He drops into one of the empty chairs pushed under the end of the hockey booth. “Come here,” he says, patting his lap.
There’s something in the air tonight making me feel electrically charged, like I could say or do anything and nothing bad will happen. I hop onto his lap, sideways, aware there area couple hockey guys at the booth who can see us. The way I’m positioned on his lap makes it very easy for him to dip his chin and whisper into my ear. “Can I tell you a secret?” He pulls me a little tighter to his chest after I agree. “I finished my personal statement today and fully submitted my applications for PT school.”
My stomach swoops. This is a real secret, one that only I know. I turn my head and press my lips to his, I’m just so happy for him. Before I lose myself in the kiss, I remember where we are and who we are with, yanking my face back, feeling like I just messed everything up. Will doesn’t look mad though, he looks…exhausted. Sleepy, happy, maybe both?
“You wanna get out of here?” I run the blunt tips of my nails over the back of Will’s neck and into the base of his hair. If it wasn’t so loud in here, I swear I’d be able to hear him groan, I know he likes when I do that. “I think we have some celebrating to do tonight.” He agrees, eyes searing into me with unspoken promises of what kind of celebrating we’re going to be doing. “I just need to go to the bathroom real quick.”
He intertwines our fingers and leads us toward the bathroom. We are acting very coupley in public right now with a lot of people we know all around us who might say something to Miranda. We really need to tell her. I don’t want her to find out from someone else. A low simmering of anxiety pulls tight in my chest, Miranda finding out and hating me seems to be all I can think about lately. But I need to talk to Will first, figure out what the hell this thing is. I almost turn to him and demand we discuss what we are, right now, right here in the middle of SixtyForty but I don’t because I’m a coward.
At the entrance to the women’s rest room he leans against the hallway wall, pulling his phone out. I notice how he rests all his weight against the wall and on his good leg. “I’ll wait here for you.”
I love bathrooms at the bar. Inside there is a line to use the bathrooms, of course, but several girls are in front of the mirror taking selfies and hyping each other up. A girl shouts from one of the stalls, “Anyone have a tampon?” followed by several girls saying “I do!”
A girl in front of the mirror turns to me and says, “Can you please help me? My hair is caught on my earring?” I recognize her. She was sitting at the table with the guys, talking to Adrian.
“Of course,” I say and step out of line to help her detangle her jewelry. I have to get pretty up close and personal with her in order to get her earring unstuck, her hair is really wrapped around this thing. “One. More. Second. Got it!” She pulls the earring out of her hair and I have to stop myself from clapping. That was intensely hard to get out.
“Thank you, you’re amazing!”
We exchange numbers and socials before I get back in line for the bathroom and she heads back out to the bar. Bar bathrooms just bring out the best in girls, I don’t know what else there is to say about it.
When I’m finally finished in the bathroom, Will is not where I left him. The bar is dark and packed and I’m not wearing heels so I don’t have an easy time spotting him. I know he wouldn’t ditch me in the bathroom, I mean, he is my ride home and we were clearly planning to have sex.
Before I freak out, I’m going to go back to the table and look for him there. I was in the bathroom for a really long time talking to that girl and helping her with her earrings. He probably went to sit while he waits, he’s been limping all night, I know his knee is bothering him.
Just as I’m about to head in the direction of my table, I see him and my stomach drops. He’s standing next to Carter, with a hand on his shoulder, whispering into his ear.
Based on Carter’s face and the tension in Will’s shoulders, this does not look to be a friendly conversation. There’s no way in hell I’m walking up to them right now. I don’t ever want to speak to Carter again. I think the only reason I’m not instantly having to do some grounding is because I have a few vodka cranberries in me, and I hate to admit it, but associating Jackson Shuyler’s patheticism with Carter. I’m going to head to the car and wait for Will there. Plus I know I wouldn’t react well if Carter said something about how we used to fight about Will to try and make a jab at me.
Every time I’d hang out with Will and Miranda, we’d get into a fight. He’d say the most disgusting things and accuse me of the most insanely convoluted ways of cheating on him with Will. It wasn’t until I got one of those “hey girlie” dms on Instagram that I realized it was all projection. The worst part is that the whole year I was dating Carter I was not into Willat all.I never so much as even flirted with him while I was Carter’s girlfriend.
I try to snake my way toward the door so I can avoid interacting with Carter but he catches my eye, winking at me with a scary, sardonic smile. He says something to Will who I can see go stiff from here. Will turns until he sees me, looking livid, eyes wild. I need to get out of here now.
The air outside is cold and crisp, windy, helping me relax a bit. There’s snow on the ground and I shiver, holding my arms as I hear Will’s footsteps behind me, getting closer. I don’t know why I feel so wound up right now, but I feel on the verge of tears. We get into his car and buckle up our seat belts. He turns on the ignition and the heater blasts full force, piercing the silence.
There are so many things I want to say. Like why the hell were you talking to Carter? And what did he say? And why do I feel like you’re mad at me?
Instead though, we sit in silence as he backs the car out. I pick at the cuticle on my thumb and wait for him to say something. Something about how this whole thing could have been avoided if only I wasn’t attracting attention to myself with my slutty outfit and slutty dancing and slutty make-up.
“Kenny, will you please look at me?” He says, gentle and quiet after we’ve pulled into the parking lot in front of my building. “Whatever you’re thinking right now, stop. I knew about Carter from the beginning, remember? I’ve always known how much of a fucker he is.”
“What did he say?”
“It’s not worth repeating–it doesn’t matter. He was trying to upset me.”
The knot in my chest squeezes tighter and I feel nauseous. A million things flash through my mind with what it could be. It feels acutely important for me to know what he said. “Please, Will. I deserve to know what he said. What did he say?”
He won’t look at me. He lets out a breath, looking out the driver’s side window, “he asked me if I called you a cock slut while we were fucking.”
I want to crawl into a hole and die. Red hot heat washes over my whole face and chest. I can’t breathe.One timeI asked him to call me that. As an experiment with my boyfriend. I found out pretty quickly that I did not like it, at all, but Carter on the other hand did. He’d beg me to let him call me names during sex until I’d finally relent and say okay. This isn’t fair. How can he keep embarrassing me over and over? Hasn’t he humiliated me enough?
The humiliation of tonight feels too much for me. I turn to Will, “I’m sorry, but I’m not really in the mood to have sex tonight. Thank you for taking me home. I’ll talk to you later, okay?”
“Wait, wait, wait,” he says as I’m opening the door. “Can I come up anyway? Just to stay the night? I promise, no funny business.”
That feels like way too much for the nature of our relationship but I want to cuddle and I like Will in my bed next to me.“Yeah, come on.”
Will grabs a bag from the trunk of his car and slings it over his shoulder. He reaches out and grabs my hand with his free one, intertwining our fingers, tugging me along until we get to my door. He’s limping quite a lot, taking the stairs slowly, never putting his full weight on his left leg. I drop his hand, and even though he doesn’t comment on it, his hand is on the railing, supporting some of his weight.
