Chapter Twenty-Five #2
I gape at him and glance pointedly at my brother, who is, thankfully, completely engrossed in freaking out the webcomic guy. I notice he’s holding on to his girlfriend for dear life now, and she’s taken the reins on the conversation, hand-talking with my brother while their tall friend looks on.
“God, I bet that guy could dunk at twelve,” I say. “He must be seven feet.”
Jamie follows my gaze. “Don’t tell me you’re into tall guys. I hate to tell you this, but you saw my growth spurt, and I don’t think I’ve got another one coming.”
“You’re the perfect height,” I reply.
“That’s a throwaway. You aren’t even looking at me.”
“Because the only way to demonstrate is to show you that I don’t have to stoop or stretch to kiss you, and that would make Sawyer’s head explode off his neck. I think it’s a little early for fireworks.”
Jamie groans. “You’re killing me.”
I grin. “We should separate. Now you’re wearing down my self-control.”
He leans behind me, pretending to look down the side of the house, and brushes his hand against my lower back. “Or… we could sneak away right now, and you can show me how perfect my height is.”
“I’m getting a chaperone,” I say, stepping away from him.
“No, not a chaperone,” he laments teasingly.
I shake my head and start across the backyard to Andres, who’s struck up a conversation by the keg. When I reach him, he throws a casual arm around my shoulders, pulling me into his side.
“Oh,” I say in surprise. Andres and I are not touchers. In fact, I don’t think we’ve ever even hugged.
He shoots me a sideways grin. “If you keep flirting with Jamie, your brother’s gonna catch on much faster than you want him to.”
“Ah. So you’re…?”
“Throwing him off Jamie’s trail. If we all act like this with you, it makes you two seem much less suspicious.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “And how did you know, exactly? About…?” I tip my head in Jamie’s direction.
Andres snorts. “Bee. Come on. I’ve got two eyes and twenty-twenty vision, but my ninety-year-old abuela could see what’s going on with you two, and she’s legally blind.”
I flush, and Andres laughs, tapping the brim of my cowboy hat. It dips low, covering my eyes, and as I shove it back up, there’s a squeal of feedback from the stage.
When the sound subsides, Denny shouts into his mic, “Hey! We’re the Swamp Asses! This first song is untitled. Let’s go!” He starts thrashing around, and after a few discordant beats, the rest of the band catches up.
“That is not their name,” I shout to Andres. “I thought they were the Coconut Heads!”
“That was weeks ago! Last I heard, they were the Swampy Malompy!” Andres yells back. “I think this one’s better!”
As the band crashes through the first song, Mikey plays her tin whistle into a microphone, and at the end she even gets her own solo.
I snap pictures of her as our group comes together again, converging with Tallulah’s friends.
We cheer along even to the worst of the songs, and as the yard fills and drinking starts up in earnest, the shouts and applause get louder.
I’m so drawn in, squished safely between Andres and Felicity, that I don’t notice someone has come up behind me until a hand lands on my shoulder.
I whirl, startled to find Leni standing there, frowning at me.
“Sorry,” I say, leaning toward her ear. “I told Starr I’m just staying to see the band.
I’m friends with the…” I glance at the stage, where Mikey has taken up the spot behind the keyboard, tin whistle hanging around her neck and a triangle set up on a stand to her right.
“The keyboard–tin whistle–triangle player.”
Leni looks past me and then meets my eyes again, shaking her head. “I don’t care about that.” She takes my hand. “Come with me.”
I stumble after her as she pulls me away from the group and toward the sliding glass door, and then we’re sailing into the house.
As we step inside, muggy from the sliding door opening and closing all night, I’m struck with disappointment.
The sunroom, the absolute best room in the house, is a disaster.
There’s a cheap futon shoved in one corner, strewn with clothes, and a throw flecked with what looks like ash burns.
The floor is sticky, which I would attribute to the party, except that there are dirty dishes left on the table by the futon, clearly old.
Leni leads me through the kitchen, which has a funky, rotten smell to it, like the garbage disposal needs cleaning.
The sink is piled with so many dishes, they’ve spilled out onto the surrounding counters, and the island is littered with abandoned things—an empty purse, junk mail, several old mugs, a used coffee pod that didn’t make it into the trash, a vase of wilted flowers dropping old petals around it.
The house is quiet as we make our way down the hall, the sounds of the party growing distant. The bathroom door is wide open, its light on, though no one is inside. I catch sight of a toothpaste-splattered mirror and a grimy counter, half-open makeup and skincare products littered across it.
