Chapter 12
LYSSA
Pistachios were the turtles of the nut world, and their shells were basically impenetrable for girliepops with nails.
As much as I liked Kevin, roofing was the most boring topic in the world, so I let my mind wander while he talked about his roof.
Mike kept shelling pistachios for me, and I kept eating them, delighted by the novelty of a treat that was usually inaccessible.
Eventually, his shelling outpaced my snacking, and a collection of shelled nuts piled up in his hand, ready for me to take.
Fun fact: Once, in a bodega, I’d grabbed a bag of pistachios only to discover when I got home that every single one was individually plastic wrapped, the most perfect metaphor of redundancy to ever exist. I’d sent a pic to my stepdad, Charles, who called his next poem “Pistachios from a Midtown Bodgea.” I’d found them in Chinatown, but the poem was about a middle-aged man grieving his youth, so he didn’t really care about the specifics.
Belatedly I realized Dean and Kev were staring as Mike shelled nuts for me and I froze with a pistachio halfway to my lips.
“What?” Mike was saying, seemingly completely unaware that I was literally eating out of his hand .
“Pistachio?” I said brightly, pushing Mike’s cupped hand toward his dad and Dean, like he was some kind of human buffet.
They shook their heads.
Mike, still seemingly oblivious about how intimate it was to feed me like this, tossed the remaining nuts into his mouth and dusted his hand off on his jeans.
“Nothing,” Dean said.
“Yeah, nothing.”
Mike shrugged this off, and didn’t see his dad and friend swap a knowing look with Jason behind the bar, who looked like someone had just given him ten free puppies.
My cheeks were on fire.
The conversation turned to the touch rugby game yesterday. Kev told Dean about Mike punching Oz. Dean didn’t look surprised, but he did seem to find it interesting that Mike didn’t want to say why he’d done it.
It made me feel weird to know something that Mike didn’t want to tell his family, and weirder still that it had been about me.
I was trying very hard not to think about yesterday—not the embarrassing cheer and definitely not what had happened in the car afterward, when Mike had gone down on me on the side of the road and I had been so close to orgasming that I still felt physically pained when I thought about it.
Okay fine, I was thinking about it.
Constantly.
In bed last night, emboldened by the cover of darkness, I’d thrust my hand between my legs to search out the feeling Mike had sparked.
I was wet just remembering what had happened, and it should have been easy to reach that same peak, but I was too frantic, too desperate, and ultimately way too sensitive.
The pleasant shaking feeling eluded me, and so I gave up, feeling even more frustrated than when I started.
Jason really wanted to know what Oz had said to set Mike off, and eventually, Mike reached his limit.
“What is it with you lot tonight—is it interrogate Mike night?” His loud voice was starting to draw the attention of the other pubgoers.
“Let’s just say, Oz made a crack about my loose virtues and I’m sick of people talking shit about me.
” Mike pushed to his feet then drained the rest of his beer.
I quickly counted the empty bottles in front of him and was impressed that he could stand without swaying.
“Everyone here acts like they don’t know me.
They do. I’m Mike, and I’m a fucking hoe bag, right?
” He hiccupped. “Once a hoe bag, always a hoe bag.”
“Mike,” Kevin scolded. “Don’t call yourself a hoe bag.”
“Why? It’s better than?—”
“No.” Kev looked uncharacteristically stern. “You’d never say that about someone else. I don’t want to hear you saying it about yourself either.”
“Whatever.” Mike curled his hand around the empty pistachio shells that had spilled on the bar and dragged them into his other waiting hand, before dumping them in the empty bowl for Jason. Even shit-faced and grumpy, he was thoughtful.
“I’ve had enough of an interrogation for one day,” he said, dusting pistachio off his hands. “Dean, you’ll give Lyssa a ride home, yeah?”
“Sure,” Dean said, “but what about?—”
“I’ll walk. See you clowns later.”
With a salute, Mike pushed his way out of the bar and onto the street.
I wanted to go after him, but Kev shook his head. “Let him go. Fresh air is good for him when he’s agitated. Let him walk it off.”
The three of us stayed to finish our drinks, but Mike’s absence was as loud as his company usually was. I stared at the bowl of pistachio shells, lost in thought.
