Good for You (18 page)

Throughout al of this, Aimee and Kayla are cal ing and texting, trying to find out if I have the scoop on Reid: Kayla: Is reid gay???!?

Me: Not that I know of. Are they back to that again?

Me: Not that I know of. Are they back to that again?

Kayla: Photos posted of him with that guy tadd who played charlie in school pride and some other hot guy singing karaoke in vancouver…

Me: Old news i think. Not something i am worried about right now.

Kayla: Aww. :( I know everything is crappy right now with what happened to your sister. Aimee and me are going out saturday, wanna come?

Me: Yes

Kayla: REALLY?!??!?! OMG, stay over in our dorm??

Me: Ok. Sure.

I’m wil ing to do anything to become someone else for a few hours. Someone who isn’t invisible to everyone who used to love her. Someone who isn’t the girl who’s misplaced her faith.

They pick me up Saturday, chattering like they’re one person, per usual.

“Did you bring the ID?” Kayla asks before taking off.

“Yeah,” I say. “I don’t think I look anything like her, though…”

Aimee inspects Deb’s Indiana driver’s license. “Oh, this is doable. We can total y do this. I already have some stuff picked out for you to wear. We wear the same shoe size, right? When we get done with you, you wil look
so
much like her. Just wait.”

“Okay.” I stuff the ID in my bag and lean my head back, trying to subdue the butterflies that are mosh-pitting in my stomach. I’m so tired of feeling everything. Since we al came back to LA, I’ve been overwhelmed. I’m furious with my parents who continue to act as though my sister wil wake up. Their own sleeping beauty, with the canned fairy tale ending.

I’ve become so good at repressing the desire to scream that I can’t even cry. When I think about Deb, I’m dry-eyed and staring, just like her. I am the opposite of thick-skinned.

I am no-skinned. I am raw, as though there is nothing between me and everything insisting that I
feel
. I don’t want to feel anymore. I want to be numb.

Deb was so careful, always. When I began high school, she took me aside and made me promise to never drink and drive, and never get in the car with a friend who’d been drinking. She told me about alcohol poisoning and dehydration, already the doctor-to-be. “Mom and Dad aren’t always realistic about this kind of stuff. I know you’re a good kid, but good kids are exactly the ones who end up making the dumbest decisions because they don’t
plan
. If you’re going to drink—or have sex, you have to
plan
.

Capiche?”

I promised to come back for a recap if I ever needed it.

Here I was, needing it, but now, Aimee and Kayla are the closest thing I have to advisors, but they’re more like high-strung tour guides.

My sister slipped on an invisible spot on a slick hospital floor. The doctors explained that she’d hit her head in the exact location with the exact amount of force that could cause the sort of damage she’d sustained. Caution and cause the sort of damage she’d sustained. Caution and risk aversion had done nothing for Deb. No such thing as fate. No such thing as miracles, either, or my sister would have earned one and fal en on her butt—embarrassed, but stil herself.

Tonight I want to stand on the side of a cliff and look down, dare the wind to gust and knock me off. Everyone thinks that fal ing to your death is the worst thing that can happen. But that’s a lie. The worst thing is to be alive for no reason.

Chapter 36

REID

Earlier this week, the film wrapped up and I said goodbye to Vancouver and goodbye to Olaf for at least a week, because John began insisting that I say goodbye to my moral high ground.

“I get the whole abstinence makes the heart fonder thing,” he said last night, and I thought
What?
“But come on

—you’re home now.”

I wondered if John was attempting a play on words, but maybe he was right. Maybe abstinence
does
make the heart grow fonder. Other than leaping from the wagon that one night with Tadd and Rob, I’d been clean the whole time I was in Vancouver, and I stil couldn’t forget her.

“There’s this party—” he began.

“Real y? A party? I’m not familiar…”

“
Shut up
. Jorge and Daniel are coming, too. We’l hit a couple of the clubs near UCLA, grab a few col ege girls who wil be swayed by my buttload of charm and your passable looks and il ustrious celebrity status.”

“Ah, buttload of charm,” I laughed. God, I’d missed John.

He’s such a jackass. “That’l have them lining up.” When four guys in a Hummer limo pul up in front of a nightclub—three trust fund babies and one celebrity—there is no standing in line. John, Daniel and Jorge fal in behind me, and it’s as though I never left this life. Once we’re inside, I lean to John. “You guys gather whoever you want to bring with us. I’m getting a few shots in before I decide to ditch this whole night.”

