The Night Before(42)

“I think I found the leader of the pack with that one. It was stupid high school head games. I can see that now. But at the time, it had me in knots.”

“I had a friend who always fell for guys like that. We were in college then, so don’t feel so bad.”

Everyone has a friend like that. Most of them learn from their mistakes.

“I went to the party that night knowing he’d be there. He hadn’t called me for weeks. He hadn’t returned any of my messages.”

“And you didn’t assume it was over?”

I look away and don’t answer.

“It sounds ridiculous to tell this story now. As a grown woman. I’m hearing the words in my head and I don’t want to say them.”

He swirls his glass, takes a drink. “I get it. We were all in high school once. Just tell me what happened.”

I cringe, but then say these ridiculous words.

“He came to the party with his girlfriend—the one I didn’t know about until that night. Britney. I already told you that part.”

“You must have been upset,” he says, trying to move things along. He’s been wanting to hear this story all night and I don’t care why. I don’t care about my list, which now includes this empty apartment. There is something about him that has reached me, and I want to hold on to it.

“I was devastated. I wouldn’t show it, of course. I pretended not to see him. I went to get another beer. But then I felt a hand on my arm.”

“Ah—so the silent treatment worked.”

“It was part of our script. He asked me how the rest of my summer was and I said it was great. I turned away, pretended to be part of a conversation going on next to us. Then I felt him push my hair away from the back of my neck. He leaned in close, whispered in my ear that he needed to see me alone. I thought maybe that girl was just a friend. That I had overreacted. We went behind some trees. Kissed, laughed. He said he’d missed me.”

This is where I should need to stop, because the memory of that night is too painful. Because it tortures me to go back there.

But a wall has grown around this story. I didn’t ask for it. But it’s there now. It stands on its own. It never asks for maintenance or permission to be there. And I like it just fine.

I don’t need to stop. So I continue with only feigned emotion.

“He took a step back then. He smiled and folded his arms and soaked up the love that was radiating from my body. It was like he just turned the valve a little to the left and it started to flow right out of me. I thought his smile was from being happy—happy that I loved him and that we were sharing this moment. But then he started to tell me about the girl he’d walked in with.”

This is the part where I do pause. One hand squeezes the glass. The other begins to close, fingers bending in perfect unison until they reach the palm.

The smell of the fire. The damp brush of the deep woods. We steal a kiss behind a tree. He breaks away. He looks at me with tenderness, and I have a moment where I believe that I have finally done it. I have given enough, been enough. He opens his mouth to speak. I think the words before he says them.

But he didn’t say the words old me was waiting for. The small child tugging on a sleeve, wide eyes. Pleading eyes. And the words that he did say filled me with a bigger rage than I had ever known.

Jonathan has guessed it.

“He told you she was his girlfriend,” he says.

I nod. “He said he needed to get back to her. And the thing is, I was not the kind of girl who would cry and beg and plead. That was my mother, so I knew it was useless—and besides that, it repulsed me, violently, to show any sign of weakness, even if I was weak. So instead I just shrugged. I told him he’d better go, then, before she got mad at him.”

I see us now, in my glass of scotch. I see Mitch and remember the swirling together of warm, lusty bliss and red-hot rage. Danger waking me from the illusion of safety. My hands in fists at my sides, but a smile on my face because I knew how to win that fight. Or, at least, I thought I did.

“Then he said, changing course, I could send her home. He was a worthy opponent that way. When I didn’t try to stop him, he brought out bigger guns. I said he should do what he wants. And he said that he had a dilemma.”

I hear his words. I’m back in those woods.

I have a dilemma.…

What dilemma…?

I know she loves me. But I don’t think you do.

“He said I needed to prove it to him.”

“What the hell did he mean by that?” Jonathan asks. He seems genuinely pissed off on my behalf.

“He meant exactly what you think he meant,” I say. “He wanted me to sleep with him.”

“Well, I hope you realized what was going on!” Jonathan is so sweet to be concerned for me eleven years after the fact.

Of course I realized what was going on. The boy I loved wanted me to have sex with him as a condition to staying with me. To loving me. Not exactly earth-shattering stuff.

“So what did you do?” Jonathan asks. His eyes are wide, his brow furrowed.

“I laughed like it was no big deal. I told him I’d been with someone else all summer, so he missed his chance to be my first. I told him I was worried he wouldn’t measure up, but I was happy to find out. Let’s go, I said. Honestly, this story should make you go back to the kitchen and grab your keys and walk me straight to my car.”