Letter Twenty-Two #2
Red hair? Tattoos? A piercing down below?
Is that what you liked, guy-wise? Bad boys? Not that tattoos or body piercings made someone bad. Take me, for example. No tattoos in sight, the only piercings I had were in my ears, and I’d almost blinded a girl in one eye.
Red hair, though. Not a common hair color. Oddly specific.
“I took a car home from the party,” you said, “and it reeked of the driver’s cologne.”
“Why didn’t you call Hal?”
“It’s late. He’s probably in bed. I don’t like to bother him if I can avoid it.”
I shivered from the whispery scratch of your lips against my neck. “What are you doing?”
“Shh. Just let me hold you a minute.” Your hand snaked up my spine. You tangled your fingers in my braid. “I wanted to spend the day with you, but Willoughby showed up and ruined my plans. I planned to take you to the Arboretum. I planned to apologize.”
I pushed my fingers into the soft waves at the back of your head. “Apologize for what?”
“The stuff with your mum. I can’t stop thinking about it—the things you said. I wish I’d never told you about her.”
“It’s okay,” I whispered.
“No, it’s not.” You ground your forehead against my shoulder. “You don’t think I can understand, but I do. I know what it’s like to feel unwanted, especially by a parent. It’s one of the worst feelings in the world.” A long pause. “At least you have Nic. I don’t belong to anyone.”
When you put it like that, I regretted ever being jealous my dad had wanted you to be his. You deserved to be wanted. To be loved and appreciated. To belong. I eased you back, needing to see your face. “You belong to us—to me and my dad. No matter what, you’ll always be ours.”
The vulnerability in your eyes, Casey—God. How could I not kiss you? I brushed my lips against yours, then parted your mouth with my tongue. Which you welcomed, stroking your tongue against mine. You tasted of beer as you greedily kissed me back.
Kissing you reminded me of Christmas morning. Of home. Of that feeling you get when you step into the sun. Of warmth and happiness and crisp fall days. Of things that are good and light and hopeful and true.
The best things.
Unfortunately, all the best things in life are also the most fleeting.
You broke our kiss, then put your forehead to mine. “It’s late. We should head up.”
In bed that night, I pressed my fingers to my lips, reliving our kiss over and over. I wondered if you were lying on your bed, right below me, reliving it, too.
But the following day, you acted as if that kiss had never happened.
We spent Sunday morning like we usually did: you and Nic drinking coffee in the wingbacks with Garland while I read on the sofa, Henriette hard at work, preparing our brunch in the kitchen. I tried catching your gaze more than once, but you wouldn’t look at me.
The Harrises and Eleanor arrived around eleven.
Over mimosas and quiche and enough bacon to feed an army, the adults blathered on about the election.
As Libby rattled off talking points for an upcoming debate, I caught Michael, eyes squeezed shut, heaving a sigh, either bored or annoyed by the topic of conversation—maybe both.
No telling how often this election crap came up over at his parents’ house.
Meanwhile, you sat beside him, pushing quiche around on your plate, heaving small sighs of your own. Once again, I tried catching your gaze. And, once again, you wouldn’t look at me.
After brunch, you disappeared upstairs to call Claire while the rest of us moved to the Garland Room, where the adults immediately resumed talking about the election.
Michael shot them an eye roll and left the room, so I followed him, leaving Bree behind on one of the wingbacks, scrolling on her phone.
“Michael, wait up,” I said, hot on his heels as he slung open the back door. Outside, I joined him on the stone bench closest to the house. “Are you still mad at me?”
Michael pulled out his phone. “Hard to be mad at someone I don’t give a shit about.”
“I shouldn’t have said that. It’s just…” I traced the plaid pattern on the skirt of my dress. “I guess I did want that woman to be my mom. I wanted to believe she cared enough to come back.”
Michael lifted his gaze to mine.
“If it makes you feel any better, I lashed out at my dad, too, and I definitely ended up hurting myself over it when he told me it wasn’t her. Maybe I was trying to distract myself from what happened last year. I don’t know.”
Michael grabbed my hand. “Of course I don’t feel better. I’m sorry your mom abandoned you and never came back. Fuck her.”
I gave his fingers a grateful squeeze. “Well, what’s going on with you? You don’t seem all that thrilled about the election stuff.”
Michael sighed. “I hope she loses.”
It shocked me to hear him say that. “What?”
“I hope my mom loses the election,” he repeated.
“I know that’s a shitty thing to say, because I’m supposed to support her.
She’ll make history if she wins. But I hate the attention at school.
