Tease(26)

“It’s so stupid,” Brielle wails, letting out another sob. “I don’t even know why I’m making such a big deal about it.”

“About what?” I manage to ask. “What’s going on?”

Her head drops down and she stares at the tissues, suddenly going still. Taking a big, shuddery breath, she says, “Diver. Stupid . . . f*cking . . . camp guy.”

I don’t know what I’d been expecting her to say, but it wasn’t this. Has she been in touch with Diver again? Is this another thing I didn’t know about, another thing she didn’t feel like telling me? But she’s so upset, it’s not like I’m mad—I just want her to keep talking. I reach over and turn the heat down—the vents are blasting, too loud and way too hot—and put the box of tissues up on the dashboard.

“What about him?” I finally manage to ask.

“He didn’t . . . We didn’t . . . you know, I mean, he had a girlfriend. He didn’t even seem to like her and we were hanging out all the time and then that night, he just . . . It was just making out, but he just . . .”

She waves her hand across her body, like she’s pointing something out. I look but it’s just her puffy coat, the pile of tissues.

“I thought you guys—” I start to say, but she’s shaking her head fast.

“No. He did. He did it. He just did it. Like, on me. Like, just—”

And then she has the box of tissues and she’s beating it against the dashboard, the window, her knees. She’s pulling it apart and throwing her weight back and forth in her seat, throwing a fit, a tantrum. I’m so scared I can’t breathe or move. I’m pretty sure she’s going to hit me next, or hurt herself, or hurt the car—and then she’s doubled over again, crying even more.

This time I fall on top of her, hugging her as best as I can in the confines of the car. “It’s okay,” I’m saying, “it’s going to be okay,” but I don’t know if that’s at all true. I’m not even sure what she just told me—that Diver hurt her? That he . . . raped her? That . . . what? Girls like us don’t get raped. Girls like Brielle don’t get in trouble at all. Girls like Brielle get roses on Valentine’s Day from half the damn school. Girls like Brielle get whatever they want.

Gradually, her crying slows down. She stays bent over, but I see her gather a handful of tissues to her face and hold them there, and suddenly she’s quiet. From the crumple her voice comes out, very small, muffled. “God, this is pathetic.”

“No, it’s not,” I say. “I’m glad you told me,” I add, though I’m still not sure what she’s told me.

“I just thought it would be romantic, you know? I thought it’d be like how it was for you and Dylan.”

I still have my hand on Brielle’s back, and I have to stop myself from flinching, moving away. How was it for me and Dylan? I’d thought it’d be romantic too. But maybe it was? Maybe that’s as romantic as it could be?

And I’m shocked to realize that Brielle never talks like this—she never confides stuff. She’s never unguarded, never unsure. I feel closer to her, but I’m scared, too; is she going to just pull away? In a minute, will she fix her mascara and pretend this never happened?

Do I want her to?

I sit there, frozen, waiting for what will happen next. But it’s not that dramatic after all. Brielle sits up and gives me a sloppy smile, her eyebrows raised in an Isn’t this ridiculous expression. Her eye makeup is smudged but she mostly just looks tired and sad. “Seriously, it’s not that big a deal,” she says quietly. “I wanted to . . . you know. I wanted to be with him. I wanted to do it.”

I nod. Of course she did.

“I just . . .” She trails off with a shrug, looking out the front window at the parking lot like there are some answers there.

“It could have been more romantic,” I say, trying to finish her sentence.

She snorts. “Yeah,” she says, her voice hard and sarcastic, the wall going back up. “More romantic. More consensual. All that good stuff.”

I hesitate, wondering if I should just drive us home now. But Brielle pulls down the passenger-side visor and fixes her makeup in the mirror. “So where do you think, Victoria’s Secret?” she asks.

“Uh—yeah, sure,” I say, trying to not sound surprised.

She raises an eyebrow at me. “Oh, don’t be like that. You’re not getting out of this just because I’m all PMS-y.”

She opens her side of the car and jumps out, leaving a blast of freezing wind in her place. I give my head a little shake, trying to make these new things fit. Brielle being hurt by someone is just so . . . foreign. And the fact that she’s still thinking about it, still crying about it, all these months later . . .

For a second I wonder if it could be because of me and Dylan, if she’s jealous. But Brielle has never been jealous of me, not even for a second. I’m jealous of her; that’s the whole deal. She’s the confident one, the one who knows all the seniors, the one who pays when I run out of my measly allowance. She knows where to buy fancy underwear. Well, I mean, I know where to buy it, but the last time I went to VS I just got some of those cotton Pink ones. Brielle knows how to take the lacy black bras up to the cash register without dying of embarrassment.