Chapter 8 #3
Melly is delighted once I start moving. Her face fucking lights up like the fourth of July.
She laughs and twirls under my arm and comes back and bumps her shoulder against mine and grabs my hands and waves them at me like use these, Golding, you have hands, use them, and I’m trying to move my body in a way that doesn’t embarrass either of us. I’m failing, and she’s laughing harder.
Mara appears next to us with the worst dance move I have ever seen a human do. Benson is doing some kind of dad-shuffle behind Lucy. Gianna is screaming the lyrics directly into Stanley’s face from six inches away. Stanley is screaming them back now. Mila has her hands in the air.
The song ends. A new one starts. Melly doesn’t let go of my hand. We keep dancing.
Two songs later, I can’t keep up.
I’m a whole new type of exhausted.
I lean down to Melly’s ear. “Water.”
She nods. She doesn’t let go of my hand for a second. Then she does. She turns back to Mara.
I head for the kitchen. Benson is already there. He has poured a glass of water and is holding it out to me as I walk in. “Knew you’d need one.”
I take it and drink the whole thing in one go.
Benson is leaning against the counter with his own water. Lucy is at the island talking to Penelope about something, gesturing with both hands.
Benson says, “I like this version of you.”
I don’t say anything, but I’d rather him not.
“I’m serious,” he says.
I look at the floor.
“I’ve never seen you dance at a party. Not once.”
I don’t say anything because there’s nothing to say. He’s right. I don’t fucking dance. I’ve stood in corners and held beers and gone to bed early and I haven’t, even one time, let a girl hand me a shot and pull me onto the dance floor while wearing a stupid costume in front of my whole team.
I don’t like that he’s right.
I don’t like that the person who’s made me dance is the same girl I’ve spent years trying to get away from. I don’t like that someone — anyone — has the capacity to do this to me. I have spent a long time making sure nobody had this kind of power over me.
Benson sips his water. “She brings it out of you, huh.”
I don’t answer.
He leans in and says, “That’s not the worst thing in the world.”
“Cap.” I shake my head. “She has a boyfriend.”
Benson goes still for one second. He doesn’t look at me when he answers. “Yeah.” A beat. “Right. I forgot.” Another pause. “Be careful with that, then.”
“Yeah.” I refill my glass at the sink. “I took your advice about the friend thing.”
He nods. “Good.”
He doesn’t say anything else.
I drink the second glass and head back toward the living room.
Mila is just walking in, so I stop to let her through. She doesn’t move. I make my way to walk past her.
“Blue.”
She isn’t looking at me. She’s looking at her drink. The light from the kitchen behind me is hitting half her face and leaving the other half in shadow, and her mouth is small and tight, and she takes one slow sip of whatever’s in her cup before she speaks.
“Don’t get used to it.”
I look at her. “To what?”
She looks up at me, finally. “To her.”
I open my mouth.
She doesn’t let me get there. She walks past me into the kitchen.
Don’t get used to Melly.
I don’t know what she means.
I think I know what she means.
I think she means don’t get used to her being nice to you.
Don’t get used to her being in your jersey.
Don’t get used to this version of her because this version is a Halloween version, and the costume’s going to come off, and on Sunday morning she’s going to wake up in her apartment and go back to being a girl with a boyfriend who isn’t you, and you’re going to go back to being a guy she hooked up with from high school, and that’s all you’ll ever be, Golding. So don’t get used to it.
That is what she means. That has to be what she means.
I don’t let myself wonder if she meant something else. I don’t let myself wonder why a girl who hates me just gave me a piece of advice instead of slapping me across the face.
I walk into the living room because that’s where Melly is.
The party thins out around midnight.
Mara has disappeared with Drew. Stanley has passed out on the couch with his mouth open and one shoe off.
Mila is on her phone next to Stanley. Rowan is in the corner talking to Gianna about something I can’t hear and probably don’t want to.
Penelope, Lucy, and Benson are at the kitchen table with cups of water.
