and I’ll slit your throat,” Everett growls.
“C’mon, Augustus.” Elena loops her arm through mine and drags me into Milo Chavez’s house, our friends at our heels.
I’d much rather spend my Saturday night with a book, Elena next to me in the grass at our secret cliffside, but she’s raging tonight, and this is the only time she likes to go to parties—she’s angry, she wants to drink, and she wants to make my brother jealous.
She storms right through the front doors, not bothering to knock, revealing the roaring house party inside the giant mansion.
I don’t know Milo well, but clearly, he’s rich.
His house looks straight out of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air or something: massive columns towering over the entry, a foyer with a double staircase leading to an upper landing.
A sea of bodies and a fog of smoke haze the environment as we enter, but Elena beelines straight for the kitchen.
After filling both of our cups, she wordlessly grabs my hand and drags me into the backyard.
A fire blazes in the pit at the center of the patio, and a few people mingle in the opulent swimming pool, but the music is a dull hum compared to the thunderous sounds inside the house.
“I know you hate loud music,” Elena says as she takes a seat on an empty porch swing.
“Thanks,” I respond, taking a sip of my drink. “But please, don’t feel you need to babysit me all night. I can walk home whenever I want.”
She rests her head on my shoulder. “I don’t feel like I’m babysitting you, Augustus. I just feel better when you’re around. I need the reminder I can have a good time without him.”
“We always have a good time, no matter who else is around.”
“I know.” She sighs. “But Zach thinks we’re boring, always reading or drawing or writing in our rooms and not socializing with other people. He thinks I rely on him to come out of my shell, that I hide inside it when I’m with you.”
“Not everyone can be as social as my brother,” I mutter. “That doesn’t mean there is anything wrong with us. Our version of fun doesn’t have to match his to make it valid, and you don’t need to prove a goddamn thing to him.”
“I know.” She sits up on her knees, the swing rocking rapidly beneath us.
Elena steadies herself, bracing her hands on my shoulders, leveling her face with mine.
The flashing lights beneath the surface of the pool reflect across her face, casting her in waves of color. “But I want to prove it to him anyway.”
“And that’s why we’re at this party?” I ask.
She nods. “And I’m not talking to him.”
A dry laugh escapes me as movement in my periphery catches my eye. Abby Phillips steps into the backyard, heading toward the area where Elena and I sit. She stops short when she spots us, and I slowly lift my hand to wave at her. She rolls her eyes before stomping back inside.
“I see she hasn’t forgiven you.” Elena chuckles behind her cup.
“I told her it was going to be casual. I made myself crystal clear—I didn’t want to hurt her feelings.” I didn’t want to hurt her the way my brother hurts you , I want to add.
“I think she took your virginity and thought that would mean something to you, even if you claimed beforehand that it wouldn’t.”
“I thought you said virginity was a social construct.”
“Oh, it absolutely is.” Elena snorts, taking a sip of her drink. “But I don’t think Abby feels that way about it.”
I sigh. I may have been quick to throw away my first sexual experience after the only girl I’d ever dreamed about gave hers to my older brother, but the last thing I intended was for Abby to feel used.
We’d been study partners all last year, and I had a good time with her.
When she expressed interest in wanting more, I explained I wasn’t ever going to date her.
I wouldn’t be her boyfriend. That hadn’t stopped her pursuits, though, and eventually, I gave in.
I needed to know if I could find what I craved from Elena in the arms of someone else.
And she never came close.