“Your body remembers,” Vik filled in. “The shit that’s important.”
“Yeah.” Mae nodded, looking into Vik’s eyes in gratitude. “That…feels exactly what it’s like.” She turned onto her back, staring at the slanted ceiling.
Your body remembers the shit that’s important.
And in the end, someone who betrayed so many people in their life for that many months simply wasn’t that important.
Maybe Becks felt nothing when she thought about Mae now, too, even though Mae told herself it was different. That Eden had betrayed her family and Mae for months as a grown woman, while Mae only harbored one misguided night after a show when she was young.
But maybe it was still okay if Mae wasn’t the important shit to Becks anymore.
She wished she could go back to the hospital that day. The acute need to assure him that he was wrong filled her bones, the injustice that he died worrying about the wrong things.Eden hurt me but I’m okay, she wanted to shout.I wish you could see our store, Jesus.
“You know what’s funny, though,” she added, the words seeming to come out of nowhere, “Dell acted like it wasn’t even a big deal, what I did to Becks.”
Vik had turned to stare at the ceiling too; their shoulders smooshed tightly together in the small bed. Mae felt Vik turn their head.
“You told Dell about Becks?”
“Yeah.” Mae’s cheeks heated. “In my defense, there was champagne involved.”
Viks snorted again before returning their gaze to the ceiling. “Huh.”
“Get out of here with yourhuhs.” Mae attempted to shove Vik’s shoulder with her own.
“I’m just saying!” Vik laughed. “I knew you had a crush on the guy; I didn’t know you were inlovewith him.”
“Excuse you!” Mae exclaimed. “I will kick you out of this bed this instant!”
“Dell’s bed, you mean?”
Mae sighed. “Fuck.” And then, “When did you know I had a crush on him?”
“Oh, pretty much the moment you came back to Portland after we spread Jesus’s ashes. You got all flushed and flustered anytime you talked about him.”
“I—” Mae crossed her arms over herself under the covers, accidentally elbowing Vik in the gut in the process.I hated him, actually, almost slipped out of her mouth, but Vik was too smart for that. “Okay, but I am not in love with him. I can’t be.”
“What do you mean, you can’t be?”
“Because I think he’s seeing someone else.”
“Oh.” The laughter died from Vik’s voice right quick.
“Yeah. They might just be fuck buddies, but either way?—”
“Complicated.”
“Yeah.” And then, “Do you think I attractcomplicatedor something? Am I involving myself in toxic cycles without fully understanding myself?”
“Oh, Mae.” Vik flopped dramatically back to their side, throwing an arm over Mae’s stomach. “You know it’s sexy when you talk psychology to me.”
“I’m serious. Maybe I’m more fucked up than I think I am.”
“Mae, I think you might be the most well adjusted of all of us.”
Mae released an affronted guffaw. “That cannot possibly be true.”
“Have you seen that gorgeous bookstore you’ve created in like, a month?”