He narrows his eyes. “No ditching al owed. It’s like riding a bike, Reid. Jump on and pedal like hel , man.” I shrug. “Whatever. I’l be at the bar. And, uh, don’t mention my name to any of them, okay? I’m not in the mood.”

“Not in the mood for
sex
?” He looks appal ed.

“Not in the mood for some chick who just wants to have sex with Reid Alexander. Find me a cute girl who has no idea who I am, and I’l consider it.”

He shakes his head, dark hair fal ing into his eyes. “You, son, are il , and we’re going to get you the cure tonight if it kil s me. Or
you
.”

I sigh. “Give me enough time to get a little numb first, wil ya?”

*** *** ***

Dori

I’ve avoided the LA club scene for years, while most of my friends were doing anything to get in. The music is so loud that I almost can’t hear it. I feel it, though. Kayla did my makeup and styled my hair in long waves, and Aimee dressed me in a black miniskirt and fuchsia tank so tight that I feel claustrophobic. I’m teetering on heels that could give me a nosebleed.

Holding Deb’s driver’s license, I try to appear like a confident 26-year-old. Kayla and Aimee swear that despite the age difference, Deb and I look (looked) similar enough

—same coloring, height, bone structure—and that using her ID is better than trying to sneak a fake past a bouncer. I hope the intimidating guy at the door doesn’t examine it too closely. Any direct interrogation and I’l col apse into a heap and start confessing.

He inspects the license itself more closely than he examines me. Three cover charges later, we’re through the door, Aimee with her cousin’s license and Kayla with a fake from Arizona that cost a fortune.

Step One—get in—was easier than I thought it would be.

Step Two: drink until I stop thinking about Deb. Stop thinking about Reid. Stop thinking about the future I can no longer clearly see, and the faith I no longer feel.

***

“I haven’t seen you here before, beautiful girl.” I’ve danced with at least a dozen guys, and here’s lucky number thirteen.

I’m not used to strangers standing so close. Or cal ing me beautiful. Leaning one elbow on the table in interested nonchalance, I sip the drink in my hand, which looks like a coke and tastes like a coke with a side of ingestible flames. I think it’s my third, maybe fourth. Over the rim of the glass I see blondish hair and bluish eyes. The eyes regard me in the lazy manner of a predator sizing up dinner, and al of my instincts say
run
. Which is exactly why I do the opposite. Because my instincts are overly protective and useless.

A tilt of my head and a little smile back, and he’s moved even closer.

“Let’s dance,” he says. Here we go again.

I put the drink down, glance at Kayla (who gives me an eyebrow waggle and a thumbs up) and Aimee (whose eyes are wandering over tonight’s selection of hot guys), and slip from the barstool into this stranger’s arms. He slides an arm around my waist as I balance myself. As we move towards the dance floor, I could swear I hear Aimee say,

“Oh my
God
. Kayla, look—have I had too many shots of tequila or is that Reid—”

I don’t catch the end of her sentence before I’m out of earshot. She can’t mean who I think she means, even if she did say his name, which is debatable, as difficult as it is to hear anything over the music. I glance around, but everything is a whirl of color and noise and then this guy’s hands are on my hips, and we’re grinding into each other, fol owing the beat. Closing my eyes, I hook my arms around his neck.

“What’s your name?” he asks, leaning in close.

My eyes open and his face is close enough to see his eyes. Ice blue, not like Reid’s stormy blue at al .
I don’t want
to think about Reid
. “Dori,” I answer.

“Dori. Cute, just like you. I’m Reece.”

Rats. Too close to
Reid
. I don’t want to think about him.

I dance with Reece-who-is-not-Reid until I’m hot and thirsty, breaking off mid-song and heading for the table. I resist the urge to look back and see if he’s fol owing. I don’t real y care. If he doesn’t, someone else wil .

I’m downing the rest of the rum and coke and Reece settles a hip on Aimee’s barstool as she leads another guy to the dance floor. Always another guy. Did I notice this before, how many there are? I was carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders, trying to make a difference, never doing anything reckless or pleasurable, not since Colin. Wel . That’s not quite true. Reid was reckless and pleasurable. But I’m not thinking about him.

In the end I just wasted my time trying to better the world, and so did Deb.

I force my thoughts away from my sister, too, who sits in her chair and stares at nothing, with everything she’d learned, everything she’d become, everything she wanted to be—doctor, girlfriend, wife—
gone
. Reece signals a waitress for two more drinks when I begin to spin the ice in my otherwise empty glass. His fingers trail along my arm, back and forth, like a magician with a hypnotic watch. “Tel me more about you, Dori with the big innocent eyes.” I arch a brow at this. “So I look innocent, do I?”

