I was going to have to find a new place to live, and disappear from our group of friends.
If only it had been that simple.
If only I had walked away right then and there.
Then I never would have met Phoenix and my life would never have changed in ways I still don’t understand.
Tyler was a good ride, because he didn’t need to talk. He just drove and smoked and I stared out the window, my art supplies in my lap. I had promised to paint a pop art portrait of Tyler’s little brother Easton, and I had to do it tonight because I might never see him again if I had the guts to follow through with my plan to move out of the apartment. I hadn’t painted all summer. I wasn’t inspired. And I didn’t want to now, but I had promised I would back before the morning after with Nathan.
So since I couldn’t explain any of that, I stayed mostly silent. I did say, “Rory gets back tomorrow.”
It was a stupid comment. Of course he knew his girlfriend was coming back to school. But I wanted to make some sort of effort. It was hot, even for August, and the windows were open, air rushing in and swirling his smoke around in front of me.
“Yep. I missed her. A lot.”
I didn’t doubt he had. And I didn’t think for one minute he would have betrayed her the way Nathan had Kylie. Even if he wasn’t living with his brother and Jessica, who were also dating. Tyler just wasn’t that kind of guy. Both Riley and Tyler were loyal, and I wondered why I always seemed to attract the wrong kind of guy. The liars, the cheaters. My boyfriend freshman year had been a douche, flirting with other girls in front of me, laughing it off when I complained. My high school boyfriend had told me he wanted a girl who had her life together, who had goals. What kind of goals was I supposed to have at seventeen? At that point I already knew I was going to college to study graphic design, wasn’t that good enough? So apparently his way to fix my deficiency was to hook up with his ex at a party and humiliate me.
It was hard to believe that someday there would be a guy in my life who would love me the way my friends’ guys loved them.
Of course, I was never going to find that guy at a keg party. Another reason I had stopped going to the frat house all-nighters. I didn’t have the stomach for so-called living in the moment fun since I had woken up next to Nathan. So maybe I didn’t have my life all mapped out, but I knew that I was done with the superficial crap. I knew that I had crossed a line I never wanted to cross again and if that meant giving up alcohol forever, then that’s what I was going to do because I had gone from being cheated on to the cheater, and I could barely live with myself.
And if I couldn’t live with myself, what guy would want to?
When we went in Tyler’s house, there was someone sleeping on the couch. I couldn’t see his face since he was turned away from the room on his side, but he had black hair and a serious lack of a tan. “Who is that?” I asked Tyler.
“My cousin, Phoenix. He’s crashing here for a while.” Tyler kept walking past him to the kitchen. “Do you want a beer?”
“No, thanks.” I hadn’t had a drink in ten weeks and I didn’t even miss it.
Jessica was in the kitchen, heating up food in the microwave. It was weird to me that she lived there with her boyfriend and his three younger brothers. I had never been to her parents’ house but I knew she had grown up with a lot of money, and this was no spacious colonial in the suburbs. The house was small and dark and hot and was rundown, but truthfully she seemed the happiest she’d been since I’d met her. Riley came in from the patio and kissed the back of her head, looking at her like he thought she was the most beautiful creature the world had ever created.
“Want some?” she asked me, dishing up rice and vegetables onto four plates.
“I’m good.”
She switched out plates in the microwave and said, “Then let’s go in the other room. I want to talk to you alone.” She touched Riley’s elbow. “Can you put these in for the boys?”
“Got it.”
I followed her back into the living room and she sat on the floor by the coffee table. “Sit. I want to talk to you about what the hell is going on.”
I did want to tell her. I wanted to get the awful truth out and ask her what I was supposed to do about Nathan. But I couldn’t. All I could tell her was a small portion of the truth. I looked nervously at the sleeping cousin. “He can hear us. I feel weird talking in front of him.”
“He’s totally out. He just got out after five months in jail and he’s been sleeping for two days.”
“Jail?” I whispered, a little horrified. “For what?” How could she say that so casually, like it was no big deal?
She scooped rice into her mouth. “Fuck me, that is so good.” She closed her eyes and chewed. “I’m going to have to step up the workouts but I think carbs are worth it.”
I didn’t say anything, sitting down on the floor next to her, drawing my knees up to my chest. I was wearing a sloppy T-shirt and I dragged it over my bare knees, making a tent, cocooning myself.
“Okay, so what is going on? Seriously. You won’t drink, you won’t go out. You’ve lost weight. You don’t answer my texts. You’re even dressing differently. I’m totally worried about you.”
I was worried about me, too. I couldn’t seem to drag myself out of the anxiety that had been following me around. “I’m moving out of the house as soon as I find a new place to live.”
“What? Why the hell would you do that?”
Tears came to my eyes before I could stop them. “I just have to. I need to stop drinking.”
“But, it’s not like Rory is a big drinker. And I’m sure Kylie would respect it if you said you wanted to chill with the alcohol.” She looked hurt. “We would never pressure you to party. God, that’s so not us.”
“I know.” It made me feel even worse. “It’s just I feel like I need to be alone for a while. I was even thinking about moving home and being a commuter. It’s not that far to my parents, only like a forty-five-minute drive to class.”
“You would seriously want to move home? That just blows my mind.” Jessica stared hard at me, tucking her blond hair behind her ear. “Besides, this is going to leave Rory and Kylie with a whole house to pay for since we’ve both bailed on them. I feel really bad about doing that.”
So did I. But I felt worse about screwing Kylie’s boyfriend. What would I do when Nathan came over to hang out? I couldn’t play it cool, like nothing had happened. I wasn’t drawn that way. “Didn’t Tyler say he wouldn’t mind moving in with Rory?”
“Yeah, but I don’t know if he can actually afford it.” Jessica frowned, picking up her fork. “I guess I can ask him. I guess maybe Nathan could move in there, too, with Kylie. Bill is moving into the engineering frat house.”
I dropped my knees, alarmed. That was not what I wanted to happen. I didn’t want Kylie to become even more dependent and more in love with Nathan.
“This is so weird,” she said. “This is totally not what we planned. It’s like complete roommate shuffle. What happened?”
Rory fell in love with Tyler. Jessica fell in love with Riley. I blacked out and had sex with Nathan.
Not exactly the same happy ending for me. I wanted to tell her so desperately I swallowed hard and clamped my mouth shut. Telling her would only mean she would have to keep a secret from Kylie. From Riley, too. Telling Kylie would only hurt her to appease my guilt.
I couldn’t do it.
Shrugging, I said, “Things change.”
“Robin.”
“What?”
“If you got attacked or something you would tell me, right? You know you can tell me.” She reached out and touched my arm, expression filled with concern.