Nice Girls(18)

“Jayden’s a bit of a character, but he’s a good guy,” said Dwayne.

“Of course you think he is—he’s your cousin,” I muttered. “But I just saw him knock someone out. It’s fucked up.”

“That guy tried to assault Charice,” said Dwayne.

My stomach dropped.

“Jayden said Charice went into a bedroom to grab a box of tissues for someone, and the guy—Van—he tried to corner her in there. It’s his apartment. Charice got out of there, and Jayden . . . you saw what he did.” Dwayne paused. “In his defense, though, Jayden could’ve done worse.”

My eyes drifted over to him. He was scrolling through his phone in the kitchen. Charice leaned into him, tightly holding on to his arm with both hands. Jayden was cackling at a loud video.

“Why not go to the police?” I asked.

“They wouldn’t help us, Mary.” Dwayne’s voice was flat. “Even if they wanted to, the police are slow. Too much red tape. Charice knows that, and she doesn’t want to bring her brother into it. But Jayden was pissed. No one hurts his girl. He took things into his own hands.”

I pictured Van lying unconscious on the ground, monstrous and pathetic.

“And what if Van rats Jayden out?” I asked.

“He wouldn’t do that. Van’s a piece of shit, but he wouldn’t do that. No one wants to be a snitch.”

Jayden coughed loudly. His arms were stretched out in the air. “Can I have my birthday toast?” he heckled at us.

I caught Dwayne’s eye. He smirked.



Time was slipping by. One second, I had rum and coke in my coffee mug, and in the next, I was sneaking sips of cognac. On the TV we were watching music videos of hits from our childhood—videos with pianos being played in the middle of nowhere, people crooning in the rain, dollar bills flying in the air, and clubs pulsing with life. Jayden and Charice were dancing and suddenly I was dancing, too, with Dwayne, my limbs unwinding, my brain melting.

And Charice and I were somehow at the sink, chugging water out of our mugs. She was telling me that she was nineteen and studying to be a nurse, but she was struggling in community college. She and Jayden had been dating for over two years. Charice avoided talking about the party entirely—I couldn’t blame her. She only said that Jayden could be stressful sometimes.

“If he feels strongly about something, then he just does it,” she said. “He doesn’t really take it sitting down, you know?”

I nodded politely.

“That’s why I want a family with him,” she said dreamily, her eyes closed. “He’d always protect us, but he’s a big teddy bear, too. I’d stay at home, and I’d raise the kids right, cook for them, make them read the Bible. And then I’d go to some PTA meetings just to piss off the hoity-toity soccer moms.”

The two of us were cackling, breathless. The lights seemed to halo around Charice’s hair. The night had been chaotic, but Charice’s eyeliner had stayed pristine in two sharp lines. And I remembered that I’d had this conversation before at other parties with girls with nice eyeliner. This had been a normal occurrence once. It seemed like a lifetime ago.

“This eyeliner doesn’t take skill, Mary,” said Charice, waving off the compliment. “Like maybe ten percent skill. But most of the time? It’s luck.”

“Maybe it brought us good luck tonight,” I said. I could hear Jayden’s trash talk in the background. The two boys had started racing video game cars on the TV.

Charice glanced at Jayden.

“Yeah, Jayden pulled through for me. But I’m glad Felix saved everyone else,” she said softly. “My brother’s always been like that. Felix was a pushover when we were kids. He’d give me his cookie, his juice, the TV remote. But he was smarter than I was. And when he said he wanted to be a cop, no one stopped him. Felix was always going to go places, you know? Just one of those people.” There was a tinge of sadness in her voice.

I thought of Olivia, Dwayne, me. In our separate ways, we were supposed to go places. Our trajectories had looked so clear, as if destiny had guided us. But who knew if it was destiny or sheer luck? Because in the next moment, our lives had veered off course. I was no longer in school. Dwayne no longer played football. Olivia had vanished.

But Carly would keep going. Carly, who was either drunk or asleep in Ithaca, her future unscathed. She would go places. That much was certain.

I teared up, blubbering through my words. Charice and I were drunk, and I didn’t care if she cared about what I said. The words poured out—about school, Carly. I wanted to feel better, but instead I only grew tired.

Charice patted me on the back. She didn’t know how else to help me, and I said that it was fine. At least she listened. At least the kitchen was warm.

And as fast as it started, we were all in front of the TV again, listening to Kendrick Lamar and Adele and Simon & Garfunkel, all of them crooning mournfully in the background, everyone quiet and worn out. Charice was crying now, whispering to Jayden. He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her on the forehead.

I was sleepy. I popped an escitalopram and felt the world starting to turn. I stumbled over to the warm bed by the window. The gray comforter was soft. I crawled under it and closed my eyes, only for a bit.



The apartment had gone dark, the lights all shut off. My eyes slowly adjusted, everything just out of focus. The window blinds had been lowered halfway down, but I could still see the slight ripples on the lake. I was freezing by the window. As I rolled away, I bumped into something firm.