Again (20 page)

It
doesn’t matter how short your walk of shame is, you always wish it was shorter.

When
Steph and Alex came around the corner at the end of the hall, my stomach plummeted
to the floor, and I suddenly wished my walk of shame couldn’t even be measured
by the naked eye.

They
were still in their clothes from the night before, tight jeans and tighter
sweaters. Alex in hot pink and Steph in bright aqua blue. Their hair was matted,
their movements impaired. Clearly they were on their own walk of shame. The
problem was, I was pretty sure they had seen the door I came out of, which made
mine all the more shameful.

I
moved down the hall, my focus above their heads, avoiding the inevitable for as
long as I could, ignoring my heart knocking against my ribcage. As they got
closer I smelled smoke, beer, the stench of a party, everything I’d been able
to lock out in Carter’s room, everything Carter had been able to keep me safe
from.

I
should have never left.

“Morning
floor meeting?” Steph sneered at my bare feet.

“Morning
private
floor meeting?” Alex added.

They
tapped their high heeled black boots against the carpet, waiting for my
response.

I
hated that I felt like I had to answer. I wasn’t embarrassed about what I’d
done. Well, at least I hadn’t been until they’d asked. Each letter of their
words slapped my cheeks and neck, making them bright red.

“I
had to get some notes for class,” I finally said. For someone who had gotten so
good at lying I should have been able to come up with a better one, but Steph
and Alex rattled me.

Switched
me right back into the Kate I’d been during college-take-one.

“It’s
a little early for that,” Steph said.

“Even
for Twilight’s twin,” Alex added.

I
needed to walk away, but they were blocking me. They stood next to each other
with their arms crossed, elbows touching.

“It’s
never too early to start studying,” I said, smiling so hard my teeth might’ve
fallen out. At least maybe then I could choke on one so I could stop talking to
them.

“You
lie just as well as your boyfriend,” Steph said.

“Maybe
better,” Alex added.

My
lips deflated, my body went limp. There was too much to even respond to. First,
Steph had called Carter my boyfriend. Second, she knew I was lying and I
couldn’t help but wonder if she meant for more than just what I’d told him, if
somehow they had heard the words I’d admitted minutes ago. Third, and possibly
worst of all, Carter was lying about something too.

They’d
asked me if I’d known what he’d done and I brushed it off like it was nothing. Clearly
it was something—a thing he still couldn’t tell me, even when I asked.

But
I couldn’t show I was bothered by any of it.

“Now
you know,” I said, steeling myself straighter and nodding at Carter’s door.

“But
do
you
know?” Steph asked.

“What
are you, still drunk or something?” I asked, mirroring their crossed arms with
my own.

“She
doesn’t. There’s no way, if they were just doing what it looks like they were
doing,” Steph said.

“Maybe
he told her,” Alex replied.

“If
he had,” Steph said, “would she be slinking out of his room like a slutty hag?”

“Maybe
that’s why she’s slinking out,” Steph said.

“Or
maybe she likes it rough,” Alex said.

“No
one likes it that rough,” Steph replied.

“Shut
up already, I don’t care,” I finally said, because if I hadn’t, who knew how
long they would have gone on?

“Which
means you don’t know, like we thought,” Steph flicked her chin at Carter’s
door. “You should ask him.”

“Or
anyone else on campus,” Alex shrugged.

I
was uneven. Cold sweat masked me, my shoulders sunk. Sure, I was still keeping
something from Carter, but I’d told him a big truth. I’d told him something no
one else in the world, not even Veronica, knew. Not only that, I’d asked him if
he had anything to tell me. I gave him the opportunity to share his past.

And…he’d
lied.

Even
though it probably shouldn’t have, it hurt. I’d felt like I owed him some
truth, like I owed it to both of us. He clearly hadn’t.

Maybe
sex was just sex, even when it was with someone who seemed so special.

I
looked behind me. My eyes watered uncontrollably.

“You’re
even more pathetic than I thought,” Alex said.

