A Midsummer's Nightmare(42)

He rolled his eyes. “Come on, Whit, just drink it. It’ll help you sober up. Well, okay, scientifically it won’t, but I swear, it’ll make you feel soberer. The toast will help, but—”

“I don’t want to.”

“Don’t be such a baby.”

“I’m not a baby,” I snapped. We glared at each other for a long moment before I gave in and took the mug from him. To be honest, I was really, sickly drunk, and anything that might make me feel better was welcome… even if it did taste like shit.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” Nathan laughed as I lifted a hand to pinch my nose. “Are you six years old or what?”

“Shut up.” I took a deep breath through my mouth and raised the mug to my lips. It was scalding hot, and the nose-holding thing didn’t do much to mask the coffee’s bitter taste. It took all of my strength to swallow a few gulps without spitting it out.

When I put the mug back down, Nathan grinned at me.

“I hate you.”

“You just wish you did,” he said.

I took another drink of coffee and picked up my piece of toast again.

“The face you make when you drink it is hilarious,” he teased.

I swallowed a slightly burned bite of bread. “If you aren’t careful, I’ll spit the next mouthful all over you,” I warned.

He laughed again, but it faded into silence within seconds. His face turned suddenly serious, and I braced myself, arms around my knees again. I knew what was on his mind. It was on mine, too. But I didn’t want to talk about it. Or think about it. Ever again.

“Please, don’t,” I said when he started to open his mouth. “Not right now, okay? I can’t talk about it right now…. Can we talk about anything but that?”

“Fine. But if you need to—”

“I know.”

“Okay.”

“Okay. Talk about something else.”

There was a long pause, then Nathan finally said, “I’m sorry.”

I stared at him, a little confused.

“I told you this afternoon, but you wouldn’t listen,” he said. “I mean it, though. What I said—”

I shook my head. “Don’t bother. It wasn’t like you were lying, after all.”

“But—”

“It’s fine,” I said. “It’s just… ironic.”

“What do you mean?”

“Back home in Indiana, when I was hooking up all the time with random guys, people called me a whore, but it was like… It wasn’t like everyone knew my name. But here? I’ve been good in comparison to what I used to do. I haven’t done anything with anyone but make out, yet everyone cares, everyone knows me. They call me a slut, but since I’ve been here, I haven’t even done anything.”

Nathan looked a little surprised. “You mean, you aren’t… You didn’t…?”

“Nope. The last time I got laid was graduation night,” I said. “And that wasn’t really a normal thing.”

“What do you mean?” he asked. He was sitting sideways in the booth, one leg hanging out into the aisle between the tables. He was playing with the hole in the knee of his jeans, his eyes on his fingers, like he was suddenly very interested in the denim. “How wasn’t it, uh, normal?”

“I don’t have sex with everyone,” I said. “I’ve hooked up a lot. But I could count the number of people I’ve slept with on one hand, including you. You’d never know it based on what people say, or those pictures, but…”

“Oh.”

I leaned back in my seat and stared out the dirty window. A few fireworks were still erupting from a church parking lot across the street.

“Weeks of posts, tons of comments, pictures he was tagged in… and my dad hasn’t said a word. He just untags himself.”

“That’s why you do this, isn’t it? Because of your dad?”

I turned to face Nathan again. “What do you mean?”

“Your dad,” he said. “Okay, this is going to sound really shrinkish, but I think you act like this—party, drink—because you want his attention. Don’t you?”

“No. That’s stupid.”

“Really?” He leaned across the table, his eyes on mine. I looked away, and he asked, “Then why?”

“Why what?”

“Why do you do it? Go out and get wasted all the time. Why?”

My first feeling was anger. I wanted to yell at Nathan and tell him that I lived this way because I wanted to. Because it was fun. Because it worked for me. But that was bullshit. Especially after what had happened tonight.

This wasn’t fun. It hadn’t been for a long time.

I thought of Bailey. I’d been so much like Bailey once. Somehow, I’d gone from that to… this.

“Remember when I told you that I had my first drink when I was fourteen?” I asked, turning to Nathan.

“Yeah.”

“Well, it was at a kegger. I went because all the cool high school kids would be there, and I wanted to make some new friends before freshman year. I went, I drank, and I tried to have fun. And I did. The hangover was hell, though, and I was sure I’d get grounded for drinking, but Mom didn’t even notice. I mean, she ate breakfast with me the next morning and everything. She probably heard me puking in the toilet. But she didn’t say a word.