“I know what kind of girl you are,” she says. “And I know who—andwhat—raised you.”
I’ve never had the visceral urge to slap someone before. I’ve never had to focus on holding myself back from physical violence, but I do now.
“So does he,” Beth goes on, then takes a step forward. She’s maybe an inch shorter than me, so she’s staring right into my eyes, brown with tiny flecks of green. “And you may have successfully led him down the road to temptation, but he’ll find his way back, and when he does, we’ll be waiting to forgive him.”
It’s the last part that makes my vision white out with rage, my ears ring. Fuckingforgive him, as if he’s wronged them.
“Fuck you, Beth,” I say, too furious to be eloquent, and leave the bathroom.
I don’t go back to our table right away, because fucking Beth and her stupid fucking too-insightful bullshit has me way closer to rage-crying that I’d like to be, so I go through a side exit and stand on some cracked pavement, looking at the parking lot under blue-white fluorescent lights. It’s cold, a little damp, a little windy, and there are still a few scraps of snow hanging around at the edges, all the trees naked, grasping branches.
It feels appropriate, somehow. I feel leafless and bare myself if I’m that easy to see through, if even fuckingBethcan look at me and know what I worry about late at night in a complicated, tangled snarl. I worry that, somehow, Gideon will be compelled to pick between his family and me. That either I’ll make him lose roots he’s had his whole life, or I’ll lose him. That there’ll be a rift and I’ll be the cause of it, and yes, his parents are bigoted assholes and I hate them, but they’re still his parents.
And—if I lose, if he picks the hateful assholes over me, then maybe that’s proof he never changed at all and the sweet, careful, loving Gideon who apologized to me that night in the woods never really existed.
God,fuckBeth.
When I slide back into the booth Silas is telling some story about trespassing, tree climbing, and falling into a creek. Gideon smiles at me and quietly puts a hand on my leg, and I try to listen.
“Did you at least get the hubcap back?” Gideon asks when Silas seems to be finished. Kat’s half-smiling, looking fond and entertained but also somehow unimpressed all at once.
“Not that day,” Silas admits. “We had to go back about a week later and drag the creek for it, and of course by then it’d rained a whole bunch so it was quite an undertaking.”
“Was it worth it?” Kat asks, and Silas grins.
“Only for the story,” he says, and she rolls her eyes and he laughs and she mutters something about how ridiculous he is.
“Andi,” Gideon says, voice low and close. I realize he’s looking at me, a line between his eyebrows. “You okay?”
“I’m fine,” I tell him.
He frowns harder. “Andi.”
Shit. I don’t want to make this his problem, but I also don’t want to fight about whether I’m mad right now, so—“I ran into your sister in the bathroom and she was kind of a dick to me,” I say.
Incredibly, he frownsmore.
“Bethany?” he says, not waiting for confirmation. “What happened?”
I sigh and pinch the bridge of my nose. Across the table, Silas is quietly sayingGideon’s sister Beth kind of sucksto Kat, which is honestly a good summary.
“She told me to dump you because I’m a harlot and a floozy and you can do better,” I say. Across the table, Kat makes ahanoise and immediately covers her mouth. Gideon sucks in a breath and sits up straighter.
“Sorry,” Kat says behind her hand, and I shake my head.
“Where is she?” Gideon says.
“Who cares,” I say to him, and “No, you’re right, it’s funny,” I say to Kat.
“I’m gonna go talk to her,” says Gideon. “Excuse me.”
“It’s fine.”
“The hell it is.”
“Do you need backup?” Silas says, brushing his hands together.
“No, I need Andi tomoveso I can gotalkto mysister,” Gideon says, staring me down. There’s silence for a moment. “Please.”
