Now she’s all alone in Pukekohe somewhere, while I’m watching the man she warned me about, lolling on the couch shit-faced, whinging about how I won’t fuckhim.
I need to get to her.
No. I need to help her.
“Will?”
“What?”
I perch myself on the couch next to him, placing my purse carefully on the floor by our feet and give him my sunniest customer service smile. “I do really like you. And I’m sorry if girls haven’t always made you feel as special as you are. That’s something I’ve always seen in you.”
His angelic face relaxes. “I know. It’s like, why can’t they just be nice to me the way you are? You’re so good to me.”
I nod earnestly. “Uh-huh. Well, I’d like to help you. You were right, I don’t know much about business, but I’m a really good listener…”
“You are.”
I giggle and see him stiffening under the dark fabric of his dress pants.
Gross.I swallow the bile rising in my throat. “Honestly, sometimes the best thing for stress is just to talk to someone. I’d be super interested to know more about your business, and maybe learn some stuff. If you’re willing to teach me?”
“But I thought we were…” He gestures to his dick, like I can’t see it pointing straight at me like a delusional divining rod.
“We are.” I widen my eyes to baby deer proportions. “I just, I… I’m really struggling with this whole business owner thing, and you’resosuccessful. Could you please just talk to me a little bit first?”
“But Cece…”
I lean forward, my tits pressing against my neckline, and grab his hand. “Will, please?” I press a kiss against his thumb, lick it briefly, then slip it inside my mouth and run my tongue around it, then release him. “And then I promise we can play after. But I think you’re the only one who can tell me what it is I need to know.”
Will eyes our joint hands, where his thumb is still glistening with my saliva, and starts talking. I lean forward to unbuckle my heels, and while I’m down there, hit the voice record button on my phone.
24
Ada
Iwalk for ten minutes around the main part of Pukekohe, finding only bars I don’t want to go in, and restaurants I don’t want to eat at. I buy a new vape from the lone dodgy store and give the rest of my cigs to an unhoused woman who accepts them, Shannon’s lighter, and twenty bucks with gratitude. Puffing my gross, but substantially less gross, ElfBar, I head for the nearby park.
Jake is calling me now. JakeandDavis. I ignore them, embarrassed and unsure of what I’d say and if they’d believe me.
I want to go back to the hotel and wash the smoke and fear-sweat from my hair, but I can’t stand to see Cece. I told her I was going to have my revenge this weekend, and I knew she was staying willfully ignorant about my plans, but I can’t believe she’d bury her head in the sand this deep when I’ve found something that’s actually criminal.
Replaying our argument in my head, I know I fucked up. I shouldn’t have gotten sucked into all the Tristan shit and the school stuff. I should have just screamedWill’s a creepover and over until Cece had to understand.
It still shocks me how raw that old resentment was when it finally spilled out. I thought I’d moved past the way things were with Cece in high school, but there it was, the old bitterness right under the surface. The way she liked me, but not enough to jump in when I was getting tormented. That she wanted to stay tight with her friend group more than she wanted to stand up for me. If that fight had to happen, I wish I’d screamed the one thing I always wanted to know: Why doesn’t your chronic people-pleasing extend to me? Why does everyone else get the apologies, the sympathy, the rescued-from-the-edge version of you, and not me?
But the more I relive the fight, the more I hear my mother’s voice coming out of my mouth. Always the victim. Never taking responsibility. Never believing that in her anger, she’s just as capable of hurting people as those who once hurt her.
I was unfair to Cece. She was just a kid, same as me, just trying to survive high school. She cared about me, and she didn’t know how to save me. But that wasn’t her job. And fuck knows I didn’t make it easy.
I’ve always been so hung up on how everyone’s failed me, I never stop to think about how I failed Cece. I could have told her I was going to Thompson Farms today. I could have said I hooked up with Tristan. I could have tried harder to be nicer to her mates in high school instead of lashing out before they could hurt me.
Tears burn in the backs of my eyes. I have to apologise. To try and make things right. Even if Cece doesn’t forgive me, I have to say sorry.
I pull out my phone to call her, and my alarm sounds. The cocktail party has started. I don’t have time to apologise and probably cry my eyes out, and still get ready. I could always bail on the party but not showing up feels like letting Thrasher and his goons win. They’ll think they successfully intimidated me, and fuck that.
Cece is not my enemy. She was never my enemy. The bullying boys who became men while I was away are my enemies. And whether they harassed me out of repressed sex feelings or because humiliating girls is a rite of passage, or for some other fucked up reason, I don’t care. There werealways alternatives to bullying me. For example, they could have bitten each other’s dicks off. And seeing as they didn’t, I’m going to give it a try.
I change course for Nikau Palms and the blood-red revenge dress I have hanging in the hotel closet. As I reach the entrance, my phone rings. It’s Betty.
