The Last Time We Were Us (27 page)

Jason pauses a second, thinking it over, but then he shakes his head. “It’s going to be a little awkward. No way to avoid that.”

“Do you remember Erica?” I ask.

He nods.

“She’s Lyla’s best friend.”

“I know,” he says.

“I don’t want you and me to be a secret. But when push comes to shove, I guess I just don’t know what to do.”

Jason lifts his hand to my face, then tucks a stray hair behind my ear. “It’s okay,” he says. “We’ll figure it out together.”

Chapter 25

H
IS APARTMENT IS EMPTY WHEN WE GET BACK.

“Where’s your dad?”

“He goes out with friends sometimes.” He grabs my hand, pulls me towards his room. I push Erica, Lyla, all the rules I’m breaking out of my mind, because right now I don’t care about anything but this moment.

We fall into his bed, kiss until my lips are numb. We hold each other, our hands moving swiftly, exploring.

I feel this deep confidence inside myself, this comfort, this familiarity with Jason that I cannot deny. Soon, my hands are lifting his shirt over his head, and I’m pulling my soft cotton sundress over mine, and when he reaches inside my navy bra, my breaths quicken, my heart rocks my chest. I shake all over, and so many parts of me come to life at once, and it feels so good, so right.

It feels so different than it did with Innis.

His hands wander down to my underwear, reaching, but I stop them. I can’t handle it again—the hurt and betrayal, the surprise. I don’t want him to feel surprised, either.

I breathe in deeply. “There are things I want to know before we do this. And there are things you should know about me.”

He leans his head on his elbow, relaxed, and for the first time, I think he trusts me enough to tell me. I think he’s willing to answer the questions I’ve had for so long.

He takes a deep breath. “Do you believe in me? That I’m a good person?”

I nod. “I do. But I still have to know.” I take his hand in mine. “I know it’s hard to tell things. Don’t you think I’m lying here, afraid of telling you what I have to say?”

“It can’t be half as bad as what I have to say.”

“It doesn’t matter,” I say. “The past is the past. But I still have to know.”

He cups my face in one hand and gives me the softest and sweetest of kisses. “Okay. But you go first.”

“Okay.” I brace myself. I have to tell him before I lose my nerve. I take a quick breath, ignore the shame I know I shouldn’t feel, but that I feel nonetheless. “This won’t be my first time.”

His eyes narrow, and I can tell, in an instant, that it’s not what he thought I was going to say. He sits up. “It won’t?”

“Don’t look so shocked.” I sit up, too.

“It would be mine,” he says.

“Seriously?” I am so used to being the inexperienced one that I didn’t even stop to think that Jason might not have had sex. Virgin, I think. The very word sounds girly. It’s just not something you think about with guys.

His eyebrows knit together. “Who was it?”

I bite my lip.

He looks at me long and hard. “It was Innis. God, I didn’t think you were like that.”

I feel tears well in the back of my eyes. “
Like
that? I was about to be ‘like that’ with you.”

Jason rehooks his belt. “That’s different.”

I scramble to pull my bra on, my sundress back over my head.

“It was only even once. And I regret it. There. Are you happy?”

He shakes his head. “When?”

“A couple of weeks ago.”

Jason lets out a held breath. “Maybe you should go.”

“Are you serious?”

“You told me you weren’t seeing him anymore.”

“And I haven’t!”

“Yeah, after he was all over you. I’m sorry, but the thought, of him, of you . . .”

“You know, I could have lied. I could have been vague and evasive, just like you’ve been to me. But I didn’t. I wasn’t. I care about you. Enough to be honest.”

“Apples and oranges.” His face is stony.

“Yeah,” I snap, getting up now and putting on my flip-flops. “I slept with someone I was dating and was honest about it, and you
attacked
someone and won’t tell me the whole story. And I’m in the wrong?”

“I told you to trust me. I thought you did.”

“And I have. And you still have the nerve to judge me over this?”

But he shrugs, looks at his feet. “What do you want me to say? If it were anyone but him . . .”

And I don’t think I can quite believe it. He’s actually going to sit there and slut-shame me. “Maybe if you could tell me why exactly you hate him, in a way that’s not totally and completely cryptic, this would make a lot more sense.”