“You
mean exactly as pathetic as we thought,” Steph said.

They
were right, I was. Even more than they knew, I was. As an adult I should have
been able to stand up to them. At the very least, to stand up for myself, but
instead I was silent and heavy with queasiness, wondering what age I’d finally
need to hit to be comfortable in my own skin.

How
old was old enough not to care about the snickers and whispers of two
nineteen-year-old bitches?

I
considered running back into Carter’s room, into his arms, the one place in
this world that had actually felt right but, if he was keeping something from
me, what was the point?

Considering
I was still keeping something from him, was there ever even a point?

“Either
tell me or get the hell out of the way so I can go back to my room,” I said,
pushing my nausea down.

Honestly,
I didn’t care what Carter’s lie was, what he couldn’t say. I cared that he was
lying about anything. That it was something apparently a lot of other people
knew about,
everyone
knew about, which made me even more of a fool.

Even
a fake life sometimes came with real bullshit. I sucked in a deep breath.

“We’re
not going to tell you,” Alex said.

“It’s
going to be way more fun for you to have to ask him,” Steph said.

“To
have him have to tell you,” Alex said.

“Or
maybe you don’t care,” Steph shrugged.

I couldn’t
believe I did. I’d shared a truth with Carter and was met with his silence. If
he didn’t feel like he could tell me something, maybe not the whole thing of
what Alex and Steph were describing, but
anything
, even less of a sliver
than I’d given him, then maybe what we had didn’t even matter.

Maybe
he was playing me, his actions as fake as my life here had been.

Steph
moved aside. “You should probably go. Now that you’ve been hanging out with Twilight,
won’t you turn to dust or something if you’re out past six?”

Before
I could respond, they walked toward their room, leaving me in the hallway to
deal with the aftermath of their words.

Carter
had lied to me, to my face.
I
might have deserved it, but Kate-take-two
had not.

Carter

I
stood at the end of the path leading to the dorm with two steaming cups of
coffee. I waited for Kate so we could walk to Civics class together. I could
have knocked on her door, but this was better, more special. A surprise she
wouldn’t expect, the way she always surprised me.

If
she didn’t come around the corner soon, we’d probably be late.

Unfortunately,
I wasn’t sure how late because I couldn’t check my phone without spilling
coffee on myself.

Maybe
she was already on campus. I hoped so. I prayed it wasn’t the other fear
gnawing at my brain like a rat. We hadn’t seen each other at all yesterday
after she’d left my room. Had she spent it drinking? Was she not running late,
but not even awake? Sleeping off whatever she had done when she wasn’t with me?

Not
that I hadn’t known about her drinking, but her revealing she had a problem to
me had been a step for her, for us. At least I thought it was.

Finally,
she came down the path, and I flooded with relief. She wore her bright purple
coat. It broke through the drabness of snow and gray skies all around us.

“I
brought you coffee,” I said, smiling, trying to pass her a cup.

Her
face was hard, different. It was the kind of look I’d seen from other people on
campus, the kind I felt right in my gut, in each tick of my pulse now booming
in my ears. It said
how could you?

The
ground below me seemed to tilt as I understood her being late had nothing to do
with her secret. It had everything to do with mine.

The
skipped beat of my heart went into overdrive. I should have known. Everything
with her had been perfect. I was someone who didn’t deserve perfect; whether I
had been the one to tell her the truth or not, I probably never deserved
perfect.

She
didn’t reach for the coffee. She didn’t say anything. She just waited. Maybe
she was giving me one last chance.

I
probably didn’t deserve that either.

“I’m
sorry,” I said, but it was hard to look at her because those words, those
stupid words, never came close to what they needed to atone for.

She
waited with her arms at her sides. She was standing far enough away I couldn’t touch
her; couldn’t kiss her anger away. I understood this was on purpose. There was
no doubt she only wanted me to speak, say the thing I had been hiding.

Why
hadn’t I told her when she asked me? Because no matter what she’d told me, it
would never have been as bad as what I’d done.

