Undecided (28 page)

We all
stand, the boys slumping on the couch to digest and blow things up, Marcela and
I rinsing plates and loading the dishwasher. Celestia pulls out her phone and
starts texting, and Nate wanders around, taking in the decorations.

“What’s
this?” he asks.

I turn to
see what he’s referring to and freeze. He’s lifted the Christmas tree drawing
to reveal the list of crossed off names underneath.

“It’s
a…list,” Kellan says.

Crosbie
pauses the game. “Kellan was trying to—” He breaks off coughing when Kellan
elbows him in the ribs. My heart is pounding as I wipe my hands on a towel and
hurry into the living room.

“Trying
to track down an old friend,” I finish. “To say hi.”

Nate
frowns at the list. “Why don’t you know your friends’ names?”

“It’s
been a really long time.”

Celestia
gets up to join Nate, frowning at the easel. “
Smells Like French Fries
?”

Kellan
looks at me frantically. “I have a poor memory.”

“
Backpacker
One – Freckles
?”

“Er,
yeah, she was sweet.”

“Wasn’t
there dessert?” I ask desperately. “Didn’t we buy cheesecake?”

“We
certainly did!” Kellan says, jumping to his feet. “Who’s ready for dessert?”

“We just
ate,” Crosbie says. “Let’s wait a bit.”

But
Kellan’s rushing into the kitchen. “Chrisgiving waits for no one.”

Nate
looks confused. “Who?”

“It’s
chocolate cheesecake,” I try. “You’re going to love it.”

Celestia
winces. “Ooh, is it dairy? I don’t eat dairy.”

Marcela
pauses in setting the table to stick a finger down her throat and mock gag.

“Have
some more wine,” I say. “Or beer. Or tap water. Let’s all just go back to the
table immediately.”

Celestia
shrugs and turns to sit down, Crosbie following. I’m halfway there when Nate
says, “
Red Corset
?”

All of a
sudden I’m doing my best statue impression, one leg in the air, arms mid-swing.
I swear the whole room can hear the alarm bells clanging, the arrows that
appear mid-air to point at me, shrieking “Guilty, guilty, guilty!” at the top
of their gleeful lungs.

“She was
an actress,” Kellan lies smoothly, walking over to fold the Christmas tree
drawing back down over that dreadful list and putting an end to the inquiry.
“It was one of those historical plays where the women wore corsets.”

“Hmm.”
Nate takes his seat and accepts a piece of cheesecake. I stare at mine like
it’s a lump of dirt and wonder how the hell I’m going to choke it down. “Didn’t
you have a red corset, Nora?”

Now I’m
sure they can hear the alarm bells, because the room goes deathly silent for
ten full seconds. Crosbie looks at me in surprise and I open my mouth to say
something, anything, when Kellan beats me to it.

“Nora?”
He laughs. “In a corset? I can’t picture it.”

“Have you
ever even been on stage?” Marcela asks, nudging me when it becomes clear that
I’m too stupid to play along. “Ever dreamed of being an actress?”

“No,” I
manage. “Never.”

“Wrong
girl,” Marcela says firmly. “You’re imagining things.”

Nate
shrugs. “Huh. Okay.”

I pick at
my cake but my lack of appetite is unremarkable, since everyone is eating very
slowly, still too full from having inhaled their dinner.

Celestia
resumes her texting and after a minute Nate puts down his fork and pulls out
his phone, and I wonder what message she’s sending.
Get me out of here? Do
you think they have any Perrier?

But that’s not it at all.

“Aha!”
Nate crows happily. “Here it is.” He shows his phone to Crosbie, who glances at
the screen politely, then freezes mid-bite. I have no idea what he’s seeing,
but all the blood drains from his face and he’s suddenly gripping his fork so
hard his knuckles turn white.

“What is
it?” Kellan asks.

I reach
for his hand, but Crosbie moves it away. “Are you okay?” I try. But he won’t
look at me. He won’t look at anybody.

“I knew
you had a red corset,” Nate says, oblivious. “Marcela texted me this after the
May Madness party. Remember when you went there to get drunk after learning how
bad your grades were? Then you said the party was no good so you left to go
streaking down Main Street?”

I can
barely breathe. “What are you doing?”

“She told
me what was happening and I didn’t believe her, so she texted me some proof,”
he continues, turning his phone so I can see the damage. And it’s bad. It’s so
bad.

