Inevitable and Only(72)

When the house was clean and all the furniture was back in place, Micayla said, “Well, Heron got a ride home with Troy and Davis for some reason. So unless you need anything else …”

“No, we’re fine,” I said, noticing that my tongue felt thick. It was hard to make my lips say words. “Thank you so much.”

She gave me a hug and took my half-empty can of beer away from me. “Congrats, you survived hosting your first cast party. Drink some water.”

“First and last,” I said, dully. “I hope.” My head felt like a balloon—light and wobbly. I wanted it to stop. I dutifully drank the glass of water Micayla handed me.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to stick around?” she asked.

“Nah,” I said. “I’ll be fine. We have to go. Renata will get worried. Raven, can you go upstairs and tell Elizabeth we need to leave?”

“Okay … ,” she said, giving me a questioning look, but I didn’t explain why I couldn’t just go talk to Elizabeth myself.

Raven came down a minute later by herself, holding my bag. “Elizabeth said she’d follow us in a few minutes. I guess your parents left her the car keys?”

So Micayla dropped off Raven and me at the Woodburys’, and a few minutes later, Elizabeth pulled into their driveway in the Comet. I was just setting down my bag in the spare bedroom when Renata bustled her in.

“You don’t mind sharing, do you?” asked Renata. There was a big comfy queen-sized bed with purple satin sheets and about a million throw pillows. Josh was already sleeping downstairs, on the couch.

“I don’t mind,” I said. By now, my head was starting to feel normal again, and I didn’t think I sounded tipsy anymore. I hoped.

Elizabeth was avoiding eye contact. She looked like she’d rather be on the other end of the house from me—or, preferably, in a whole different state. But she didn’t say anything.

“Well, then, I think you’re all set, girls!” said Renata. “Let me know if you need anything at all. Lovely to have you here.”

Raven, who had been hovering by the door, said, “Do you want to go to bed right now, though? They just put Gilmore Girls on Netflix, if you want to watch—”

“Raven, it is a school night,” said Renata. “And very late already. Please let me at least pretend to be a responsible authority figure.”

Raven grinned and waved at us. “Fine, nighty-night.”

The moment we were alone, Elizabeth said, “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Whoa,” I said, “I wasn’t going to—”

“I said, I don’t want to talk about it,” she repeated, her voice rising.

“I don’t, either!” I said, holding up both hands. “I’m fine with pretending it never happened, if that’s what you want.” Okay, now my head was killing me. I dug around in my overnight bag for some Advil.

“Fine,” she said.

“Fine.”

We unpacked our bags in silence, then took turns changing into our pajamas and brushing our teeth in the bathroom. When we’d both slid under the covers, I closed my eyes and my mind immediately drifted to Zephyr. To the kiss. Kisses. What had I been thinking? What was he going to think of me?

Elizabeth slipped out of bed and shuffled around in her bag. In the dim light of the room, I saw that she was getting dressed again.

“What are you doing?” I said.

She pulled a sweatshirt over her head and stuck something that looked like a lighter in her pocket. “I’m just—I need some air,” she said. “I’m going out for a bit.”

“Out? You mean, to smoke?”

She sighed. “Yeah, it helps me, okay? Judge all you want. If you can manage to not blab to any more of your friends, that’d be great, but whatever.”

I winced, remembering what she’d heard me saying about her to Raven, before Anti-Colonial Thanksgiving. But I took a deep breath and kept my voice steady. “I promise, we do not have to talk about—what happened before. But just in case you want to know … I don’t care at all.”

She looked at me.

“I’m sorry,” I said quickly. “That’s not what I meant. I meant, it’s your business, and I don’t care who you want to make out with. And I think Heron is awesome, by the way.”

Silence. Then, “It’s not what you think.”

“Uh … it’s not? Because it seemed pretty clear. Not much interpretation needed, I mean.” I was trying to be funny, but it wasn’t working.

She shook her head. “I’ve never done that before. Never. I’ve dated boys, other boys besides Farhan, and I thought if I just tried hard enough—I thought I could—”

I sat up and looked at her. “Elizabeth, is this a religion thing? Because if you really think God would create you one way and then expect you not to—”

“It’s not that,” she said, thickly, and I realized she was holding back tears. “It’s my mom.”

“Oh. You mean, your mom didn’t approve? And that’s why you tried to—change things?”

“She never knew,” Elizabeth whispered, sitting back down on the edge of the bed. “I never told her. By the time I’d figured it out—well, I think I always knew, but it took me a long time to admit it to myself—and then it took me a while to work up the courage to tell her. And then she was sick, and it didn’t seem like the right time. I thought I’d wait until she was better and things were back to normal. And then she didn’t—she didn’t get better—” Her voice broke, but she kept going. “And I couldn’t tell her, once I knew it was the end. What if it had changed everything? What if she saw me differently, or felt weird about it, and then we never had time to fix things—” She stopped and shoved a fist in her mouth, bit down on it, hard. She was shivering.