FOURTEEN
WAKING UP ONMonday morning is like emerging from a fog. It only takes a second before I remember what I have done, the line I have drawn, and who I have to face in just a few hours. No one has spoken to me since Road Rally. Not Jared, who stayed locked in his room yesterday, faking sick. Not Nikki, whose absence I already feel deep in my stomach. Not even sweet Henry, who I thought, out of everyone, might have my back and ask to talk it out.
The enormity of my decision has pushed aside any worries I had about paying for Brown, about Graham, Rachel, or Shaila, and I inhale, sipping shallow breaths. No one has ever quit the Players before. No one has come close. But I don’t feel like a pioneer. I feel lost and abandoned, even though I’m the one who did the leaving. I wonder if I overreacted, if the Jell-O shots and the cold made me so mad. If I made something that was justsonot about me... totally about me.
But when I remember the photos, my baby brother’s flesh bleeding into someone else’s, and then seeing him laugh at Sierra, the sting of betrayal beats into my brain. Marla wouldfreak if we ever made a pass at one of her brothers. Siblings are a no-go. Incorruptible. And Jared is becoming someone different. Someone who scares me, who reminds me of that terrible night and how the boys’ presence dominated everything they touched. Someone I recognize and hate.
So instead of making amends, I reach for my phone with shaky hands. I pull up Rachel’s texts before I can convince myself not to. I look at our last exchange and conjure the smell of her apartment, of her new life. It feels like a doorway.Responding doesn’t mean forgiving, I think.
I squeeze my eyes together and hold my breath, trying to summon Shaila, willing her to let me know if she approves, if she, too, would cave to curiosity, the possibility of redemption. I let all the air whoosh out of my mouth and try to find Shaila’s voice within my own.What would Shaila do?
There’s no time to know. Mom beats a fist on my door. “Henry’s here! You’re gonna be late!”
I exhale and my heart steadies. Someone’s still on my side. Henry just needed some time to cool off. But he’s back. We’re good. So, I pull on my Gold Coast uniform, even though it feels like a straitjacket, and push through the front door, where Bruce idles in the driveway. Just another Monday.I’m still Jill Newman, I tell myself. No one can take that away from me.
I heave my backpack into Bruce and climb in.
“Hey,” I say.
“Hi.”
“For a second I thought you weren’t going to talk to me again.” Tears prick my eyes. I didn’t know I needed this. Him. But I do. I so do.
“I thought about it,” he says. His face is round and forgivingand the edges of his mouth turn downward. “But it’s okay. Everyone will forgive you. We all say things we don’t mean. It’ll blow over.”
Henry peels out of the driveway but the air grows stale and my stomach drops. My mouth is dry when I open it to speak. “I don’t regret it.”
Henry furrows his brow but keeps his eyes on the road. His blond hair is still dark at the roots, damp from a shower. “Of course you do, babe. You can’t quit the Players.” He moves to grab my hand in the console between us, but I keep my fingers limp. His skin is waxy to the touch.
I shake my head. “I don’t regret it. If this is the Players, I’m out. I can’t watch this happen to Jared. I can’t trust...”
Henry moves his hand back to the steering wheel, clocking in at ten and two. “Is this about what you said about Graham the other night? Do you actually think he’s telling the truth? Come on.”
I want so badly to tell him about what Rachel told me, about the blood. But I think back to his reaction when I asked at intro night, the way he recoiled from the article in theGazette. He wouldn’t understand. He wants this to go away, just like the others. “No,” I whisper. “It’s about everything else.”
Henry sighs and makes a left turn. “You’ll come around.”
“You’re not listening to me.” My voice is shaky but I have to get the words out. I know what I have to do and I brace myself for yet another tie I’m about to sever. “We have to break up.”
“What?” A sedan stops short in front of us and Henry slams his foot down on the brake. We’re only a block away from the Gold Coast parking lot, but I don’t know if I can stay in his presence much longer. I don’t know if I can watch him crumble,if I can handle his rage when I have to tend to my own. “You don’t mean this, Jill.”
I swallow hard. “I do. I don’t want to be a Player anymore. And you think you can change my mind. If that’s true, you don’t know me at all. It’s better we just end this now.”
Henry turns swiftly into the senior lot and throws Bruce into park in one quick move. He stares straight forward, totally unreadable.
“Henry?” I ask.
He looks back at me with those gorgeous eyes, now glossy and wet. His top lip begins to quiver. I already hate myself for hurting him like this. But then his future flashes in front of me again. The finance job he doesn’t want. A closet full of designer suits. A mansion out east. We never would have worked. If it wasn’t my quitting the Players, it would be something else.
I blink and when I open my eyes, Henry is slumped over the steering wheel, his shoulders heaving up and down.
“Jill, please,” he says, his voice almost a whisper.
Something tugs inside my chest, but I lean back farther in my seat, away from him. Why don’t I want to salvage this? It would be so much easier if I did. Everything would be simple.
“I’m sorry.”
A gurgle erupts from Henry’s throat and his breathing becomes labored. “But I love you,” he says. It’s the first time he’s said it. Words I’ve dreamed of hearing. Words I couldn’t wait to be said to me. But my hands are clammy and I fight the urge to bolt out of the car. I don’t feel anything. And I realize I never wanted to hear those words from Henry. I wanted them from someone else.