I hate all the media coverage. I hate that I have to be so careful all the time, because everything I do reflects back on her.
I’m terrified something will come up about those assholes I helped put in the hospital last year.
I want her to lose, but I don’t want to bring shame on my whole family—or go to jail. ”
“You know my dad did whatever it took to make sure that never comes up again, right?”
“I know,” Michael said, staring at the ivy-covered brick wall across the courtyard.
“Look, I didn’t want to get back with Sienna, but my parents sat me and Bree down a while back and told us to be on our best behavior.
Bree’s perfect. She never does anything wrong”—I cast Michael a hard look—“other than letting everyone blame you at the beach this past summer. So they were mainly talking to me. I have to be careful about who I date right now. I can’t have some girl giving me permission to bite her, then blasting it all over social media. ”
“Here’s an idea. You could just…stop biting people.”
Michael tossed me a look that said, Yeah, right. “Anyway, Sienna would never do something like that, because—well, you said it—she loves the status dating me gives her. I don’t really want to be with her. We’re just using each other.”
I watched his jaw work. Watched him wring his hands. Watched him squint off into the distance. He was trapped like I was, but his cage looked different. One made of glass, not gilded bars or locks. Doomed to maintain a flawless image in the eyes of a city that never stopped watching.
But you know me. Despite understanding his reasons, I couldn’t not state the obvious. So I said, “I’m sure all the sex helps.”
Michael opened his mouth to reply, but the back door opened, cutting him off. It was Nic, ordering us back inside the house.
Upstairs, Bree slipped inside my bedroom, shutting the door behind her. “That was weird,” she said, narrowing her eyes.
I paused scanning my bookshelves for a new book to read. “What was?”
“Our dads. They got weird when they realized you and Michael had disappeared together.”
Pulse jumping, I plucked a book off the center shelf and pretended to skim the blurb on the back cover. “Yeah, that is weird.”
Bree watched me closely as I put the book back. “Is there something going on between you and my brother?”
I huffed out a laugh, hoping she couldn’t detect how nervous I was. “Are you kidding? I’m with Willoughby.”
“Yeah, but you guys aren’t exclusive. You can hook up with other people if you want.”
“And you think I want to hook up with Michael?”
“You stole my key to his apartment,” she said, gaze digging into mine, “and never gave it back.”
“So? I used it to mess with Sienna’s stuff.”
“Because you’re jealous of her?”
“Because she’s a bitch, Bree. You heard the way she used to talk to me.”
“Yeah, because you kept doing that lip thing to Michael right in front of her.”
“There’s nothing going on with me and Michael. I promise.” And there wasn’t anymore. So, technically, it wasn’t a lie.
The hard look of suspicion on her face made my stomach churn, so I joined her on the edge of my bed, plucked the diamond-encrusted B off her chest, and stroked it with my thumb.
“Michael and I were outside talking about all that stuff with my mom. I’m so stupid for thinking the woman watching my house was her. ”
Bree’s shoulders relaxed as she considered this. “It was odd that she took a picture of you.”
“I know, right?” I dropped her pendant and shrugged. “Whoever she was, my dad got rid of her. She’s gone.”
“I’m sorry, Ellie. I know the mom stuff really bothers you.”
“Well, we can’t all have a mom as perfect as yours.”
“Trust me,” Bree said, averting her gaze. “My mom isn’t perfect. Not by a long shot.”
“What do you mean?”
“Just—there’s the Libby you know, and then there’s another Libby. One who will do whatever it takes to get what she wants.”
Intrigued, I asked, “Like what? Give me an example.”
Bree stared at me a minute, hesitating. “Your dad was on the fence about sending you to that treatment center. He didn’t want to—but my mom talked him into it.
She said you needed more help than he could give you, that he needed to stop thinking he could keep you stable on his own, that if he didn’t do something soon, you might end up making him regret it. When he didn’t send you, she got mad.”
I jerked back, appalled. “Are you serious?”
Bree nodded.
“But why would she want me to go when I actually didn’t hurt myself?”
“Okay, let me just point out that my mom loves you, Ellie. She really does. But I think she wanted you out of the way during her campaign. Wanted you far away, where you couldn’t somehow screw this up for her.”
My heart dropped. “Are you kidding me?”
“But it all worked out, you know? She didn’t get her way, you’re here, and everything’s fine.”
“Everything’s fine?” Rage, thunderous and dark, filled my voice. “Libby tried to manipulate my dad into getting rid of me. I’m pissed at your mom right now.”
“I’m pissed at her, too—for many reasons.”