“Why the fuck would Lily tellherfather you got drunk?” Stick interrupted as he drove us away from Chesney and back to Schoolport.
“I wouldn’t. I don’t…” But I let the words trail off. I didn’t want to lie to Jane, and I honestly wasn’t sure what I would say to my father about this night.
“Because Lily—poor, poor, beautiful Lily—has been sent to Bribury to be my keeper. An unofficial Secret Service agent, if you will.”
“I…I’m not…” Again, I couldn’t finish.
“‘S’okay,” she said. “We’re good. All is cool. No worries.”
She looked over her shoulder at me, her eyes glassy, but I could still see the brilliant intelligence behind them. “You’re just a pawn in this game, Lily, and I get that.” She reached her hand across the back seat and I instinctively reached for it. She squeezed my hand, then released me, facing forward again. “You probably didn’t even want to go to Bribury, did you, Lily?”
I sat back in my seat, soaking in Jane’s words. “No,” I said softly. I had wanted to go to Maryland.
“Poor, beautiful Lily,” Jane said again.
I felt the beginnings of something stir in me. I had tamped down all my anger about not being able to go to the college of my choice, about having to go to Bribury, room with Jane. I told myself that I was just being a good daughter, that I was lucky to even have this opportunity that so many kids didn’t.
But I was pissed off. And I didn’t get pissed off. I was the good daughter, the peacemaker, the girl people pointed to and said, “What a great girl you have there, Grayson,” and I would bask in it.
But I wasn’t that girl anymore. I could feel a change in myself. Had it started with Lucas, or was totally inappropriate Lucas a by-product of it?
We drove in silence for a while, each digesting our own thoughts after Jane’s semi-confession. Finally, as we neared campus, Stick asked the same question he asked of me earlier. “Just who the fuck are you, Jane Winters?”
Jane had once again rested her head on the headrest, and she turned her head toward Stick, studying him. He met her eyes and it seemed like both of their guards dropped for just a second. Then Jane turned her head forward again, and closed her eyes.
“Nobody,” she said. Then she whispered, “God, I’m dying to be fucking nobody.”
Chapter11
We spentSunday in our room, me only going out to the convenience store that sat on the edge of campus to buy supplies for the day—ice pack for Jane’s head, saltines and ginger ale, stuff like that. We ordered a pizza later in the day after Jane felt like eating.
“You don’t have to babysit me, Lily,” she said throughout the day. “I can’t get up to any illegal hijinks in this shape. You can have the day off.”
“I’m good,” I said. And I was. I didn’t want to go anywhere in case…yes, in case Lucas called. Not that I wouldn’t get his call no matter where I was, but I wanted to be where he knew I lived in case he wanted to get together on short notice. So, other than the quick run to the 7-Eleven, I was staying in the room with Jane all day.
Yes, I knew it was pathetic, but I wasn’t quite so desperate to see him that I called him. I at least left that up to him. Last night he’d said he very much wanted to call me today. But as the day dwindled, I got edgier and edgier. I made a pretense of wanting to be in the room to study.
Syd came over for most of the day. Once seeing Jane’s condition, she left for an hour, then come back bearing some crazy concoction that she swore was good for hangovers. Jane looked at it skeptically, but drank it, and it seemed to do the trick. We lay on our beds, Syd camped out on mine, and did postmortems of the previous night.
With both Jane and me AWOL, Syd had gone to another party that our friend Jeff had told her about. I suppose hoping that Jeff’s older brother would be there, though she didn’t add that part.
“Hook up with anybody?” Jane asked her.
Syd shook her head, her gorgeous black hair rippling. Every girl practically, except Jane, had long hair. Most of us wore ours up on days like this, in ponytails or buns, just casual. But Syd always wore her straight black hair down, loose and straightened, even on a lazy, casual day like this. In so many ways she tried to copy all the other girls, but not in this.
“Italkedwith this guy for a while, but…”
“How much did youtalk?” Jane asked, not afraid to push, when I probably would have left it at that.
“Talking” and “hooking up” were done in varying degrees, and it could be anything from actual talking to full-blown sex on the hood of a car in the middle of a crowded parking lot.
“Just some kissing,” Syd said. “Maybe a little more.”
Jane’s eyes lit up, and she propped her head up with her hand, elbow bent, lying on her side. “You ho bag. Tell us everything.”
Syd flopped down beside me on the bed. “Nothing to tell. Like I said, a little more than kissing.”
“Details,” Jane yelled, tossing a throw pillow at Syd. Syd ducked, of course, and the pillow hit me instead.
