A Midsummer's Nightmare (16 page)

“There you are, baby,” she said to Nathan. “You just holler if you need anything else.”

Okay. So, maybe her accent wasn’t fake. She sounded Texan, or maybe Alabamian. I could never tell the difference.

“Thank you,” he said.

“Anything for you, honey?” she asked me.

I shook my head and curled into a ball where I sat, my feet in the booth, knees to my chest. I could still feel Theo’s hands on my hips, his breath on my face. Like a ghost. Gone, but not gone.

“All right. Just let me know.” She walked back to the
counter, her hips swaying to the beat of the country song that played from the ancient-looking jukebox in the corner.

I glanced around. Other than the waitress, Nathan and I were the only people in the diner.

“I guess Hamilton doesn’t have many night owls.”

“It must not,” he agreed. “Here. Drink and eat this.” He shoved the toast and mug toward me.

“Ew,” I said, shoving the coffee back across the table. “No. I hate coffee.” I didn’t mind toast, though, so I picked up a piece and took a bite.

He rolled his eyes. “Come on, Whit, just drink it. It’ll help you sober up. Well, okay, scientifically it won’t, but I swear, it’ll make you
feel
soberer. The toast will help, but—”

“I don’t want to.”

“Don’t be such a baby.”

“I’m not a baby,” I snapped. We glared at each other for a long moment before I gave in and took the mug from him. To be honest, I was really, sickly drunk, and anything that might make me feel better was welcome… even if it
did
taste like shit.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” Nathan laughed as I lifted a hand to pinch my nose. “Are you six years old or what?”

“Shut up.” I took a deep breath through my mouth and raised the mug to my lips. It was scalding hot, and the nose-holding thing didn’t do much to mask the coffee’s bitter taste. It took all of my strength to swallow a few gulps without spitting it out.

When I put the mug back down, Nathan grinned at me.

“I hate you.”

“You just wish you did,” he said.

I took another drink of coffee and picked up my piece of toast again.

“The face you make when you drink it is hilarious,” he teased.

I swallowed a slightly burned bite of bread. “If you aren’t careful, I’ll spit the next mouthful all over you,” I warned.

He laughed again, but it faded into silence within seconds. His face turned suddenly serious, and I braced myself, arms around my knees again. I knew what was on his mind. It was on mine, too. But I didn’t want to talk about it. Or think about it. Ever again.

“Please, don’t,” I said when he started to open his mouth. “Not right now, okay? I can’t talk about it right now…. Can we talk about anything but that?”

“Fine. But if you need to—”

“I know.”

“Okay.”

“Okay. Talk about something else.”

There was a long pause, then Nathan finally said, “I’m sorry.”

I stared at him, a little confused.

“I told you this afternoon, but you wouldn’t listen,” he said. “I mean it, though. What I said—”

I shook my head. “Don’t bother. It wasn’t like you were lying, after all.”

“But—”

“It’s fine,” I said. “It’s just… ironic.”

“What do you mean?”

“Back home in Indiana, when I was hooking up all the time with random guys, people called me a whore, but it was like… It wasn’t like everyone knew my name. But here? I’ve been
good
in comparison to what I used to do. I haven’t done anything with anyone but make out, yet everyone cares, everyone knows me. They call me a slut, but since I’ve been here, I haven’t even done anything.”

Nathan looked a little surprised. “You mean, you aren’t… You didn’t…?”

“Nope. The last time I got laid was graduation night,” I said. “And that wasn’t really a normal thing.”

“What do you mean?” he asked. He was sitting sideways in the booth, one leg hanging out into the aisle between the tables. He was playing with the hole in the knee of his jeans, his eyes on his fingers, like he was suddenly very interested in the denim. “How wasn’t it, uh, normal?”

“I don’t have sex with everyone,” I said. “I’ve hooked up a lot. But I could count the number of people I’ve slept with on one hand, including you. You’d never know it based on what people say, or those pictures, but…”

“Oh.”

I leaned back in my seat and stared out the dirty window. A few fireworks were still erupting from a church parking lot across the street.

“Weeks of posts, tons of comments, pictures he was
tagged in… and my dad hasn’t said a word. He just untags himself.”

“That’s why you do this, isn’t it? Because of your dad?”

I turned to face Nathan again. “What do you mean?”

