What Happens Now(74)

Eliza sighed and slammed her drink onto the bar. “Drama queen,” she said with a laugh. Camden and I did not laugh. “Oh, come on,” she added. “Don’t you think that was over the top?”

I thought of everything I’d seen of them since we’d all met. How I knew next to nothing about relationships, but I did know, with every fiber of my being, that theirs was not healthy.

Someone came up to Eliza and asked her to dance, and after a quick glance at us, she nodded yes. We watched her move off toward the dance floor.

“Do you want to?” asked Camden.

I shook my head. “I don’t really want to be on display anymore.”

So we did the next logical thing. We found the food table and stuffed our faces.

A little while later, James appeared. “There you guys are.”

“Have you seen Kendall?” I asked, then wished I hadn’t.

He looked pained. “No,” he said. “I’m sorry about what happened. She was pretty upset, wasn’t she?”

“What do you think?”

“I figured it was better not to lead her on. I wasn’t sure she liked me until today.”

I paused, looked hard at him. “I have a tough time believing that.”

He glanced away and squeezed his cup until it dented. “I didn’t want to deal with it until I had to. It was like, I knew what I had to do, but couldn’t do it.”

I thought of Lukas’s face, asking me what was wrong. Asking me to tell him the truth. Do you want to be with me or not, Ari? How it was so much easier to keep saying one thing but then doing another.

“The timing could have been better,” said Camden.

“I know,” said James, wincing. “It’s not like I planned that. We were on our way to get the food and she kept looking at me like she expected something and I just—”

“She’ll be fine,” I said, cutting him off. He seemed relieved. “Thank you for being honest.”

“There’s more to it than what I told her,” he said.

“I don’t need to know that.” I scanned the room again. “Right now I only need to know where she is.”

“Maybe she texted you.”

Maybe. Probably. Which meant I needed to turn on my phone.

I took it out, ran my finger over the dark screen. Admired the beautiful blankness of it.

Camden put his hand on my shoulder.

A deep breath, then I was pressing down on the power button. As the phone woke up, it vibrated and dinged and danced. I unfocused my eyes and let the text messages come as a series of blurs. The screen was full of them, but I only looked at the ones from Kendall.

I couldn’t take it in there anymore, sorry. Jamie left the van unlocked so I’m hanging out here.

It was from a half hour ago.

“She’s outside in the van,” I said. “I’m going to go see if she’s okay.”

“Do you want me to come with you?”

“No, I’m good.” The thought of a few minutes alone seemed suddenly marvelous.

I wound my way out of the crowd and into the hallway, then the hotel lobby. I pulled my wig off as the lobby doors slid open, and even the humid night air felt fresh against my skin and head.

“Wait up!” someone yelled from behind me. It was Eliza again. She ran to me, stopped, saw my wiglessness and shook her head. “Et tu, Brute?”

“I’ll put it back,” I said, then felt mad at myself.

“Where are you going?” she asked.

“I’m checking on Kendall.”

“Have you seen Max? I don’t think he came back to the party.”

I shook my head and kept walking into the parking lot toward the van. Eliza kept pace beside me.

“That was great, don’t you think?” she said in a cheerful, un-Eliza tone. “I didn’t get a chance to tell you how fantastic you did at the contest. And all day, really.”

I was about to say thanks when we reached the van and Eliza stopped abruptly. She stared into the front window.

“What’s the matter?” I asked.

I moved closer to see what she was looking at.

Which was Kendall and Max in the front seat. Kissing.

All was quiet for a moment. Not just Eliza. The whole world, it seemed, was frozen on the edge of something. Then Eliza exploded.

“Are you f*cking kidding me?” she yelled, then started banging on the windshield.

Max and Kendall broke apart, startled. Their oh-my-God expressions identical.

“Get out of the van!” shouted Eliza.

Max shook his head. And who could blame him, really?

“Goddammit,” said Eliza, and threw herself at the driver’s side door, flinging it open.

Kendall scrambled out the other side of the car. I scrambled to meet her.

“Kendall,” I whispered.

“I’m sorry,” she said, her hand still gripping the car door. “I was here and Max showed up and we started talking, and I started crying, and then . . .”

But Eliza was walking toward us now. I turned and tried to stand as strong as I could next to my friend.

Quickly, so quickly nobody really had any time to react or guess what was about to happen, Eliza stepped up close to Kendall. Her arm went out and for a flicker of a moment, I thought she was going to slap Kendall. Or worse.