Chapter Twenty-eight
Evan
“O thou invisible spirit of wine, if thou hast no name to be known by, let us call thee devil.”
Othello
My heart beat in my ears as my body warred between fight or flight.
It wasn’t even this person I wanted to run away from.
It was this feeling, the way seeing Vicky transported me back in time to that version of myself who’d only begun to gain confidence, but she and her friend Meghan might as well have murdered that person.
“Oh, hey, Evan,” she said, a little too bright. “I heard you’re on the local news here. How cool.”
My fists balled up, and I considered all the things I’d wanted to say to her over the years, but right now, surrounded by people I barely knew anymore, I just wanted to run.
Something cold brushed my skin, and I looked down at the bottle of Stella Elizabeth was slipping into my hand.
The contact shocked me out of my stupor, and I breathed in, breathed out, trying to pull my head above water.
“Do you need a minute?” she asked. “Or do you want to leave?”
I should have felt embarrassed, crashing out over something so objectively stupid. Kyan was right. It had happened a decade ago, and the Vicky in front of me had as little connection to that version of herself as I did to mine. “It’s okay,” I lied. It would be anyway—eventually.
Vicky looked between us. “I’m sorry. Did I interrupt something?”
“Yes,” Elizabeth said, right as I said, “No.”
“Okay.” Vicky stepped back. “I just wanted to congratulate you. You’re looking really good by the way.
You were always way too hot for our backwoods high school.
Honestly, I had a bit of a crush on you.
I guess I can confess that”—she flashed her hand, waggling a fat diamond—“now that I’m not on the market. ”
My words spilled out before I’d thought them through. “You had a funny way of showing it.”
Vicky’s eyebrows drew together. “What do you mean?”
“Why did you ask me out and then tell me I was a joke?”
Her head reared back. “What are you talking about? I never asked you out.”
“You did. You and Meghan both.”
I saw the moment her memory sparked. “Wait, are you talking about the time I invited you to a party? That was what? Tenth grade?”
This sounded so juvenile, but I couldn’t stop digging this hole. “When I showed up, you ridiculed me. I was humiliated.”
She scoffed. “Yeah, that one time, I meant to humiliate you.”
Not even an attempt at an apology. “Why?”
“You think Meghan and I didn’t talk?” She straightened, somehow stood taller. “You accepted two dates in one night, Evan. Did you think that was okay?”
“I—” Wait. Was I the bad guy? “No, I didn’t.
I backed out of my date with Meghan.” I clutched the beer bottle so tight, I worried it might break.
“That was the first time I’d ever been asked out by anyone, and I didn’t know how to navigate that situation.
I thought I was doing the right thing. I didn’t mean to hurt her. ”
Vicky frowned. “I figured that out later. And for what it’s worth, I regretted reacting that way. I always wanted to get to know you better, but you were notoriously closed off.”
Because of you, I wanted to shout, but we’d both made mistakes.
And if I’d been the instigator? Shit. I made a mental note to bring this up in therapy.
It was too much water under the bridge now, so I just choked out the words I’d wanted to hear her say.
“I’m sorry about that. I wish high school had come with a manual. ”
She laughed. “Now that’s the Evan Spurlock I remember. Nerd to the core.”
What was even happening? While my brain tried to rearrange reality to fit the narrative she’d just laid out, I sought some memory of her that would show her in a different light, but I couldn’t find a single thing.
I’d blocked her out. I’d blocked so many of these people out like a trauma response.
I just sagged, exhausted, confused, no fight left in me.
I needed to end this conversation. “I’m glad we had a chance to talk. ”
Vicky wandered back into the living room, and I turned to Elizabeth, processing the new revelations. Now on top of the residual anger from that time in my life, I reeled with shame and remorse. “Add ‘jackass’ to my high school resume.”
She laughed. “We all were. Why do you think there are so many teen dramas?” Thank God she rolled with whatever came her way. “Are you okay?”
No. I was still shaken up, nauseated with grief for a what-if scenario I could never go back and change.
What if I’d known Vicky had a crush on me?
Would it have erased the sting of humiliation?
Her rejection had been only one trauma among dozens, but that closure might have changed my attitude, given me a better perspective.
Had I engineered my own prison through misconceptions?
What she’d said didn’t make any sense, though.
She’d been untouchably popular, and if she’d wanted to ask me out, she would have.
The more I thought about it, the more convinced I was she’d lied just now to save face, but there was nothing I could do about it.
I couldn’t confront her again without looking insane or abusive, and so I’d just have to swallow another lie, more gaslighting.
She was probably in the other room, laughing at how she’d forced me to apologize to her.
Kyan squeezed by to grab another beer out of the fridge. “Hey, Elizabeth, we’re all wondering how you knew to impersonate Lizzy Grant.”
She sputtered. “What?”
Dex leaned over the counter. “She pretended to be Lizzy?”