“Your dad,” he said. “Okay, this is going to sound really shrinkish, but I think you act like this—party, drink—because you want his attention. Don’t you?”

“No. That’s stupid.”

“Really?” He leaned across the table, his eyes on mine. I looked away, and he asked, “Then why?”

“Why what?”

“Why do you do it? Go out and get wasted all the time. Why?”

My first feeling was anger. I wanted to yell at Nathan and tell him that I lived this way because I wanted to. Because it was fun. Because it worked for me. But that was bullshit. Especially after what had happened tonight.

This wasn’t fun. It hadn’t been for a long time.

I thought of Bailey. I’d been so much like Bailey once. Somehow, I’d gone from that to… this.

“Remember when I told you that I had my first drink when I was fourteen?” I asked, turning to Nathan.

“Yeah.”

“Well, it was at a kegger. I went because all the
cool
high school kids would be there, and I wanted to make some new friends before freshman year. I went, I drank, and I tried to have fun. And I did. The hangover was hell, though, and I
was sure I’d get grounded for drinking, but Mom didn’t even notice. I mean, she ate breakfast with me the next morning and everything. She probably heard me puking in the toilet. But she didn’t say a word.

“Since she didn’t care, I thought I might as well keep going to parties. I went to a few. I met some new people. We weren’t friends or anything. I didn’t have friends, because my middle school best friend, Nola, had stopped hanging out with me. Some girls told her I’d give her a bad reputation or something. But these new people seemed cool. They gave me liquor, and I liked it. I liked being giggly and happy, because I didn’t feel like that very often. Not since the divorce.”

Nathan was quiet. I turned my head to stare out the window again, watching a few more fireworks explode in the sky. I’d never told anyone this part of the story before. No one had asked until now.

“I got really, really smashed one night at the end of freshman year. I mean, the drunkest I’d ever been in my life. I passed out at this party and… Well, I don’t really remember what happened. But I lost my virginity to a guy I didn’t even know. A senior, I think. I felt somehow… I don’t know. Bonded to him? So I gave him my number. I think part of me assumed we were, like, dating or something stupid like that. Of course I don’t have to tell you that he never called. I never saw him again. And I was so humiliated and ashamed.”

I shifted uncomfortably, feeling Nathan’s eyes on me.

“I expected Mom to say something. To scold me for the way I was acting, or at least give me the stupid safe-sex talk.
God, I came home drunk
all the time
. Sometimes I didn’t come home at all. But after that I just… I expected her to see how upset I was and to ask what had happened. Maybe she couldn’t tell I was depressed because she could never admit
she
was depressed, too. I don’t know. But she never said a word. I mean, she has to know what I’m doing…. She and Dad both have to. Dad
has
to know, and he hasn’t said
anything
.”

“So you
do
want attention.” It wasn’t an accusation. Not harsh. Just a statement.

“Or I did. You’ve seen Facebook. I’m getting plenty of it now,” I said.

“Yeah, but not from the right people.”

I saw Nathan’s fingers move on the table, spreading from a loose fist until all his fingertips touched the stained plastic. Some people would have taken my hand by now. It just went to show how well he knew me. He knew I wasn’t the type to ask for comfort, so he wouldn’t touch me. Wouldn’t console me.

I cleared my throat. “Anyway. After that, after the first guy, I just kept partying. Maybe it only made me happy for a few hours, but at least I was happy. I tried to be more careful about how drunk I got. I’ve fucked up a few times, gotten trashed enough to agree to have sex, but only a few times.”

I replayed the memories of those boys. Greedy hands clutching at me, pulling me, pushing me. Theirs to use for a night. I guess I was using them, too. None of them had tried to force me, but now, in my head, they all looked like Theo.

“Whitley, you don’t think I… I mean, I didn’t…”

“Take advantage of me? No. If anything, I probably took advantage of you. If my very fuzzy memory is correct.” I smiled a little. “Sorry.”

“Still,” he said. “We probably shouldn’t have…”

“Believe me, Nathan, if I’d known your mom was marrying my father, I wouldn’t have slept with you. And I’ll probably wish I hadn’t told you this tomorrow, when I’m sober, but I had fun that night, thanks to you. So I don’t completely regret it.”

He gave me a small smile. “Do you want to know a secret?”

