We stare at each other, gridlocked on opposite sides of the board, and I desperately want us to pack this argument up, throw it in a dumpster, light it on fire. Pretend it never existed, because right now it feels like a stain on the most perfect thing I’ve ever had.
“Look,” he says, breaking first. He reaches for my hand, lacing his fingers through mine, his expression still tense but I can see the softness returning. See the adoration coming back. “I don’t want to fight with you, but…you need to tell her.”
“Or what, Grant?” I dare to ask. He glances away, jaw ticking, before he looks back at me with anguish in his eyes.
“Don’t be like that. I’m not—” he pauses, raking his hands through his hair “—I’m not trying to give you an ultimatum. I just want you to be honest.”
“Why does it even matter, though? Why are you making this about us?”
“Because nowIknow. I know this insane secret, and you just expect me to keep it for Will fucking Chapman?”
I feel slick with unease because he’s right. I shouldn’t ask him to do that, but I can’t help but feel like he shouldn’t be asking me to reveal someone else’s secret, either.
“I expect you to keep it forme, Grant. You can’t let your morals lapse for this one thing?”
His gaze shifts and I know he’s wounded. But I hear something between the lines of what he’s saying, and I can’t bring myself to apologize. “Didn’t know honesty was so unimportant to you.”
“That’s not what I said?—”
“It’s implied, Gen.”
A heave a deep sigh. “Can we just forget this happened?” I feel tired, like the years of grief and dishonesty and living on the margins have finally caught up with me in this conversation, the culmination of every bad decision I’ve ever made. It feels like a consequence well deserved; it feels like karma. It feels inevitable, thatthisof all things would come between us. But my question is a hail mary that goes unanswered, if his long glance away is any indication. “I’ll tell her Grant. Will that help you sleep at night?”
His head tilts slightly back as he regards me, something indecipherable in his gaze.
“Gen—” he starts with such softness, I feel his words beneath my skin.
“It’s fine. Really.” I plaster the same chipper face Ialways use when I need someone to agree with me, to move forward. “But I just realized I told Jean I’d watch the reunion with him. So.” I swallow hard, averting his gaze at the obvious lie.
“You don’t,” he says, wetting his lips as he watches me collect my things, “you don’t need to go. Let’s just—” he reaches for my arms and I stop moving the minute I feel his warmth, his touch my favorite tactile memory as I close my eyes.
“I do,” I say, letting my eyes meet his. “But I’ll text you about our costumes, okay?”
The hope in his gaze is tepid, weak, quickly fading from the pressure of this new ulcer we’ve uncovered. “Text me when you get home safely.”
My smile is small as I press a kiss to his cheek, something I never do, before I let him walk me to the door. I don’t linger there for fear that we’ll reopen the wound we’ve so tenuously stitched back up.
26
Grant
The past few days have been full of missed calls, texts left on read, and excuses for why we can’t seem to make time for each other. We’ve been tip-toeing around the crack this fight put in our carefully constructed world. The world where only her and I exist and we can hide away from all those reasons we thought we’d never work out. It’s obvious they’ve been there this entire time, a steady pressure pushing and pushing against our little orbit and tonight will determine if it breaks us in half.
Every year Andy’s frat, Sigma Chi, throws this massive Halloween party and Gen and I decided to go together, publicly. I swear it was like I was standing directly in the sun, like us choosing one another brightened all of my memories, the idea that everything I’ve gone through led to her.
Gen ordered us masks inspired by Cleopatra and Marc Antony and I glance at mine on the dresser, gilded with gold, rolling my lips together. I should be elated right now, all of the pieces finally clicking together, but instead there’sthis familiar sense of dread wedged deep in my gut, the feeling I used to get before seeing my mom. I don’t know why I care so much about this lie. Gen’s right—it really is none of our business. Yet it’s shading everything I thought I knew about her. Like if it was so easy to keep this secret for Will, one that would surely devastate someone, what else would she do for him? It would have been different if she seemed remorseful, but no—shedefendedhim. Made it yet another thing I’d never understand about their fucked up relationship. It’s that she can’t stop protecting him—from us, from reality, from the consequences of his actions—that seems to tear at the already frayed edges of this amorphous thing we have together.
I try to shake the thought of her, throwing on a hoodie and walking into the too bright kitchen, squinting at the morning sun streaming through the open blinds. The culprit is sitting at the counter, scarfing down a cream cheese and lox bagel that seemingly has a half pound of red onion on top.
“Have I ever told you that you remind me of the Grinch?” I say, rubbing the five o’clock shadow covering my jaw. I make a mental note to shave.
“Everyday,” Sloane replies, a wide smile spreading across her face, her half chewed bagel on full display, and I cringe.
“Gross, Sloane.” Sloane holds the bagel up, taking a proud second bite. She swallows and takes a large gulp of her coffee.
I sigh, taking in my destroyed kitchen. For whatever reason, Sloane needed every ingredient in my fridge to make one bagel. I know I’m being passive aggressive as I slink toward the ingredients, gathering them and putting them in their correct spots.
“Stop. I was going to clean that up!” she says, jumping to her feet to wrench the items out of my hands.