Melly and I are at the island. She’s on a barstool, knees pulled up under the hem of my jersey. I’m leaning against the counter beside her with my arms crossed.
“Do you remember Mrs. Hartley’s English class?” she asks.
I look at her. “I remember you sat behind me, and I never got a single thing done.”
“I behaved.”
“You let me borrow your pencil more than once.”
She laughs, and I remember it like yesterday.
I searched my entire bag and then I gave up and turned around to ask her for a pencil.
She gave me the one she was holding. Then I turned back around and asked for a piece of paper.
She ripped one out of her notebook. Before class ended, I returned the pencil but not the paper.
“I’m happy you came to Camden,” I say. “I mean –– I know it was something you really wanted.”
She says, “Yeah. And you, too. It looks like life is treating you well here. You look good.” She closes her eyes. “Sorry. I mean, you look happy here.”
“Better hockey program than the other schools recruiting me,” I say.
She grins at that. “You’re such rink rat.”
I smile at her. “You know me well.”
“Do you go home often?”
I shake my head. “Not really.”
“Why not?” she whispers gently.
I shrug. “No reason.”
She looks around. “It’s weird that I’m here, huh? I worked so hard to get my associate’s degree and get good grades to transfer here. And here I am.” She looks up at me with those big blue eyes. “I never meant to orbit you, just in case you think that.”
I smirk at her.
She shrugs. “I want to start fresh if that’s okay?”
I look at her, wondering what she means. If anything, I need a fresh start with her. I nod anyway because I can’t say no.
“Yeah.” I glance down at my water. “Yeah, we can do that.”
She smiles. “Perfect. I was afraid you were going to say no.” She slides off the barstool. “I need air.”
“Want company?” I ask.
She looks at me, surprised. “Sure.”
We go out the back door. The October cold hits me in the chest, and I’d forgotten about the cold. She’s in my jersey, and the jersey isn’t warm enough. I almost say let me grab my hoodie for you.
We sit on the porch swing. There’s a foot of space between us.
The party hums through the wall behind us.
The yard is dark. A few people on the side patio are still smoking, soft red dots in the dark.
A jack-o’-lantern on the porch railing has burned down to about a centimeter of candle and is flickering inside its own face.
A long beat of silence.
“It’s so cold, but I’m drunk, so it feels okay,” she says. “I’m tired.” She doesn’t move. “Gianna said we could crash here. Is that weird?”
She looks over at me.
I shake my head. “No, Benson is G’s brother, so of course you can crash here.”
“Promise it’s not weird? I don’t want to freak you out.”
I shake my head. “Nah, don’t worry about me.”
“But you might be weird in the morning.”
I shake my head.
She smiles. “Blue, I know you. You’re drunk right now, and that’s the only reason you’re talking to me.”
“That’s not true,” I say.
She keeps her smile. “Okay, then prove me wrong.”
I look forward. “I’ve been talking to you all night.”
She leans over and looks me straight in my eyes. “Sober and not at two in the morning, Blue.”
I look at her face. “Okay, yeah.”
Her lips pull to one side. “I don’t believe it for one second, Blue.”
“No?”
She shakes her head and laughs. “No way.”
I look down at her in my jersey.
“You have a guest room, right?”
“I think Drew’s in there with Mara.”
Melly makes a face.
I look at the floor of the porch. “Take my room.”
Her head turns. “Blue.”
“I’ll take the couch.”
“Blue.”
“Mel.”
The name comes out before I can stop it.
Mel.
I haven’t called her Mel since we were seventeen and lying next to each other in the dark.
I haven’t let the syllable past my teeth since that night.
I’ve kept it locked behind the wall I built with both hands when I left her in that bed at five in the morning, and tonight, the wall has cracked enough to let one short word through.
She hears it.
She looks at me, searching my eyes.
I don’t know what she thinks she’s going to find, but whatever it is, I’m not hiding it from her anymore.