“What do you want me to say?”
“Thetruth,” I say, getting more and more frustrated. “I know about you and Jason.”
Monique blinks, sniffs. “You thinkI’mcheating with Jason?”
“Aren’t you?”
“No!” she practically bellows. “What the fuck! Why would you even think something like that?”
The strength of her reaction is making me doubt myself, but then I remember that people can be damn good actors. It had never even crossed my mind before he broke up with me that Jason might be cheating on me. Now, there are so many possibilities for ways he could have betrayed me. From falling out of love with me to being with my best friend.
“I know you were with him at Penny’s party and God knows when else.”
“Penny’s party?” Mo looks confused. “I didn’t even go.”
“Oh my God, Isawyou!” I tell her, not caring if she tries to make me explain. “You were leaving a room with him.”
She frowns like she’s trying to recall this. Finally, she says, “Oh, you meanbeforePenny’s party?”
I sigh. If she’s going to try to skirt this with a bunch of technicalities, I don’t have time for it.It wasn’tatPenny’s party; it wasbeforePenny’s party. I didn’t hook up with Jason; he hooked up with me!
“I saw you, Mo,” I say again. “I know for a fact you hooked up with him.”
A light repetitive thud is starting in my brain.
Mo looks disgusted. “I absolutely did not!” she cries.
“Then why were you alone in a room with him?” I ask, finally losing all semblance of control.
“Because he’s investing in my app!” Mo spits. “Or we were talking about it, anyway. I wouldneverhook up with Jason.”
I blink at her. “Then why were you adjusting your top when you left the room?”
“Because that top is itchy?”
“And why did Josh imply Jason had been hooking up with someone?”
“Because Josh is an imbecile and likes to start drama? I don’t know! Ask him.”
In addition to the thumping in my head, that electric sound is back again. It’s a loud buzzing noise, and I have no idea what to think or believe. “But you’ve been absent a lot.”
I’m expecting her to use the excuse of her app again, but she surprises me. “Because I’ve been visiting Jason,” she snaps. “I found out what he’d done to you—that he’d been with another girl—a couple of days before the accident. So I cornered him and told him exactly what I hoped became of him. I might have called him a couple of names, cursed him and his children, and then he goes and gets in a stupid coma. I feel terrible, okay? So, yeah, sometimes I visit him.”
I remember the time her sister “hurt her leg,” but that’s not what makes my voice small. “So he did cheat?”
Mo is quiet a minute, then says, “Not with me.”
“Why didn’t you tell me? Any of it—the cheating, the visits.”
She shrugs. Wipes her nose. “He promised he’d tell you himself,” Mo says. “And why did I have to tell you about the visits? I didn’t think you’d care or fucking think I was hooking up with him!”
She seems really genuinely hurt. “I would never, ever hook up with a boy you were dating. Which, by the way, was never even a possibility if you oranyonebothered to ask questions or bothered toseeme.”
“What the heck are you talking about?”
“I don’t like Jason!”
“Okay?”