“Is
that all you’re going to say?”

“Who
told you?” I asked. The coffee felt as heavy as two barbells in my hands. The
question was silly, but I was stalling, still hoping I could put back together
what it was clear I’d broken.

What
my past would keep breaking as long as I kept letting it.

“
You
didn’t,” she said.

“I
should have,” I said, trying to find her eyes, but she looked through me, not
at me, waiting for more.

She needed
me to say it. To have the balls to tell her, to prove she meant enough to me
for the words to come. She might have said she wanted the truth, but there was
no going back from it.

“I
wasn’t sure how.”

She
shook her head. “I don’t understand.” Her skin was pale, her breath uneven. “I
thought you cared about me.”

“I
do,” I pleaded. “I just wanted you to still care about me.”

She
started to turn away.

“Wait,”
I said, my voice rising. I hadn’t told her because I was afraid of losing her,
but I was going to lose her anyway.

“No,
Carter.” She pointed her finger at the air in front of my chest. “That’s why
you should have told me.”

“You’re
the only person who never judged me. I didn’t want you to see me the way
everyone else does.”

“You
really don’t get it, do you? It doesn’t matter what you did. All that matters
is I opened up to you and when I asked you to do the same, you didn’t. You
chose not to.”

She
still didn’t know exactly what I’d done, that was clear.  But I’d lied. I was
continuing to hide something from her. “I can tell you now. I’m ready. You
deserve to hear it from me,” I said, the words coming out like hands grasping at
a ladder pulled out from under me.

“It’s
too late. Nothing could change how I felt about you, except knowing you didn’t
feel enough about us to tell me.”

I
made myself exhale. Made words come. “It was this one night my freshman year…”
I started.

“No,”
she said, putting a hand up, “You should have told me because you wanted to,
not like this.”

“Please,”
I begged, an icy tightness radiating. “Let’s go somewhere and talk.”

“This
is probably for the best anyway,” she said, starting to walk away.

“Where
are you going?”

“To
class,” she said, leaving me with two cups of now cold coffee.

I threw
them in the snow and stayed behind her all the way to campus. She didn’t turn
around and I didn’t call out. I followed far behind her like a stranger, like
someone she hadn’t opened up to, like someone who hadn’t kissed her, made love
to her, like she was a dream.

When
we got to class we would sit on opposite sides of the room pretending we had no
ties to each other anymore. That hurt more than anything.

More
even, than her finally finding out the truth.

Kate

I wanted
a drink. I needed to go to a bar and tell a bartender my troubles while I sucked
down Riesling and he didn’t judge me.

Mostly
because I was confused, because I was a hypocrite, because I’d let Carter get
to me, because I’d broken rule number two so epically it had broken my heart.

Unfortunately,
I had to nurse my wounds with Professor Parker’s office hours instead.

“Everything
okay?” he asked as I walked in for our weekly advisory meeting.

Clearly,
whatever hiding I’d done the past few weeks hadn’t prepared me to conceal true
emotion. I wasn’t even supposed to
feel
true emotion.

Stupid
rule number two.

“Perfect,
why?” I replied, sitting down quickly.

Everything
should have been. Carter was now out of my life. He never should have been in
it. So that was good, right?

Right?

He
sat back. “I,” he paused, “I just can’t believe you didn’t tell me.” He peered
over his glasses.

Shit. Tell him what?
I had so
many lies in my wake I couldn’t even figure out which one he was upset about my
having told.

What
if it was the worst one? The one I couldn’t even bring myself to tell Carter.

The wooziness
of possibly being busted encased me in a sweaty chill. Maybe Professor Parker
had studied my file more closely and seen it was bullshit. Maybe all of this
would fall apart and I
would
end up at a bar today.

I
imagined it. This was too much for even the most skilled bartender to handle.

“Someone
else did, though,” he said, passing me a piece of Hudson University letterhead.
“Read.”

