Chapter 11
Melly
The coffee Mila brought me is warm against my palms and the steam stopped coming off the top of it a while ago.
We drove in silence to my apartment, and now me, Mila, and Penelope are sitting in the living room.
My throat is doing the dry click thing that happens when you’ve been mouth-breathing for hours.
My head hurts.
Mila is on the other end of the couch. Her feet are pulled up under her. She’s in her sweats, and she’s been watching me patiently. I know she’s just dying to hear what happened last night.
I glance down again, wondering if I’m imagining things. But it’s real. I really am wearing Blue’s hoodie. I use the sleeve to cover my hands, and I bring it to my face. I inhale it, and it smells like him.
“Do you want toast?” Penelope asks as she stands.
I nod. Nodding is easier than speaking.
“With butter?”
I nod again and mutter, “Thank you.”
Mila shifts on the couch. “How’s your head?”
“Bad.”
“Yeah. Same.” She looks around the apartment, tapping her fingers on the arm of the couch. “So, what do you remember?”
I close my eyes and think. My head spins, so I don’t want to do that again. I shrug. “Um––” Nothing. “Dancing. I remember dancing. And the kitchen. The shots.” I pause. I touch my face. “The mustache. He drew a mustache on me.”
“Oh, he did that.”
“Yeah.” I look at her and hesitate. “Did I sleep in his bed?”
Her eyes flick across the room toward the kitchen, where Penelope is making my toast. “Yeah, Melly. You did.”
“Was he—” I stop. I don’t know what I’m asking. “Was he in the bed too?”
“I think for some of it.”
Some of it.
What does some of it mean? Did he come to bed and then leave? Did he get in and then go to the floor when I fell asleep? Did I dream him? Did I dream the whole second half of the night?
I don’t remember him in the bed.
“Did anything happen?” I ask. My heart starts racing.
“I don’t think so.”
“Did he tell you that?”
“He swore on his grandmother’s grave.”
I look at her. “He swore?”
“I asked him three different times.”
“Oh.”
I look down at the mug.
She asked him.
She interrogated him.
Penelope walks over with toast on a small plate. Two slices. Butter. She sets it on the coffee table and pushes it toward me with one finger and then sits on the arm of the couch.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Penelope asks.
“I don’t even know what it is.”
“That’s fair.” She takes the dishtowel off her shoulder, folds it, and puts it on the arm next to her. “Can I tell you what I saw?”
I take a bite of toast and nod.
“You and Blue were inseparable from about ten o’clock onward. You danced together for a while. You sat on the back porch for a long time. Then I left.”
I look at Mila. “And what happened?”
Mila starts, “You told me that he offered you his bed, and you were going to stay the night there.”
I’m mortified. “What else did I say?”
“You told me not to ruin your chances with him because, and I quote, it’s always been him.”
My mouth drops. “No.”
“Yes,” Mila says.
I made a fool of myself in his house. In front of everyone.
“I was supposed to —” I was supposed to keep my distance. I was supposed to be a polite friend of a friend. I was supposed to not get within ten feet of him. I shake my head. I can’t believe I actually said that. I look down at the hoodie. This is my evidence. “I’m wearing his hoodie.”
“Yeah.”
“I have to give this back today.”
Mila repeats, “Today?”
“Yeah, I can’t keep his hoodie. Knowing him, it’s probably the only one he has. I have to return it.”
Mila laughs. “God, do you know absolutely everything about him?”
“He comes from a very humble background,” I defend him, saying it in those words because we’re in front of Penelope. If we weren’t, I would tell her to stop judging me. “And plus, why would he need another one if he’s already got one he likes?” That’s a direct quote from him in high school.
“Then return it,” she says.
I eat one slice of toast and start on the second. I take a few sips of my coffee, and it’s slowly helping my sore stomach.
Penelope turns on the TV, which is a rare thing for the apartment. She doesn’t put on a show. Instead, she opens YouTube and starts playing a faceless, silent vlog of the European countryside. Mila and I watch the screen, hypnotized. My brain’s happy for the break.
After about ten minutes, I sit up. The vlog is still playing — some woman in a wool coat is walking through a market in what might be Portugal, picking up tomatoes — and Mila is asleep with her cheek on the arm of the couch.
Penelope is in the armchair by the window with her sketchbook in her lap and a pencil that hasn’t moved in five minutes.
I look down at myself, knowing that I have to return this today. It’s cold.
I clear my throat.
Penelope looks up from her sketchbook.
I say, “I’m going to return this today.”
She doesn’t blink. “Today?”
I nod, looking at her for some confidence. “Today.”
