The Good Girls (11 page)

“Don’t stop,” I begged, breathless.

She whimpered as both of our bodies began to tremble, and pleasure rolled through us like waves crashing against the shore. She wrapped her arms around me and held me tightly as she struggled to catch her breath, panting in my ear, our bodies slick with sweat.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Cara

I
lay awake for hours watching Ellie’s chest rise and fall as she slept, my heart crumbling, knowing that this probably didn’t mean as much to her as it did to me. Even if it did, fate once again was intervening, and I’d be pulled away from her before we even had a chance to see what it could be.

I let the tears flow, dampening the pillow beneath my cheek. I had to say my good-byes now, because when the time came for me to leave, I wouldn’t be able to find the words. I tucked El’s hair behind her ear and pressed a kiss to her temple. She stirred and rolled onto her side. Inching closer, I slid my arm around her waist, pulling her back against my chest.

I lay unmoving until the sun poured through the window, and I reluctantly had to let go of her. I dressed quietly and snuck back into my room, staring at the ceiling until I heard David and Dawn moving around the house.

My body was exhausted, but my brain refused to slow down. I hadn’t said a civil word to my mother since she kicked me out, and now I had to summon the courage to beg for her forgiveness. The idea made me ill.

A knock at the door caused the panic in my head to silence as Dawn opened it and stuck her head inside. “I made breakfast.”

“I’m not hungry.” I stared up at the ceiling refusing to look at her. She sighed loudly as she leaned against the doorframe.

“I want you to know that this wasn’t my idea.”

“It’s fine. I’m fine.” But it hurt to confirm that she had spoken to David about me leaving.

“David is just worried about his daughter.”

A single tear fell down my cheek and disappeared into my hair. “So am I. Her own father barely acknowledges her existence.” I looked over at her now. She wasn’t angry. She looked like she understood, and it made me feel guilty for making her feel uncomfortable. The idea made me laugh, because I hadn’t realized how much Ellie had rubbed off on me. I wished David and Dawn could see that positive effect she’d had on me.

“Come eat.”

“I have some things to do this morning…but thanks for the offer.”

She smiled sadly, pulling my door closed behind her. I heard her take a few steps down the hall and knock on Ellie’s door. They spoke for a moment, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying before two sets of footsteps descended the stairs.

When I knew no one else was on the second floor I grabbed my phone and called my mother. The phone rang three times before she answered, sounding annoyed.

“Mom,” I said, clearing my throat as a million thoughts flew through my mind. I wanted to tell her she was wrong about me, that I would find love, and I had. I felt it from the moment I first laid eyes on Ellie. “We need to talk.”

I made plans to meet my mother later today, and I couldn’t stop from pacing my floor, changing my clothes at least ten times to find something overly feminine to help sell the lie that I was no longer the gay child she should be embarrassed about.

As the clock ticked away, the minutes seeming to wear down fast, I hurried downstairs. My body jolted to a stop as I laid eyes on Ellie, her hair wavy and wild. She was wearing the clothes she’d worn last night. She looked like she’d spent all night making love, and I couldn’t help the rush of knowing it had been with me.

I wanted to walk across the room and kiss her deeply. Instead, I looked over at David who was eyeing me wearily.

“I’m volunteering today,” I lied as I avoided Ellie’s narrowed gaze.

“Have fun,” Dawn called from the fridge where she was bent over, searching for something on a bottom shelf.

I walked toward the front door as I heard a chair scrape against the hardwood floor, but I refused to look back.

“Wait, you said I could come volunteer with you if I wanted,” Ellie called from behind me. I stopped, not turning around.

“I’ll have to talk to someone at the hospital first.” I pulled open the front door and stepped on the porch. Ellie caught it before it could close.

She stepped out behind me and closed the door so David and Dawn could not hear our conversation. “You said you didn’t go to the hospital anymore.”

I turned around to face her, torturing myself further. I clenched my fists at my sides, begging my body to stay put and not go to her.

“I just have some things to take care of today.” I gave her a small smile.

“Okay,” she grinned back as she tucked her hair behind her ear.

I hurried down the steps and down the driveway. I could feel her eyes on me, and I knew when I slid into Tristan’s passenger seat that her heart must have been crumbling like mine.

But if I wanted to sell the lie to my mother of how I’d changed, that I was only experimenting when I was younger, I needed Tristan there to prove it and act as a buffer. I knew my mom wouldn’t bring up what I had done in front of a stranger. She was far too ashamed of me.

