The Year We Fell Apart (16 page)

My score remains in the double digits until the last frame, when I finally break the pathetic one hundred mark. Cory resets the scoreboard for our second game and Mackenzie slides closer to him, whispering something in his ear.

They both start laughing. Meanwhile, I think I’m getting frostbite from Declan. And I hate this awful silence between us. I just want things to be civil.

“I think I was using the wrong ball,” I say to him. “Yep. That was my problem.”

He gets up and stands in front of me. “I’m sure that was it.” He gives me a tight smile and moves toward the restrooms.

I watch him go, then turn back to Cory. Mackenzie is practically glowing beside him. And I have no idea how I never noticed before. Their affection is beyond obvious now that I’m looking for it.

Behind them, the group from lane three start to pack it in. Jake leers in my direction.

“I’m going to get a soda,” I say to Cory and Mackenzie. “You guys want anything?”

“No, thanks,” Mackenzie says.

The bar is way in the back. Practically in a different building. I figure there’s no way Jake would follow me. But maybe hiding in the ladies’ room until he left would have been safer.

“Hey, Sloan.”

His tone implies no response is expected, but rather that I should wait on the edge of my seat because he’s about to say the most amusing thing anyone has ever heard. He stops beside me. My fingers curl over the back of a wooden barstool.

“You were awfully rude to me last time I saw you. Want to kiss and make up?”

The bartender, a burly guy with a bald head and a reddish-brown beard, ambles over to us. He gives me a skeptical,
You better not be ordering a cocktail
kind of look.

“Can I have a Coke, please?”

“Make that two.”

My jaw knots and I pull a few singles out of my pocket. The bartender fills two glasses at the fountain and puts them down in front of us.

“Two fifty.”

Jake knocks my hand out of the way and pays with a five. “Keep the change.”

I’m still clutching my money. “I don’t want you paying for me.”

“Don’t worry. No strings.” He takes a long drink and I shove the bills into my front pocket. “You’re welcome, by the way.”

Whatever his endgame is, walking away isn’t going to change it. If Jake has something he needs to prove to himself, I’d rather he do it here, in private.

I look over my shoulder. No sign of Declan. “What do you want, Jake?”

“Heard about a party tonight. Thought you might be interested.”

“I’m not.” I shoot daggers at him, but he doesn’t move. “So you can fuck off now.”

The bartender lets out a long whistle, and wipes down the counter with a grin. I decide he’s an okay guy.

Jake ignores me. Walks his fingertips up my arm. The same way he touched me in the shallow end of the pool.

I bring the Coke to my lips but it splashes onto the back of my hand, dripping down my arm. I wipe it off on my shorts.

“What’s the matter, Sloan? Don’t you like me anymore?”

“I never liked you.” I shrug him off. “And don’t touch me. I don’t know where your hands have been.”

Jake’s eyes sink to my nether regions and his smirk grows wider. “Sure you do.”

Leaving my Coke behind, I head for the bathroom. Jake manages to get a stride ahead and block my path.

“Aren’t you late for your circle-jerk?” I ask, looking at his friends instead of him.

He keeps smiling. He knows his burn was better.

And I don’t even care. I just want it to be over. But it isn’t. Jake won’t let me have the last word twice in a row.

Silently I tell myself to ignore him, it doesn’t matter, nothing he says matters. But then the restroom door behind him opens.

“So, you and Kyle Marcell, huh?” His smirk deepens and I start to panic. “You always have had a thing for public places, but I gotta give the guy credit. Was his car really right in the driveway of that party?”

Declan doesn’t look at me. He glares at the back of Jake’s head. “Apologize.”

Jake turns slowly around. Declan’s eyes are flat, moss-colored steel. He steps closer to Jake.

I cast a nervous glance over to Cory, who’s still at our lane. He stands up but keeps his distance.

Jake tries to maneuver around Declan, stepping toward the exit. Declan catches his sleeve. “You’re not going to make me ask twice, are you?”

With no room left between them, Jake suddenly seems to notice Declan has about four inches on him. He shifts his weight. “Sorry, Harper,” he says without turning around.

Declan drops his hand and watches him leave. He turns to me, his face still flushed. I shrink back a step and stare at my bowling shoes.

