Chapter 48 #2
Alice looks around my room, the books, flashcards, pens and highlighters scattered everywhere. ‘It doesn’t matter where you start. You just talk. I think you should give it a shot. Unless you like feeling this way?’
The beating in my chest starts to pick up again, like there’s a tiny bird trapped inside me instead of a heart and it’s trying to find a way out.
‘I’ve always felt this way. The only way to fix it is to get on top of everything.’
‘And if you can’t?’
An ugly tension builds, starting in my shoulders, binding my arms to my ribs, tightening my hands into fists as my lower body clenches, holding everything in, holding everything down. I stare at the floor, the warm wooden floorboards, the creamy beige rug.
‘I’ll go with you,’ Alice says softly. ‘If you hate it, you don’t have to go again. Same deal I made with Jenna when I told her I didn’t need counselling.’
‘What if they tell me to quit my job? Or drop out of class?’
‘They’re counsellors, not gods. You don’t have to do what they tell you. But if it helps, I don’t think they would say that. With Ava, the one I see, it’s more about her asking questions than telling me what to do.’
Nothing changes at first. I’m still wound up tight, wheels spinning, but as we sit together in silence, there is a shift.
The smallest crack that lets the light in.
The thought of talking to someone is frightening but not as frightening as the thought of feeling this way forever.
I chew on my bottom lip, afraid to say words that would put the wheels in motion, but I have to. I know I have to.
‘You’d come with me?’ I say, so quiet, I can barely even hear myself. But Alice hears.
‘Every week if you want. I’ll walk you to the door, I’ll wait outside, and I’ll even take you for a little treat after.’
It’s shaky but I find the beginnings of a smile and turn my head to look at my friend.
‘Is this all part of a cunning plan to get yourself a little treat?’
She grins, back to the Alice I know. ‘Shit, you found me out. Do we have a deal?’
‘Yes,’ I tell her before blowing out a slow, steady breath. ‘We have a deal.’
‘Which we should toast with a little treat.’ She hops off the bed to grab a box of Kleenex from my dresser and drops it in my lap. ‘Now, at the risk of undoing all our good work, do you want to tell me what happened with Ethan?’
There isn’t a single cell in my body that wants to relive the events of my morning but it’s going to come out sooner or later. She might as well hear it from me. But only my part in it, I’m not going to tell anyone about the accident, it’s not my place.
‘He and I, we …’
I don’t even know the right words for what we did.
‘Shagged each other senseless?’ she offers helpfully, and I sigh.
It was definitely senseless.
‘That covers it, more or less. What did Michael tell you?’
‘Michael didn’t say anything other than he saw the two of you having a big blow-up. I put two and two together, and what do you know, four.’ Leaning back on the bed, she gives me a wink. ‘Also, we all know he’s completely obsessed with you so it was only a matter of time.’
‘No, he isn’t.’
‘Please, it doesn’t take a master detective to see it. I’ve known since the night before your birthday. Why do you think he waited around all night to walk you home from your shift?’
Balling up the Kleenex in my hand, I pinch my shoulders together. ‘He didn’t wait, he was hanging out with his friends.’
Alice looks at me, disappointed. ‘I’m not playing this game, so we’ll just agree that I’m right, you’re in denial and Ethan is in love with you. What happened, how long has it been happening and how was it?’
It’s not a fight worth having because it doesn’t matter anyway. Tossing the used Kleenex in the trash, I filter through everything and try to come up with an answer.
‘We slept together,’ I begin, pretending I don’t see her silent cheer.
‘And?’
‘And now it’s over.’
‘Just like that?’ She flings a pastel highlighter at me from across the bed. ‘No, Mia, I need to know what level of outraged I’m working with. Are we giving him the silent treatment or are we walking him naked through the town while ringing a bell and chanting “shame”?’
I want to smile but I don’t have it in me.
‘It’s not my story to tell but he hasn’t been honest with me,’ I say, running through everything I found out one more time. It still doesn’t feel real. ‘About why he came to Hemden. He’s been keeping the real reason a secret.’
‘And you know this how?’
‘Oliver told me.’
‘Oliver, the world’s biggest Ethan Taylor stan?’
‘Maybe he doesn’t worship the ground Ethan walks on, but he was right.’ I gulp in a breath of air, catching as much oxygen as I can.
