Chapter 16
Chelsea Adler is pretty drunk by the time Evie and I get to Ben’s house.
“Claire! Evie! Heyyyyyy,” she says when we walk down into Ben’s basement. She smiles, glassy-eyed, and holds up her red Solo
cup at us. “D’y’all need a drink?”
“We’re good,” Evie says.
“Okay. Let me know if you change your minds!” Then she wanders away.
“Am I hallucinating or is she being nice?” I whisper to Evie.
“Eddie says she’s a happy drunk,” she says back, not bothering to lower her voice. “He likes her way more at parties than
at school.”
At least that’s one less thing to worry about.
A few minutes later, Ben comes over to say hi. He’s wearing a Brown University sweatshirt, because he committed to play on
their squash team. It must be so nice to have that sureness so early in the year. To know where he’s going, and that he can go, with no worries or concerns about whether it’s the right choice. Just pure certainty. He has his sleeves pushed up, revealing
his very toned forearms. I wonder if all squash players have such nice arms.
“Hey,” he says. “I’m glad you came.”
I pull my eyes away from his arms. “Thanks for having us.”
“Ben,” Victor calls from the Ping-Pong table. “We’re up!”
Ben nods his chin at me. “Find me after?”
“Okay. Sure.”
When he leaves, Evie says, “I don’t think he even registered that I was standing here.”
We go over to talk to Jamal, one of Eddie’s best friends, while Ben plays beer pong. I can feel him looking over at me every
now and then. It makes me nervous, in a good way. For the next hour, I try not to pay such close attention to where Ben is,
but I can’t stop. I don’t know why I’m so anxious. Do I like Ben more than I thought? When beer pong ends, Evie goes to play
flip cup, but I’m not in the mood.
Ben is over on the couch. He was talking to Genevieve a minute ago, but she went to play flip cup, too, so now he’s alone.
Chelsea’s asleep on the beanbag, a blanket draped over her. Knowing that she’s no longer conscious makes me feel better. I
don’t usually drink, because I made a promise to myself that I would never turn into the ultimate ex–child star cliché like
Todd said, strung out and addicted to alcohol and drugs. But I’m feeling so nervous around Ben that maybe tonight I can make
an exception. So I get a beer and go over to sit with Ben before I can talk myself out of it.
I sit down next to him. “Hey.”
“Hey.” He grabs my free hand and gently hits it against the couch. He nods at the Solo cup. “I thought you didn’t drink.”
His hand is warm. “Only on special occasions.”
“Is this a special occasion?”
“Maybe.”
His gaze becomes more intent on me. My stomach does a flip, which I wasn’t expecting. He shifts his body, and it feels like
he wants to kiss me.
And then, sitting here in Ben’s basement, holding Ben’s hand, wondering how it would feel if I kissed Ben right now, I’m suddenly
thinking about Luke. His hands. His long, lanky body. His dark eyelashes. His brown eyes. I try to make it stop, to shut them
out, but the unwelcome images keep coming.
Part of me wants to let this happen anyway. To lean in and kiss Ben. But at the same time, it doesn’t feel right to kiss a
boy when another one is haunting your thoughts.
“I told Evie I’d play flip cup with her,” I say to Ben suddenly. “I think she’s waiting for me.”
Ben traces circles on the palm of my hand. “Or you could stay here. With me.”
“She begged me.”
We both look over at her. Evie is shouting gloating insults at Jamal and Genevieve, who she’s up against in flip cup. She’s
playing with a guy from Halston Prep who keeps burping because he’s drinking all her beer for her.
“She’s definitely not having fun without you,” Ben agrees. But he has a playful smile on his face. Like he understands what
I’m doing but doesn’t mind.
I go to join them at the table.
“You’re drinking tonight?” Evie gives me a once-over, looking surprised. She drinks occasionally, so it’s not like she’s judging me. But she knows how much I like to be in control, which is why I usually abstain.
“Yeah. Why not?” Then I take a huge sip of my beer and Genevieve says, “Okay, Hopper. I see you!”
And that’s when my memory of the night starts to get fuzzy.
When I wake the next morning to the skull-drilling ringing of my alarm, the sun is shining brighter than it usually does.
My room feels like the inside of a lightbulb. I fumble for my phone and shut one eye to look at the time. It’s almost ten
thirty. I have an absurd number of texts from Evie. And when it goes off again, I realize that sound isn’t my phone alarm.
It’s the doorbell.
Luke, I think, panicked. Last night, when we were figuring out when to meet this morning, ten thirty felt generous. Usually, I’m
awake by nine on the weekends. Not this morning, though. Obviously.
I’m still in my shirt, bra, and underwear from the night before. My jeans are a puddle on the floor, tangled up with my shoes.