“You okay?” he asks.

I nod, but it’s a lie. Humiliation simmers in the pit of my stomach. Somewhere in the back of my mind, the pieces start to come together.

Let it go, Harper.
“Why did you do that?”

His forehead wrinkles and he kind of smiles, like he thinks I’m joking. “Because that guy owed you an apology?”

I nod again and he follows me back to our group. Mackenzie fitfully examines the hem of her skirt and Cory does his best to act like nothing happened. But I catch Declan lock eyes with him. Seeing their silent exchange, that prickling awareness from a moment ago becomes a devastating certainty.

Declan already knows what they say about me.

I heard she hooked up with three guys at once.

I fucked her freshman year.

Slut.

He’s heard it all. Everything I never wanted him to find out.

I CHOKE OUT A LAUGH
. It sounds a lot like a cat coughing up a fur ball. “Whose turn is it?”

Mackenzie pulls at the ends of her hair. “New game . . .”

I grab the pink ball I’ve been using and step up to the edge of our lane. “I’ll go.”

I throw it as hard as I can and with completely the wrong form, practically shot-putting it down the lane. It lands with a heavy thud and swerves directly into the gutter, trickling the rest of the way down.

My hand doesn’t feel right. It doesn’t feel like my own. I wipe my palm on my shorts and turn around. Keeping my eyes on the hideous gray carpet with neon squiggles, I start moving, grabbing my purse from underneath the plastic bench.

“Harp, hold on.” Declan sets his ball down and reaches his arm out to stop me.

Pushing his hand away, I slip past him. “Please don’t.”

He trails after me for a few feet, but Cory is quicker. He’s already kicked off his bowling shoes and slipped on his Vans.

“She just needs a minute to calm down,” I hear him say to the others. “Wait here. I’ll talk to her.”

I pace the parking lot in my bowling shoes, stopping when Cory comes out. “How much does he know? Did you tell him about October?”

He sighs, rubbing his eyes tiredly.

I shove him. “Did you fucking tell him?”

“Slow your roll, okay? I didn’t tell him anything.”

“But he’s heard other stuff about me, right? I can tell; I could see it in the way he looked at you in there.” I stop in my tracks. “You swear he doesn’t know?”

“I swear. He doesn’t know what happened that night.”

Crouching down against the brick wall, I dig through my purse. “Okay. I’m sorry.”

Heat radiates off the blacktop, making it difficult to take full breaths. I think I might throw up.

I find what I’m looking for and pop open the mint tin, pulling out my Bic lighter and a cigarette.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Cory asks.

I light it and stand up, closing my eyes as I exhale.

The cigarette is ripped from my fingers. My eyes fly open in time to see Cory pitch it across the parking lot.

We stare at each other.

“I wasn’t finished with that.”

“Actually, you were.”

He doesn’t back down and I think about lighting another, just to piss him off, but really I don’t even want one anymore. I just want Cory to stop frowning at me that way. Like he’s disappointed in me again. Same as the night he carried me out of that party last fall, the night I had to beg him not to say something to Declan.
Please don’t tell, please don’t tell, I’ll handle it myself.

I blink back the tears that are suddenly trying to surface.

Cory puts his arm around my shoulder and sighs. “You’re such a pain in my ass, you know that?”

“Cory, what about the other rumors, what else has he—”

Declan comes out the door with Mackenzie. Cory’s arm slips off my shoulders and around Mackenzie’s waist, but Declan keeps glancing back and forth between us, and I haven’t seen that look on his face since he overheard Cory asking me to homecoming freshman year. He looks like he doesn’t know who to trust. Like all this time, he had some version of me memorized, Harper 1.0, and he’s finally realized a year has passed and his memory is now obsolete.

Declan looks at his hands, which are holding my sandals. He hands them to me wordlessly.

“Oh.” I’m the only one still wearing the red, white, and blue numbers. “Yeah, I’ll just . . . be right back.”

I go inside and drop the bowling shoes off at the counter, and when I come back out only Mackenzie is smiling.

“Why don’t we go get some food?” she suggests.

“Sounds good,” Cory says.

