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I double back to prod her along. “Sure. Why don’t you come back in the morning and ask?”
“Good idea.”
Maren walks behind us with her arms crossed and her eyes narrowed. There’s no cooling off between the bar and my car. When I open the passenger door and hold it for her, she huffs something under her breath and climbs into the back.
Tori slides into the front seat and shoots me an angelic smile. “Nicky, you’re a lifesaver.”
“To be clear, I never asked to have my life saved,” Maren says in a disgruntled tone. “I was having a perfectly good time with Barrett at the bar.”
“Yes, I’m sure he loved hearing you groan about Nicholas all evening,” Tori replies, and I can’t help but smirk at that—though it fades quickly when Tori continues, “You are aware that you agreed to be his date to that gala next weekend, right?”
“What?!” Maren asks in shock. Then she catches sight of my face and tightens her arms across her chest in defiance. “Oh, yes. Sure. I’m excited.”
I slam the door and round the back of the car to take my seat, wondering if her words are even partly true. I start my engine and study her for a moment in the rearview mirror, but when she catches me, she throws up her eyebrows and prods me to get going. “Did you yank me out of that bar just to keep me here all night?”
Tori laughs under her breath, and I tell myself to focus on driving.
On the way to drop Tori off, she chats enough to cover up the fact that Maren continues stewing in the back seat. I don’t register a single thing she says, but I become aware of her absence as soon as she’s gone. After she hops out of the car and wishes us both a good night, the silence looms heavy and Maren doesn’t seem anxious to fill it.
“Do you want to move up here?” I ask, glancing back at her in the rearview mirror.
She’s made herself small in the corner of the back seat, as far away from me as possible.
“No thank you.”
I sigh and turn back out onto Bellevue Avenue to head toward Rosethorn. The drive only takes a few minutes and then we’re pulling into my parking space. Maren undoes her seatbelt and I’m about to get out when my hand hesitates on the door.
“Tell me why you’re so angry with me.”
“I’m tired,” she says stiffly. “I don’t have it in me.”
“Maren.”
She lets her forehead smack against the back of the passenger seat.
“Are you going to keep me prisoner in here until I tell you?”
The ludicrous idea makes me smile. “If I need to.”
She doesn’t share my humor. She sighs and sits back against her seat, staring out the window.
I turn back to face the front, unsure of what we’re doing here. If she’s not going to talk, I can’t force her to sit here all night. I glance up and watch her in the mirror again, trying to determine how close she is to giving in.
Time passes and the silence in the car continues.
Neither one of us moves, and the minutes stretch on. I’m about to open my door and surrender even though I don’t want to. I want to press her for the truth at all costs, but I know it’s not right. I don’t want to make her even more upset.
Then she speaks.
“Do you even realize how cruel you can be sometimes?” she asks me, turning her head to meet my eyes in the rearview mirror. Her words feel like a rare bird that will startle at the smallest motion. Left alone, however…what then?
I don’t respond, and a few moments later, she continues.
“I was so happy in Paris, so free and confident. I wanted to bring those feelings home with me, but then you arrived today and in a matter of seconds, you wiped all that confidence away.”
“How?”
She shakes her head. “You don’t even remember, do you?” She turns away and speaks softly, repeating my words back to me. “You’ll never be like everybody else.”
“That was meant as a compliment, Maren.”
“Oh really?” She grunts sarcastically. “Then I guess you don’t really know me at all. I’m a girl who’s spent her whole life feeling distinctly apart from the world around her, never truly blending in, never a part of anything. Those words weren’t a compliment to me.”
“I’m sorry.”
She leans forward, searching in vain for the mechanism she needs to pull so she can push the front seat up and out of her way. After a moment, she groans in defeat. “Please let me out of the car.”
I don’t listen. I’m too struck by what she just said, too angry that she might not understand where I was coming from.
“If you feel apart from the rest of us, Maren, it’s not because you can’t measure up—it’s because you float above us. You’re the most…” I frown as my sentence trails off, unsure of how to continue. “You’re so much—” I sigh, angry with my inability to articulate my feelings to her. “You’re different in the best way. Don’t you see? It was a compliment.”