We’re a no-shoe house, so the fact that I went upstairs last night without taking them off is not a good sign.
The doorbell rings again, with a knock this time. Thisbe jumps off my bed with a woof.
“Coming!” I yell.
I pull on my jeans and hurry down the stairs, zipping my fly as I go.
Luke’s waiting on the front stoop with three to-go cups of coffee, a paper bag dotted with grease, and a knowing smile on his face.
“Good morning,” he says, in a way that seems to contain more than just a simple greeting.
It’s way brighter than usual out here. At least the crisp morning air feels refreshing. I take a deep breath. If I could drink
a gallon of that fresh fall air, I would. “Come inside so I don’t have to look at the sun.”
With the way I’m walking all hunched over to keep my pounding head from falling off my body, with pieces of hair in my face,
I feel like a zombie from a campy horror movie. Once we’re in the kitchen, Luke sets the coffees on the island. “You look
worse than I thought you would.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
He raises his eyebrows. “You don’t remember?”
“Remember what?”
“You called me last night.”
“I did?” I whisper in horror.
No, I think. No, no, no.
“Oh yeah.”
“When?”
Luke thinks. “Must have been . . . oh, around one a.m.?”
“Please tell me you didn’t pick up.”
“I sure did.” He tilts his head at me. “Do you remember anything from our conversation?”
“No.” The physical symptoms of my hangover don’t hold a candle to the dread and anxiety I feel. I don’t want to know, but I have to know. “What . . . what exactly did I say?”
He pauses. Maybe for too long. “That was intelligible? Not much. You were mostly rambling. But it was enough that I knew I
had to bring over some supplies.” He lifts the coffee and the bag dotted with grease. “Speaking of, is your mom home?” Luke
looks around. “I got her a coffee, too.”
“She stayed the night in Stamford with Todd.”
“That’s probably for the best, given your current state,” he says. “Here. You should eat something.”
I can smell the mix of sugary donut—which must be what’s inside the bag—and coffee, and it makes my stomach turn.
“Thank you for bringing that, but I need to take a shower before I eat anything,” I tell him. “Can you . . .” I hold out my
hands and close my eyes for a second, to steady my throbbing brain. “Can you give me ten minutes?”
Luke looks me up and down. “You know what, make it twenty. I can take Thisbe out for a walk in the meantime, if you want.”
Thisbe starts to yawn and stretch excitedly at the word walk.
“Thank you,” I whisper. I show him where the leash and the bags are, and then when the front door clicks behind them, I hurry
back to my room.
The first thing I do is run to grab my phone off the charger and check it for a record of my indiscretions. In the process, I get a glimpse of myself in the mirror. Jesus. I’m a total mess. My eye makeup is everywhere. I really do look like I clawed my way out of a shallow grave.
This is why you don’t drink, Claire, I think, furious with my poor judgment.
First I go to my texts with Evie. Please don’t let me have confessed anything to her last night. When and if I tell her the
truth about everything, about me, it needs to be when I’m sober.
But it’s just a million texts from her, asking me how I’m feeling, telling me to drink water, saying I was a freak last night
and that she kind of liked it.
ME:
Next time I claim I want to drink please shackle me in some dark basement to save me from myself
She texts back immediately.
EVIE:
She’s alive! How are you feeling
I send a vomit emoji and then, Did I tell anyone anything about Luke last night?
EVIE:
Shockingly no. If it was me I would’ve been standing on the couch announcing it to the party. Are you seeing him today??
Unfortunately yes, I text back, and then I click out to see what other damage drunk Claire did.
I texted Nicky: Im soooo produ of u
To which he responded, Wtf? Are you drunk?
And it looks like I texted Ben last night, too. Wonderful.
I texted him at 1:15. I had so much fun toniht
He texted me back an hour later. R u awake?
I screenshot the exchange and send it to Evie with a water gun pointing at the head of an upside-down smile emoji.
EVIE:
I mean, yeah. U guys were making out like crazy
My whole body freezes. I don’t remember that.
ME:
Wait. Seriously?????
No, she texts a few seconds later. But u did kiss him on our way out. Only on the cheek tho. I think u caught him by surprise. He looked like a kid on Christmas
Okay, that’s embarrassing, but not too bad. At least I didn’t kiss him on the mouth.
Then, saving the worst for last, I go into my call log.
And there it is. An outgoing call to Luke at 1:17 a.m. I click into it to see the details, praying it’s thirty seconds or
less.
My heart sinks. The recorded call is seven minutes long.
There’s no way we talked for seven whole minutes and I didn’t say something that was catastrophically embarrassing. There’s just no way.
I check our texts to be sure there isn’t more. Thank God there’s nothing. Or if there was, drunk me deleted them to spare
sober morning me.