Everyone,she had wanted to respond.Everyone hurt me. You just did too.
“No one,” she had lied. “It was just something I wanted to try.”
“Well, I don’t.” And then, as if in an attempt to soothe, he’d added, “Nice guys don’t.”
Nice guys. For years, she had hated Nicholas for warping her that way. For every faked orgasm with her nice boyfriend, and the dreams that had her waking up breathless from things thatnice guysweren’t supposed to want. For making her want thingssheshouldn’t want.
Talking with Lily had made her realize how much stock she had put into living her life according to what other people thought she should be doing. She had been the good girl, even when she didn’t want to be. Even if sometimes, she actually wanted to bebad.
Especially with him.
Jay looked up and saw that her aimless walk had led her not to BART, but the old restaurant where she had used to work. Out of sheer habit, she’d taken the same path from the apartment she’d shared with Dante and his friends.
Gill’s.
Wow, she thought.I can’t believe it’s still here.
She looked up at the peeling façade and felt a vague sense of disappointment. She wasn’t sure why. Had she expected some sort of epiphany? Or that it would be completely bulldozed away? It was honestly amazing that it was still open. There had been rats in the storeroom that the fry cook had needed to shoo away and it didn’t look much more sanitary now.
Jay swayed towards the doorway, tempted. But what if someone she had known still worked there? What if one of those waitresses in the little pink aprons that they had all been made to wear still had their makeup done like it was the 90s, with their brown lipstick and blue eyeshadow, and hair that reeked of Sun In, and they looked at her, and said, “Jay, is that you? You haven’t changed at all.”
Part of her would splinter and break off.
No, it seemed safer not to go in. The restaurant, and her tenure there, could remain exactly where they were: frozen in time. Leashed safely away, where they couldn’t hurt her.
So much of her past still could.
I’m not the same, she thought, continuing down the sidewalk.I can’t go back to what I was.
The tension didn’t leave her shoulders until the buildings miraculously perked up a few blocks down, and she started to see little strings of fairylights in the fenced-off courtyards designed to shield restaurant patrons from the street traffic. Various appealing smells wafted from their cracked-open windows, to dispense with the humidity and heat of the kitchens, saturating the narrow sidewalk with the scents roasted garlic, baking bread, and cooked meat.
Her stomach growled: a reminder that all she had eaten today was bad coffee and stale cereal. She went into the nearest bistro and ordered an extremely overpriced salad: arugula topped with red and gold beets, sliced walnuts, avocado, and olive oil and balsamic vinaigrette. The place was packed and looking at businessmen and -women in their smart, pressed suits.
(you belong here just as much as I do)
“Arugula salad for Jay?”
Jay jumped. “Yes, thank you.” She had thought she might eat on the patio but everything felt too close and too loud, and the traffic noises were making her ears ring.
Clutching her salad, she walked the remaining six blocks to her apartment, dodging people and sidewalk trash. When a man lunged at her, she nearly screamed—and her breath only left her when she realized that he had merely tripped over the uneven pavement. They shared an awkward, panicky look and then Jaydashed away.
She’d allowed herself to become secluded, hiding away in Nicholas’s big mansion like a princess in a tower. Every time she set foot outside, she felt as if her every step were being tracked by people who wished her nothing but the very worst.
She’d heard the rumors circulating. They all thought her mother was some kind of porn star, her stepfather an embezzler and a sex fiend. She was damaged goods, a bad seed. Just like her mother. Awhore. The only reason Nicholas—the town’s new golden scion—couldpossiblytake her back was if she was screwing him. And she couldn’t even get deny it, because it wastrue.
It was all true.
Safe in her apartment, Jay managed a few bites of salad before she gave up and put the rest away. She opened a dusty old bottle of cheap wine that she’d had for god-knew how long and sloshed some into a red Solo cup that she had to rinse the dust out of, frowning down at her reflection in the murky dark liquid.
Perhaps that was how Nicholas saw her, too. Not an expensive red, after all, but a cheap table wine to be pulled down and consumed, and then poured out or forgotten. He hadn’t bothered to respond to her question when she asked him how he really felt, which was just as good as an answer.
He might not want to fuck an angel, but everyone wanted to marry one.
Even men like Nick.
A sound escaped her, high and unhappy. She stood, and realized her cup was empty when she wobbled unsteadily.
Very rude of the floor to keep moving.