I
took it into my clammy hands.
Fuck me.
I was busted.

Dear Miss Townsend,

We are pleased
to inform you that you have been awarded an academic scholarship for your
sophomore term and, pending continued academic excellence, this award will
continue annually through graduation. With this award your tuition, room and
board will be paid in full
…

There
was more, but I stopped. My chest tightened, it was hard to swallow. I wasn’t
busted for my lie. I was rewarded with the reason I’d been living it in the
first place.

Somehow,
though, it didn’t feel like a reward.

I
stared at the paper. I’d done it. I’d fooled everyone. I would be able to stay
for another year.

With
Carter’s deception so fresh in my mind, with mine being something I would have
to continue, it didn’t seem like such a success anymore. I mean, I wanted to be
here, to graduate, but could I keep pretending for what the foreseeable future
had converted into another year?

“I
helped to fast-track you,” he said, smiling. “Considering the situation with
your parents, it seemed like the right thing to do. I’m sorry for your loss, by
the way.”

I
managed to look up from the paper. “That wasn’t in my file.”

“This
campus isn’t all that large.”

I
guess everyone did know everything about each other here, except, of course, me
when it came to what Carter had done.

“You’re
welcome,” he added when I hadn’t responded.

“Sorry.”
I shook my head, forcing myself to wake up. “Thank you, that was so nice.” What
else could I say?

“I’m
pretty sure that’s the first time anyone has ever called me nice, but I felt
like I should help. Please don’t make me regret my decision to endorse you.”

I
wondered how I’d be able to when I wasn’t sure how I could stop regretting my
own decisions, even the ones I was making here.

“Go
celebrate,” he said, waving me out of his office.

I
walked out into the hallway, still holding the letter, my guilt making it hard
to even see straight. Not only for this development and yet another person
believing my dead parent lie, but because of Carter.

I
sat on a bench in the atrium, fighting lightheadedness.

What
had I been expecting—an actual relationship? People lied to each other, even
worse to themselves. Why should I have expected I deserved someone better than David?

Why
should I have believed I deserved better when I slept with David and he was
married and had a family?

Why
should I have believed telling a part of my own secrets would be enough to make
someone else open up to me?

My
phone buzzed in my pocket.

Veronica.

I
answered without thinking, because if I would have I might not have answered.

“I
started packing for this weekend,” she said, “and I realized I have no idea how
your sister dresses.”

I
laughed, thankful to have the distraction of talking to her. Of course that
would be her biggest worry. “You’re you,” I said, “You’re just also my sister.”

“Which
means what? Are we talking jeans, or leather skirts, or fitted pants?”

“Whatever
makes you most comfortable,” I said. I could hear the city behind her, people
buzzing, taxis beeping, heels clicking, buses groaning, street vendors yelling.
I pushed down my nostalgia at the sounds of what had been my home for ten
years. The phone was like a conch shell reminding me of city life, of a time
where everything might have felt closed off and decided, but at least it was
epically less confusing.

At
least I knew where I stood with David, where I stood with everything.

“You
are not making this easy, sis,” she said.

“Fine,
jeans.”

“That’s
one thing I miss about college,” she replied, “casual Friday every day.”

We hung
up and I headed back to my dorm, slowly walking the snow-covered campus, trying
to figure out if I could actually go through with staying here and lying for
another year.

If a
life started on a lie, even if it resulted in a better life, would it ever feel
okay?

When
I got back to the dorm, I took a deep breath and stared at the closed door of
my room, gathering my courage. There was no more avoiding telling Dawn about
Veronica’s visit. If she was packing, she was coming.

Dawn
would be pissed no matter when I told her. Besides, I figured that waiting until
the day Veronica arrived would make her seem even more suspect than she already
would.

Veronica
looked her age. It didn’t make sense for someone who was actually almost thirty
to stay in a dorm room with their nineteen-year-old sister. It was the kind of
thing that was sure to make people wonder. I couldn’t afford to have anyone
wonder about anything.

