“Charlie, what happened on Friday night?” There’s a softness to the question that has me ducking my head.
“What do you know?” I hedge.
“I know that you never came back from the bathroom,” she tells me honestly. “And I think I know why, although no one else is talking.”
I stare across at Marisa, unable to help thinking about everything I overheard and realizing how much Dillon kept from me about his history with her. She’s elegant—the perfect size for what society considers to be beautiful, and her makeup is subtle, her clothes stylish but still casual.
Next to her, I feel frumpy andless. I already felt that way, but now, knowing that she and Dillon have seen each other naked—andfucked—no matter how long ago it was, makes it all so much worse.
He kept this huge secret from me for almost two years, and Marisa was complicit in it, no matter how nice shemight seem. And now, I don’t want to think about how I was just a placeholder—someone to keep Dillon’s bed warm while he waited for who he truly wanted.
I smile, thin and wobbly, but going off the look on her face, it might be more of a grimace. “I don’t really want to talk about Friday night.” My voice is stiff. “So, if that’s what this is about?—”
“You heard them,” Marisa interrupts gently. “Right?” She’s searching my face, and whatever she sees has her mouth pinching into a tight line. “Just because someone says something doesn’t automatically make it true. They were beingassholes, Charlie. All of them. Bliss is—” Her mouth purses until it looks like she’s sucking on a lemon.“Bliss has issues. I’m not trying to defend her because what she did was inexcusable.”
Her cheeks flush pink, something a lot like guilt pinching her expression. “She wasn’t always like this…or maybe I was just better at ignoring it.” Marisa’s tone is full of self-deprecating anger that she sweeps away, focusing on me earnestly. “You can’t take what she said on, Charlie. You can’t let someone like Bliss drag you down, especially because she was wrong.”
I slick my tongue over my front teeth, feeling that small gap, before admitting, “It’s not just about that night.” My shoulders lift in a shrug. “That didn’t help, I’m not gonna lie. It was…awful.But I’ve also been hearing different versions of the same conversation all my life. If only I ate better, ate less. If only I knew how to do my hair or dress for my body.”If only, if only, if only…
“I don’t understand,” Marisa whispers. “Who said all that?”
I duck my head, feeling too exposed and vulnerable, the words spilling from me in a rush, all my pain being draggedout into the light. “My mother was the main one, I guess,” I croak. “I wasn’t exactly what she imagined in a daughter, but gotta say, she’s not what I pictured as a mother.”
The humor lands flat, the silence feeling like ice pricking at exposed skin. I peek at Marisa through my lashes, finding her eyes wide and brows high on her forehead. Her mouth has dropped open, but she snaps it shut, rearranging her expression into something neutral as she reaches out to grab my hand. I’m expecting pity-filled questions, but she just squeezes her fingers around mine.
“I’m sorry,” she says with feeling.
“So much for unconditional love, huh?” I murmur back, attention dropping to her hands on mine—the blunt edges of her neatly-shaped nails. It always surprises me that she keeps them bare and trimmed short. She once told me that it was just easier for her job.
“We don’t know each other that well”—Marisa squeezes my fingers—“but I wanted to talk to you about Friday night. You didn’t deserve anything that was said, and I wanted you to know that Dillon?—”
“We’re not together anymore,” I cut her off. “We broke up.”
Her expression goes slack as she slumps against her chair, face paling. “What?” she breathes. “Because of?—”
“Not just that,” I say quickly, turning my gaze out the window, tucking my hands into my lap. “I confronted Dillon about everything.”
Marisa doesn’t answer immediately. I can see her sipping her coffee in the reflection of the glass, her brows knitted together. When she sets the cup back down, she asks carefully, “Everything?”
“I heard everything Bliss said on Friday night, including her thinking that Dillon was in love with you.”
She sucks in a sharp breath. “Charlie?—”
“Did you know that Dillon hadn’t told me?” I face Marisa, spearing her with a look, daring her to keep lying to me.
She doesn’t answer straight away, her mind working furiously behind her blue eyes, but then, her shoulders slump. “I thought you knew,” she whispers. “I thought he would have told you, and you were fine with it because it was history. You didn’t know?”
“Nope,” I say shortly. “I did not know that you and my boyfriend have slept together.” She flinches, looking around to make sure no one else overheard, and shame fills my chest, my shoulders curling inward. “Sorry, Marisa,” I mumble. “That was uncalled for.”
“No, it’s fine,” she says weakly. “If the roles were reversed, I would feel a type of way, too. Charlie, I swear, I thought you knew.”
We fall quiet, finishing our drinks, shaking our heads when the server sidles back over to ask if we want anything else, her eyes dipping shyly. Once she’s gone, Marisa turns back to me.
“Are you and Dillonoverover?”
I hesitate, debating internally with just how much to tell her. At the end of the day, she’s his friend, not mine, and her loyalty will always lie with him. But something in me demands honesty, especially when she sought me out to give me the truth about Friday night—even when she didn’t have to.
Marisa senses my reluctance because she leans forward, her voice earnest. “Dillon’s still growing, Charlie. A man-child playing at being a grown-up. Same as Jack.” She pauses, her face sincere. “He loves you, though. I think…I think he’s scared of what being in a real relationship means. He’s never had one before you. Not anything that lasted. And you’ve met his parents.” We share a wince at that, because I have, and they’re in anything but a healthy marriage. “Dillon clings to his friends like a safety net, even when he shouldn’t.”
