I squint across the long, circular driveway, trying to make out his facial expression and realize he’s tortured. “Reapin’ what he sows,” I quip, turning the engine and gripping the clutch before pulling us out into the road.
“He looks miserable,” Clemmie mutters, pulling out a compact to line her lips a dark maroon, the gloss she slides on after accentuating the fullness of them in a way I envy. “Here,” she hands me the tube, like she can read my mind, and I quickly swipe it across my lips.
“He is miserable, because he’s too much of a purist to understand that his girlfriend going to see her ex-best friend is not the same as your girlfriendcheatingon you. Like, what was Gen supposed to do? Let him off himself because Grant’s a pussy?” I battle the apple for a clean bite, then chuck it out the window before rolling it back up.
Clem coughs on a laugh. “The Will guy, right? Wasn’t she, like, in love with him?” She shoots me a skeptical glance and I roll my eyes, pulling a stray strand of hair out of the sticky mess of gloss on my lips.
“Yeah.Was.Like forever ago. The pointis,” I tell her emphatically, annoyed that she’s even temporarily on his side, “that she immediately went to find my brother after and he told her to leave. He’s so insecure and…mean.”
“Traumatized,” she says under her breath, clearing her throat.
“We’re all fucking traumatized.” The car falls silent, just the tapping of Clem’s fingers against her phone screen and the hum of the road buzzing beneath us.
“Whatever happened with that Andy guy?” she asks, and I hate that I didn’t see it coming. She’s so sly, so strategic, that Ican barely hide the way my fingers clench the wheel when she says his name. “Iknewit.”
“Nothin’ happened,” I shake my head emphatically, my shoulders coming up high as I try to downplay the tidal wave of feeling rushing toward me.
That kiss never should have happened.
“You’ve always been a bad liar, Sloane Fielder. Tell me.Please.” Bottom lip jutting out, she pouts with big brown eyes.
“Fine.” I press my lips together, remembering the way it felt to have his brush mine. “We…kissed.”
“Okay. And then?” she asks expectantly, so certain there must be something more salacious because I’m me. Known for being risky and hot headed, famous for making crazy mistakes.
“And then nothing. I left.” She turns her head slightly, like she knows there’s more. “Okay, Iran,” I mutter, flipping on my turn signal.
“Why’d you do that?” she whispers, implicitly understanding the way that kiss has burrowed under my skin, the way I want to keep it buried out of my heart’s sight.
I breathe in, slowly exhaling into the truth only a friend like Clem could pull out of me. “I cried, Clemmie. He literally just kissed me and…it felt like he was crackin’ me open.”
“Oh,” she blinks, letting my confession settle. “And how’d that make you feel?”
“Terrified,” I say like it’s obvious. “No one should crack anyone open. It should be illegal.”
She nods to herself, her teeth digging into her bottom lip before turning back to me. “You know, not everyone’s going to be like Elliot.”
“It’s not about Elliot,” I say sharply and she flinches. I wish, not for the first time, that his name didn’t exist so we wouldn’t be able to reference him ever again.
“I mean, I could argue you’d never been more vulnerable than you were with him.”
“It was a fling,” I tell her and myself, knowing there was a point where I thought it was real. Until the end really—until he was late. Until he dropped me off with a packed bag.
“A fling wouldn’t have left you waiting two hours after an operation thatclearlybenefitted him, too.” Bitterness laces her tone, and I can’t blame her.
“Well,” I swallow, wanting to move on from the memory, “he’s a piece of shit.Clearly.” I say it to please her, not because it rings true.
Some demented part of me still wants to excuse why he was late, why he didn’t seem to care, why he was so flippant about us needing some time or space after shredding apart every ounce of independence I’d cultivated for myself before I walked into his stupid fucking seminar. It has to be that part of me that thought I loved him, that dove head first, blinded by talk of muses and passion and vision.
Thoughtbeing the operative word, though, because I really believed I loved Elliot. And yet, he’d never cracked me open with a kiss. Never.
“Elliot made you feel vulnerable, but he ended up being a piece of shit, and you’re scared Andy will be the same,” Clem says cautiously, like she's waiting for me to lash out.
“Andy’s not a piece of shit. He’s…” I try to think of the word, and my nosy friend urges me on by raising her brows. “Confusing. Hot and cold.”
Addicting. I dream about that kiss and wake up hot, sweaty, frustrated by something out of reach that I know I’ll never find.
“Well I say go for it!” She settles into her seat, a smug smile on her face.
