Chapter Thirteen
Thirteen
We left the bar thirty minutes before midnight.
Head swirling from half a mojito and the sharp scent of Dex’s shirt, I walked to the hotel in a daze, listening to my sister prattle on about how awesome Bree was, the community of it all, how crazy that Dex was a part of it.
My head was swimming and every inch of my skin felt tender, bruised. It had been a long night.
Bree did most of the talking. She moved to Massachusetts from London at fifteen, earning attention from classmates as the worldly newbie and obvious lesbian.
I watched Phoebe hang on every word as Bree told us about the bullying she endured and her struggles finding a safe place for herself, and I nearly lost my breath when Phoebe admitted she’d been dealing with the same thing at her new school.
My sister was being bullied. Twelve meetings with Principal Chambers and only the last one hinted at anything close to this revelation.
And considering the way Dex avoided my eyes, I was the only one out of the loop.
I’d spent a lot of time grappling with my bisexuality in high school, but I wasn’t bullied.
No one called me names. No one even really knew.
I remembered the look on Phoebe’s face when we came out to each other, like we were members of the same club, and now she looked at Bree with admiration, something so much more than simple camaraderie.
I wasn’t enough in any way for her. And I hated myself for thinking such a shitty, selfish thing, especially when Bree and Phoebe were opening up and I was warping it in a what-about-me-ism I’d regret tomorrow, but I could feel myself hitting a low.
My sister was going through hell, asking everyone but me for help, and it wrecked me.
Shoving down the pointless hurt feelings and unfair thoughts, I’d listened to Bree shift the topic to Dex. How the two fell into a friendship in detention and spent the rest of high school attached at the hip, then proceeded to attend the same local community college.
Floodgates didn’t burst, but Bree unleashed a trickle of secrets: Dex finished his degree at Northeastern, and after graduation they moved to Chicago with a few friends, spending nearly two years in an apartment with a view of Lake Michigan.
It was easy to see their deep bond when Dex allowed himself to retaliate Bree’s teasing, and it filled my chest with a fizzy sort of feeling, like I’d drunk a gallon of Diet Coke.
Phoebe steered the conversation back to Bree’s life in Chicago, and Bree seemed to have limitless patience, answering my sister’s questions with such an easy confidence; I couldn’t remember ever feeling that sure of myself, even at my best, but I recognized the spark in Phoebe’s eyes like it had once been directed at me.
Bree and Phoebe ended up in a rapid-fire back-and-forth with Dex chiming in every so often.
I felt myself fading. By the time we reached our hotel, I was an inch tall and ready to cry my eyes out in the shower.
Dex veered for his room, casting me one last look over his shoulder like he knew something was off.
In our room, Phoebe spent another twenty minutes gushing over her new hero before passing out in bed.
Was it easier for parents? Or harder? Dealing with a child slipping out of reach because it’s the kid’s job to hate and grow and rebel and conquer.
Parents intercept and guide. But siblings?
Sisters? Maybe I would’ve been able to guide Phoebe in a way that mattered before I was the one obligated to.
Ever since, I’d straddled those roles—sister, guardian—never quite inhabiting either. Phoebe needed me and I just watched.
Once Phoebe was asleep, I closed myself in the bathroom, pressing my forehead against the cool wood of the door, trying to breathe through the pain.
The pain of failure and selfishness. The pain of missing my little sister who used to beg me to read to her before bed.
The pain of missing my dad, who would’ve held me tight and told me tomorrow was a new day.
God, I missed him. The grief hit like crashing waves, another, then another, pulling me under.
This happened, sometimes. I held on to the grief for too long and it blew up in an all-consuming way, overriding everything.
I’d collapse to the floor and cry until I was dry heaving and I’d stay there, too tired to drag myself to my bed.
I knew it would kill him to see me like that.
For anyone to see me like that. And it would be mortifying to admit out loud in therapy that, almost a year later, grief still paralyzed me.
I sat on the floor of the shower, hugging my knees to my chest. Vision blurry. Head static. Breaths slow, staggered. The skin on my face felt tight even as warm water flowed down it, the quiet rush acting as white noise to ease the pulsing in my ears.
Pathetic.
I didn’t have the luxury of passing out in the shower, so I forced myself to stand and shut off the water. My legs wobbled as I wrapped a towel around myself, skin raw, fingertips pruned. I wiped steam from the mirror and my cloudy reflection stared back, red eyes empty, aged a decade in a year.