Everyone looks at me. I look at my toes. “I’m kind of tired.”

Declan scratches the back of his neck and turns to the others. “Why don’t you two go ahead? We’ll catch up later.”

They climb into Cory’s car, and we watch them drive away.

“Thanks,” I say. “I didn’t want to ruin their entire date.”

“Are you really okay?”

Elastic snaps against my wrist. Over and over but it isn’t helping. “Uh-huh.”

He steps closer and reaches for my hand. Stupidly, I let him take it, and a weird tingle shoots up my arm when he runs his thumb over my wrist.

He leads me to the curb and takes a seat. I fold my arms into my stomach and bend over my knees, even though it makes me hotter to sit that way.

“I know . . .” He rubs his eyebrow before continuing. “I know you feel more comfortable sharing some things with Cory. But if you need someone to talk to . . . I’m still here.”

Three mosquito bites near my ankle. Three
X
’s.

He’s always been there for me. Always. And I wish nothing had changed, that I could still tell him anything and know that he would never judge me. But I saw the look on his face when he noticed my hickey, and I see it now. We can’t talk about this.

“Thank you,” I say. “But I think it’s better if we just . . . leave it alone.”

He’s quiet for a long time, staring across the lot at something I can’t see. He stands up, so I do too. He runs his hands over his face and rests them on top of his head, making his elbows bow out to the sides.

“I can’t leave it alone. Not when you’re this upset.” He drops his hands. “You can’t let that guy get to you like this.”

He steps closer. Stands so close, I can smell the fabric softener on his clothing and can see his breath move through his chest.

But I’m not really there. I’m back in the pool four months ago, the day after my seventeenth birthday. Downing the contents of Jake’s flask because Declan never answered my birthday postcard and I had nothing left to look forward to, except becoming numb.

Jake waited for the vodka to kick in and then his fingers moved up my arm-shoulder-neck, and it felt soft and dull and lovely. The water was soft too. Liquid velvet. I cupped it in my palms and poured it onto Jake’s hair and started laughing. Then he pulled me to the side of the pool.

“Wait. What about Jenny?”

He pressed himself against me. Pressed me into the wall. “It’s over between us. I only want you.”

Then my lips on his lips and his lips on my neck and my legs around him and his hand between them until the locker room door swung open and the flashlight found us.

What about Jenny?
I asked only once. And only after we were already in the pool. As if I didn’t know what would happen if someone like me was left alone with someone like him.

“Harper, are you listening to me?”

I refocus and start toward Declan’s car. “Really, I’m fine.”

He drives us through town and pulls up to a stop sign in our neighborhood. After a few seconds, he’s still stopped. I look over at him.

“My dad’s working late,” he says. “Do you want to come over?”

REPAINTING DECLAN’S HOUSE APPEARS TO
be a work in progress. He and Cory have only gotten as far as scraping off old paint, and now gray wood is exposed in patches along the white siding, like zebra print.

Declan unlocks the front door and his dog, Lula, bounds over to greet us. I crouch down to give her a proper hello.

She seems determined to cover every inch of me in kisses, and her tail wags so hard that the whole back half of her body is swaying.

I scratch behind her ears. “She remembers me.”

“Of course she does. You were her favorite.” Declan moves through the kitchen and lets her out to do her business in the backyard.

Walking into the living room, it hits me how long it’s been since I came over here. Certain things are the same as ever. Along the mantel, Declan’s old school pictures are still lined up chronologically. But there’s something lesser about this house now. The floral-print throw pillows are threadbare and full of lumps. The silver cross on the wall has lost its luster. Over time, the crimson curtains were sun-bleached into a milky red. In all the details, Declan’s mom is fading.

He comes in behind me while I’m looking at a framed picture of her. He starts shuffling magazines and junk mail into a pile on the coffee table. Then looks around the room like there’s something more he should be doing.

“Can I get you anything? I could make coffee.”

“No, I’m fine.”

He goes into the kitchen anyway, and comes back with two glasses of water.

I take one and sip on it. “Thanks.”

He lines up the TV remotes and shoves his hands in his pockets. “Why are you suddenly pretending to be that kind of girl?” He says it all in one breath, like he’s been holding it in since the bowling alley.