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“Think so. Benny’s sister gives him so much hell.”
She shifted in her seat, facing me as I drove. “I didn’t know he had a sister.”
“Uh…yeah. Claudia. She’s a year younger than us.”
“Did she give you hell too? Were you like a big brother or did she have a crush on you?”
I let go of the wheel to yank my hair out of my face. I’d treaded into territory I’d never intended on treading. Dammit.
“Not a big brother. She’s my ex,” I said.
“Oh.” Her hand loosened in mine, but I wasn’t letting her go. “The cute tattooed chick?”
“Yeah, that’s Claudia.”
She turned away, staring out her window. “I don’t know why, but I’m feeling all kinds of weird right now. She was there over winter break when you stayed with Ben?”
My gut twisted into painful knots. “She was. Absolutely nothing happened. She’s moved on and so have I, Tali.”
“I believe you. I just think—”
“What? What do you think?”
“I guess I think you should have told me. All those nights we talked? You could have dropped that in there. Now it seems like you were hiding it.”
“If you want the stark truth, Iwashiding it. I didn’t want you to think I was going to stay with my ex. I thought you’d pull away when I was finally getting a chance with you, so I kept it to myself. It was stupid and thoughtless.”
She let out a long, shuddering breath, her hand still limp in mine. The entire glory of the last two days had been suctioned out of the car, taking every one of my hopes, my confidence in us and my ability to keep her.
“You can’t do that again,” she said quietly. “You have to be completely honest. Especially when you’re gone this summer. If I can’t trust you, we won’t last.”
I cut across two lanes of traffic to take the exit at a rest stop. I parked the car far away from everyone else, under the shade of a big tree. We sat in silence, my heavy, guilty breaths and cars whizzing by the only sounds.
“Stripes, you gotta look at me,” I pleaded.
She leaned her head on her window. “I don’t even know why this is making me so upset.”
“Tali, I love you. I never loved her. She was more my friend than anything, and I—”
“Your friend who you had sex with,” she supplied.
I winced at those words coming from her mouth. “Yeah, I guess so.”
“When was the last time you slept with her?” she asked.
“Before you asked me to wait,” I said.
“But after you broke up?”
I sighed. “Yeah.”
“That night she was at the bar with you?”
“Yes. That night.” I’d been high as hell and all I could think about was Tali, but I wouldn’t be telling her that.
“But that wasn’t the last time, was it?” she asked.
“No. Thanksgiving was the last time,” I said. I hated telling her this, but it felt like the only route back to her was complete honesty.