“So where are we going?” Tristan asked as he ran his hand over my bare thigh. I was wearing a pleated white skirt and multitoned purple argyle sweater. I put my hand on his to stop him from moving it farther up my leg.

“We are going to meet my mother.” My head jerked slightly as he tapped the brakes, but I kept my eyes ahead.

“Your what? Babe, you told me your mother was dead.” I let go of his hand and dug my nails into my palms. I thought of the tangle of lies that would slowly become unraveled if I didn’t keep my stories straight.

“I didn’t say that
exactly
, you just assumed. You never really asked, actually.”

“Are you fucking kidding me right now? I smoked a bowl like twenty minutes ago. I can’t go meet your fucking mom you told me was dead.”

“My mom abandoned me, okay? I don’t like to talk about it. But I want to make things right with her. I have to. So please just come along. I promise it will be quick and painless.” I chanced a glance over at him. His jaw was clenched, and I knew he was pissed, but right now I had no other choice. “I’ll make it up to you.” The idea of what he would expect in return made me sick to my stomach.

I directed Tristan to Corleone’s Restaurant just outside of town. As we stood at the hostess’s stand, my knees almost gave out when I saw my mother sitting at a table in the far right corner. She looked exactly like I’d remembered her, but tired. Her long chestnut hair was pulled into a neat bun. I knew this time apart must have been hard for her, but I hated myself for feeling sorry for her.

“There she is.” I grabbed Tristan’s hand and began to pull him toward her table, feeling like I was walking to my own execution. In a way, I was. If all went well, I’d have to say good-bye to who I truly was and live a lie.

“Mom.” I nodded, and her eyes went to Tristan, widening almost as if she was a cartoon, and soon they would pop out of her head. “This is my boyfriend, Tristan.” I smiled, feeling like a sleaze after the night I’d had with Ellie, but I had to say good-bye to her now. Soon, I’d be saying good-bye to Tristan as well. I’d thought maybe I could stay with him, but after what had happened, I knew it wasn’t a good idea. I didn’t want to continue things with him now that I knew what my heart truly wanted.

“Pleasure to meet you, Tristan. Please call me Meredith.” She smiled as she waved for us to sit down across from her.

I sank down in my chair, tugging on Tristan’s hand so he would sit as well.

“This is a pleasant surprise. Cara hadn’t told me she was seeing someone.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Ellie

A
s the hours slowly crept by, panic settled in my chest, but I knew that breaking up with Tristan would be really hard on Cara. I didn’t expect her to be back for a while.

My father was home from work today, and he seemed much more relaxed around me. He even ordered pizza for lunch, and we watched a movie together, but I couldn’t pay attention to the story line. My mind kept drifting to Cara. It would be so weird telling my dad that she and I were dating, but he seemed like he would be understanding. I know they didn’t get along well, but that would all change once he knew how much I loved her. My heart swelled as I repeated the words in my head.
I am in love with her.

I still didn’t know him very well, but he did take me in, and he took in Cara when she needed a place to stay. My stomach turned when I realized I still didn’t know why. She kept so many secrets from everyone, and I hoped that when I told her how I felt she would let down her walls.

“What’s wrong?” David’s voice interrupted my thoughts.

“Nothing.” I focused on the television.

“You were frowning.”

I fought against a smile as I remembered Cara telling me I wore my emotions on my face.

“What happened with you and Mom?” I hadn’t meant to ask, but I’d just sort of blurted it out. I wanted a chance to be closer to him, and I couldn’t do that without knowing why he walked out on us.

He groaned, leaning forward as he rested his elbows on his knees, and his head hung low. “I don’t want to talk about your mother.”

“Well, I do.” I sat forward, and he lifted his head to look at me.

“I have a right to know.”

“I know you hate me, Elise.”

“I don’t hate you, David. I had a wonderful life with Mom. She was all I needed.”

He flinched, but he needed to understand that I didn’t suffer from him not being there. Yes, it would have been great to have him around, and I was always envious of the other kids at school who had two parents, but I didn’t suffer.

“I guess I deserve that.” His eyes studied my face. “You look just like her, you know.”

“Thanks,” I smiled, tucking my hair behind my ear. “I’m not mad, David. I just need to know.”

He ran his hand over his jaw as he let out a deep sigh. “I loved your mother. We’d known each other all through college. But things were different back then.”

“Different how?” I leaned closer to him as if I’d hear the truth sooner that way.

“We were young and stupid, Ellie.”

“Everyone is stupid when they’re young.”