“Are you?” Another lazy smile. His repertoire of facial expressions appears to be limited.

“Maybe. Is that a problem?”

His nostrils flare slightly, and his lazy smile has turned into the other one. The hungry one. Truth is, I’m a little afraid of him, but it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters.

“Depends.” The drinks arrive, and he throws his back, finishing half of it in one long swal ow.

“On?” I ask, slamming half of mine as wel , shuddering after. It’s amazing how easy it is to drink fire once you get accustomed to it.

He leans closer, and I feel his warm breath on my cheek.

“On whether you want to stay that way.” He doesn’t pul back, and neither do I, even as he begins to nuzzle my ear, his tongue swirling over the tip of it.

Too fast too fast
my brain says, but my new powers of repression shut it up quick. I turn my face towards his and he’s kissing me, and within seconds, his hands are wandering, caressing too roughly. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. The music deafens me and his arm encircles me, pressing me to his side though I’m stil sitting on the high stool and he’s standing. He’s wearing too much cologne, and it’s not the right smel . Too sweet, almost. Not earthy.

“Let’s get out of here—the place a couple of doors down is way better.”

I don’t recal another club on this block, but it feels like days ago that we came in. I glance across the dance floor, spotting Aimee, and gesture that I’m leaving. She goes to mime
call me
with the wrong hand and almost spil s her drink in her ear.

Reece finishes his drink and points to my glass. “You’ve stil got half of yours.” I gulp the rest, tipping it back until the ice cubes bounce off of my upper lip. “Nice,” he says, leaning closer. “Time for innocent little Dori to learn some of leaning closer. “Time for innocent little Dori to learn some of the sweet facts of life.” My body is moving off of the barstool, and I look down and his hands are at my waist, large hands, holding me, keeping me from fal ing. Or from running away.

“Wait.” Gripping the table, I close my eyes and wish the room would quit spinning. Closing my eyes helps, but I worry that won’t be the case once this last drink finds its way into my bloodstream. I want to be numb, but al I am is dizzy and everything is loud and flashing and this isn’t how I thought it would be and I just want to sit back down and cry.

“You’l feel better when we’re outside,” he says, supporting my weight and guiding me towards the exit.

Chapter 37

REID

I’ve been sitting at the bar, sipping shots of Armadale vodka while the guys round up girls to take to the party. The mirror across the back wal is angled slightly, reflecting the whole place, so I can face away from the crowd and contemplate the accumulated line of empty shot glasses, but stil watch everything going on. While deciding whether I want to go for al -out hammered or just buzzed enough to note everything going on but not give a crap about any of it, I caught sight of a girl on the dance floor.

Last summer, I conducted an unsuccessful search for a Dorcas Cantrel look-alike. The closest I came were a few girls with similar coloring. This girl resembles her in some obscure mannerisms I must have become aware of during the weeks we worked together, in addition to a striking physical similarity. But Dori would never dress or behave to be so blatantly seductive, though I imagined her that way more than once. By the end of my stint with Habitat, I found her appealing no matter what she was wearing—even her unreasonably shapeless t-shirts.

For the past hour, my attention has been riveted by this club girl. I lost interest in vodka shots, watching as she glided from her table to the dance floor and back with different guys. Final y, one of them decided to hang around more permanently, leaning on the table as she finished the drink she foolishly left there while they were dancing, which could have easily been roofied by one of his friends. It hadn’t—I would have noticed, but stil . He leaned in and kissed her, and when they started making out, I went from eighty percent sure this girl wasn’t Dori to one hundred percent sure. Even stil , I couldn’t look away.

When she turned to signal to another girl on the dance floor, I got a better view of her face. The resemblance to Dori was so strong, I felt like someone had just punched me in the gut. She downed the rest of her drink before the two of them headed for the door, his arm around her as she staggered in those stripper heels.

That stagger decides it. I slap a C-note on the bar and push it towards the bartender, pul ing out my phone and texting John to meet me up front. My eyes never leave the girl as I trail them towards the door. “Hey, Reid Alexander?” someone says, and I shake my head. I don’t have time for that shit now.

We al reach the exit at the same time and I grab the guy’s shoulder in the way you’d stop a friend to say hi.

“Excuse me.”

He turns, annoyed, holding the girl upright. She’s crashing fast, her head propped against his chest, her hair obscuring her face. “Yeah?”

I focus on him. “Yeah, man, you’re gonna have to find someone else.”