* * *
It was late when I climbed in the back seat of Dean’s car. Kev and Dean carried on their conversation about the hotel building—apparently the Woody was built the same year as the hotel Dean owned and renovated.
After Mike had left, Dean had told me a bit about Hannah’s boudoir photography business.
It was hard not to feel envious of Caroline for having this whole world here in New Zealand, full of people who loved her.
The more I got to know them all, the harder I found it to understand why she didn’t want this for herself. It was all I wanted.
My phone dinged, and it was the specific sound of a messaging app I only had a few contacts on—just the people who weren’t likely to send me things like, die bitch .
It was a message from Caroline. Thinking about her must have sent a mental beam through the cosmos.
I’d barely read her first message before the subsequent ones came through.
Carolicious Angelface
That evil piece of shit.
Lyssa, that man is rotten. An evil waste of oxygen.
Caroline had finally watched my livestream.
I will make sure that everyone I know blacklists him. We will ruin his life like he tried to ruin yours.
He did ruin mine.
Still, Caroline’s immediate and fierce support pushed tears to my waterline as instantly as pulling a ripcord.
When I’d first lost my internship at Bossi, I’d kept a stiff upper lip and thrown myself into my own social media. After a few weeks of this, I’d had the idea to do the livestream. That’s when I’d imploded my entire fashion career.
Most people who had watched the livestream thought the worst of me.
The sentiment in the comments confirmed it.
Only a few people didn’t—either die-hard fans who thought I could do no wrong; or women who had had Pauls of their own.
Now, my best friend had joined the meager ranks of people who believed and supported me.
It made me short of breath and made me miss her with an intensity that was physical.
I didn’t have a lot of friends. Honestly, I only had space in my head for one friend at a time. I’d been that way since childhood. I’d made some sort-of work friends at Bossi (when you worked twelve hours a day, it was impossible not to bond), but they’d all blocked me now.
You’re sweet to say that, Caroline, my sweet honey badger. But it’s clear from the stream I’m the one in the wrong. I’m the one who is screaming verbal abuse.
Knowing that I’d been wrong to do what I did was one of the reasons I’d left the livestream up on my page. #Accountability.
Your delivery is … passionate. But your points are still valid.
Does Mike know about this?
I nearly dropped my phone in my haste to reply.
Why would that matter?
I held my breath as I waited for her response.
Mike has no chill. That Bossi guy better hope my brother never figures out how to renew his passport.
Mike doesn’t care about me like that. He said I was too much banana for one milkshake.
…
I watched her typing bubbles, feeling lightheaded suddenly.
A) my brother is a doofus. B) he will still flip his lid. It’s the principle of the thing.
Right. Mike had said as much himself. So had Dean and Kev, and now Caroline, too. Mike was everyone’s self-appointed white knight. This wasn’t about me. He said himself he had an overdeveloped sense of justice.
Yesterday wasn’t the first time he’d punched someone on a woman’s behalf. It probably wasn’t even the first time this month. That was just how Mike was.
The realization pulled a heavy sigh from me.
Dean met my eyes in the rearview mirror.
His expression might have been concern—it was hard to tell with Dean.
All of his expressions were kind of scowl-y.
I copied the thumbs-up gesture Mike always did, but I did it quickly and with both hands, which must have been overkill, because instead of looking reassured, Dean looked alarmed.
I understand now why you wanted to escape to Aotearoa. I’m glad Mike suggested it.
I didn’t know where to begin verbalizing everything I felt hearing that. Relief, gratitude, guilt. The overwhelming urge to open-mouth wail.
So I didn’t try.
I’m sorry that this happened to you.
No. That makes it sounds like a random lightning bolt that no one can be blamed for. Do-over.
I’m sorry a powerful, scheming, piece of shit man manipulated you. You didn’t do anything wrong, Lyssa my sweet moonbeam.
The tears spilled over then.
Because Caroline was wrong. I’d done everything wrong. Every single thing. And realizing that sucked .
Caroline believed good intentions counteracted bad impact. (She’d literally met her boyfriend by scamming his brother, so it tracked that she thought that.)
But I had taken a bad situation and made it a thousand times worse.