He laughed, shaking his head as he leaned back against the couch. “It was worse back then. I really don’t want to go into details.” Clearing his throat, he wrung his hands as he struggled to find the words. “Your mother was dating my best friend.”

His revelation knocked the air from my lungs, and I gasped audibly. Was my mother cheating on her boyfriend? That seemed so out of character for her. “You…weren’t dating her?”

“No. Not then. Eric was a great guy, and he treated your mother the way she deserved to be treated. Even though I had feelings for her, I never acted on them when they were together.”

“So what happened?”

“Senior year, he was driving down from the lake where we usually spent the weekends. He’d been drinking, and when he took a curve too fast, he overcompensated and slid into oncoming traffic.”

I placed my hand over my mouth, shocked at what I was hearing, but still uncertain how this had anything to do with me.

“Your mother wasn’t in the car, thank God. She had stayed behind to play volleyball on the beach. I was her ride home.” He hung his head again, shaking it as the memories of what had transpired began to upset him. “We didn’t find out that he’d been in an accident until a few hours later when we made it back to the dorms. He was killed instantly. He didn’t suffer.”

“Okay,” I whispered as I placed my hand on his arm, encouraging him to continue. “Is that when you guys began dating?”

“No. Your mom was heartbroken over Eric. She wouldn’t go to class or eat anything. But then, two months later, everything changed.”

His eyes met mine as if hoping I’d understand. “What happened?” I was on the edge of the couch cushion now.

“She found out that she was pregnant with Eric’s child.”

I pulled my hand from his arm as if I’d been shocked. “He was my father?”

David nodded. “I tried to be there for her. I took care of her as if I were her boyfriend and your father. Eventually we did begin to date and planned to marry, but she never got over Eric. She would cry in her sleep. It killed me that she was hurting so badly, but it was also killing me to know that she would never love me as she loved him. I would never have been good enough for her. She had already found her soul mate.

“I can’t believe this.”

“I never wanted to leave you. Believe me, if I thought there was ever a chance that she and I could make it work, I would have stayed. But I knew I had to move on and find love for myself.”

What he said made sense, but it didn’t make the truth any easier to swallow. All this time I had thought he left my mom and caused her to struggle, but it was he who had suffered, trying to love someone who could never love him back.

I heard the front door open and close. My heart rate began to pick up, and I felt like every nerve ending in my body was vibrating with anticipation. When Dawn stuck her head around the corner, it felt like I’d been kicked in the gut. The work day was already over, and Cara still wasn’t home. She’d been out for hours, and I was embarrassed to admit to myself that I missed her and worried that she was still with Tristan. I needed to tell her what I’d learned about my father, who wasn’t really my father at all. As the truth began to settle over me, I realized Cara was all I had. My entire life had been a lie.

Dawn sat down next to my father, and my skin felt like it was crawling as I waited for them to get ready to go see the fireworks downtown for the local Fourth of July celebration. I’d forgotten it was even a holiday with all of my panicking. The movie ended, and we were partway through a cooking show when I finally excused myself so I could go to my room and lose my mind in peace. I paced the floor, chewing my nails, pausing only to look out of my bedroom window whenever a headlight from a car flashed in the distance. I needed Cara so badly right then; I was physically aching with her absence.

I dug through my purse and pulled out my prepaid cell phone. I hardly used it and still had my twenty dollars’ worth of minutes on it from when I first moved in with David; he insisted I have one for emergency purposes. The only person I’d call would be Cara, and since we were always together, I never needed it.

I scrolled to her number and began to type out a text message, erasing and retyping it three times before deciding on “Hey. What’s up?”
I hit send, immediately regretting what I’d typed as I clutched the phone in my palm and began to pace again. After fifteen excruciatingly long minutes, and my father popping his head in to say they were leaving and inviting me to go along with them, I decided to find her for myself. Cara once told me if I wanted something I should take it. I couldn’t go another minute without confessing how I felt about her. She was the only person I felt like I truly belonged to.

I hurried around my room, changing my clothes and making myself look presentable in a pale-blue sundress and brown strappy sandals. My cheeks hurt from smiling so much. I knew Cara was probably upset over having to end things with Tristan, but once I was able to hold her in my arms, I knew I could take all of that pain away.

I scrolled down through the numbers on my phone and sent a quick text to Brody asking where he was. He responded a minute later, telling me he was hanging out with his brother Luke. I asked if there was any way for him to come get me as I slipped out of the front door into the warm night air. As soon as I was halfway down the driveway, I hit the call button so I could talk to Brody without trying to text and walk.

