Chapter 11 #2
Hunter’s hand is still on my shoulder, and I shake it off.
“Look at me,” he says. “You can’t just go silent and storm off.”
I whirl around.
“Yes, I can,” I say. “Watch me.”
“Are you fucking serious right now?” he whispers, his voice slowly getting louder. “You don’t even text me for two days and now you’re just stomping off again?”
“I told you I needed space,” I say. “I don’t have to tell you what I’m doing every second.”
How the hell did I get on the defensive?
“I don’t want to know what you’re doing every second,” he says. “I just wanted Hi, I’m fine, I think about you sometimes, I didn’t forget you.”
“You didn’t say you wanted me to text you,” I say, my voice rising too. I can hear people walking around upstairs, and I glance behind me. One of the firemen is padding through the living room, very carefully not looking at us.
The blood has rushed to my face, and I know I’m bright red, my eyes quickly filling with tears, my throat closing. Right now I’d give a pinkie to be anywhere else.
“I thought maybe you’d want to text me, or call me, or fuck, something,” he says. “I guess I should have known.”
The hell does that mean?
“Like I guess I should have known I’d come back to find your head between someone else’s legs?” I hiss. I’m clenching my jaw so hard it hurts, doing my absolute damnedest to hold back tears.
“That’s fucking unfair,” he says. “I didn’t know you were coming over, I wouldn’t have—”
“So it’s fine that you were flirting with someone else until you got caught,” I say.
One tear spills down my face and I brush it off furiously. My jaw is trembling, and it’s taking everything I have not to lose my shit.
“That’s not what I meant and you know it,” he says.
Another tear.
“I’m not doing this here, in front of goddamn everyone,” I say, holding up both hands. “We can talk about this—”
Hunter snorts. Then he walks past me, opens a door, glances inside, and enters.
“Come on,” he says.
I walk into the bathroom, close the door behind myself, and turn to face him.
“I just told you, I don’t fucking want to—”
“Yeah, well, I do, since apparently I don’t know when I’m going to hear from you again,” he says, his voice bitter.
“I’m not sure why I should call if I’m just going to find you putting the moves on my roommate,” I say.
Lightning flashes again, outside the tiny bathroom window.
“I wasn’t putting the moves on your roommate,” he says. “You can’t decide whether you want me or not, and in the meantime, I can’t talk to other girls?”
I roll my eyes and snort.
“That was not talking,” I say. “She was on your shoulders, for fuck’s sake.”
“She needed to reach the top shelf.”
“There were no chairs to stand on?” I ask. “The first thing you thought was hey, let me lift you up on my shoulders?”
Hunter glares at me, clenching his jaw. He turns away, shoves his hands through his hair, and turns back. There’s more lightning, close by, and we both turn to look at the window for a moment.
“It didn’t mean anything,” he says at last. “She suggested it, and I just got caught up.”
I can’t look at him, so I look away, at the ugly tile wall of the shower. There’s tears running down my face now, my throat nearly closed off, and I have to force myself not to start sobbing, because holy shit does this feel familiar.
It’s always been like this with us. He was the quarterback, the prom king, and I had to stand there in my fancy dress and watch him dance with Ashley Fucking Newman, who was blond and blue-eyed and a cheerleader and everything that I wasn’t.
Hunter’s handsome. He’s charming. He’s a fucking fireman, and worse, all that shit comes naturally to him. There’s no reason at all that he should be with some quiet nerd, and I’ve always known it.
The only question is when he’ll finally figure it out and leave me.
“I can’t,” I say, my voice coming out a strangled whisper.
He looks at me, his face flat and unreadable.
“Can’t what?” he says.
“I can’t do this with you,” I say, a single sob escaping me. “People don’t change. I should have known better to think you did.”
“I haven’t changed?” he says, incredulously. “You ignore me for days and now we’re fighting in a bathroom and I’m the one who hasn’t changed?”
“I haven’t fucking changed either, then!” I say. I’m trying to keep my voice down, but I think I might be bordering on hysterical. “I’m the same and you’re the same and let’s just skip the part where we have fun together because I already know how this ends, so let’s just get it over with.”
Better now than thirty years from now, I think, even as I’m trying so hard not to cry that I’m shaking.
Hunter’s just staring at me, his mouth slightly open, like he’s not quite sure what just happened. I push past him, wipe my face furiously, and leave the bathroom. Everyone is looking at me as I put on my things and then rush out of the house.
Lightning flashes overhead as I run the fifty feet to my own front door, even though I think the rain is starting to slack off. Trout greets me inside, happy as ever, and I throw my stuff on the floor and head upstairs immediately, flopping miserably onto my bed.
Then I lie there and cry. I cry until I’ve got the hiccups and I can’t cry anymore, because I can’t believe this happened again, with the same person, and I can’t believe I didn’t handle it better this time, I can’t believe my parents are getting divorced. I can’t believe my mom cheated on my dad.
The worst part is how it hurts again, the same way it did when he went off to Afghanistan, so pumped and excited to be in the Marines, doing something for his country, while I was trying to get through my first couple weeks of college.
Every time we talked he was all smiles, friends with everyone else there, while I was usually alone in my dorm room, pretty sure that everyone I knew was at a cool party I hadn’t been invited to.
Back then I thought he cheated on me. Not that I ever had any evidence, but the women in his unit all seemed to really like him. He was halfway around the world, how would I ever find out?
I’m not sure I think that any more, but it’s better to just nip this in the bud than have months of drama play out again.
I stay there, on my bed in the dark, for a long time and just feel sorry for myself. It feels like nothing is stable, like I can’t take anything for granted. Like I’m crossing a rickety bridge and don’t know what’s on the other side.
Someone knocks softly on my bedroom door, but I don’t answer it.
They knock again, and then I hear Mandy’s voice quietly calling my name, but I still don’t get up, because I’m not sure I can explain what just happened.
Finally, I hear her footsteps heading back down the hallway, and I heave a sigh of relief.
After a long time, I get up. The lights are back on, so I heat leftovers, watch dumb TV. I go to bed at eight, because I don’t want to be awake any more.
I feel like an empty, hollow shell, but a dumb one who can’t learn from her mistakes. At least I fall asleep fast.