25. The Tuck #3
East flips his hair out of his eyes and glares at her.
“Fine. You want the details? The night of First Dance last year, when I took you down to the tunnel for the first time? You went back out the north tunnel and I bumped into Bergeron in the south tunnel. She was looking for you. I had to put her on the defensive somehow.” He hits his vape. “So I kissed her.”
Charley instantly wants to puke. She takes an intentional breath. “What kind of kiss?”
“We made out for a second or two, then Rivera came down the stairs and I bolted.”
“Then what?”
“Then the night of the football game, when I threw pebbles at your window…”
Charley groans. That was the night Charley first admitted to herself that she had a crush on East. She’d liked him enough to agree to be his partner in Priorities. “What are you going to tell me?”
“After I left your room, I headed down the hall and waited in Bergeron’s room for her to get back. I kissed her again.”
“So you were attracted to her.”
“I was playing with her,” East says. “I needed her vulnerable because I didn’t want her to tell anyone about the tunnel.”
“That’s not the only reason,” Charley says. “You would never have pulled that shit with Mrs. Wully.”
East snorts. “Obviously not.”
“So you thought Bergeron was hot.”
“Hot, not hot—it doesn’t matter. I didn’t have feelings for her, Charley. I’ve never had feelings for anyone but you.”
“What else happened between you two?” Charley swallows. “What about the night you went to her for ‘extra help’? That’s the night everyone was talking about last year. People said you fucked her.”
East shakes his head.
“Tell me.”
“You don’t want to know.”
“You’re probably right,” Charley says. “But I can’t continue in this relationship if you don’t come clean.”
“Me come clean? You’re the one who lied to me. Today. That other stuff happened a year and a half ago. It’s irrelevant.”
“It’s not irrelevant,” Charley says. “Because you can’t fathom me going to a museum alone with a teacher and having it be just that. Tell me what happened.”
“I went down on her,” East says.
Charley bends in half, stares at the ground, tries not to retch.
“But that was it. I didn’t let her touch me. I left. And for the record, this was before you and I—”
“But we were hanging out!” Charley says.
“Tuesdays and Thursdays we worked in the bomb shelter. You asked me to blow my hair out, remember? And I did—and then you canceled on me because you were with her.” Charley stands to her full height, squares her shoulders.
She has never been a violent person, but she wants to shake him.
And worse. She wants to push him off the roof of the chapel.
Knowing East, he would bounce to his feet, brush himself off, and walk away. Nothing sticks to him. “What else?”
“Nothing else. I never touched her again. But when I got back from spring break, I bumped into her in the Back Lot. She saw the lumber in the bed of my truck, and she guessed that I was working on the bomb shelter. So I invited her up to my room to drink a bottle of wine.”
“You told me last year that she showed up at your room,” Charley says. “But now you’re admitting that you fucking invited her. We were fully together then, East, and you invited Bergeron to your room to drink wine when nobody else was at school.”
“I didn’t touch her. She was already drunk when she showed up, and then she drank the entire bottle of wine by herself, and then I asked her to leave. I swear to god, Charles, I did not cheat on you with her. I did not touch her once you and I got together the night of the Kringle.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“I’m telling you the truth.”
“Last spring when you begged my forgiveness, I thought maybe you flirted with her. Maybe you’d kissed. If I had known it was a whole thing—”
“It wasn’t a whole thing,” East says. “It was calculated on my part. I was using her.”
“Well, that’s disgusting too,” Charley says.
“And now it makes perfect sense why you’re so jealous of Mav.
Because you’re depraved, East. Do you think I’m like you?
Do you think I would kiss Mav, or touch him, or give him a blow job so he’d write me a good recommendation?
What would you do if I got back from vacation early and then invited Mav to my room to drink a bottle of wine?
You would break up with me, even if nothing happened. ”
“Charley—” Now it’s East who reaches out, and Charley who bats him away. She doesn’t want him touching her. She can’t imagine wanting him to touch her ever again.
“I think you were right about space,” she says.
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning I think we should take a break for a while.”
“For how long?” East says. His voice wavers, and Charley won’t lie—it’s gratifying to see him scared. He loves her. She knows he loves her, but this whole thing is a broken mess. It has been a broken mess since the beginning, Charley just didn’t realize it.
“I’m not sure,” Charley says. “But I am sure that I want to be alone right now.”
“Charley—”
“Please,” Charley says. With almost superhuman strength, she flings open the heavy metal door and clangs down the six flights of stairs to the ground.
She can hear music coming from God’s Basement, and she’s tempted to grab Davi, but Davi is probably dancing with Liam and Charley won’t ruin her night.
She slams out of the chapel and heads for Classic South.
“Charles!”
Charley turns around. East is still up on the chapel roof. She can see his face framed by the crenellated wall. It’s like a scene out of a fairy tale… except it’s not a fairy tale at all.