Erin clenches her jaw. "You wouldn't understand."
Bonnie opens her mouth to retort, but Kennedy reaches out and touches her arm. She shakes her head. For a moment, Bonnie looks like she's going to ignore her until Kennedy whispers something low into her ear.
Bonnie struggles, but leans back in her seat and drops the topic.
"So, what now?" Kennedy says. The surprise at the situation has faded, and now she's returned to looking like a shell of herself. At least her eyes are no longer red, but there's a resignation to the way she sits.
I glance at Curtis beside me, but he's looking at his lap.
"Well?" Kennedy repeats when Erin hasn't responded. "Are you going to punish us like we're five years old? Take away our phones? Or are we going to sit here pointlessly?"
I've never heard Kennedy speak like that to Erin, and Erin looks taken aback too. "The three of us need to talk," Kennedy says, gesturing to herself, Kennedy and Bonnie. "Curtis and Liam, you can go upstairs."
I hesitate, but Curtis is already scraping his chair back and getting up. I follow him upstairs to the attic bedroom, and as I leave, I hear Erin talking about their grandma.
Once in the bedroom, Curtis walks straight to his bed and falls back on it, staring at the ceiling.
"Well. That was… something," I say. I close the door and stick my hands into my pockets.
Curtis grunts.
I take a step towards him. "Are you alright?"
"Did Kennedy make you promise to be nice to me?"
Out of all the responses I imagined Curtis would say, that's the one I least expect. I almost take a step back with surprise. "What?"
"I don't know why I'm asking you. I already know it's true."
I stand next to the bed, trying to form a coherent sentence. "It is, but she made you promise too."
Curtis's eyes snap to mine. Damn those blue eyes.
"No, she didn't," he says.
"Yes, she did," I say. "Because you were nice."
"Nice? I was a dick."
"No. Not recently. We went to the beach together. You took me to the movies," I say, then feel nervous. "You make me coffee."
"I made it wrong, the first time. And you said something about Kennedy remembering the recipe." He groans. "You thought she put me up to it."
She didn't? That makes my stomach feel warm and gooey. "Fine, you were nice of your own volition. Is that a bad thing?"
"It's humiliating," Curtis says, propping himself up on his elbows.
"How?"
"Because I thought we were genuinely…" He looks away and I want to shake him when he doesn't finish his sentence. Genuinely what?
"Genuinely friends?" I say.
He barks a laugh, and I flinch, taking a step back. Curtis doesn't notice. Thank god.
"Tell me what she told you to do," he says.
I rub my face, trying to hide my expression. "Just to be nice. So we wouldn't fight the whole holidays."
