Finding Dell (32 page)

Downstairs, the sounds of the party sounded like they were underwater.

“Someone might walk in,” I murmured into his hair as I pulled away from him. He hadn’t shaved—maybe he came from an all-nighter at the studio—and the rough stubble irritated my cheeks. Already, I felt like my lips were getting chapped from the gritty friction.

“A year, Dell,” he said in a low, gravelly voice. “It’s been a
year. I don’t care if someone walks in. I don’t want to wait anymore.”

An electric buzz flooded into my stomach as I comprehended his words.

Tonight.

Finally.

We’d sleep together.

His thumb edged under my sarong and I could feel the calluses on his fingers and the smooth patch that I knew was dry superglue he’d have to peel off later.

He leaned back and fumbled with the button on his jeans as I sat up, curling my spine. Our foreheads knocked and he grunted. I mumbled an apology as I tried to unfasten my jungle costume. Will tugged my wrist down and guided me to my back.

“Leave it on,” he said.

My hand fluttered anxiously at my chest. It wasn’t that I was dying to get naked in Dean’s bedroom while our friends were downstairs at the party, but I never imagined that there’d be anything between Will and I the first time we had sex—no secrets, and, at a minimum, no clothes.

He pushed aside the bikini bottom I wore under my filmy sarong with his rough thumb. He guided himself into me. I gasped and tried to stay in the moment, but I couldn’t help glancing over his shoulder toward the door and praying no one would stumble into the room.

He clamped his eyes closed and I desperately wanted him to look at me in the way I loved, the way I needed. But he kept them closed and lowered himself to lay on top of me. We made silent, pulsing micro movements and he breathed slow, measured breaths. My fingers clutched at his T-shirt and he buried his head in my shoulder. I felt his scratchy stumble on my collarbone.

The murky thud of bass vibrated through the mattress as Will slowed even more. The party was loud downstairs, but the room was painfully quiet. I bit my lip. I wanted things to speed up so we could finish before anyone walked in on us.

The stale smell of pot smoke clung in Will’s hair and hit my nose again as I realized his breathing was too slow, too measured, now.

“Will.”

He didn’t stir.

“Will,” I whispered urgently.

I let out a surprised, embarrassed snort of laughter as I realized he was asleep. It was an incredulous, I-can’t-believe-this-is-happening laugh. It was the mortified laugh of failure that bubbled up in my throat and shook my chest even as I was weighted down by Will’s sleeping body.

I’d never felt so far from someone, so used, as I did then. I laughed again at the irony of feeling so abandoned while someone was still inside me. Irrational anger simmered behind the laughter and I did the only thing I knew would wake him up. I bit his shoulder.

Will woke, startled, for just a moment, before he tumbled off me onto the mattress. He rolled onto his side and buried his face in the scratchy woven blanket on the bed instead of in the crook of my neck.

I stood on shaky legs and readjusted my sarong. With a glance back at Will, I saw his pants were still pulled down slightly, and if anyone walked into the room, they’d see the top half of his ass hanging out. But covering him up didn’t cross my mind. I felt dirty and I needed to get out of the room.

The green light flooding the hallway was disorienting, but brighter than the wood-paneled cave I emerged from. Dean and Ruby were no longer at the bottom of the stairs, but the party
had grown even more since I’d been upstairs. The foyer was filled with a throbbing mass of sweaty people. Even the wall was sticky as I leaned against it while I waited in line for the bathroom.

“Where’s Will?”

I gasped, thinking someone was reading my preoccupied thoughts.

Rocco propped his elbow against the wall and leaned closer. “I’m surprised he showed up after the way you humiliated him at the studio.”

“Humiliated him? The moment got away from me, sure, but I didn’t do it on purpose,” I protested weakly.

“Before you embarrassed him, you probably thought he liked you this time,” he continued. “But I know better.”

A lump formed in my throat. I tried to swallow back my tears and steady my voice. I fidgeted with my leafy skirt, pulling it down to cover more of my leg.

“You don’t know anything about our relationship,” I said uneasily. The scent of sawdust mixed with pot was still on my skin and the excitement from earlier had turned into a churning, unsettled rock in my stomach.