It’s a
picture of our clothes crumpled on the sidewalk, the corset gleaming red on
top, a beacon of my guilt. It’s like sliding the final block into a very
precarious tower, and just for a second it stands there, announcing its
presence, before it all comes crashing down.

Crosbie’s
breathing heavily. “Is it true?” he asks.

“Yeah,”
Nate answers, oblivious. “She got arrested and everything. You didn’t know?”

Crosbie
ignores him, eyes on me. “
Red Corset
,” he utters. “Is
you
?”

I can’t
say a single thing to defend myself. I don’t want to admit it but I don’t want
to lie anymore, either. In any case, it doesn’t really matter what I do,
because he knows the truth, even if he can’t believe it.

“Did you
know?” he asks, turning to look at Kellan. His eyes are pleading, begging his
friend not to have known, not to have betrayed him. “Did you know it was her?”

Kellan’s
shaking his head helplessly. “I just… I didn’t remember…”

I’m numb.
Every part of me. I don’t even feel the tears, just see them splash onto my
plate, the untouched cake, the ruined everything.

“What am
I missing?” Celestia asks, breaking the spell.

But it’s
already too late, because when I finally look up Crosbie’s seat is empty and
his jacket is gone and the front door is slamming shut.

“No!” The
word sounds strangled as I lunge from my seat to go after him. I stumble around
the table and down the stairs, yanking open the door to a face full of freezing
rain. My feet slip on the wet stone as I run to the sidewalk, but I can’t see
him. In seconds my hair is soaked and plastered to my head, my teeth
chattering, temples aching from the cold. The streets are dark, abandoned on
this miserable night, and when I call his name the only answer is a car
starting up somewhere out of sight, the squeal of wheels on slush and ice, and
then the fading growl of him leaving me.

I stumble
back into the house and close the door behind me, resting against it when I can’t
bear the thought of climbing the stairs and facing everyone. I’m numb from both
the cold and the shock of what just happened. Of course he would find out this
way. Of course he would find out at all. Of course. The truth always finds a
way out, in the end.

“Nora.”

I hadn’t
realized I’d closed my eyes, but now I open them to find Kellan standing at the
base of the steps, a towel in his hand, his face a miserable mirror image of
mine.

“He’s
gone,” I whisper, taking the towel. I can’t stop shaking, even as I try to do
the responsible thing and wring the icy water from my hair.

“I’m
sorry,” he says.

“It’s not
your fault.” The words come out automatically, but as soon as I hear them, I
want to take them back. Of course it’s his fault. It’s his fault for pretending
to be Matthew; I never would have shown up here that day had I known it was
Kellan McVey’s apartment. It’s his fault for offering me free rent; I never
would have moved in if I’d had to pay. It’s his fault for saving that stupid
list; Nate never would have seen it if we’d burned it with the rest.

But even
as I try my best to get angry at him, I can’t. Smarter, grown up Nora knows
where the blame belongs, and unfortunately, it’s on my wet, slumped shoulders.
“I should have told him,” I mumble, slouching onto the steps. Kellan hesitates
a second before joining me, and though there’s a foot between us, the distance
is quickly covered by the pool of water seeping out of my sodden wool dress.

“When?”
Kellan asks ruefully. “When would have been a good time to tell him something
like this?”

I shrug
and think about it. When, exactly? When we first met in this very entryway?
When there was no earthly reason to believe he’d ever want to know—or even
care? Should I have told him when I started to realize there was some kind of
spark between us, even though the news would have most definitely extinguished
any potential flame? Should I have told him when things got more serious, when
the news was bound to hurt impossibly more?

“I don’t
know,” I answer eventually. “I don’t know. But I’m pretty sure I couldn’t have
done worse than this.”

“Our
first and last Chrisgiving,” Kellan says with a sigh.

We
quickly run out of commiserating things to say, but the silence lasts all of
four seconds before angry voices begin to filter down from the living room.

“…obsessed!”
Marcela is shouting. “Why couldn’t you just drop it? Why are you
even here
?”

“I was
invited!”

“
We
were invited,” Celestia corrects.

“Who
brings their own dinner to a dinner party?” Marcela demands. “And who, under
the age of ninety,
wears fur coats
?”
“Would you get over the fur coat thing?”
This is Nate. “You never gave her a chance. You’re like a toddler who doesn’t
want a toy, but doesn’t want anybody else to have it. It’s time to move on, Marcela.”

