The Rest of the Story(53)

“Actually, you are. You’re his best friend.”

“Saylor,” Blake said to me across the empty seat. As if she wasn’t even there, breathing hard, close to tears. “Let’s go. We’re meeting everyone there.”

“I can’t go with you,” I said, and I did look at Bailey, who bit her lip. “Not without her.”

“Well, fine. Then you can both stay here,” he replied. “It’s not worth all this trouble.”

Trouble, to expect someone to do what they said they would. Then again, he was someone to whom things came easily, always: a job, a future, a girl. I said, “Yes or no: Is Colin coming?”

Blake, still avoiding looking anywhere near Bailey’s direction, closed his eyes for a second. “No,” he said finally. “He’s not.”

I heard Bailey exhale, a shaky, long breath. Back by the steps, Jack and Roo were still watching us.

“Why not?” Bailey said to him now.

“I don’t know,” he replied, cranking the engine. To me he said, “Can we go, please?”

“Answer her question,” I said.

“Because he’s with the girl he asked a month ago!” Blake said. “His girlfriend, from school.”

I was stunned. Bailey said, “Colin has a girlfriend?”

“Yeah,” he said, as if we were stupid for not knowing it. “They have an understanding, just like he had with you.”

Bailey was just standing there, eyes wide, her phone in her hands. She turned to me. “What does that even mean?”

“That he’s an asshole,” I replied.

“Enough about Colin, Jesus!” Blake said. He looked at me. “Are you getting in or not?”

I looked at my cousin, in the dress on which she’d spent so much time and effort, her makeup applied so carefully it was perfect. She didn’t deserve this. Nobody did.

“Not,” I told Blake.

In response, he threw up a hand, then hit the gas, spraying some gravel as he pulled away. I watched him turn out onto the road, cursing us, and kept my eyes on him until he was out of sight. Only then did I turn back to Bailey, who was now standing with her arms around herself, her face streaked with tears. What could I even say at this moment? What words would even make any difference? I didn’t know where, or how, to start. But as it turned out, I didn’t have to.

“Bailey,” Jack said. He was standing there, his own keys in hand. Roo was coming up the grass behind him. “Let’s get out of here.”





Thirteen


“I can’t believe this,” Bailey said. She turned around, her face tear-streaked, and looked at me. “Can you?”

I shook my head as, distantly, I heard her phone beep again. About five minutes earlier, Celeste had realized we’d left without saying goodbye. Seriously pissed, she was making her displeasure clear with a series of angry texts, none of which Bailey had responded to so far. All she had been capable of, really, was sitting in the passenger seat and crying while Jack drove us, well, someplace.

The phone beeped again. Bailey leaned her head against the window, closing her eyes. “I can’t tell Mom what happened,” she said. “It’s so humiliating and she’ll just say she told me so.”

“No, she won’t,” Jack said, glancing in the rearview.

“Yeah, right. All she and Trinity have done all summer is say how Colin is going to break my heart. And now he has. They’ll be thrilled.”

“More likely, they’ll want to kill him,” Roo, who was beside me in the back seat, said. “I’d be more worried about that. Trinity’s temper these days is off the charts.”

Bailey, reaching up to wipe her eyes, didn’t smile at this comment, but I did. “He’ll just need to stand still,” I said, thinking of her struggling cleaning with her huge belly. “And not be on a low or high shelf.”

Roo snorted, which made me laugh out loud, and then we were both cracking up. Bailey turned around to look at us again.

“You guys aren’t funny,” she informed us as we composed ourselves, or tried to. “And Saylor, you just got dumped as well, in case you didn’t notice.”

“Easy come, easy go.” I couldn’t think of a phrase that fit the situation more.

“I thought you liked Blake!” she said.

I shrugged. “It was fun and all, but . . . I think I’ll be fine.”

Her phone beeped. Then once more. If it could have screamed, it would have.

“Give me that,” Roo said to Bailey, holding out his hand. “I’ll explain to Celeste what happened.”

She handed it over to him and he started typing a response. With him and Jack both on the same side of the car, dressed in shorts and Tshirts, and Bailey and me in our formal wear on the other, we looked like we were headed to very different evenings. Which made me think of something.

“Where are we even going?” I asked Jack. We’d turned left out of Calvander’s, heading toward the main road, but at some point we had entered a neighborhood with narrow streets and trees strung with moss. Through my open window, I could smell the lake, but not see it.

“Green house,” he said, as if I knew what this was.

O-kay, I thought. Bailey sniffled, wiping her nose with the back of her hand. “I can’t believe I spent all this money and time on this dress. I’m so stupid.”