“Hey, El. Where’s your sidekick?” he asked as the stones made a crunching noise below my feet.

“She’s with Tristan. I figured you’d be with them,” I replied casually.

“Nah. He called earlier. They went out to dinner or some shit with her mom and then hit a party at the swimming hole for the Fourth of July. Tris has been kind of a dick lately, and I didn’t feel like putting up with his shit.”

My heart sank. She took Tristan to meet her mother? Why? Did he know why she was living with David, but I didn’t? Of course he did. He was her boyfriend.

“You there?” Brody asked in my ear as I wrapped my free arm around my waist. Tristan must have been lying. Cara and I had something together, and he was probably too ashamed to tell Brody that he’d been dumped. I began to worry that maybe he’d lost his growing temper with Cara. He’d been acting increasingly cruel toward her, even if she denied it.

“Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. I was just trying to figure out which way to walk,” I lied as I turned left out of the driveway.

“You want me to come get you? We can hang out and watch the fireworks.”

“Um…actually, do you think you could take me to the swimming hole?”

“Sure. Yeah. I guess we could check it out for a little while. You can see the fireworks from there.”

I smiled, loving that Brody was such a good friend. I knew he had a crush on me, and had I not been so into Cara, I wouldn’t have minded dating him. Under his party persona he was a really kind and funny guy, nothing like Tristan claimed.

“I’ll be walking down Main Street,” I told him before we said our good-byes.

As soon as we hung up, I checked my messages again. If Cara was swimming, she probably had no idea I’d even sent her a message in the first place. My heart rate finally began to slow as I paced down the crowded sidewalk. All of the stores were long closed for the festivities, except for Chewy’s Bar. A few drunks spilled into the street, smoking outside because it was illegal to do so in the business. I ignored the catcalls of a few guys and crossed the street, thankful when a blue Civic slowed to a stop beside me. I saw Brody’s crooked smile.

I pulled open the passenger door and slid in, and then we took off down the road.

“I was surprised you called me,” he confessed, glancing over at me. His gaze dropped to my bare legs before looking back at my face.

“Well, we’re usually all together,” I reminded him as I looked out of the front window.

“Yeah. Tristan has been kind of shitty lately. You avoiding him, too?”

“I think everyone is at this point.” I ran my fingers through my hair.

“Everyone except Cara.”

“I think she’s tired of him, too,” I confessed, immediately regretting what I’d said.

“Oh, really?” His smirk grew as he waited for me to elaborate with some juicy gossip.

“I mean, she has to be, right?” I turned the volume knob on the radio. “Oh, I love this song,” I lied.

We pulled into the dirt road that led to the swimming hole. There were four cars parked just outside of the tree line. My heart began to race again as I unbuckled my seat belt and opened my door. Brody jogged around to my side and draped his arm over my shoulders as he guided me through the darkened path toward the clearing beside the water. There was a small bonfire, and as I stared through the flames, I saw Cara, who was sitting on Tristan’s lap. She was turned sideways, her lips on his as they kissed passionately, not caring who was around to see. As her mouth, which had explored my body only the night before, left his, her eyes locked onto mine. I could see them widen a bit before she smiled, pretending to laugh at a joke Cameron was telling.

I’d rather have been stabbed in the back a thousand times than to have to look Cara in the eye when she broke my heart. The pain was crippling, and I let a tear roll down my cheek, unable to take my eyes off her.
Don’t you know how much you mean to me? Can’t you feel how much I love you?

Brody pulled me down beside him on an old log, his arm loosely around my waist as his fingers tapped an unknown beat on my hip.

He began speaking to the others, but all I could hear was the blood whooshing through my ears as I tried not to pass out from the ache in my chest. But then Cara spoke, and my head snapped up to see her looking directly at me, while she was responding to Brody.

“It wasn’t like that, Bro. We just had dinner with my mom. It’d been a long time since I’d seen her, and I didn’t want to go alone.”

I wanted to scream that I would have gone with her. I would have been there for her. Maybe she was worried her mom would be able to tell something was going on between us, and she wasn’t ready to tell her that yet, with their strained relationship. I did show my emotions on my face, as Cara had told me when I’d first met her. I’m sure her mother would have noticed how in love with her daughter I was as soon as she saw me.
But if I really did do that, couldn’t Cara see how much I was hurting now? Does what others think mean more than me?

She smiled sadly at me, and I knew she was trying to put my mind at ease, but she was still on Tristan’s lap, and she had been kissing him.

“You want a beer?” Brody asked.

“Yes, please.”