He opens his mouth to speak, but then he shuts it again, looks down at his hands.

“You’ve got some nerve, you know,” I say.

And I grab my bag, rush out the door, before he can see how badly he’s hurt me.

When I get home, my mother is practically waiting for me at the door.

“Movie get out early?” she asks.

“It was sold out,” I say, absolutely straight-faced.

“What was the name of it again?”

I rattle it off without missing a beat.

“You’ve been seeing this Marisa person a lot lately.”

I shrug. “Do you want me to have only one friend?”

“No.” She stares at me, and I stare back, challenging her to just come out and say it, to ask me directly. I feel so upset about what happened that I almost crave the fight.

But she doesn’t. Maybe it’s because the wedding is in less than three weeks, and she’s got so many other things on her mind, maybe she wants me to own up and tell her myself, or maybe, and I have to stop myself from laughing at this because it’s so funny, she actually believes me.

Innis calls me three times that night. I answer on the third.

His speech is slurred. He sounds drunk. “I miss you.”

“How many beers have you had?”

“Five or six. I don’t know.”

“Have some water. Go to bed.”

“You’re so good to me,” he says.

“I’m not.”

“Can I call you tomorrow? Can we talk?”

“No. You should stop calling. I told you it’s over.”

I hang up before he has a chance to protest.

I
SLEEP THROUGH
the alarm the next morning, and I’m hot and sweating and fifteen minutes late by the time I get to the Ellisons’ house.

Mrs. Ellison opens the door, bag on her shoulder, obviously ready to go.

“Sorry,” I say. “I overslept.”

“Liz.” She stops, one hand still halfway on the door, keys in the other.

“I can stay later if that helps,” I offer. “I hope I haven’t made you miss something.”

She just looks at me, and her lips turn to the slightest frown.

Behind her, a girl walks up. “Everything okay?” She’s got bright red hair, and I recognize her from my sophomore biology class, though I can’t remember her name. Sadie is latched on her hip.

Mary Ryan comes up behind her. “Miss Liz!” she says, clapping her hands together. “You came to play. My mommy said you weren’t coming to play anymore!”

I realize all in a rush that my missed-call paranoia wasn’t paranoia at all. It was very real. “Seriously?”

“I’m sorry,” she says, but she doesn’t look sorry at all, standing there, her body rigid. “My husband said he was going to call you last night. He must have forgotten.”

I stare at her, hardly able to believe it. I don’t know how she found out, whether she really did see me with Jason in the truck, or if someone chatted up the ladies in the Homeowners’ Association, or if it just spread through one of the myriad cogs of Bonneville’s rumor mill, but it doesn’t matter, this sucks.

“Jane, can you take the girls up to their rooms, please?”

Jane grabs Mary Ryan’s hand, but Mary Ryan rips it away. “I want to play with Miss Liz,” she says, her voice rising to a piercing scream.

“Mary Ryan Ellison.” Mrs. Ellison raises her voice. “Obey Jane this minute. Go up to your room.”

“No,” she says, and she stares right at me, waiting for an answer. I look up at her mother, who I want to slap across the face, then back down at Mary Ryan. “I’m sorry, but I can’t play with you anymore. But you’re going to have a lot of fun with Jane.”

“But why?” she asks.

Mrs. Ellison looks at me, like—
Are you going to tell her?
—when she is the only one who can possibly give the real answer. I pull myself together. “I’ve got to help out my mommy, okay? She needs my help. You’ll have a great time with Jane.”

Mary Ryan looks at me funny, then pouts. “Okay.”

And just like that, she lets Jane drag her away.

Mrs. Ellison closes the door behind her, and it almost looks like she’s ready to thank me for smoothing things over, for letting her completely off the hook with her own daughters. But I don’t wait for her to say a word. I turn and stomp away down the street.

I can’t bear the thought of going home right away, so I head to MacKenzie’s instead. Mrs. Weston says she’s still in her room, but she lets me up anyway. I knock twice and hear her groggy groan, then open the door. The shades are drawn tight and her sheets are in a mess at her ankles.

“Sorry,” I say. “I can go.”

“No, no.” She pats the space next to her on the bed. “Come on. Sit down.” She narrows her eyes at me. “I thought you had to babysit this morning.”

