Our Crooked Hearts(4)

Amina paused for what I assumed was comic effect, but when she spoke again her voice was darker. More direct. “You know you can always come to my house, right? If you ever need to.”

I already stayed at her place all the time. We used to switch off houses on Saturday nights, but a couple of years ago she’d started making excuses not to sleep at mine. She was one of those routine-addicted people—the multistep skin care, the specific tea made specifically by her father, the two pillows she had to bring with her just to fall asleep—so I hadn’t pressed. But now I frowned. “Yeah, I know. But why would I need to?”

Another pause, then: “This girl you saw. She was naked? Like, completely?”

I narrowed my eyes at the subject change, but again I didn’t press. “Yep.”

“Standing in the middle of the road.”

“I guess. I didn’t see that part, I was too busy worrying I was gonna die.”

Her voice dropped forty degrees. “I will kill him.”

“Not if my dad gets there first.”

“Or your mom. You know she’d help you hide a body.”

“She would’ve killed the body she’s forcing you to hide.”

“What I do find interesting, though,” she said craftily, “is the part where the hot guy from across the street came to your rescue.”

“Amina,” I said warningly.

“Yes?”

“Just … don’t get too excited.”

“I never get excited.”

I laughed. “I’m going back to bed now. Love you.”

“Love you, too,” she said.

Before I could put my phone down it lit up with a text from Nate.

In my life

why do I give valuable time

to people who don’t care if I

live or die?

Instagram poetry or sad lyrics? I refused to give him the satisfaction of googling it, but now I was too annoyed to sleep. I changed his name to NO in my contacts and headed to the bathroom to poke at my lip. My brother, Hank, walked in scratching his bare chest, then halted mid-scratch.

“What happened?” He shoved in next to me, peering at my lip in the glass. “Wait, is this why Dad was yelling at you in the middle of the night?”

I squinted at him in the mirror. “Way to ask if I’m okay.”

“I was coming to congratulate you for finally getting in trouble for once. I just thought it’d be for a fun reason.” He stared at my reflection. “You know what you look like? You look like that ridiculous dog from across the street, the time he ate a bee and his mouth blew up. Are you okay? What’d you do?”

I elbowed him away. “Ate a bee. Stop blowing your gross breath at me, it’ll stick in my hair.”

Hank hahed a big mouthful onto the crown of my head and walked away laughing. He’d been home from his first year of college for less than a week and already I was over it. No food was safe from him, and if anyone asked him to do anything—pick up his shoes, clean a dish—he whined about how he was on vacation. I wouldn’t get away with that shit for one hour.

“Ivy, you awake?” My dad’s voice drifted up from below. “Come down here a sec.”

I found him leaning against the kitchen counter in his appalling cyclist’s Spandex, shoveling granola into his mouth. He smiled at me when I walked in, then winced. “Oh, sweetheart, your lip. That little turd.”

I shrugged. Nate was a turd. He pounced on mispronunciations like a cat on a cockroach. He’d hold up his finger in the middle of a conversation, pull out a notebook, and start scribbling in it while you stood there like an asshole. Sorry, he’d say with this fake-apologetic smile. I just had to get this story idea down. Once I got a glimpse at one of these “ideas.” It said, Magical island where all men die but one. Object of sexual obsession/ascends to god?

But he was the junior everyone had a crush on. Saying yes when he asked me out seemed obvious. He’d had all these ideas about who I was—that’s one of the perils of being quiet, people invent personalities for you—and I couldn’t admit even to Amina that I liked it. I liked the person he thought I was. Cool instead of faking it, aloof rather than worried about saying something stupid.

My dad must’ve mistaken my grimace for hangover agony, because he pressed his own cup of coffee into my hand. “Let’s talk about last night.”

“I messed up,” I said instantly. Dad was easy, he just wanted you to take responsibility. Hank would make excuses until he suffocated under the weight of his own bullshit, but I could play the game. “I had no idea Nate was drunk. He was supposed to be the designated driver.”

Dad nodded. “That’s a good start, but you still need to be aware. You have to stay vigilant, no one’s gonna do it for you. What happened last night…” He shook his head. “Sweetheart, that wasn’t like you.”

I could’ve agreed right then and walked away. But the words hit me funny. Maybe because I’d just been thinking about Nate telling me who I was. And getting it all wrong.

“It wasn’t like me,” I repeated. “What would you say is like me, then?”

“Hey, I’m just saying we’re lucky. We got a smart one. We never have to worry about you. Your brother, on the other hand.” He tipped his head and made a comical face, I guess to imply it’s funny when sons get into trouble. Daughters, not so much.