He sighs. “I’m sorry about earlier, Annie.” He sounds genuine, but too fucking bad.
“I’m not crying because of you, Nico,” I snap. “I did enough of that in high school.”
“Why are you crying then?”
I sniff and shift my body as far away from him as possible. “This book,” I decide to say.
“Oh.”
“It’s beautiful.”
“So it’s a good cry?”
“It’s certainly not a ‘Nico Giannuzzi ruined my chances of getting into Harvard cry,’” I can’t help but snarl. “That was more of a ‘bawling my eyes out, sobbing so hard I threw up’ cry.”
To his credit, he blows out a slow breath, really trying to keep his shit together. “Should we just go ahead and address the elephant in the car then?”
“Which one?” I’m not touching high school. “How I’m yourworst fuckin’ nightmare and your wettest fuckin’ dream,” Itaunt, “or how the townie humped a bunch of professors to get a doctorate?”
He looks at the road in front of us for what feels like several minutes.
I shift in my seat, picking at the ratty leather, the uncomfortable charge in the air prickling my skin.
“Why are you like this?” he finally asks quietly.
It is somehow the verbal equivalent of a slap in the face. Fighting Annie is shocked into silence. My lungs seize. I don’t answer.Why are you like this, Annie? Get your shit together, Annie. Do better, Annie. Be the best, Annie.
“Jesus, Annie. You’ve gotta know it’s truly exhausting,” he says. “They may seem like funny little insults to you, but…” he shakes his head. “You chip and pick and chip away bit by bit until I finally feel like a giant gaping fuckin’ wound.”
Stop causing problems for everyone, Annie.I look out the window, clenching my fists so hard my nails dig into my palms.Selfish, self-centered Annie.Worthless, stupid girl.
“Did you know that after you harassed me for, oh I don’t know, myentire childhoodabout what an idiot I sounded like, I spent an entire year trying to get rid of my accent?”
You’re really good at insulting people, Annie.
“You know that I would try to avoid walking through the hallways senior year so I could avoid you belittling me for one reason or another?”
Tone down the nastiness, Annie.
“Well, that’s a giant, gaping fuckin’ wound,” he tells me.
“You fucked me over,” I finally whisper. It just comes out of my mouth.
“Ifuckedyouover? Did I not just tell you that you made my entire senior year a living hell on earth?”
He has no idea.
“We’re only on the second day of this road trip,” he continues, “and I already wanna give up. I just wanna stick you on a train and do the rest of this myself.” He sounds defeated instead of angry, and somehow that cuts deeper. I’d rather bear the sharp edge of his anger than the heavy weight of his surrender.
However, I’m used to all of this now, know this song and dance. Used to this tone of voice from people right before they run, right after I let them down, right after they’ve used me up and decide what’s left isn’t worth it. This time, I’m going to get ahead of it. I turn, meeting the side of his face. “Then leave,” I tell him. My voice wavers, but I pull myself together.
He whips his head towards me as best he can while barreling seventy miles an hour down a highway. “What?”
“Just drop me off at the train station in Richmond, and I’ll get a train down the rest of the way.” I’ll figure out the rest—lodging, everything—on my own. As always.
Silence.
I clench my jaw to keep my voice from trembling, but I’m not successful. It shakes when I say, “We’ll just tell May we drove down together, and we’ll avoid each other during the wedding, and then we’ll never have to see each other again.”
