20
20
We run into Tripp on our way out of the festival grounds, while we’re waiting for our security and our driver to come pick us up. He waves and walks over, eyeing us with confusion.
“Leaving so soon?”
“Yeah, we’re off to commit murder. Or something,” Maya says.
He shakes his head. “I’m not following?”
“John drama,” Jessie explains, gesturing to me. “Again.”
I’ve been staring off into space since we called for the driver, planning a thousand different scenarios in my head, but at this I turn to look at Tripp and ask him quietly, “Did you know?”
Again, Tripp eyes us all with confusion, and it seems genuine, but at this rate I don’t know what to believe. “Did I know what?” he asks.
I shake my head, feeling instantly guilty for thinking the worst. It doesn’t seem like Tripp has a clue what’s going on. “It doesn’t matter. How’s Val? Did you find her?”
“She left an hour ago,” he says. “The medics got her all hydrated and feeling normal again and security took her back to the house. Understandably, she didn’t want me to join.”
“Understandably?” Maya pries, popping her head into the conversation.
“Yeah.” Tripp shuffles his feet, scuffing the sand up in a little cloud of dirt. “She said some stuff to me earlier that I don’t think she was really ready to say. Maybe she’s embarrassed or, I don’t know, hurt. Anyway, she knows I love her, and I told her I wouldn’t be here much longer.” Tripp looks at the ground with a sad sigh.
My heart clenches at hearing him use the word love so easily. I wish it was like that with John. He’s always so guarded with his feelings. I get glimpses of the man I know he can be, but that’s what they are, glimpses of a man who’s deathly afraid of real commitment.
“Did she tell you she wants to have your babies, by any chance?” Maya asks.
“Maya.” I shake my head at her. Val’s had a hard enough day as it is; it’s not our business to pry into her deepest secrets when she isn’t here to tell her side of the story. Even if everyone—including Tripp—already figured out her feelings for him ten million years ago.
Tripp looks at me. “Hey, you guys are headed back to the house, right?”
“No,” I tell him. “We’re going somewhere else.”
Silence lingers while he waits for me to elaborate. I don’t.
“We’re off to Riley Vega’s,” Maya eventually says.
“You’re going to Riley’s party?” Tripp sounds weary with disbelief, as if he can’t quite figure out why we’d want to put ourselves through such an ordeal.
“Oh, there’s a party, is there?” I raise an eyebrow while inside my heart drops all over again and my stomach twists into knots, making me feel so sick I could throw up right now. Of course there’s a party at Riley fucking Vega’s house and of course John is there instead of with me. “How nice.”
Tripp watches me carefully for a moment, an unreadable look on his face. “Uh, I don’t think that’s a great idea.”
I look at him, my eyes narrowing a little. “Why not?”
He laughs easily, almost too quickly, staring between us all as if we can’t be serious. “You all hate each other’s damn guts, that’s why.”
“Hmm. Hate’s a strong word,” I say, the corner of my lip twitching. “More like dislike. Like a very, very strong dislike.” I imagine finding her in bed with John and my rage kicks up a notch. “Well, whatever. The line between hate and dislike is so thin anyway. Who needs a label?”
“You gonna do some crazy shit out there, Princess?” Tripp asks, posing it as a joke, but there’s a serious undertone to his words—an uneasy edge to his laughter.
I shrug. “Guess we’ll see.”
He sucks his teeth and takes a step back, hands raised. “I don’t want to get in the middle of it, but all I’ll say is it’s probably not the best idea to go starting shit in public. The spotlight is on you now more than ever, Princess.”
“Tripp, that’s our driver right there.” He turns to look at the car I point out, and then I wave for the girls to follow me. “See you back at the house tonight?”
As we get into the car, Jessie murmurs to me, “You’re not really gonna start shit, are you?”
The idea puts me off. It’s not my scene at all to crash a party and start freaking out. I’ve always hated that kind of behavior. Really, tonight, I need to see for myself what John’s up to, and then I guess my emotions will take it from there.
“If he’s cheating on me, Jessie, the bad publicity’s gonna hit him a lot harder.”
Maya laughs. “Girl, you got that right.”
—
With all the Coachella traffic—people still arriving for the concerts and others heading out to grab dinner someplace else—it takes an eternity to get to Riley’s house. I almost tell the driver to take us back to our place instead, frustrated with the whole situation, and as my anger in the moment lessens, I wonder if it would be better to live in blissful ignorance. But that’d mean we left the festival for nothing, and at the very least, I convince myself, if I’m wrong about John and Riley and we turn up at her party to find nothing at all, well, we could always just pretend we showed up to have fun. I’m sure she’d love that.
A “just checking in” text from Win pops up as we’re idling in another row of cars at an intersection, and for a second it pulls me out of my obsessive thoughts about John. I can’t explain the skip of my pulse when I see Win’s name, and I guiltily realize I didn’t reply to his last message, which had only made me feel even more special. Wanted. Thought of. I wonder for a fleeting second if I’m the only girl he’s double texting, and then I shut the thought down even faster. Of course I’m not. This is Win we’re talking about.
Then again, I didn’t think he was the type to double text anyone.
“Does this look like the right house?” the driver asks a few minutes later, slowing to a stop outside a villa that looks pretty similar to ours.
We both look at Jess for confirmation.
“Yeah,” she says with a nod. “This is the one.”
As we bustle out onto the sidewalk, Maya leans back in to say to the driver, “Can you wait here for us? We might need a quick getaway.”
“Where’d you see them?” I ask, noticing the street is lined with other cars that no doubt belong to people at the party. I can hear the faint thump of music from inside the house.
“Over there, literally right by the front door. They couldn’t have been more in plain sight.” Jessie points to the topiaries on either side of the front door, and I glance through the windows of the house to see all the lights are on inside, the music only getting louder the farther we walk up the driveway.
