What Happens Now(27)

“No,” I answered quickly. “Actually, yes. Well . . . no . . .”

Kendall gave me a look. “If you’re going to make me leave this party, you’d better be sure.”

“Okay. I want to leave.”

She nodded grimly. “Then let’s go.”

“What about James?”

Kendall smiled at the sound of his name. “We already exchanged email addresses.”

“Kendall!”

“He’s into photography and he’s traveled all over England and Ireland.” She turned to stare wistfully outside again.

“You met a guy and now I’m ruining—”

“I came for you, Ari,” interrupted Kendall. “I’ll leave for you, too.”

I hugged her. My friend. My best friend. Maybe not forever, but here and now.

After a moment, she pulled away and said, “I’ll wait in the car. Why don’t you go say good-bye to your boy, and for God’s sake, give him your number.”

Back on the patio, the band was still loud and people were still moving frenetically, but I didn’t see Camden. I climbed onto a wooden chair so I could get a better look at the crowd, but that head, that hair, was nowhere. I circled the outside of the barn once, scanning the darkness for shapes and voices, and found nothing.

I looped back inside. Maeve Armstrong was sitting on some older guy’s lap in the living room, deep in conversation, and didn’t notice me. I went halfway up the spiral stairs but the landing was empty.

When I came down, I spotted a notepad and pen stuck to the fridge. It was not how I wanted the night to end, but it was better than nothing.

Camden,

Wanted to stay, but something came up. I wouldn’t mind more travels with Atticus Marr. Call when you can.

Ari

I left the note on the pad, my number scrawled at the bottom. Every step I took toward the door, part of me wanted to turn back. What good is no regrets when there’s an equal chance of regretting it either way?

“Am I an idiot for leaving?” I asked as I slid into the passenger seat of Kendall’s car.

“I guess you’ll find out,” said Kendall with a shrug. She paused, examining my face. “This was about that night at Lukas’s, wasn’t it?”

Couldn’t speak. Could only nod.

“I knew it,” said Kendall. “I remember how that threw you.”

Threw you was a new and interesting way to describe how much I hated myself for letting things go so far, and for realizing I didn’t love Lukas. Kendall didn’t know about the other parts because I didn’t tell her. The pristine white skin of my right arm, daring me to let out some of this fresh pain. The shoe box with the razors and the cotton balls, hidden at the back of my closet. The urge to see it. Open it. The strength it took to resist.

Instead, I’d told my therapist about these feelings (but not about the box, because that was one secret I needed to hold on to). My therapist told my doctor, and my doctor tinkered with my dosage.

“Yes,” I finally said. “It threw me good.”

We drove home with all four windows down, the breeze deep in my lungs.

I looked at my hand and wondered where the creases on Camden’s palm had lined up with the ones on mine.

I’d left my number. It would have felt worse if I hadn’t, but I was sort of at his mercy now.

Wait, who was I kidding? I’d been at his mercy all along.





8




I opened my eyes in the half-light of Kendall’s bedroom, not sure what time it was or whether I had actually slept at all.

This room was so familiar from our years of sleepovers. The blue shag area rug on the floor next to me, the pile of dirty clothing that was always different but also, somehow, the same. Kendall’s ceiling with the hot-air balloon mobile hanging in the corner, the window with the cracked pane, that poster of the kittens eating cake. Even the air mattress under my sleeping bag was a type of home.

In this moment, it was easy to feel like the night before had never happened, that none of its strange magic or glorious surprises had, in fact, been real. Maybe we were still twelve, fourteen, sixteen, and we’d made it all up in a story we’d told each other in the dark.

“Will you help me write an email to James?” said Kendall’s voice suddenly from the bed.

“You’re awake?”

“Duh.”

I laughed with relief.

“Did you sleep at all?” I asked.

“I’m not sure.”

I laughed again, then got up, retrieved Kendall’s laptop from her desk, and fell onto the foot of her bed.

“Move over,” I said.

She scooched close to her pillows and hugged her knees close.

“Do you think he liked me?” she asked.

“Uh, yeah.”

“Because they always seem like they like me, at first. But then something changes. I can’t figure out what.”

“It’s not you,” I said, not sure if that were completely true. Kendall usually clammed up and got so shy, so nervous. The more she liked someone and the closer they got to something sparking, the weirder she started acting. I could easily see how a guy could misinterpret that as her pushing him away. But I’d never been able to tell her this. Especially after Lady Bic Night, and after Lukas. Our lives had diverged too much in this department.