Especially
now that I had next year’s scholarship literally in hand.

I
might not be sure if I could swallow another year of lies, but I sure as hell
didn’t want to be busted for them, either.

It would
be weird enough having my “sister,” who I didn’t remotely resemble, around.
Veronica was dark in all the ways I was light. Her hair was naturally as black
as Dawn’s colored hair. Shiny locks so dark, eyes so smoky and deep it would
probably make Dawn black with envy when she met Veronica.

Dawn
had her desk lamp on when I entered. Wind glittered snow against the window.
She was lying on her bed reading with her feet crossed behind her like an
insect, the image made even more vivid with her black and hot pink checkered
leggings.

She
nodded, still reading, as I sat down on my bed. Our silence had become easier,
almost like what I imagined real siblings felt. Not the fake one I would have
to manufacture Veronica into.

“My
sister’s coming to visit,” I said quickly, picking up a book from my nightstand
in case I had to defend myself.

She
was free of makeup again. I guess she was comfortable enough around me to stop
wearing her mask. Apparently I didn’t feel the same.

But
maybe that was because the one person I’d shared some truth with ended up
proving that truth was seriously overrated.

“I
didn’t know you had a sister,” she said, sitting up, looking at me differently.
The way someone does when they are given another little piece to put together
the puzzle of who you are—bringing you into sharper focus.

The
thing was, with Dawn, with everyone but Carter, they were getting pieces of
Kate-take-two. I wondered if some of the long stares I got from Dawn were
because she realized some of the pieces of my puzzle didn’t fit.

“Yeah,”
I said, sitting up straighter, “she’s a lot older so I don’t really think of
her as a sister, almost like a mom.”  I swallowed. I hoped Dawn wouldn’t share
that tidbit with Veronica. She already felt strange about how much younger I
looked than she did.

Saying
I felt like she was my
mother
—not that I did, but Kate from college-take-two
would—might be the nail in our friendship coffin.

“Oh,”
Dawn said softly, “Did she like raise you after your parents died or
something?”

I quieted
a laugh, Veronica would love that scenario. “No,” I said, the words like
marbles in my mouth, “she’s just so much older than me.”

“What
is she, like thirty?”

I
understood people Dawn’s age believed thirty was ancient. They didn’t realize
that even though the calendar ticked by you didn’t
feel
ancient, you
were simply trying your best to stay one step behind the age on your driver’s
license.

Always
thinking to yourself,
at least I’m only whatever
, until you got too old
to pretend.

“Yeah,”
I said. “She’s staying here, in our room. I hope that’s okay.” The words came
out in one long, quick sentence.

There
was a suspicious lilt to her lips, a squint to her eyes.

“I
know it’s a little weird,” I responded, trying to stop wherever her mind was
going.

 “Just
remember my rules apply to her.”

“She’s
too old to bring any of the guys from campus back to the room,” I said, hating
myself. How could I say that?

I
mean, I had been with someone. Veronica was coming here to have a real college
experience and she would want to be, too. Veronica wanted that on a normal day.

“Men
do it all the time,” she said, looking back at her book. “Speaking of,” she
said, her mouth puckered as if she’d eaten seventeen lemons. “My dad will be
here, too. We can have a family reunion.”

Excellent,
the guy she was yelling at like he was her punching bag through the phone—the
lawyer asshole who slept with other women even though he was married and had a
family.

Like
David.

I
reached into my bag and shoved the scholarship letter in my desk. I would deal
with that later, one overwhelming issue at a time.

“What’s
that?” Dawn asked.

“Scholarship
paperwork for next year,” I said, settling back on my bed.

She
watched me for a moment. “The only good thing about my dad is his money.”

“Maybe
he could pay for a hotel room for my sister,” I joked, even though I couldn’t
help but hold on to that fleeting wish.

“I’d
rather not tempt him,” she grimaced, “if that’s okay.”

If
only there was a way to keep Veronica away from temptation. I wondered how long
it would take for hers to become mine.