Mila stirs at the other end of the couch, lifts her head, her eye makeup is wrecked, and she squints. “You’re what?”
“Returning the hoodie.”
“Now?”
“In a little. I want to shower first.”
She sits up fully and pushes her hair out of her face. She looks at Penelope. Penelope looks back. I watch the look pass between them.
“Melly. I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”
“I’m just going to hand it to him and leave. I’m not going there to have a conversation. I just can’t keep this knowing it’s probably his only one.”
“But you don’t even know if it’s only one.”
I shrug. “I’m doing the right thing.” I look at Penelope. “Right? Returning something that isn’t mine, and something I no longer need.”
She looks down at it and says, “I’m just trying to look out for you.”
“I know.”
“Remember when he used to call you a stalker?”
I freeze. “I know.”
She sighs, looking up at me. “This is happening all over again.”
I shake my head. “I hope not. We’re not kids anymore.”
Penelope interjects, “Wait, you knew him since you were kids?”
I nod. “Yeah. Me, Mila, and Blue all went to the same middle school.”
Penelope sits back in her armchair. Her pencil stops moving. “Like — sixth grade kids?”
“Sixth grade kids.”
She looks at me for a second longer than she usually does. “Wow.”
I nod. “Yeah.”
She doesn’t say anything else right away. She just watches me.
Mila rolls her eyes, “And she’s been obsessed with him ever since.”
I swat at her legs. “That’s supposed to be a secret!”
“Pen isn’t going to tell anyone!” Mila shouts, defending herself.
Penelope grins. “Don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone.”
I smile at her. “Thank you.” I reach for the hoodie and pull it off. “I’m returning this.”
Mila scoffs, looking at the shirt underneath. “You’re wearing his shirt too?”
I pull the shirt down and shrug. “Guess so.”
“Well, return that too.”
I roll my eyes. “I’m not keeping it!”
“High school you would.”
I smile, looking at Penelope and then back to Mila. “I would.”
Mila points at me and says, “College you will not.”
I shake my head. “No, college me will not.” I open my hand in front of me and gesture, “I am so done being that girl.”
“Do you need me to come?” Mila asks.
I shake my head.
She groans, “Thank God. I was going to tell you I’m not coming anyway.”
I let out a sarcastic, “Ha. Ha. Ha,” and then I go to the bathroom.
The shower is hot enough to make my skin pink.
I stand under it with my eyes closed and let it hit the top of my head and run down my back.
I don’t think about anything for a long time.
I wash my hair. I wash my face. The faintest smudge of the mustache is still under my nose from where I tried to scrub it off.
It comes away on the washcloth, and I watch the soap slide down the drain and disappear.
He drew that on me.
But I’m not romanticizing it. I’m not. I don’t allow myself to go there. It’s not happening. That’s my plan. I’m a cool girl. I can be a cool girl.
I stand in front of my closet in a towel for longer than I mean to.
The thing about closets is that they are full of small decisions you don’t want to make.
I don’t want to look like I tried. I don’t want to look like I rolled out of bed.
I don’t want to look like I came over to talk to him.
I don’t want to look like I came over to not talk to him either.
I want to look cool. I am a cool girl. I can be cool. Super cool.
I pull on soft jeans. A plain long-sleeve. Sneakers. A scarf because it’s cold and because the scarf gives me something to do with my hands if my hands get nervous on his porch. Hair down, brushed, still damp at the ends. A swipe of mascara. Lip balm.
I look at myself in the mirror over my dresser.
I don’t look as hungover as I feel.
I look like a person.
I fold the hoodie and stack it on the t-shirt. I pick up the stack, press it against my chest with both arms, and grab my keys off the bowl by my door. I can’t believe I’m doing this.
In the living room, Mila is sitting up on the couch with her arms crossed and her chin on her hand, watching me. Penelope has not looked up from her sketchbook.
I don’t say goodbye. Mila doesn’t either. I love her for it.
The drive is six blocks. I park on a side street, shut the engine off, and reach for the folded clothes on the passenger seat.
I remind myself that I’m here to return his clothes.
I have no ulterior motive, even if he makes me feel like I do.
That’s always been his vibe that he puts on me, it’s not mine. I’m here doing a good thing.
I step out with his clothes and notice that the pumpkins are still on the porch.
The front door is closed. The fog machine is gone.
I walk up the steps and listen. No TV. No music.
No voices through the door. The house is quiet.
That’s the easiest outcome. I knock, nobody answers, and I set the clothes on the bench and walk away.
I reach the door and knock.
I hear a voice say, “Come in!”