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The sound of my bedroom door closing pulls me out of my sleep. For a moment, I’m disoriented and I immediately reach for Everett, as I assume, he slipped into my bed after he was done playing nice with Alli.
Thank God, he’s done with her.
I frown when I feel cool sheets under my fingertips, and I sit up slightly as the post slumber fog dissipates. I quickly remember what happened just before I closed my eyes and feelings of uneasiness ghost over my skin.
Everett’s phone was off.
He’d stopped answering my texts halfway through the night and I never heard from him again. Now, it wasn’t unheard of for his phone to die, but he knew my number as well as he knew his own, so he’d always found a way to contact me when that happened.
As soon as I sit up completely, my eyes find him sitting at my desk facing my bed but staring at the floor. His shoulders are slumped and his face is sad, defeated almost. Like the time our high school lacrosse team lost the state championship. He barely talked to anyone for weeks. Even me.
“Hey,” I whisper. “What are you doing all the way over there?”
His eyes meet mine. They’re vacant and lifeless and I watch as he closes them slowly and rests his elbows on his legs. He swallows before his gaze meets mine slowly. “I just got you… and…” He clears his throat. “Leigh, I fucked up…I think.”
Fearing the worst, I pull my blankets up around my chest as I try to protect myself from whatever he has to tell me. I’m suddenly freezing, goosebumps pop up everywhere, and I feel the tears prickling in my eyes. I feel like someone’s standing on my chest and my heart might beat out of it with how hard and fast it’s pounding.
He wouldn’t. He said he wouldn’t break us. He promised.
“Go on…”
“I don’t know, Leigh. Something happened…” He rubs the back of his neck. “I don’t really know what exactly.”
“What the fuck does that mean?” I snap. The goosebumps have turned to full blown shivers, and now I feel my hands shaking beneath the blanket preparing for what he has to say.
“I…I woke up this morning and I…I was so fucked up last night, Leigh. Like drunker than the night of Brian’s graduation party.”
That night is a huge blur. I have flashes of him fucking me against Brian’s father’s two hundred-thousand-dollar Maserati and then puking my guts out into his mother’s rose garden. Everett and I woke up the next morning on a completely deflated air mattress we must have popped in the night with hangovers that would go on to last two days. For him to say it was worse than that, means I may not even want to know what he has to tell me.
Yes, you do. Call it morbid curiosity.
Or maybe ignorance really is bliss?
Anxiety grips my throat and I feel like I can’t speak. “Do…do I have to know?” I choke out.
“I’d rather you hear it from me than…anyone else.” He looks down at his hands before looking up at me sadly.
“So, there’s something to…” I swallow the tears that are forming in my throat. “…know.” I let out a breath. “Just tell me you didn’t sleep with her.”
“I…”
I’ll kill him. He hasn’t fucked her this whole time, and NOW he decides to? After what happened between us yesterday? “Everett.” My lip trembles and I shake my head. “You didn’t.”
“I…I don’t know.” He drops his head into his hands. “I woke up this morning and we were both naked, and I…” I don’t bother to listen to the rest before I’m off the bed and rushing into the bathroom. I hear him moving behind me, but I slam my door in his face before he can follow me inside.
“GET OUT!” I scream through the door.
“Leigh…baby, please don’t do this. Just talk to me.” Talk? Talk about fucking what?
“No, GO!” I pound my fist against my door. “GO. I fucking mean it, Everett. I want you out of my house.”
“I don’t remember anything, Leigh!” I hear him say, and his voice sounds defeated, but I’m too angry to care. Why would he do this? How could he do this?… To me? “I can’t say for sure, and Alli says we did, but I don’t buy it. I was so fucking trashed last night. I don’t remember anything!”
I fling the door open so hard I’m surprised I don’t pull it off the hinges. “Is that supposed to make me feel better? Does that excuse everything? What? I’m just supposed to be so madly in love with you that I don’t need to hold you accountable for acting like a drunk fucking asshole?” I shove him hard, though he barely moves an inch. “I HATE YOU!”
His face looks like I’ve just destroyed him with those three words.
Good. We’re even now.