“I know everything. I know what you don’t. I know that while you were busy calling him last summer, he was busy with other girls at the cabin.”

“Why are you saying these things to me? Are you jealous of me or something?”

“Jealous?” He laughed huskily. “I think you’re pathetic the way you cling to him. It’s like you’re obsessed with him.”

Rocco spit out the words like they tasted terrible. His eyes were judgmental in his moon-pale face.

A fresh wave of unease settled over me, along with a new
feeling. More than used, I was embarrassed. Like I was so desperate to be together, I’d take Will in any state. High, semi-conscious . . . I felt pathetic, just like Rocco said. How could I try so hard and still fail?

Hot tears burst from my eyes, and I pushed away from the wall I leaned on. I frantically elbowed through the wall of people. I felt the hibiscus affixed to my shoulder rip off as I clawed my way to the door. My bare feet muddled through a brush of paper leaves, plastic cups, and empty cigarette packs on the floor.

Outside, the haze from the fire-spinner’s low-hanging smoke assaulted me. I ran down the sidewalk, ignoring the tiny pebbles clinging painfully to the soles of my feet, and felt my tears stream into my long hair. It wasn’t the first time I’d run crying from Dean’s house, but I knew in my heart that it had to be the last. That made me cry even harder.

The next morning, when Natalie returned from breakfast at Georgian Grande, she found me curled on the couch in the hallway with her blanket draped over me.

She pushed at my feet and took a seat on the edge of the couch. In her hand was a stack of mail, which she set on her lap as she gazed out the window at the lake. Tiny waves lapped at the shore by the magnolia bushes, which had started to bloom in bright bursts of white flowers.

“Are you going to go to Dean’s bonfire tonight?” Natalie asked. “I’d understand if you don’t want to go.”

I shrugged and buried deeper into the couch. “I want to say goodbye before Dean graduates. And I want to put last night behind me, but I need to talk to Will before we leave for summer break.”

“You think Will is going to show up, after what happened?”

I shrugged under the hot blanket.

“I hope so. For months, all I could think of was the way that girl sat on his lap at Dean’s party. I can’t let my last image be of him using me while he’s high,” I said bluntly. “I thought he made sense of the chaos, but now I feel like I’m overwhelmed by it instead.”

Natalie was silent for a long time. Her elbow rested on my foot and we watched a Kentucky Cardinal jockey for position near a nest on a tree branch. Ben started to play the trumpet, and the strident, brassy timbre floated down the hall in uneven notes. She shifted her position on the edge of the couch and I heard the mail crinkle in her lap.

“When I went to see him at the studio . . . He called me a hurricane, Natalie,” I said softly, muffled into the armrest of the couch.

“If you accept that you’re Hurricane Dell, think about how Will fits into that,” Natalie said, still staring at the red bird out the window. “Does he calm the storm, or does he create it?”

“I don’t want to be a storm anymore,” I mumbled.

Natalie turned quickly and the mail tumbled to the floor. She hugged me, hard. The sudden movement scared away the cardinal and it flapped anxiously away from the tree.

“My hip,” she whispered. “It’s going to be okay. You’re going to be okay.”

I closed my eyes and listened to the water lapping at the shore of the lake in between Ben’s brassy notes and hoped she was right.

CHAPTER 36

A LOW-BURNING BONFIRE
sent plumes of smoke into the air. Dean bent down to toss a few sticks in the fire and they crackled when they hit the flame.

It was twilight. The clock tower chimed a few blocks away on campus. The sky was filled with shades of lavender and violet—a deep indigo beginning to fade into midnight blue.

I huddled next to the fire. Beside me, Helen sat in Tennessee’s lap. He was whispering to her about the Kentucky Derby. I heard him telling her about mint juleps, winners circle roses, and the rainbow of hats worn on and off the track. Her face glowed in the light of the fire, and when soot landed on her face, Tennessee licked his thumb, wiped it off, and kissed her.

There was a small group gathering around Dean in the backyard. Each person asked him about graduation as they passed, and his refrain became familiar: Ceremony at 3 p.m. next Friday in Whalen Stadium. Yes, he planned to attend. No, he wasn’t planning to leave after his name was called.

I was watching the crowd around Dean when I saw Will turn the corner into the backyard.