And yet I’d grow. I’d probably get old, wrinkled, gray, and my dad never would.
But that was a breakdown for another time, so I dried off and pulled on my pajamas, my tired limbs fighting each step through the hotel room.
Phoebe snored peacefully, face buried in the pillow.
My bed remained pristinely made, almost stiff.
I stood beside it, knowing I would stare at the ceiling until the sun rose.
A soft knock came from the door. It was nearing 2:00 A.M. I shuffled over, knowing it would be Dex even before I opened it and found him standing there in a black T-shirt and sweatpants.
His face, his presence, landed like a rescue plane touching down in a desert. Salvation, or something close to it.
If he noticed hints of my shower meltdown, he didn’t show it. He pressed a palm to the doorframe, leaning on it, and said, “Do you want a drink?”
Tears pricked my eyes again.
“God, yes, please,” I replied. “But I don’t know if I can leave Phoebe?”
“Twenty minutes.” That Diet Coke feeling from earlier returned, taking over my gut as he persuaded me to spend time with him. “Put the Do Not Disturb sign up. She’ll be fine.”
I nodded. I knew she was out for the night, but I left a note anyway.
A few patrons sat around the hotel bar, none of them paying mind to the exhausted someones clad in pajamas.
I bent forward to rest my head against the cool linoleum table as Dex got us drinks.
I’d mumbled something about strawberry margaritas on the elevator ride down, the first drink I had on my twenty-first birthday made by my dad.
It became a comfort drink, one I only turned to on really great days, or really lousy ones.
When I turned my head and caught sight of Dex returning with two strawberry margaritas, I wondered which this night would turn out to be.
“Thank you,” I said, sitting up as he set the glasses down. He sat across from me, eyes snagging mine. “For the drink and… this.”
“Couldn’t sleep.” His fingers danced along the stem of his glass. “I figured you couldn’t, either.”
I reached for my margarita, squirming slightly. “Why?”
“You were weird at the bar.”
“Was I that obvious?”
“No.” His brow furrowed and he averted his gaze across the room. “I just noticed.”
A warmth rose up my neck and I tucked a damp strand of hair behind my ear. To be noticed by him seemed like an extraordinary thing, a rare sort of occurrence that shifted the world off its axis.
A bit breathless, I blurted, “Bree’s really nice. I like her a lot.”
“She’s something,” he said and took a long pull from his drink. “She liked you too. And Phoebe.”
“Phoebe adored her. She’s everything she wants to be.”
He looked at me, and I knew he understood.
“It’s nothing,” I said, waving off the shame and hurt feelings before he had the chance to offer wisdom or, worse, judgment.
Because really, how awful was I for a stab of jealousy over my sister admiring someone else?
Pathetic, selfish, cruel, small. Our mom bailed before Phoebe was out of premature onesies and our dad was dead; I should’ve welcomed any and all role models.
“It got to me tonight. Whatever. I don’t want to talk about it. ”
Dex nodded, running his finger along the rim of his glass. I watched it work its way around twice before crossing my legs and taking another sip of my drink.
“It’s supposed to rain tomorrow,” he said.
“What?”
“A storm.” His flippant tone didn’t sound ingenuine, but I knew him by now. “It’s supposed to be pretty bad, I guess. High wind advisory.”
“What is this? What are you doing?”
“Small talk. You like small talk.”
“You don’t.”
He shrugged. Like it was no skin off his back to take part in something he hated, for me.
“You never answered me, you know,” I said. His gaze grew more intense. “What do you consider us? Friends? Acquaintances? Am I the girl who fucked you over and you’re counting the days until you never have to see me again?”
He smirked. “I invited you out for a drink.”
“That doesn’t mean anything.”
“Violet.” The way he said my name burned its way into my brain. “I like you.”
“Good.” I swallowed, but my throat had gone dry so I took a swig of my margarita. “It’s just that with most people, I can tell. You’re impossible to read.”
“We wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.”
“Here in the hotel bar? Or here in Chicago?”
He bit the corner of his lip and I was too tired, too tipsy, too captivated to not wonder how it would feel to have Dex’s teeth sink into my lip, my shoulder, my thighs. I like you, I imagined him murmuring into my skin after each bite.
“You don’t think they’re mutually exclusive?” he asked lowly, leaning in over the table. I could feel my breath coming quicker—I hoped he couldn’t see my breasts heaving like a Regency heroine’s.