I scoff. “As if I need an excuse to suck face with my own boyfriend.”
“Ew,” Kevin says, sounding tired, too.
“Thanks for helping me out,” I say, hugging Katy.
I glance at the time again. The plan was for Zach and me to pick a movie and then spend a couple of hours watching it (or not watching, as the case may be) and then come back tomorrow and continue the marathon, but soonIwill have to leave. My mother is at a dinner party tonight and I’ve been counting on making it home before her, but I’ve also been counting on Zach showing up before ten.
“Let me walk you out,” Kevin says, rushing ahead of us up the basement stairs.
“That isquiteokay,” Katy says. “Seriously, kid, hit on people your own age.”
Kevin just snorts and disappears down the hall.
Katy and I continue out the front door and start toward the driveway. Katy is the first one to freeze. She goes completely rigid beside me.
I stop because she has and then follow her gaze, follow her eyes to the driveway, where a car I’ve never seen before is parked.
And inside it is Zach.
And I can see her hands in his hair, her fingers sifting through it, her fingers all over him. She has his back against the passenger side door, and she is basically in his seat. She is kissing him.
He is kissing her.
There is a frenzy of motions, an urgency. They are never just doing one thing: not just kissing, but kissing and touching each other’s hair. Or touching each other’s hair and talking, their lips shivering as they say something only they can hear.
I watch them for days.
I drag one of the couches from the basement and fall into it and watch Lindsay kiss Zach. Watch Zach kiss Lindsay.
Watch Katy grab hold of my elbow, like she has to stop me from running, like I am going to move. Like I am going to leave this couch that I’ve fallen into and am watching them from, two people removed from my world. Strangers.
One I love.
One I love oh God so much.
“Those sluts, those sluts, those sluts,” Katy says under her breath now, or maybe she’s screaming it, because Lindsay seems to respond to those words. She jumps away from Zach, her eyes wide, and then he’s scrambling out of the car, moving toward me.
Oh God.
I want to close my eyes so I won’t see.
See his gray eyes filling, hear him promising he is sorry. She was just giving him a ride because his car wouldn’t start.
See my fists pounding his chest, once, twice, over and over again.
“You are un-fucking-believable, Lindsay!” Katy is shouting at her ex-friend, and Lindsay looks startled, terrified, since Katy looks like a zombie. “How are you even a human being?”
Lindsay wraps her arms around herself, safely behind her steering wheel, and stares down at it.
Katy keeps shouting.
Suddenly Lindsay slams on the horn, making us all jump. “Leave me alone!” she yells now. Which just makes Katy start yelling all over again. Which makes Lindsay yell back.
Zach and I stand off to the side of the car, a foot apart, dazed, watching Lindsay and Katy have the altercation we should be having.
My voice is hollow when I finally speak. “You told me you weren’t in love with her anymore. You told me it was over. And like an idiot, I actually believed you.”
“Addie,” Zach says taking a step toward me. I take a step back. “I made a mistake. I wasn’t thinking. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