“I’m not promising I’ll keep it,” I warned, taking another sip of coffee. “As I just demonstrated, I spill my guts after I’ve had too much to drink.”

He laughed and shook his head. “That’s okay. I think I could survive, even if you did tell the world.”

“You sure about that?”

“Yes, I’m sure.” He leaned back in his seat, folding his arms behind his head with a sigh. “So, the truth is, I had a very, very similar experience to yours.”

“Really? How’s that?”

“Well, you may not realize this, but I was a big partier in high school. It’s actually kind of weird we didn’t run into each other a few times.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “Really? I guess I just figured that graduation party was a fluke, based on the way you’ve been acting.”

“Hardly,” he said. “That’s how I know so much. Like the
mints and the coffee, and Mom’s sleeping schedule. It’s also how Mom knows so much about the warning signs of drinking, how she figured out what happened to Bailey. I put her through hell for, like, three years. Ever since Dad died.”

“What?”

Nathan shrugged. “After Dad’s heart attack sophomore year, I got really… well, angry. Mom and Bailey had each other, but I didn’t have anyone. I felt like Dad had left me. Sounds dumb and selfish, I know, but that’s how it felt then. Some of the guys on the basketball team asked me to come party with them. They gave me pot and beer, and before long, I wasn’t angry anymore. I didn’t feel anything. Then it just became a habit.”

“I’m kind of shocked,” I admitted. “You act like my partying is so disgusting. I just thought… I don’t know what I thought.”

“Sorry,” he said. “I probably should have explained sooner, but I didn’t really want to think about it. I’m embarrassed now, remembering some of the stupid shit I did. God knows if Mom will ever completely trust me again.”

“Nathan, I’m still confused.”

“Graduation night was my last party,” he said. “Or at least my last drink. After that night, I decided I was done with all of it.”

“Why? What changed?”

A sly grin crept across Nathan’s face. “I got really, really wasted graduation night, and when I woke up, some sassy, sexy vixen had stolen my virginity.”

My jaw must have hit that sticky table.

“I thought we’d had a great night, but when I tried to get her number, she promised she’d never see me again,” he continued. “It kind of broke my heart. Call me a romantic, but I’d never expected my first time to be so… impersonal.”

“You’ve got to be shitting me,” I groaned, burying my face in my hands. “Oh my God.
Oh my God.
I was your first? Like, I took your virginity?”

“Yep.”

“But… you were really good.”

He blushed. “I bet you say that to all the boys.”

“No, I’m serious. You were sweet, like… gentle. The other guys I’ve been with just…”

“Used you?”

“Yeah. I mean, I guess it goes both ways, but… you were so different.”

“I liked you. I wanted to make you happy. I didn’t know what the hell I was doing, but thanks for saying I was good.”

“I just…” My brain was moving too slowly. My words faltered. “You… you weren’t a virgin. There’s no way.”

“I was.”

“But you’re eighteen,” I argued. “And hot. And a boy. You can’t tell me there weren’t opportunities.”

“There were. I just didn’t take them,” he said. “I saw so many of my teammates hook up with a different girl every weekend. Sure, it sounds great, but I just wasn’t into it. I didn’t want to be that kind of guy. I was waiting for something special—maybe not love, and definitely not marriage,
but someone I liked a lot, someone I could see myself with for a while.”

I felt the weight of his words sink into my stomach. He’d wanted something special, someone special. Instead he’d gotten me.

“That’s why I quit drinking,” he said. “After you left, I realized what I’d become, and I didn’t like it. So I decided to change things. Start fresh.”

“Fuck. Nathan, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.”

“It’s okay.” He shrugged. This time, he did reach across the table to take my hand. “If it hadn’t been for you, I’d still be out there getting hammered every weekend. Still driving my mother crazy. I guess I just needed someone or something to shake me up. You taught me a lesson, Whit. And sometimes I hate you for it, but… but I’m trying not to.”

“You can hate me if you want to. I’d hate me.”

“But I don’t want to,” he said. “You’re part of my family—or you will be soon—and I want it to work. I’ve put Mom and Bailey through enough, and I want them to be happy now. That’s why I try so hard to keep it bottled up, how seeing you makes me feel, but sometimes I just… I’m sorry. For some of the things I’ve said.”