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“What happened?” I asked again, ignoring her question.
“It has nothing to do with Kyle. Kyle was—is—wonderful. He definitely deserved better than what I gave him,” she said sadly.
There was a lot to that story that I wanted to hear about; I knew now wasn’t the time, but I’d get it out of her later one way or another.
“Shit happens, Meg. Bad stuff. And you learn to deal with it, and you move on. That’s what I did.”
I was pretty sure she hadn’t moved on. She had perhaps suppressed it. She’d pushed it way down where she thought it couldn’t hurt her anymore. But if I had learned anything from my own tragically melodramatic history, it was that nothing ever stayed hidden. It came back to haunt you in one way or another. And just when you thought you were entering into a shiny, new healthy place in your life, those bottled up emotions rose out of the ashes like a pissed off phoenix.
I put my hand over hers and squeezed. “I’m here. I always have been.”
Whitney turned her palm face up and laced her fingers with mine, the way we used to when we were little girls. “I know. Maybe one day…”
My phone started to ring, interrupting the moment.
“Ugh,” I groaned, clumsily fishing it out of my pocket. I glanced at the screen and wanted to throw it across the room. “It’s Adam.”
It kept ringing as I stared at his name flashing in bright letters. Then the phone went silent. Ten seconds later, he called again. I sent it straight to voicemail.
“You want to tell me what happened tonight? What’s been going on with the two of you?” Whitney seemed to have gotten control of herself. Her momentary vulnerability over but not forgotten because I wouldn’t forget. One day, when I could think straight, I’d find out what happened to her, and we’d work through it together. The way we should have all along.
I sighed. Noisy and long. “I hated him for so long. He really hurt me,” I started to say.
Whitney got up to grab a tin of Mom’s Snickerdoodles and brought them to the table, which was good because I was now really, really hungry. “I was there, remember. I had a first-row seat to how shitty Adam was.”
My phone started ringing again, and this time I turned the thing off. I took three cookies from the tin, and then on second thought, grabbed one more. “I came back here thinking I could avoid him.”
Whitney laughed. “Come on, Meg, you couldn’t be that naive. It’s Southport. You run into your entire Kindergarten class every time you go to the grocery store.”
“I know, I know. It was wishful thinking.” We smiled at each other, and it felt good to talk to her like old times. “But then I went to see The Lord of the Rings—”
“Dude, nothing good ever comes from those movies,” Whitney intoned dramatically.
I balled up a napkin and tossed it at her. “Hey, they’re my favorite films!”
“I know, you made me watch them a million times,” she said with a smirk.
“Not quite a million,” I rectified. “Anyway, I went to see LOTR, and of course, Adam was there because the universe hates me.”
“Of course,” Whitney agreed dryly.
I ignored her sarcasm. “So he brought a flask, and we got drunk—”
“Sláinte.” She lifted her mug and took a drink.
“Will you let me tell the story or not?” I frowned, my head feeling heavy. Whitney held up her hand and made the motion of zipping her lips. When I felt it safe to go on, I continued, “So we got a little drunk. Then one thing led to another. And the next thing I know, my underwear is on the floor, and we’re screwing our brains out while I got rug burn on my ass from those shitty seats.”
Whitney choked, covering her hand with her mouth so she wouldn’t spray tea all over the place. When she was more or less under control, she wiped her mouth. “You had sex in the movie theater? I had no idea you were such an exhibitionist.”
“We were the only ones in there,” I protested.
“That you know of.” She laughed.
I did not want to think about some horny teenager watching us get our freak on.“Whatever. We had sex. Then I left. Then he climbed up the oak tree outside my window—”
“Is he ten? What the hell? He could have broken his neck. What a dumbass,” Whitney exclaimed.
“You’re really bad at listening,” I chastised.
“Sorry, this is just crazy stuff.”
“You’re telling me!” I shoved a cookie in my mouth, chewing and swallowing before continuing my pathetic tale. “So, of course, we had sex again.”
Whitney rolled her eyes. “Of course.”
“And we’ve been sleeping together for almost a month now. And we’re talking amazing sex. The kind that makes your toes curl.” I smiled despite how much my heart hurt. “He does this thing with his tongue—”