His eyes narrow. “What are you talking about? Do I know you?”

“No, but I know
her
.” I nod towards the girl. I have no idea what I plan to do with her. Bring her to the party? Take her back to her girlfriends and ask them what the hel they’re thinking, letting someone this plastered leave a nightclub with a stranger?

“And?”

What a douche.

“And she won’t be leaving here with you.”

He sizes me up and isn’t impressed. Mistake. “Who the hel are you? Nevermind, I don’t give a shit. Just back off before I kick your ass.”

“Yeah, I don’t think you’l be doing that, and I don’t think you’l be leaving here with her, either.”

I spot the left hook before it’s ful y thrown, dodge it, grab his wrist and twist his arm behind his back like a pretzel while catching the girl around her waist and pul ing her to my opposite side. The big guys never see it coming.

They’re too conditioned to their size and muscle obliterating any offensive launched.

In the same instant, John shows up with the bouncer, and suddenly we’re getting al kinds of attention. For al of his invariable stupor, my best friend is an expert in some things

—like inducing authority figures to see things his way. He’s already slipped a couple of fifties into the bouncer’s hand and they disappear into a pocket as I explain that this girl is obviously in no state to leave the club with a stranger. I’m obviously in no state to leave the club with a stranger. I’m only guessing they don’t know each other, of course, based purely on observation. But no one gives the douche a chance to refute it before he’s passed off to another huge tattooed guy and escorted out. His missed punch was enough to get him ejected.

“How do I know she knows
you
?” The bouncer peers at me, smarter than most guys who stand around at the front door flexing muscle, gathering phone numbers for closing time booty cal s.

I look down at the girl, hoping she’l play along, and in that moment I realize that the girl in that hot outfit and under al that makeup
is
Dori.

She frowns and blinks slowly, leaning into me. “Reid?”

“Hi, Dori.”

“Hi, Reid. You aren’t real y here, are you?” Her eyes tear up. “I don’t feel so good.”

That’s enough for bouncer man. “Al right, off you go. Be safe.”

Too late.

*** *** ***

Dori

My eyes are so dry that cracking them open is agonizing.

I’m in an unfamiliar bed, in an unfamiliar gray-blue room.

The furniture is smooth and dark-grained. The scent of the pil ow under my head, though—the scent is vaguely familiar.

Not floral or citrus, but something heavier—clean and concentrated. Male. Dark blinds are pul ed shut, but light filters in through the crevices between the slats. It’s morning… or later.

Someone is tapping on a keyboard behind me. I rol over warily and Reid Alexander’s gaze shifts from the laptop to me at the sound. Pul ing his hands from the keyboard, he leans back in the desk chair and stares at me. A satisfied smile works its way across his face. I must be dreaming. Should I feel this horrible if I’m dreaming?

“Good morning.” His voice is low, and somehow I feel the reverberations of it beneath my sternum. My fingers flutter there, as though I can brush the panic away. I’m not dreaming. I’m in Reid’s bed. Not some random stranger’s.

Reid’s
.

“I thought I dreamed you.” The words whisper from my parched throat.

His head tilts to one side, his mouth shifting to something less sarcastic, more amused. “That may be the most enchanting thing I’ve ever been told after spending the night with a girl.”

I swal ow the little saliva I can generate. My mouth is as dry as cotton, my lips chapped. “What. Happened?” My voice cracks, barely above a whisper.

“You don’t remember?”

I close my eyes, trying to recal anything past the last guy I fol owed to the dance floor—the one with the too-sweet smel . “I… don’t remember anything.”

I force my eyes to open when he stands, moving to look down at me. Mouth set in a grim line, he peels the cool gray sheet back and I pul taut, expecting air on bare skin, but I’m stil clothed in the tank and skirt I wore last night. We did it dressed? Or… he redressed me?

Taking my elbow, he gently pul s me from the bed, but my head is heavy and throbbing, and my equilibrium is shot. When I sway, he scoops me into his arms and the room tilts crazily. I hold on, groaning. The smel of his bed was just an echo of the spicy maleness of him, stronger now, my face against his chest. I want to curl up into him and sleep, but he’s walking away from the bed. I briefly assume that he means to take me outside and deposit me on his doorstep, where I can be picked up for transport like a FedEx package.

He carries me through a doorway leading to a large bathroom, rather than the hal way I’d expected. There’s a cushioned bench along one wal , and he deposits me there, his hands gripping my shoulders lightly until he’s certain I can hold myself upright. My eyelids slit open just enough to track his movements and position in the room. Dressed in jeans and a faded black t-shirt, he pads across the carpet and marble floor, barefoot. He leans into the shower and a spray of water sounds, and then he’s walking back to me as steam bil ows above the frosted glass.

