Scarlett Epstein Hates It Here(50)

“Yeah, I do know that. Or, you know, intellectually, I was aware of that. I just . . . yeah. Looking back, nobody ever . . .”

“Asked me if I was a man or a woman? Yeah. It happens. Not that I’m making it clear myself.” She shrugs and sits down.

It all makes sense now, I realize, and say, “And that’s why you didn’t want to meet up with me.”

She sighs, stirring her coffee. “I was afraid if we met IRL, you’d be all surprised, and it would ruin everything.”

“I know the feeling.” I sigh.

“I hope I haven’t disappointed you.”

“Of course not!”

She raises her eyebrows—the exact expression I’d pictured on xLoupxGaroux whenever (s)he said “spill it” or “waiting for the truth.”

“No, really. Assuming things about people makes an ass out of you and me.” I stare into the swirling eye of my caramel macchiato. “Mostly me.”

We chat a little bit over our coffee. Maura tells me she’s a freelance graphic designer for a few major companies, but what she really wants to do is draw comics. We mourn Lycanthrope High for a while and finally get back to talking about ourselves IRL.

I give her the latest on Gideon and Ashley (whom Maura keeps accidentally referring to as Ashbot, sending us both into fits of giggles). I mention he was into Lycanthrope too and flaked on lending me some of the graphic novels.

Maura rolls her eyes.

“There’ll be more. God, so many. You won’t even remember him eventually.”

“Are you . . . with someone? Married?”

“God no. Single, dating.” Maura shrugs. “It’s so early to settle down, you know? There’s so much I haven’t done or haven’t seen. I still feel pretty young. Most of my IRL friends have had babies, and it’s like . . . I feel like entire friendships have devolved into just . . . trying not to say that their baby is ugly.”

I laugh. Relieved I’m not judging her, she laughs too.

“But I guess everything seems dull compared to the show, you know?”

“Totally.”

“I want a William.” She pauses, then adds, “And a Connor. And a video camera. I had really high expectations of New York. I thought this was where all the freaks go! No such luck.”

I laugh. “Right, I thought . . . Actually, I always thought I knew that I wanted to live in New York after high school. Now, I’m not so sure.”

“How come?”

I lower my voice, look her dead in the eye, and ask, “Isn’t everybody here kind of full of shit?”

She lets out an infectious laugh that makes the whole Starbucks shine for a minute.

“People are kind of full of shit everywhere,” she concurs. “But you’re a little young to be jaded already, aren’t you?”

“I think it’s the opposite.”

“What do you mean?”

“I think I’m getting un-jaded.”

Whether or not Maura understands, she lays her hand on mine.

“Well, I’m always around if you want to talk. On or off Gchat.”



When we say goodbye at the subway, she asks if I’m going to tell the others on the board that we met.

“Do you want me to?”

For the first time, she looks vulnerable, like she doesn’t know how to answer. Before she does, I shake my head.

“It’s your story to tell.”



On the one ten A.M. train back to Melville with three other passengers—two sleeping, one sketchy—I watch the city skyline recede like I usually do, but it’s the first time I’m glad to leave it behind. Not that being back home is much better. I wish I could just stay on this train, a safe, in-between nowhere.

I finally check my phone. Fifteen texts from Avery. Slightly more than usual. She probably just had sex with Mike and all fifteen are “interesting” tidbits of physiological info copy-pasted from the “Sexual Intercourse (humans)” Wiki page. I don’t even have the energy to tell her my life has turned into a Dr. Seuss book called Oh the Assholes at Home and the Assholes You’ll Meet.

Before I get a chance to open any of the texts, she calls me. I answer.

“Hi. Pregnant yet?”

“Oh God, I’m so sorryyyyy,” Avery wails, not sounding like herself. She repeats it over and over raggedly: “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, please don’t be mad at me, I’m sorry.”





Chapter 20


FOR THE REMAINDER OF THE TRAIN RIDE, I PIECE TOGETHER what happened, Law & Order style: Mike came early to pick Avery up for a movie. Avery closed but didn’t shut off her laptop. Ashley went into Avery’s room because she wanted to e-mail herself Avery’s AP History essay. Avery had been reading the last Ordinaria chapter on the Were-Heads message board.

Ashley read the chapter. She read all the chapters. Then she sent them to Gideon.

My basic nightmare, essentially. Created by Dick Wolf. Donk-donk.

“It’s not your fault,” I lie to a hyperventilating Avery, as one of the other passengers wakes up with a start and glances curiously at me. “Come on. Calm down.”

“I just wasn’t thinking!”

“It’s really okay.”