“What do you want me to do?”
“I…” She closed her mouth again. There was nothing.
“Exactly.” And for the first time, I let my pain shine through. I couldn’t hold it back. I didn’t want to anymore. Maybe it was because I was finally hearing someone defend me or support me, but I stopped hiding that pain. And I knew the instant they both saw it, because they gasped.
“Alex,” Angie whispered.
Marissa wrenched away. Her arms folded around herself and her shoulders hunched forward.
“Are you going to reprimand my parents for not loving me as much anymore?” Those damn tears started coming again. I barely felt them now. I whispered more, “Are you going to tell my mom that she was selfish when she tried to kill herself? Or tell my dad that he shouldn’t have to only worry about his wife, but his daughter too? They’re both grieving, Ang. We’re all still grieving.”
Suddenly, Marissa took off. The door slammed behind her.
“What?” Angie shrieked again. Her stricken eyes skirted from the door to me. “What the hell was that?”
It should’ve hurt that she had left, but it barely fazed me. She was the least of my problems.
“I can’t believe—Alex, what do I do here?”
I shrugged. They opened this can of worms. She should deal with it, but then I stood and brushed away the wetness on my cheeks. I was so tired of it all. “I’m going to go.”
“No, please.”
“Angie.”
“What?” She had conflicting emotions on her face. Concern, anger, and another unnamed one flitted over her. Then she shook her head and grabbed my arm. Her fingers wrapped tightly around it. “What do I do here? I have no idea. And what the hell happened with Marissa?”
“It’s not the first time when things got too real and someone bailed.”
Her fingers jerked in reaction. “That’s happened to you before, huh?”
“More than you want to know.”
My friend looked like the world had just beaten her at her own game. I swallowed all my pain down and patted her hand. “Why don’t you find Justin? I’m hungry. We could get something to eat together?”
She blinked back some tears of her own. “What about Jesse?”
I shrugged. “I’m here with you guys.”
“Really?” Some hope sparked back to her. “That was the intent, Alex. It really was. Marissa called and told me your parents ditched you, we were both so mad. I didn’t think about it, not really. She said she had the rooms already booked and I didn’t think about that either. I grabbed Justin and told him where we were going.” She sighed. A dreamy smile came over her. “He never questioned me or anything. He’s such a great guy. I’m lucky to have him. I really am.”
I nudged her towards the door. “Go get your dreamboat. I’ll meet you guys in the lobby.”
She skidded to a halt before the door and fixed me with a stare. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I will be.” The concern still lingered so I fixed a bright smile on my face. It blasted her. “I promise.”
Sadness filled her eyes, but she nodded. “You’re lying to me, but that’s okay. I’m going to be there for you no matter what, even if stupid and hot Jesse Hunt destroys you. I’ll be there.”
“You have to, Marissa just bolted.”
She grimaced. “Don’t remind me. I’m going to have a word with her later about that too.”
I grinned, but I knew I didn’t want to be in the room when that happened. I was about to ask her to give me a heads up when she was going to approach that topic with Marissa, but there was a knock at the door. Justin and Eric were both in the hallway, in jeans and tee shirts.
“Where’s Marissa?” Eric peered past our shoulders.
“Your girlfriend ditched. No idea where she is or when she’s coming back,” Angie snapped out. Her eyes flashed in anger.
Justin went into action. He threw his arms around his girlfriend, pulled her in close, and nuzzled her neck as he rocked her back and forth in his arms.
“Justin!”
He ignored her weak attempts at swatting his head and winked at me. “I’m starving, honey. I’m ravenous. I’m about to faint in the hallway. My stomach needs food, woman. It needs sustenance. I can’t handle this anymore.” And then he let loose and belted out, “I don’t need no more pain, no more game, no more drama.”
As he kept singing the song, Angie smacked his shoulder and stalked past him. We heard her mutter under her breath, “My boyfriend is a freak show. I can’t take him anywhere.”
Justin watched her go for a moment, with a wide smile on his face, and then he raced to catch up. The two were giggling together soon after and chased each other again down the hallway.
“So, Marissa took off?” Eric smiled at me, tentatively.
Oh right. I’d forgotten he was there and now the awkwardness ensued. He had wanted to date me, I evaded him, and now he was with the girl that had just ditched him. I kept my voice light. “Yeah, but don’t worry. She’s like that when things hit close to home with her. She’ll show up again.”
His shoulders didn’t relax.
I didn’t care.
“She’s upset about something.”
No shit, Sherlock. But I held my tongue. “She’ll come around. She always does.”
At the second reassurance, his shoulders sagged and he nodded. Some of the tension left him. “You’re right. She does.”