I will not cry, I will not cry, I will not cry.
I will be the indignant, angry working woman I deserve to be. I was fired without due cause.

MacKenzie just stares at me.

“She replaced me.”

Her eyes open wide for a split second, and in that second, I see a genuine morsel of surprise. But as quickly as it comes, it’s gone.

“What?” I ask.

She shrugs. “What do you want me to say? She probably heard about you and Jason from someone.”

“Who,” I ask. “You?”

“I don’t even know Mrs. Ellison,” she says, matter-of-factly. “God, you’re paranoid.”

“So just because she finds out I’m hanging out with him she has the right to fire me?”

“Relax. Of course not.” MacKenzie props her pillow behind her and folds her hands in her lap like a condescending talk-show host. “But what did you think was going to happen? Everything would just go on like it was?”

“Can you try to look a little less gloating?” I snap. “Like you actually care what happens to me?”

She whips her face back like I’ve slapped her. “I care more than
anyone
what happens to you. That’s why I say the things I do. Jason doesn’t care what happens. His life is already screwed up. I don’t want you to get dragged down, too. Sue me.”

“You’re just jealous because I actually found someone I care about. I didn’t pick someone from the lacrosse lineup so I’d have some arm candy for homecoming.”

The words are out of my mouth before I can even process what they really mean. She gasps, and her eyes start to tear up. It’s not true, and deep down, I know it. Payton’s never been my cup of tea, but MacKenzie is over the moon about him. She has been since the moment she first saw him in the cafeteria.

I’m happy for her. I’m happy that she’s found someone who likes her back. Someone who is easy to be with, who won’t piss off her family and the whole freaking town. But that’s not what I just said.

“I didn’t mean it like that. Really, I didn’t—”

“Go to hell, Liz,” she says.

“Come on,” I say.

“Just leave me alone.”

And she punches down her pillow, turns to her side, and refuses to give me another look.

Chapter 26

I
NNIS CALLS AGAIN THAT DAY, BUT
I
DON
’
T ANSWER.

Jason doesn’t.

I feed my mother more lies, tell her Mrs. Ellison cancelled last minute, not that she replaced me, that those girls probably think I grew tired of them.

I go to bed with all the wrong thoughts on my mind, wondering when exactly life went from this fantasy, this game I thought would surely sway in my favor, to a great unknown, a puzzle that hurts my brain every time I try to figure it out.

Because it wasn’t losing my virginity on the couch in Innis’s basement that turned me from child to adult, it wasn’t the first time I used my fake or went to a party I knew I wasn’t supposed to go to, or the first time I lied to my parents. It’s right here, right now, learning without a doubt that life isn’t fair, that if you’re bold enough to go after what you want, you will get burned.

I haven’t heard from Jason, I’ve ended it with Innis, Veronica will probably never forgive me, and MacKenzie and I will hardly ever see eye to eye again. I’m waiting for the inevitable explosion from my sister, because I know Erica will tell her. I know that the next time I see her, there will be so much anger waiting for me.

I have given up everything for him. And I may not even have him. Maybe that’s the lesson of adulthood. In the end, you’ve only got you.

T
HE PHONE WAKES
me on Tuesday morning, the first Tuesday of the entire summer that I don’t have to babysit. It’s ringing and persistent. Begging, almost.

Jason.

I answer in an early morning haze. “Hello?”

“Are you up?”

“I am now.”

“Can you come outside?”

I look at the clock on my nightstand. “Geez, it’s not even six.”

“I have to go to work, but I don’t want to go without talking to you. Please?”

I drag myself out of bed, and glance out the window. Sure enough, there’s his truck.

“Fine,” I say. “I’ll be down in a minute.”

I brush my teeth and splash water on my face, change into shorts and a tank top. My parents are both asleep—they don’t get up for another half hour at least—so I slip out the front door unnoticed.

I open the door of his truck. “What, I don’t even get some apology Krispy Kreme?”

“I’m sorry it’s so early,” he says. “I needed to talk.”

“Drive somewhere, then. We shouldn’t just sit here.”

“All right.” He presses the gas, the truck jolting forward. At the edge of my neighborhood, he makes a left, away from town, out towards the country.