“Move
on?” she squawks, outraged. “Move on from what, exactly?”

“This
unrequited love you two have going,” Celestia replies calmly.

A shocked
pause, then both Nate and Marcela start sputtering. “We don’t—We’re not—There’s
no—”

“Stop
kidding yourselves,” she interrupts. “Because you’re certainly not fooling
anyone else. Have a nice life, Nate.”

“Cece—you
don’t—”

“You call
her Cece?”
“Would you
shut up
?”

Kellan
and I stand uncomfortably as Celestia descends, collecting her fur coat from
the hook by the door and pulling on her boots. “Thanks for dinner,” she says,
opening the door and frowning as she looks outside. “And Happy Chrisgiving.”

“Happy
Chrisgiving,” we echo uncertainly, watching as she exits into the storm,
presumably to walk…somewhere.

“Oh my
God, oh my God,” Nate mumbles, hurrying down the stairs. He snatches up his
coat and stuffs his feet into his sneakers, not bothering with the laces.
“Nora,” he begins, hand on the knob. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know why I—I have
to go catch—I just—”

I wave
him off. “Just go.”

He looks
between Kellan and I, pained. “I had no idea.”

I shrug.
“You’re not the only one.”

Kellan
winces at the reminder, and we both shiver as icy wind whips in when Nate
leaves.

After a
moment we turn to see Marcela hesitating at the top of the stairs. “I guess
I’ll go,” she says awkwardly. “Unless you need…”

“I think
we’re all set,” I say.

“Right.”

We hover
uncomfortably as she gets dressed and pulls her car keys from her pocket.

“Sorry
about Crosbie,” she offers.

“Sorry
about Nate,” I say.

“Sorry
about Chrisgiving,” Kellan adds, just to be included.

Marcela
leaves and then it’s just Kellan and I looking at each other until my teeth
start to chatter.

“Do you
think there’s any point in driving to the Frat Farm?” I ask, wrapping the towel
more tightly around my shoulders. It makes me think of Crosbie’s Superman cape,
which reminds me of watching him remove it the first night we’d slept together,
and that makes me indescribably sad. I’m the world’s worst superhero; the
antihero of this dreadful story. The lamest villain.

Kellan
shakes his head. “We can try, but he knows we’d go there. He was planning to
head to his parents’ place in the morning. He’s probably driving over right
now.”

“Do you
know the address?”

“No. Just
that it’s in Chatterly. I’ve never been.”

“Me
either.”

The
intensely awkward silence is broken only by the snap of my teeth clacking
together.

“Go take
a shower,” Kellan says, placing a palm in the center of my back and urging me
up the stairs. “Get warm. I’m sure… I mean, this thing… He knows you… We… I…”

“He knows
everything,” I say. “Too much, too late.”

We stop
in the living room and stare at that stupid easel, the flashing lights, the
silly Christmas tree, the secret we tried to hide.

“We
should have done this last time,” Kellan says, striding over and tearing off
the page of names. “But better late than never.”

“It’s
just late,” I say, trailing him as he grabs the lighter from the television
console and heads into the bathroom. “Nothing’s better.”

He
doesn’t answer, just tears the paper in half and half again, crumpling each
piece and tossing it into the tub. We’re quiet as he lights the fire, the pages
crackling as they catch. They burn quickly, turning into murky black ashes against
the white porcelain.

When the
fire is gone Kellan and I look at each other, and the only reason I know I’m
crying is because the tears cut warm tracks over my frozen skin.

“I’m
sorry,” he says, as though the tears remind him. “For everything.”

“Me too.”

He smiles
sadly, then turns and walks out the door, tugging it shut behind him. I strip
out of my wet dress and wring it out in the sink, then climb in the shower and
turn on the water. I’m so cold that even lukewarm feels searing hot, and I watch
the ashes swirl around my feet as the water beats against my shoulders. Every
drop hurts.

I thought
this was over the last time we did this, but I was wrong.

Now it’s
over.

* * *

Breakfast
the next morning is a torturously awkward affair. Kellan and I each have exams
that start at one, so we’re both home to study. When I stumble out of my
bedroom shortly after eight, Kellan’s already sitting down with a bowl of
cereal. I’d much rather crawl back into bed and hide under the covers, but I
can’t afford to do any of the things I really want to do, so I stick some
frozen waffles in the toaster and eat them standing up.