I never thought I’d see Reid again. Not in the flesh. My face grows hot at that thought and I close my eyes, reopening them when he says, “Hmm.” He’s standing in front of me, fists on his hips, staring down. I’m listing starboard but otherwise stil sitting up. And then he’s pul ing the fuchsia tank up and off, and taking my hands to stand me up.

“Nooooo,” I say, and it sounds more like a whine and less like a refusal. He begins to unzip the skirt and I grab his hands. He can’t mean to undress me
now
.

He picks up a huge bath towel from a fluffy stack on the opposite end of the bench, flaps it open and holds it up, a makeshift partition between us. “Everything off,” he orders.

“And then get in the shower.”

I try to glare at him over the towel, but even drawing down my brows hurts my head. I settle for a blank look. He looks back, one eyebrow raised like a chal enge. “You have to go home at some point.” he says, gesturing to the mirrored wal . “Is this how you want to look when you get there?”

I glance at my reflection, noting the smeared makeup, the sleep-creased skirt and the tangled hair, stiff with the half a bottle of whatever Kayla used to style it last night.

With al of the community service work I’ve done, I know this veneer al too wel . I look like a cheap prostitute. I can’t show up at Aimee and Kayla’s dorm like this.

“Dori. Shower.” It’s not a command or a plea, just a statement of common sense. I pul the top edge of the towel towards my chin with both hands and nod once. He returns the nod and leaves the room, pul ing the door shut behind him.

I hang the towel on a hook and unzip the skirt, dropping it to the floor. The lacy pink thong and bra that seemed so sexy last night feels incredibly sil y now. I strip off the lingerie and step into the warm cascade of water raining from a shower nozzle the size of a Frisbee.

As pulsing rivulets course over my face and body, I’m as relaxed as a person standing in a strange shower with almost no memory of the previous night could be. In the warmth and close quarters, every breath I take as I wash and shampoo catalogues the trace of almonds and exotic fruit and answers
Reid
. I had no idea I could recal his scent so acutely. Feeling as though I’m drowning in him, I don’t turn the water off until my skin is flushed and wrinkly.

My clothes reek of sweat, cigarettes and alcohol, and the last thing I want to do it put them back on. On the bench next to my tiny purse sits a bundle of folded clothing. Black linen shorts, soft white tank and a blue top with tiny snaps down the front. I’m reluctant to check the labels, but I do and then wish I hadn’t. The cost of this outfit would make a mortgage payment for most people.

After a soft knock, Reid gives me three seconds and opens the door. His eyes drift over me, wrapped in the towel, my hair hanging wet down my back. “I think those should fit.” He nods at the clothes, walking into the bathroom. “You and my mom are about the same size.”

“These are your mother’s clothes?” I shake my head and immediately regret doing so. “I can’t… take your mother’s clothes?”

“Sure you can. Or else you’l be wearing that towel home.” His eyes run quickly down my frame and more slowly back up. “You can give them back later, if you want.” His indifference concerning the return of his mom’s things is obvious, but he shrugs, placating me.

“I’l have them cleaned first,” I say. “Thank you.” Self-conscious, I run my fingers through my hair, trying to remove the bigger tangles and avoid his eyes.

He steps closer and hands me a bottle of water, which I gulp appreciatively. “There’s a blow dryer, hair products, al kinds of crap in this cabinet.” He leans down, rummaging, and pul s out a bottle of something, pours a little into his hands. “Detangler,” he says, running it through my hair, his fingers careful y separating strands while I recal him picking bits of fruit from my hair, in a different bathroom, a mil ion years ago.

Eyes closed, I drink as he detangles. As he moves around front, I force myself to look at him. “Reid… did we…?”

His fingers continue their careful paths through my hair, his expression al angel-faced innocence. “Did we… what?” I want to shut my eyes again but I need to see if he’s tel ing me the truth. I have to look in his eyes when he answers. “Did we… s-s-sleep together?”

He regards me with that bemused expression I know so wel . “You woke up in my bed, Dori. And yeah, I was in it with you last night.”

“Oh.” My gaze fal s to the floor. I slept with Reid… and I have no memory of it.

“Dori.” He waits until I look up at him. “Don’t look so mortified. We
slept
. I don’t do passed out virgins.” I swal ow. Of course he’s made the same assumption everyone who knows me makes: Dori Cantrel is nothing if not pure and innocent.