“You’ve never mentioned her.”
My instinct is to shut down the topic, but Finn shared with me tonight. Now it’s my turn. What’s more—Iwanthim to know. This is an enormous part of who I am. “She died when I was fifteen.”
“That’s when you went on the antidepressants?”
“Yes.”
When I graze his shoulder again, Finn reaches back and scoops my hand into his. He brings it to his mouth, kisses my palm, and releases it. “I’m sorry.”
“Thank you.”
“Is that what your tattoo means?”
My ears warm. “Yes. I wanted to memorialize her life, not her death. She loved birds.”
“Is it a certain kind of feather?”
“No—that’s the thing. She had birds growing up, all different kinds. She named them after colors. Baby Blue, Pink Polly, Lily Lavender. That’s why the feather’s colored in pastels. But she didn’t care about species or even their actual colors—she just loved them all.”
I resume scratching his back. I can’t believe I’m going here with him. I don’t like talking about it for a number of reasons, and I usually only do it when I have to. I could blame the alcohol for my loose lips, but I’ve already lost my buzz.
“She must’ve been young,” he says. “Was she sick?”
“Car accident.” I swallow. “I was in the car.”
“Fuck. Were you hurt?”
“The other car. Not hers.” My heart pounds. I’m sure Finn can hear it in the silence that follows.
He turns around to face me. “What?”
“We can stop here,” I warn. “It’s not exactly my finest moment.”
“Were you . . .”
“I wasn’t driving. Thankfully, I guess, although it doesn’t change the outcome. My, I don’t know what he was, my short-lived boyfriend, I guess—he was.”
“Drinking?” Finn asks.
“Yes.” It pains me to say it. I could’ve stopped Bobby from having even one beer. I could’ve spoken up after his second, or when he got his car keys from his pocket. I didn’t want him to see me as childish, though. “I wasn’t that kind of kid,” I say. “I really was good until I wasn’t.”
“I believe you,” he says. “What happened?”
I go back to the beginning. “I grew up in Westchester, where my dad still lives. My parents had high expectations, but I always met them. Usually at the expense of a social life.” That’s putting it mildly, but Finn doesn’t need to know just how unpopular I was. Growing up attending Broadway shows, I’d had it in my head I wanted to be a famous playwright like Samuel Beckett, so I joined the drama club. It was the only hobby my parents hadn’t forced on me, and through middle school, I took it seriously. I wrote plays and practiced my lines alone in the cafeteria at lunch, not caring that people snickered and called me a freak behind my back. “Like I told you, I was a little overweight, and I only had a couple friends. I never got asked out. And then Bobby came along.”
“The driver,” Finn says.
I nod. “He was the ultimate bad boy. Every girl in school wanted him, but oh my God, when he asked me to the winter formal—me—nobody could believe it, least of all me.”
“I find that hard to believe,” Finn says. “I’ll bet you were the perfect package and never knew it.”
“I wasn’t. I was an outcast, Finn. Bobby was the first guy to take me out. We dated a short time before the dance. I even cut one of my semester finals. I didn’t care, but my parents did, and they banned me from the dance. So I snuck out, and Bobby picked me up down the street. It was the craziest night I’d ever had. I lost my virginity to him.”
“While he was drunk?”
“Yes.”
Finn watches me closely. He inches closer until we’re almost touching. “He sounds like a piece of shit.”