‘Okay, not filling you in does sound shady but is it definitely set-everything-on-fire worthy?’
‘He also said some shitty things about me.’
‘Then we will kill him.’
I pick up the highlighter, flipping it back and forth, pulling the cap on and off with a satisfying clicking sound. ‘If he’d been honest with me, maybe I would’ve understood, but he didn’t. Now I have to question all of it.’
Alice lays back against my pillows and makes a contemplative sound.
‘At the risk of being the wise old woman of Carpenter Hall again, my nan always said you can judge a person by their words or by their actions but if you believe what you’re told instead of your own two eyes, you’re a bloody idiot.’
‘Your grandmother said that?’
‘Not in those exact words. Nan swore a lot more. She was amazing. My point is, when he wasn’t failing to hand in his how-I-spent-my-summer essay, how did Ethan treat you?’
‘Good, I guess.’
‘Just good? We haven’t known each other that long but I don’t believe for one second you’re a girl who drops trou for a man who treats you “good”.
’ Alice stacks my books and notecards, then picks up a handful of pens, throws the first at my head and prepares another rally.
‘Last I heard, you couldn’t stand the man. Something must’ve changed.’
‘He grew on me, okay?’ I hold up my hands to defend myself against the next barrage of pens.
‘Like mould?’
‘Like, I got to know him better and I thought he was a good guy. He baked me biscuits on my birthday.’
‘Is that an American euphemism for a very dirty sex act?’
‘No,’ I say, definitely not smiling. ‘He literally baked me biscuits. Found a recipe, bought the ingredients, put them in the oven. They were delicious.’
‘And you didn’t shag him there and then?
’ She looks shocked and appalled. ‘If a man as hot as Ethan Taylor spontaneously baked for me, I fear I would propose. Not that hot is everything,’ she adds quickly when I open my mouth to argue.
‘But it sounds to me like the two of you have more of a relationship going on than I realized. Maybe more than you realized.’
‘We had something,’ I say, my gaze drawn to the wall that separates my room from his. ‘I thought it was special.’
Is he in there now? I have no idea.
The mattress bounces as Alice lies down and rests her head on my legs, looking up at me with wide, innocent eyes.
‘Because I’m such a grown-up and I know it doesn’t matter, I’m definitely not going to ask you about the sex.’
‘Good.’
‘Let me finish. I’m not going to ask you about the sex again after today. It was good, wasn’t it? You wouldn’t be nearly as upset if it was terrible.’
It’s very difficult to lie to someone when their head is in your lap and they’re staring at you.
‘If I say yes, will you leave it at that?’
‘Probably not.’
It was always going to be a long shot.
‘It was amazing,’ I say and she whoops. ‘Not how I thought it would be at all but, wow, yes, incredible.’
Her grin narrows into a sly smile. ‘So, you had thought about it?’
‘Enough already,’ I warn. ‘I don’t want to think about it because it isn’t going to happen again.’
‘And you look thrilled.’
‘Ecstatic.’
Hair ruffled, she sits up and wrinkles her nose, deep in thought.
‘Whatever goes on with the two of you, I’m Team Mia always,’ she says as I collect all my pens, tucking them back into their pouch before she can turn them into projectiles.
‘But I really do believe he likes you. You can tell me to fuck off if you want but whatever he did or didn’t tell you, there has to be a good reason for it. ’
When I close my eyes, he’s stood in front of me, staring at me.
Not the way he did before he left this morning, full of wonder and warmth, but the way he stared at me on the soccer field.
Cold and detached. Not my Ethan, just that guy I recognized from my old school. What reason could there possibly be?
‘What are you doing?’ I ask, when Alice stands up and goes over to my dresser, combing through my makeup bag.
‘Getting you ready,’ she replies. ‘Because we’re going down to the medical centre to register with a counsellor before you try to get out of it and you can’t go until I’ve fixed your brows. Everything is easier with a good brow.’
There’s no point fighting her on this and so I sit still and let her start on my face.
‘Alice?’
‘Yes?’
‘Thank you.’
She pauses and smiles, eyebrow pen in hand.
‘Any time. Now, back to the sex …’
I smile back at my friend, beyond grateful, because no matter how many things I may or may not have screwed up since I got to Hemden, I know I got at least one thing right.