For a
long time the only sound is the scrape of Kellan’s spoon against the bowl and
the crunch of my waffles.

“Sleep
all right?” he asks eventually.

“I texted
Crosbie a dozen times, no answer. I called too. No response.”

Kellan
stirs through the flakes until he finds a blue marshmallow. “Me too.”

“You
really think he went home? To Chatterly? In the storm?” The weather is now
deceptively calm and clear, the sun out, the sidewalks dry, as though nothing
had happened last night. As though everything is fine.

“Yeah,”
Kellan says. “I do. Wouldn’t you?”

I think
of my parents, living together but apart, making everyone miserable. “No.” I polish
off my second waffle and wipe my fingers on my shorts, then glance at the clock
on the microwave.

“You’re
going over there?” Kellan finishes the cereal and stands. And, apparently,
reads minds.

“I have
to try. I mean, I know that news had to come as a shock, but it was last year.
We didn’t even know each other. Maybe now that he’s slept on it, he’ll…it’ll
just…”

Kellan
looks unconvinced, but shrugs anyway. “I’ll come with you.”

“I don’t
think seeing us together is going to help.”

A long
gap of silence grows as the words sink in.

Kellan
clears his throat uncomfortably. “You’re right.”

“I should
go alone. I’ll bike over now, then head to the library to study before my exam.
If he’s at the Frat Farm I’ll text you.”

He nods.
“Fine.”

* * *

He’s not
there, of course. My knocking wakes up Dane, who is, for some reason, sleeping
in a hammock strung up at the bottom of the stairs, and he confirms that
Crosbie didn’t come home last night. He’s a little perplexed to learn that I
don’t know where my boyfriend is, but I hurry away before he can wake up enough
to ask questions.

Last
spring I’d nearly flunked out of Burnham, had sex in a closet with Kellan,
streaked down Main Street, and gotten arrested. If I learned anything from the
experience, it’s how not to compound my mistakes. So even though what I’d
really like to do is cry myself to sleep and bike all the way to Chatterly
wailing “Crosbie, talk to me!” what I actually do is head to the library, crack
open my books, and control the one thing that’s actually within my power.

By the
time I get home that evening, the apartment smells like fried chicken, Kellan’s
second favorite food.

“Hey,” I
say, finding him in the living room, eating straight out of the bucket and
watching a hockey game.

“Hey.”

“How’d
your exam go?”

“I think
it went well. Yours?”

“Pretty
good.”

I grab a
microwave dinner out of the freezer and nuke it for two minutes, then sit at
the dining room table to eat.

“I guess
you didn’t find Crosbie this morning,” Kellan remarks when the game goes to
commercial.

“Dane
said he didn’t come home last night.”

“Figured.”

“Did you
hear from him?”

“No.
You?”

I shake
my head. “Not a word.”

Kellan
takes a deep breath and sets the bucket on the coffee table. I watch him turn
and steeple his fingers under his chin, deeply serious. “We should talk.”

“We are
talking.”

“About…this.”
He gestures around the room.

I follow
his arm and just see the apartment. “Okay.”

He
exhales heavily. “I really like you, Nora. You’re a good roommate and a nice
person and…yeah.”

There’s a
pause, as though I’m supposed to return the compliment somehow, but I’m not
about to offer him anything when I know there’s a “but” coming.

“But,”
Kellan continues when I don’t chime in, “Crosbie is my best friend. I don’t
know what’s going to happen from here on out, but the one thing I do know is
that there’s no way he’s going to keep being my best friend if you’re living
here.”

My brows
shoot up, and not just from the surprise of learning I’m being evicted. For
once, Kellan’s actually making a good point, and I’m a little alarmed I didn’t
think of it first. I open my mouth to reply but he plows ahead.

“It would
just be weird,” he adds. “And uncomfortable for everybody. And while I hope you
and I will stay friends, I have to do whatever it takes to fix things with
Crosbie. Bros before ho—roommates. Ahem. Roommates.”

And
there’s the Kellan we know and love.

“Fine,” I
say, even as I’m wondering where the hell I’ll go. It’s not like Christmas is
prime apartment-hunting season. “I’ll look for something else.”

He looks
relieved, as though there’d been a chance I’d throw a fit. “Great. Okay. Good.”