Elizabeth rolled her eyes. “I never said I was Lizzy Grant. Chelsea dared me to lie, so I told Evan we’d been in school together, that’s all. I figured social etiquette would make him act like he remembered me for a short conversation. I never meant for him to confuse me with someone else.”
Kyan chuckled. “Naughty girls.”
Elizabeth shot me a nervous glance. I clenched a fist, trying to regain my composure, nodding to assure her I’d gotten past this. I had, but I was also not in the headspace to relitigate another embarrassing chapter of my life.
She shrugged. “I honestly thought he was playing along.”
Kyan clapped my back. “You’re so lucky, Evan. I tried to use their scavenger hunt checklist to my advantage, but Elizabeth never gave me the time of day.”
I stared at him, trying to make sense of his words. “Scavenger hunt?”
“You know”—his eyes darted side-to-side, like he was accessing his internal database—“give your phone number to a guy”—he shot a glance at Aidan in the next room—“or join a writing group.” His eyes snapped back to mine, and he started laughing. “Lie to a total stranger.”
I grinned, but the room might as well have been empty for how deaf I’d become to the noise, how oblivious to the people bumping into me. Was I a scavenger hunt trophy?
“Wait.” I looked at Elizabeth, seeing her like it was that first night, only instead of confusing her with Lizzy, I was searching for someone who’d taken a bar dare on the spur of the moment, not someone who’d plotted to add me to a string of conquests.
“You never told me Bas and I were some kind of prize.”
Elizabeth shook her head. “I swear I told you about the list.”
“No.” I set my bottle on the counter, feeling queasy now. “I think I’d remember.”
She pulled her phone out and held the screen up for me to see. “We talked about it at the picnic. It’s why we decided to go out to see live music. Remember? The double date?”
On the screen, the words picnic , live music, double date, and bullshit conversation floated around. I scanned the other items.
Let someone cook you dinner.
Have a deep, authentic conversation with a total stranger you’d be dtf.
Realization came crashing down. Now I understood why Chelsea, the so-called romance-phobe, had kept Bas on the hook. Had she been using him since that first night to fulfill some sick bucket list? If so, what did that make me?
God, I was tired of being a punching bag. “Was I just a trophy?”
She exhaled slightly, a hint of impatience. “At first, yeah. That’s what a dare is.”
“A dare is a spontaneous one-off. That list reads like a pre-meditated manhunt. Did you get a bonus point for getting me into your bed?” I could imagine her laughing with Chelsea about their dual conquests, and I wanted to kick something.
“First of all, no.” Her voice sounded forced, and she glanced around at the people listening in, my so-called friends. “And second, do you hear yourself? Maybe you want to take a beat to calm down.”
I did hear myself, and some self-preserving part of my brain watched on in horror, but I needed to know I hadn’t been played again, that she wasn’t playing me still. The universe continued to fuck me over.
“I am calm,” I ground out.
She stepped a little closer, quieter. “I’ve already told you I wasn’t trying to hit on you that night.”
“Sure. Like Chelsea wasn’t planning on banging my best friend.” My head fell back, and I laughed at the cruel irony. “At least she was honest about her emotional unavailability, but she was just miming authenticity for experience points, right? Jesus.”
“Unavailability?” Her eyes widened, like wow. “If you recall, you ghosted me. Not the other way around.”
“You. Could. Have. Called.” I enunciated each word like a knife stab, recalling how I’d chased the wrong Lizzy for two weeks, while Elizabeth never picked up the phone. “So did you just move down the list to the next guy?”
She glared at me. “If I had, it wouldn’t be any of your business.”
“Considering I’m a person, not some interchangeable object you buy from a vending machine, it is my business.
” I pressed my hands against the counter, aware everyone watched us like we were on a messy reality show.
Aidan stood inside the living room, and I made another connection.
“There’s another guy you can use to check off that writing group, right?
What else is on your list? Bag a weatherman? ”
“It’s Chelsea’s list. Not that it matters.” She yanked her phone from my hand.
Did it matter? I breathed through my teeth, all the venom I’d intended to throw at Vicky finally finding a target. “Is that how you justify yourself?”
There was the look of disgust she’d been bottling up. “Call me when you’ve pulled your head out of your ass.” She grabbed her half-empty bottle of wine, turned, and said, “Or better yet, don’t.”
She pushed her way through the rubberneckers and disappeared.
I watched her go, simmering in my self-righteousness, stunned she’d walked out mid-conversation, leaving me standing there in the fallout of a fight I hadn’t even meant to pick.
I couldn’t even blame it on the alcohol.
My destructive impulses drove me to rage at everyone who’d made me feel this unlovable, this gullible, but spewing my self-loathing all over Elizabeth hadn’t made me feel any better.
I should have taken the exit ramp earlier when she’d asked me to calm down.
I already regretted every word.