Chapter 13
THIRTEEN
The following week passes at a glacial pace.
I’m eager to spend another Saturday with Wes, but the impending speech hovers at the back of my mind, looming over me like a storm cloud.
My emotions are mixed, and the anxiety monster that lives in my chest is in a constant state of pacing back and forth, forever on the lookout for a threat, waiting for the right moment to attack.
It only seems to relax when Wes is around, but I’m not ready to examine that too closely.
I spend my Friday evening in the library, and the hours tick away with my head buried in my laptop.
At some point, a couple girls pass by, complaining about the weather forecast. There’s supposed to be an ice storm tomorrow night, and everyone’s annoyed it’s happening on a weekend instead of a weekday, nixing the potential for canceled classes.
My phone vibrates with a text, and I glance at the screen, disappointed to see it’s a message from my mom and not Wes.
Mom: Can you come home on the 11th?
I frown down at my phone, re-reading the message. No how are you or how’s school going, of course. She’s straight to the point while also offering no information. There are no more birthdays until Noah’s in June, so I can’t imagine why she needs me home so soon.
Me: What’s happening on the 11th?
Mom: Having a garage sale with church. Need you to sort through childhood stuff in the basement.
I almost groan aloud at the prospect but check my class calendar to see if anything’s going on the next week. Sure enough, there’s a big, fat art history test the following Monday.
Me: That day might be hard. It’s right before an exam.
Mom: Scott can’t do the weekend before, and Noah can’t do the weekend after. Garage sale’s the one after that.
A list of potential responses runs through my head, so you’ll work around the boys’ schedules but not mine?
, taking front and center, followed by, just do it without me.
I don’t write either of those things, though.
I type out what she wants to hear because I don’t have the energy to deal with her attitude.
Me: I’ll make it work, I guess.
All she sends is a thumbs up. Conversation over.
It’s eight by the time I pack up my belongings and bundle up against the cold, but when I arrive at my apartment, the last person I expect to see is standing in the middle of my living room.
I freeze. My body goes immobile at the sight of Alexis Cane taking up space she shouldn’t be, and my moment of hesitation gives her the upper hand.
“Ivy,” she drawls. “We were wondering where you were. You’re just in time for the next round.”
I take quick stock of the situation. They’ve got all the makings of a perfect pregame—scattered shot glasses, half-empty liquor bottles, music blaring from the Bluetooth speaker on the coffee table.
Kinsley’s on the couch with Alexis’s friend Madison and a redhead I’ve never met, and Ava’s at the counter, cutting a lime into wedges. Quinn’s nowhere in sight.
I clear my throat and take a tentative step forward. “I-I-” I start, but unease and anxiety clog my throat. Alexis smirks, and my face warms. Even so, I force myself to take a breath and try again. “I should go. Homework.”
She ignores me, instead looking at Ava. “Cut an extra wedge for Ivy. She loves tequila.”
Ava glances up at me, nearly slicing her finger off as she does so. “Really? I thought you didn’t drink.”
“Oh, she drinks alright,” says Alexis, “and makes all sorts of fucked up decisions afterward.”
“How do you two know each other again?” asks Kinsley, her eyes bright as she looks between us, clearly enjoying this.
“We went to high school together. So many good times, right Ivy?”
I don’t respond. Just watch Ava line up the shot glasses, adding an extra one for me, and fill them with liquor. Alexis helps her pass out the shots and the limes. I don’t want to take them from her, but I do, knees locked, body paralyzed, soles glued to the floor.
“To the perfect Friday night before the storm!” calls Kinsley, raising her glass in the air and then throwing back the alcohol. Everyone follows her lead, except me. My hand doesn’t move.
“Go on,” urges Alexis. “Take the shot.”
“I don’t think—”
Her eyes harden, pinning me where I stand. “Take the fucking shot, Ivy.”
I should tell her to fuck off. Instead, I take the shot.
It burns going down, searing my esophagus, and settles warm in my stomach. Someone laughs. Some of my apprehension eases away as the alcohol permeates my nervous system.
“So,” Alexis says, “who on the football team are you fucking?”
And like that my anxiety returns.
Kinsley laughs like Alexis told the most hilarious joke and asks, “Are you kidding, Lex?”
Alexis shakes her head. “Madison and I tried to get into the football party last weekend, and they turned us away. Can you believe it? But Ivy got in.”