“Nice. So if anyone was out here and cared enough to take a picture, you’d have heard about it online first.” Maya shakes her head in disbelief. “Seriously, they’re practically asking to be caught.”
“Well,” I say as we reach the front door and I curl my fingers around the handle, “let’s give them what they want.”
“You’re so fucking badass,” Jessie encourages me.
I throw her my best smile and push the door open.
It’s not exactly the grand entrance we expect. No one even looks our way as we enter, too preoccupied in their own world, dancing and chatting and straining to listen to their friends’ conversations above the noise of the karaoke machine and loud music. Red Solo cups litter the floor, party streamers everywhere, and it looks like someone exploded a Funfetti cake all over the huge white sectional.
“Jesus,” Jessie says, coming to a standstill beside me. “Have these people never heard of a cleaning bill?”
I scan the room and the dozens of unrecognizable faces, hoping I’ll see at least someone who’ll guide me. We move through the downstairs of the house, my chest tightening with every room we enter without finding Riley or John, anxious with the knowledge every room we pass through is another room closer to us having to search upstairs. And upstairs is only bedrooms; it’s always the same at every party like this. And nobody wants to find their boyfriend alone with some other girl in a bedroom.
Thankfully, as we enter a room with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the pool, a sound system playing loudly and all the furniture pushed aside to create a makeshift dance floor, I catch sight of a face I recognize. It’s one of Riley’s close friends, a girl whose name I don’t remember but someone I know I’ve hung out with before, and dancing beside her are two more girls I recognize as part of Riley’s clique.
“Over there.” I nudge Maya and point her and Jessie in the right direction, casting my eyes around for any sign of John.
“Wait.” Jessie grabs my arm, pulling me to a stop before I can walk any farther. “Princess.”
I can already tell from her tone of voice that what I’m about to witness won’t be anything good. Following her line of sight, my eyes catch the flash of a crimson-red ringmaster’s coat first, tailored to a flattering fit, cinched around the waist to draw attention to the sparkling red, barely there bikini underneath. She’s wearing black fishnets on her legs and thigh-high black stiletto boots; there’s a riding crop affixed to her waist, and two hands hold her tight right above it.
My gaze slides up, following those hands that look a little too familiar for comfort.
She’s grinding on him, throwing her head back over his shoulder every now and then, so when I finally catch his eye and his pupils dilate with shock, she doesn’t even see. John’s movement slows, but as if to keep Riley from noticing, he continues to dance, eyes locked with mine while the rest of the room fades out around me.
So it’s true.
Not that I ever doubted it for a second.
And I think that really says it all.
“That bitch,” Maya says from a distance, even though I know she’s right beside me.
“That asshole,” Jessie adds, her words equally faraway.
I don’t speak. Because what the hell do I say? Sure, it’d fulfill some deep-down sadistic desire to barge over to them right now and drag her off him by the hair—or the stupid fucking top hat balanced at an angle on her head—and maybe they deserve that. But in the moment, I can’t bring myself to do it. The will simply isn’t there. I can’t muster up the energy with such a hopeless sense of devastation bloating me from the inside out, making my limbs heavy and drawing awareness to my suddenly too-hot cheeks. Embarrassment. Humiliation. Betrayal. It all cuts through me, sharp and unforgiving, because beneath it all, the one thing that hurts the most is the fact I really believed him, trusted him.
I took a chance on him when I shouldn’t have, and he threw it right back in my face. As I spin on my heel and storm off, pushing my way through the party, Maya calls my name.
“Princess!” Jessie shouts too.
Outside, the desert air traps me with my emotions, suffocating and hot and way too much. So when I turn around and see John walking out the front door, arms open as if he’s getting ready to embrace me and tell me it’ll all be okay, we can work through this, I don’t even give him a chance to speak. With Jessie and Maya acting as witnesses in the doorway behind him, I say my words loud and clear, making them nonnegotiable. Final. The end.
“Fuck you, John! I’m so fucking over this bullshit. We are done.”
“Princess—”
I hold up a hand to silence him. “Don’t even bother.”
He tries again. “Please, just—”
“Seriously,” I cut him off, closing my eyes for a second just to help me breathe. “How dare you fucking embarrass me like this! I went against my own judgment and gut and fucking trusted you! How could you do this to me!” I take another deep breath, completely certain. “It’s over.”
“You can’t end things without hearing what I have to say!” he protests, arms out by his sides, spinning around to look for a second opinion, as if either of the girls would ever agree.
“She can do whatever the fuck she wants, actually,” Maya says derisively, narrowing her eyes into slits as she and Jessie pass him by. She throws her arm around my shoulder. “Don’t you ever even think about coming near her again, Jonathan.”
“Come on, Princess.” Jessie’s voice is much softer as she places her hand flat in the center of my back and rubs in gentle circles. “Let’s get out of here.”
They lead me back to the waiting car while John yells out a string of bullshit behind us. All his words bounce right off me, none coming close to even scraping the surface of my thoughts. I don’t think I’ve ever been so clear on a decision. We are over. Done. Relationship status: single. Nothing to discuss. Nothing complicated about it. I’m just completely numb. So fucking hurt I can’t even feel anything.
“I’m proud of you,” Maya whispers to me as the driver pulls away, dragging me closer to her on the back seat to land a kiss on my head. “Good job, P. It’s about damn time.”
I try to respond but I can’t. Because as much as I know this is the right thing to do, I’m suddenly struck with the sense there’s no going back on this decision. I’ve closed the door, locked it tight, thrown away the key, and forgotten the address.
And in the back of my mind, the same old fear kicks in. Will I ever find myself in real, true love?