Leni pushes open a bedroom door and tugs me inside, flipping on a light.
I know immediately that it’s her room because the furniture is clearly expensive, though she doesn’t treat it that way.
Her bed is unmade, a towel thrown across the—likely 100 percent Belgian linen—sheets.
Leni quickly scoops it up and drapes it over the door handle, like she can sense me looking at it.
But it doesn’t matter—her room is coated in a fine layer of dust, her dresser strewn with junk, the floor covered in clothes and shoes, dishes on both nightstands.
“What are we doing in here?” I ask.
“Blair,” she says, her face folding. She lets out a wail and throws herself at me, wrapping her arms around my neck as she begins to sob.
“Oh. Um.” I pat her back lightly, staring at my horrified face in her dresser mirror. “Hey, it’s okay. What’s wrong?”
“I’m so, so sorry,” she gasps, holding me tighter. “I made a huge mistake. I should’ve never let her convince me to kick you out.”
“What?” My voice comes out a toneless croak.
“It was Starr’s idea—”
“Is that the story you’re spinning now?”
Leni pulls back as I turn toward the sound of Starr’s voice. She’s standing in the hall, her expression furious.
Leni swipes her fingers under her eyes and straightens her shoulders. “We’re having a conversation.”
“It sounds like you’re scheming,” Starr says to her. “But that shouldn’t surprise me, should it?”
I look between them. “What is going on right now?”
Starr’s gaze remains on Leni. “Leni has decided she’s done with me, so I guess she’s going to play friend swap and drag you back into her web.”
Leni’s cheeks redden, and she turns to me, blocking my view of Starr as she takes both my hands. “I made a mistake. It should’ve been me and you here. I know that now, and I’m so sorry I let her push you out.”
Starr laughs. “Oh, fuck off. Are you kidding me?”
“She was jealous of you,” Leni continues, talking over her. “She’s always been jealous of you.”
“Shut up, Leni,” Starr growls.
Leni ignores her. “It should’ve been me and you.”
Starr guffaws. “Is that right? You and her, when you told me she was giving you anxiety every time she asked you to pick up after yourself? When you said she’s a social liability because she has narc energy?
That it was a good thing she found Kyle, because you were tired of her looking like we’d slapped her every time we said we had a date? Or how about when you said—”
I know it’s coming. I know the worst thing is about to leave Starr’s mouth—I can see it in her eyes, in Leni’s taut expression, in the way the air in the house has gone still.
“—you didn’t want to tell her whenever we went shopping together, because you always felt rushed when she stood around doing nothing because she couldn’t fit into anything?”
I swallow, and it feels like knives. The sharp points of everything Starr is telling me—that they were sick of me long before we decided to move in together, that I was always the odd one out, that I’d embarrassed myself all this time—scrape at my insides the whole way down.
“I did not say that!” Leni snaps, whirling on Starr.
“What do you think, Blair?” Starr says to me. “Does it sound like I’m lying? You’re the genius here.”
I pull my hands from Leni’s and take a step back. My brain feels like it’s a Rubik’s Cube being spun by unseen hands, matching up wrong, wrong, wrong.
“Honestly? I don’t care if you’re lying or not.
” My voice sounds surprisingly steady. “I’m just disappointed I ever wasted so much of my time and energy on you both.
That I let myself be tricked into thinking you were good friends, and that there was something wrong with me.
You suck. And I’m not going to stand here and be the weapon you use against each other, just because you can’t make things work now that you have everything you wanted. ”
I step around Leni, and when I reach the door, Starr moves wordlessly aside, looking stunned. As I go, shouting starts up behind me, neither of them ready to let the fight go.
I swing open the front door and step out, but I’m not alone on the porch—Izzy is balanced on the balustrade, the guy from the keg beside her.
“Hey,” she says in surprise.
Through the open door, Leni’s scream rips through the night: “You’re so fucking selfish, Starr!”
“Oh, that’s really interesting, coming from someone who’s never had to share anything—”
I snap the door shut, heart thundering.
Izzy snorts. “Here we go.”
I swipe at my wet eyes. Izzy turns into a blur, so I can’t read her expression.
“Are you okay to drive?” she asks, her voice surprisingly gentle.
“I’m not driving, but thanks.” I hesitate, looking toward the door. “How long have they been like that?”