Kinsley’s mouth drops open, her gaze swinging toward me. “You did?”
“How?” demands Ava.
I shrug. “Dumb luck, I guess.”
Alexis throws her head back and laughs. “You always were a terrible liar. Like in high school, when I asked you if you fucked Mason Bryce, and you said you didn’t know what I was talking about. Remember that?”
The world tilts.
I can’t even think his name, yet she throws it out there like it’s nothing.
Like it’s meaningless.
Like it’s just a name, and he’s just a boy, and none of it matters.
“Remember Mason, Ivy?”
She says it again, brandishing the name like a weapon.
Wielding it like a knife to puncture my lungs and carve through my insides and cut away the protective barrier I’ve molded around these memories.
I thought it was thick enough to withstand an attack, but it turns out I was delusional.
Even after almost two years, it’s still paper thin.
And I see it in my head.
Dragging myself back to school, an empty, hollow shell of a girl who somehow made it back from the edge but is now worse off than before. Alexis cornering me in the girls’ bathroom like a hunter circling prey.
One strike, where the hell have you been?
Two strikes, what the fuck happened with Mason?
Three strikes, did you fuck him, Ivy? Did you?
And the final strike once I told her no and she went in for the kill. I don’t believe you.
And she left me for dead.
“What’s wrong with her?” asks Ava, as I try to breathe through the hole in my lungs with little success.
“She needs another shot, is all,” says Alexis, and before long, she’s passing me more tequila. “Go on. Have another. It’s the least you could do.”
I don’t allow myself to think it through. I take the shot, and it burns less going down this time, the alcohol easing my tension and allowing me to take a real breath. For a moment I forget why I stopped drinking. Why, when it makes Alexis’s acidity so much easier to stomach?
“What’s Brian doing tonight?” she asks Kinsley.
“No idea,” Kinsley says.
“We should invite him over. Him and his friends.”
I should protest, but I don’t, because even through the liquor haze, I’m afraid she’ll say that name again, just to hurt me. So when she hands me another shot, I take it, because with each one I drift further and further away from the reality of it all.
From the truth.
Sometime later, I end up on the couch, sandwiched between Kinsley and Ava.
The apartment’s full now with boys I’ve never met, and it’s the last place on earth I want to be.
Every time I tried to disappear into my room, though, Alexis leveled me with a warning look, and something about it kept my ass in this seat.
The cushion dips beside me, and I glance to my right to find an unfamiliar boy breathing my air.
When did Ava leave?
A look of confusion passes over his face. “Uh, not sure,” he says, and I realize I asked the question aloud. I squirm. The couch is too small, and he’s too close, his shoulder brushing up against mine. “What’s your name? I’m Patrick.”
“Ivy,” I mumble.
Kinsley snickers from my other side. “Jeez, Ivy. How much have you had to drink?”
Three shots. No. Four?
Beneath the haze, a jolt of panic shoots through my body. Shaking my head, I push off from the couch, eager to move away from this strange guy I don’t want to talk to and definitely don’t want to touch.
Suddenly needing fresh air, I start toward the door, only to have my arm tugged back.
I don’t think. I just act, whirling and yanking my arm out of his grip, accidentally smacking him across the face in the process. Except it’s not the guy. It’s Alexis, standing there with a reddening cheek and a look of shock that quickly morphs into rage.
“Fuck. I’m—”
I can’t get the words out before she retaliates, striking like a snake, only this time with her fist to my face.
My head snaps back, pain bursting from my cheek bone as my skull cracks back against the wall, and I know she’s been waiting to do that since the I don’t believe you in the girls’ bathroom junior year.
“You fucked him,” she seethes. “Admit it. Just fucking admit it.”
Tears spring to my eyes, and I nearly lose my balance. I wonder if that’s why she’s been plying me with alcohol all night—to get me drunk, so I’ll finally tell her the truth.
Not a chance in hell.
Something inside me snaps, and I know I’ve reached some kind of breaking point.
Alcohol lowers my inhibition, the pain in my cheek urges me on, and when the words come out, I don’t recognize them.
They’re all venom, poison thrown back in her face, and I don’t recognize the part of me willing to dredge up this memory for the sake of a comeback.
I don’t recognize this girl who’s capable of fighting back because I didn’t think she existed.