And if Angie had been there, she would’ve warned him that Marissa would probably show up with another guy wrapped around her. That was her pattern, but this was me. I held my tongue and didn’t say a word. He needed to learn. He would. Marissa always showed her true colors when it came to guys. They either cheated on her or she cheated on them. It wasn’t something we talked about or questioned her about, but it’d been happening more and more the past two years. And if I had been half the friend Angie was to me, if I hadn’t been dealing with my own problems, I knew that I should’ve been more concerned for Marissa. But I wasn’t. I couldn’t ignore the fact that I was still mad at her for all her betrayals, for going after Jesse, and then going after Eric. She had helped me avoid his attempts, but she hadn’t asked. She hadn’t cared. She picked him and she went after him.
As we continued to the lobby where Angie and Justin were waiting, holding hands, I also admitted to myself the other side of the coin. I might’ve dated Eric. I might’ve finally listened to my head and tried to move on from Jesse. Eric might’ve helped me avoid the disaster that Angie knew was coming later, but he was with Marissa now. And he was going to get his own heart shattered by her.
There was no sympathy inside of me for him. We were both going to get hurt.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Marissa disappeared during the day. We didn’t hear from her until later that night. I didn’t hear from Jesse either, so I assumed that meant he didn’t want to hang out either. After we ate, we spent the rest of the afternoon at the pool. Justin disappeared at one part of the afternoon. He came back a few hours later with fake licenses for us. Angie’s eyes went wide, but she took hers without a comment. Praise the Lord. When I took mine, there was a dip in my stomach. I knew I shouldn’t feel guilty. This wasn’t the right thing to do, but we were in Vegas. My parents had ditched me. One of my best friends had ditched me. The guy I loved, but couldn’t really have, had ditched me for the day.
I took the card and shoved all the other crap away. I wanted to have fun and those thoughts would only get in the way.
Eric was more excited when he got his. He’d been quiet most of the afternoon, but a cocky look came over him then.
Angie whipped around to look at me. Yep, she saw it too. I shrugged at the look, but good for him. Maybe I didn’t want him to wait around for the inevitable Marissa break-up scene? I had no idea, but when the four of us got ready to go out, I was determined to have a good time.
Angie giggled as she came into the bathroom with her make-up bag. “I can’t believe we snuck your bag out of Jesse’s room.”
I grinned at her in the mirror, but a pang of regret sliced through me. Since Marissa was still missing and there’d been no word from Jesse, we had decided the four of us would go out to the clubs that night. Even though I hadn’t considered my sleeping arrangements that night, I wanted to get ready with Angie. The guys were in Eric’s room, doing whatever they did.
I replied as I steadied my eyeliner, “I needed my things.” And that was it. That was the end of the story.
“So where do you think Marissa is?”
I shrugged. I didn’t even want to think about her.
Her voice dropped as she asked, “Do you think she’s trying to get together with Cord again?”
I dropped the eyeliner and turned, suddenly breathless. Marissa and Cord. That meant she was around Jesse, whom I hadn’t heard from all day. I gulped. But then I stopped again. He wasn’t my boyfriend. He wasn’t my anything. He was my brother’s best friend, my dead brother’s best friend. I tried to convince myself that’s all we were, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t lie to myself. It hurt that he hadn’t texted me all day, but I also knew I was being unreasonable. He was in Vegas for his team, for their game. Not for me.
“I don’t know, but I can see her trying something again with him.”
“Whatever happened with them? I thought the two of them were perfect for each other.” Angie giggled again as she went to the room and reappeared with a full glass. She sipped the wine, wiggling her eyebrows at me. “What? We’re in Vegas. Aren’t we supposed to drink?”
“Where’s mine?”
Delight flashed over her face before she disappeared for a second. Then she came back with my own glass filled to the brim.
“Cheers, Alex.” She lifted her wine in the air. “Here’s to us, to having a great time no matter what drama happens, and to our friendship.”
“To us.” My glass clinked with hers, “And to having a motherfucking great time.”
More giggles burst from her, but we drank half our glasses.
Then she grew silent for a second.
My glass went to the counter. I knew what this was; this was the pre-air of silence. This was when she was thoughtful as a sudden idea came to her. The next stage was her pursed lips, which I saw just happened. Then she would frown and glance at me; she did both again. Then she’d bite her lip. Yep, once again I was right on cue. The last step was when she’d take a deep breath, readying herself for whatever she was going to say. And, dread filled me when I saw her take that deep breath. It was deeper than normal…and we had blast off.
“So if Marissa hooks up with Cord again, then she and Eric are done.” Angie’s eyes were filled with concern. “What are you going to do if he wants to date you again? Because I know he hasn’t stopped liking you. He just went with Marissa because she was giving him all the signs and well, you know why.”
