You don’t say anything right away. You don’t want to talk about it. She’s not going to drop it, though. So you sit down beside her on the picnic table and say, “I turn eighteen tomorrow.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah, and you’re right,” you say. “It isn’t new.”
So you tell her. You tell her how he’s always been hard on you, because you were a mama’s boy. Your mother had been an aspiring actress, and that’s how you got involved at such a young age, but your father never liked it. You were supposed to follow in his footsteps. It was a source of contention between your parents, and as your father rose in political ranks, your mother stepped away from her dream.
The first time he hit you, you were twelve, but it didn’t become a regular thing until a year later when your mother swallowed a bottle of pills and never woke up from a nap. Your father blamed her career for killing her, but you blamed him.
That’s why you can answer any question thrown at you in class. He drills it into you every chance he gets. He seems to think he can beat your mother out of you and fill the hollowness left behind with more of him.
She sits beside you as you talk, her head on your shoulder. Afterward, you’re both quiet, before she says she needs to get home.
Her parents don’t know she’s gone.
“Tomorrow night,” she says as she picks up the comic book. “If you’ve got nothing better to do, come hang out with me.”
“What time?”
“Eight o’clock,” she says. “My house.”
“Your house, huh? I’m starting to think you might like trouble.”
She grins as she kisses you, just a soft peck, before saying, “I’ll see you tomorrow, Jonathan.”
“I’ll be there,” you say as she walks away.
You don’t know this, but that girl? She’s always been a bit of a plotter, and at the moment, she’s devising a plan. You see, her parents are going out of town tomorrow night. She’s supposed to go along, but she’s starting to feel like she might be coming down with something. *cough* *cough*
Chapter 9
KENNEDY
Before I can take even one more step, I’m yanked to a stop, a hand grasping hold of my wrist.
Turning, caught off guard, I look at him. Jonathan. We’re still in the park, not far from where we started. There’s a look on his battered face. I’m not sure how to read it, not sure what he’s thinking or how he’s feeling.
That’s the thing with him, though.
He’s an actor. His talent comes natural. He’s never had to work very hard at it. He can switch moods in a moment, change scenes in an instant, flip the script without anybody even realizing it’s happening. It’s hard to tell if he’s just playing a character or if you can trust that he means things.
“Don’t,” he says, his voice low but pointed. “Don’t do that.”
“Don’t do what?”
“Don’t act like you weren’t enough for me.”
“I wasn’t.”
He shakes his head, his expression flickering with something else. Anger? Hurt? Frustration? “I don’t know how you can say that, how you can even think that.”
“Because it’s true,” I whisper, glancing down at where his hand is wrapped around my wrist. He isn’t letting go. “I’m not saying that to be spiteful, but it’s obvious I wasn’t enough for you.”
“How is it obvious?”
I can’t believe he’s asking that, that he’s pretending to not understand what I mean. Is he pretending? I don’t know. Either that or he’s spent way too long ignoring reality.
“You wanted so much more than you ever had with me,” I say. “I couldn’t keep up. I tried, but I couldn’t. The late nights, the parties, all those different places and faces… I got lost somewhere in the middle of it all, but you never stopped to look to make sure I was still with you. And then with the drinking, the drugs… the women.”
He cringes when I say that. “I never cheated.”
He’s told me that before, but it’s not the point. Good for him for keeping his pants on, for keeping his hands to himself, but still, time and again, he chose them. He left me behind, all alone, in a city where I only had him, so he could be with them.
Actors. Models. Socialites.
I fought so hard for him and his dream. I gave up everything. But by then end, he wouldn’t even give me a minute.
A minute was all I asked for.
“It doesn’t matter,” I say. “It’s over now, anyway.”
He lets go of my wrist, and I start to walk again. He strolls along beside me. I can tell he wants to argue his point, and every so often his lips will part, like he’s found the words he needs to convince me, but he stops himself.
When we reach my building, I come to a stop in the parking lot not far from my door.
“Thanks,” I mumble, awkwardly not knowing what to say in this moment.
“You’re wrong,” he says when I turn away, his voice just loud enough for me to hear. Should’ve known he wouldn’t let it go.
I shake my head. “I’m not.”
“You are,” he says again. “And I hate that I ever made you think otherwise, Kennedy.”
He walks away. I watch him go, ignoring the tiny sliver of me that doesn’t want him to leave.
Maddie’s already tucked into bed when I go inside, but Meghan’s on the couch, flipping through channels so fast I’m not sure how she can tell what’s on. She looks at me, pausing as she sits up.
“Wow, you look…” she starts, waving toward me.
“I look what?”
“I don’t know,” she says, “but you look something.”
“I feel something,” I mumble, plopping down on the couch beside her, dropping her shoes on her lap as I kick my feet up on the coffee table. My dress is tugged up damn near to my waist. I’m probably flashing her my underwear, but I don’t care. What a night.
“Oh god, was it that bad?” she asks, her voice dropping low as she clutches her chest. “Is it little? Does he have a needle-nose plier dick? Oh god, this is gold… please tell me Andrew’s packing a pinky in his pants.”
“No,” I say with a laugh, pausing before adding, “Well, I don’t know. Never seen it, but I doubt that’s the case.”
“What do you mean you’ve never seen it?”
“I mean I’ve never seen it. We’ve never… you know.”
“What?” She looks at me with shock. “You’ve gone out a few times and you haven’t even played with it? What the hell? I mean, I don’t blame you, because gross, but why do you keep going if he’s not sticking it to you? What’s the point?”
“Maybe because he’s nice.”
“Nice? You know who else is nice?”
“Don’t even start.”
“Mister Rogers,” she says. “He wants you to be his neighbor. Bob Ross, he’s nice, too. He’ll paint you a happy little cloud. Hell, how about one of the Cleavers? Why not go out with one of them?”
“Pretty sure they’re all dead.”
“Yeah, well, so is your vagina at this rate.”
Laughing, I shove her, nearly pushing her off the couch. “It is not.”
“Fine, whatever, so Andrew’s nice.” She pretends to gag. “If you didn’t get naked, what did you do tonight?”
“Went to dinner.”
“Dinner,” she says, eyeing me. “You’ve been gone four hours. How much did you eat?”
“Why are you asking so many questions?”
“Just making sure you didn’t run off and do something stupid, like get naked with someone else.”
“Of course not,” I say. “My dress stayed on all night long.”
“But you ran off, didn’t you?”
“I didn’t do anything.”
She waves her finger in my face. “You saw him.”
Guilty.
I don’t have to say anything. She knows.