“Easton! Hey, buddy!” Dean called.

Will smiled easily and walked across the yard to Dean. I bit my lip as I watched him approach. We hadn’t spoken since I left him in bed at the party, but this could be our chance to fix everything.

“It’s unreal that you’re graduating and leaving town,” Will said to Dean. They clasped hands in a shake that turned into a hug.

Will glanced down to see me staring at him from next to the bonfire.

“Hewitt.” He nodded quickly in my direction and turned back to Dean.

I flinched, feeling as if I had just been slapped. His dismissal brought the dull panic I’d been feeling back to the surface. I thought that if he explained the mess last night and we tried again tonight, we could fix everything between us. I stared at him, searching for an answer, but he didn’t glance down at me again.

I stood and brushed the dusty dirt from my legs. With a patient silence, I wavered next to he and Dean while they chatted, but I knew I was humming with a distracting, expectant energy.

When they paused for breath, I moved closer to Will and touched his arm.

“Can we talk?”

I watched as Dean took a respectful step away and turned his back to us. When I turned back to Will, he was holding his phone in front of him, staring at the glowing screen instead of looking at me.

“Will.”

He didn’t look up, even though my voice was begging as I said his name. I studied his hair in his eyes and his determined stare at the phone in his hand. My gaze traveled down to the
phone. His thumb flicked across the screen, but he wasn’t texting or looking at Facebook. He wasn’t doing anything but flicking through screens. He was doing anything to avoid looking at me.

“Can we talk about last night?” I repeated in a harsh whisper.

“I blacked out last night. I don’t remember anything.” His eyes didn’t lift from the screen. “But knock yourself out.”

I stared at him in disbelief.

“Can you look at me, at least?”

He didn’t say anything. And he didn’t look up.

Out of the corner of my eye, a bright red Solo cup caught my attention. Before I had time to think, I grabbed the full cup of beer from Dean’s hand, lifted it in the air and tipped it over Will’s head, releasing an amber waterfall into his shaggy hair.

He began to sputter and dropped his phone. He finally made eye contact as he stared at me in shock, then turned his head to examine his beer-soaked shirt.

“Move it,” I said firmly.

I pushed my way through a silent wall of people gaping in surprise. A dim hum of whispers started. Someone laughed. I could hear Will cursing as I hurried away from the house, past Alex’s apartment, toward campus.

I was shaking. I was exhilarated and angry, sad and confused.

When I heard Will call my name, I didn’t turn. I heard pounding footsteps and he grabbed me by the arm to stop me.

“What was that all about?” he shouted.

I took a shaky breath.

“Were you sleeping with other girls at the cabin last summer?”

He took a step back and ran a hand through his wet hair. His expression faded from anger to weary annoyance.

“I’m not in the mood for this right now,” he said.

He turned to walk away.

“Is that a yes, then?”

Frustrated, I reached forward and grabbed his arm as he began to cross the street. He shook me off without turning to look at me as he stepped off the curb.

“Will!” I shouted. “What’s your problem?”

“What do you want from me?”

I stared at him. “I want you to stop and talk to me for a second.”

“I’m going home.”

“I’ll go with you. Look, I’ll call a cab for us,” I said, pulling my cell phone out of my back pocket. “It’s too far for you to walk all the way back to your apartment now.”

“I’m fine. Leave me alone, Dell,” Will said. He turned and hurried into the empty street

“Hey! What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I yelled. Will was standing in the grass on the parkway and I took a few steps into the street. “You came after me this time, Will.”

He stopped and turned to look at me.

“Go home, Hewitt. Get out of the street.”

“No, Will, stop and talk to me,” I said, putting my hands on my hips and planting my feet in the middle of the street. “I thought everything was perfect again.”

“You thought we were perfect? You just dumped a beer over my head in front of all of our friends.”

I ignored him. “We
were
perfect,” I insisted. “What happened?”

“Why can’t you just leave me alone? I just want to go home.” He turned his back to me and began to walk away.

I felt tears threatening to explode from my eyes, but I swallowed hard and fought them back. I ran across the street, up the
grassy embankment, and grabbed Will’s arm again. When he tried to shake me off this time, I held my grip and didn’t let go. He looked tired and I knew I must look wild-eyed.