If Marissa liked a guy, she chased him down.
My shoulder went up and I took my own deep breath of air.
“What are you going to do, Alex?” She edged closer, dropping her voice to a whisper. “Would you date him? I mean, I know you have this thing with Jesse, but come on. He’s not going to date you, not for real. You know that.”
I jerked away.
“You’re better off with Eric. I think you should make a move on him tonight.”
“He’s still dating Marissa,” I hissed at her.
She was the nonchalant one now. “We both know that’s going to end tonight. It’s just a question of who Marissa’s with now. I bet you money that she already tried to throw herself at Cord. I don’t know what happened, but I know he walked away from her. I’m right, aren’t I?”
Her eyes were steadily on mine in the mirror.
“I know you know.” She said it so faint, I might’ve imagined it. But I hadn’t. Pain flared in her depths and then she looked away. “It’s okay, you know. You kept that a secret for her. You’re a good friend to her.”
Oh boy. “Angie.”
“It’s fine. It really is.” She grabbed her glass and drank the rest of the wine. Then she cleared her throat, looking anywhere but at me. “She’s a horrible friend to you and you’re a great one back to her. And me, I’m a great friend to you and all you do is keep secrets from me. It hurts, Alex, but it’s fine. I should expect this, you know.”
I heard the change in her tone and stiffened. A different sense of dread took root in me now.
“It was always the two of you before. You were both the party girls. Cute, little. All the guys loved you two, especially when you were drinking, but then Ethan died and you became a ghost of what you were. Marissa stepped back, you know, and me…” She gulped with tears in her eyes, “I was there for you. I have been there for you. I’ve tried, Alex. I really have, but you two still have each other’s backs. I don’t get it. I really don’t.”
“Angie.”
“I don’t think I’ll ever get it.”
“Angie.” She was about to leave the bathroom again, but I grabbed her arm. I stopped her. “It’s not like that.”
“Then what is it like?” Her eyes seared me. The hurt was so much, too much, in her. “I really want to understand. Maybe then it won’t hurt so goddamn much.” Her voice had dropped to a hoarse whisper at the end.
I flinched. I hadn’t realized I’d been hurting her, but then I took a deep breath. “You have loving parents.”
“So? That means I can’t be in your little club because my parents love me?”
“No, that’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying that you might not understand because your parents love you. You have a boyfriend who loves you. You don’t get the other side, of when parents don’t love you or don’t treat you how you should be treated. Your parents protect you. They care about you, look over you. Mine stopped a long time ago.” I swallowed more pain away and confessed, “They stopped even before Ethan died.” It was why I had been partying so much.
“So what? I don’t get it.”
“I don’t cover for Marissa because I know all her secrets, but because I can guess at some of them. I have no idea what’s happened to her, but something did. She wouldn’t go through guys like she does if she had parents like yours.”
“Pat and Lorna are not like that. They’re good parents. They love her. They’re best friends with mine—”
“I know.” I gentled my tone. “They’re your parents’ best friends, but not all households are like yours. And I’m not even saying it has to do with them. I’m saying that something happened to Marissa. She hasn’t been the same Marissa since eighth grade. She changed that year, remember?”
Her eyes hollowed out and I knew she was remembering that year.
“She didn’t come to school the same.”
Angie nodded, biting her lip. “I know. She was so different.”
“But remember at the beginning? She was quiet all the time, not the normal Marissa. Then suddenly she started hanging out with the older group?”
“She started dating Chad Lowerster.” Her nose wrinkled up. “He was so gross.”
“Gross to us, but hot to her. He was a junior. Marissa was in eighth grade.”
She rolled her eyes. “I never understood why she was dating him. It was obvious he only wanted one thing.”
I remembered how excited she’d been and how disgusted Angie had been. I sobered at the memory. It’d been the first sign that something was wrong. The Marissa before would’ve been revolted at the idea of dating someone like Chad Lowerster, but then she started openly chasing guys like him. I started to say something about how we needed to be better friends to her, but my phone’s alert went off. A tingle raced through me. It was from Jesse; I knew it before looking.
Angie mused as she inspected her teeth now in the mirror, “You think we should say something to her about that?”
The phone needed to wait a minute. “About what?”
She lifted an easy shoulder. “I don’t know, maybe about how she jumps from guy to guy? She was all about saying something to you, but bailed when you came into the room. You think she wants us to say something to her?”
Had I wanted them to say something? That wasn’t the real question. Had I wanted someone to find out about my family? They still didn’t know the extent of it, Jesse didn’t either. So I shook my head. “I have no idea. I really don’t.”
“Hmmm.” Then she dropped her hands and turned with a bright smile. “Okay, no more dramatics. You ready to have some fun tonight?”