“Toby?” Tabby whispered. “Did you have fun tonight? Last night?”
“Yeah. Did you?”
“Kind of. What’s your secret?”
His overwrought stomach turned over. “Huh?” he said,playing dumb. What the hell had he said to her?
“Your secret,” Tabby repeated. “You said you had a secret, and you really wanted to tell me, but you weren’t allowed.”
Nausea rose like a tide in Toby’s throat. A year back, he’d overheard Noah talking to Tabby’s dad on the phone. Edgar DaSilva had been AWOL for ages, and no one in the family had any idea where he was, except, as it turned out, Noah. And now him. Mercifully, he was still ears-deep in pillow, and Tabby couldn’t see the naked anxiety on his face.
“Toby?”
Fuck, fuck, fuck!
“Oh,thatsecret,” he bluffed, trying to buy time. “Yeah, I don’t… I don’t think I should go there...”
“Is it about how your parents joined that cult in the Philippines and left you all alone to sell their house so they can funnel the profits to some guy in wayfarers and a tie-dye t-shirt who thinks he’s Jesus?”
God, what the fuck even was this morning?
“No,” he said, his head throbbing like an open wound. “It’s not about that. And my parents aren’t in a cult. It’s a… grassroots religious movement.”
Next second, he could have kicked himself. Why hadn’t he said the secret was that? How many people’s parents abandoned them to join a… well, itwasn’ta cult. Itwasa grassroots religious movement.
Tabby’s hand brushed his arm, sending blue sparks up his skin. “Sorry. I don’t mean to be a dick about your parents joining a cult.”
“No one could be a bigger dick about my parents than my parents,” he mumbled. “And it’s not a cult, it’s a… grassroots religious movement.”
Tabby giggled quietly. “Sure. So if that’s not your big secret, what is?”
Fuck you, drunk Toby. Fuck you with a chainsaw.
He racked his brain for something, anything, he could tell her instead of Noah being in contact with her dad, but Tabby was absently stroking his arm in a way that made his drunken dick pulse against his leg.
He’d read something on Reddit that said mating instincts were so strong you could have sex even when you were mortally wounded. He hadn’t believed it at the time, but it felt pretty accurate now.
“I’ll tell you a secret about me,” Tabby said softly. “I had kind of a bad time last night.”
Toby recalled her whirling on the dance floor, drink in hand, her blue hair flying. “Really?”
“Yeah. I don’t know what’s happening to me, but lately, it’s like, ‘How much more of this do I have to endure?’”
“What are you enduring?”
“I dunno. Being here, I guess?”
Toby shoved aside his fears about his breath or that she’d look too closely at his mangled face and turned to face her. “If you’re depressed, you need help.”
She smiled, her eyes enormous in the semi-darkness. “I’m already seeing a therapist, but thanks. And I promise I’m not going to hurt myself or anything. I just feel a bit… I dunno… pointless right now.”
He stared at the shadows partially covering her face. For as long as he’d known Tabitha DaSilva, she’d been literally and figuratively untouchable. She was good at being cool the way other people were good at crossword puzzles, but she was good at crossword puzzles, too. Whip-smart, endlessly energetic, hilarious and fuckingbeautiful. She had a huge Instagram following, and clothing brands always asked her to pose in their stuff. He’d once heard Nicole moan that if she wasn’t covered in tattoos, Tabby could have signed with a modelling agency and been a huge name.
“You have an ingenue face!” Nicole said, practically spitting with envy. “An ingenue face and perfect measurements! Do you know how rare that is!? Now you’re all covered in ink,you’ll never work for Chanel or Dior or Alexander McQueen. It’s such a waste!”
“Fuck being a model,” Tabby had said. “I heard the dressmakers stick pins in you on purpose because they wanna be the ones wearing the clothes.Andyou have to eat baby food!”
Thinking about that conversation still made Toby laugh.
