Sweet Girl (21 page)

“Max,” he says softly, but I feel the word like a caress.

It is the first time he’s ever used my first name.

He reaches out for my hand before I can pull it back. His touch is light, barely there at all, but I feel it all the way down to my toes.

“I told you I wasn’t going anywhere, and I’m not”—his fingertips brush my wrist—“but you can’t just disappear on me.”

I take a deep breath.

“Last night was a mistake.”

I’d meant for it to come out defiant. It sounded pitiful and unsure.

His fingers slide higher, running the length of my forearm and back down again.

“Last night was a long time coming,” he says gently, “and you know it as well as I do.”

His fingertips are playing havoc with my emotions. I want to throw myself into his arms, because I know how safe I’d feel in them. But the part of me that wants to do that battles with the long-ingrained belief that I need to guard myself. It is the only way to avoid being hurt again, or even worse, hurting someone else.

I pull my hand away and step towards the door.

“I don’t think I can do this,” I whisper, unable to produce any more volume than that.

He catches my hand again before I can get away.

“What if you don’t think?” he asks with a grin. I can actually see him forcing himself back into a familiar role. “Let’s just go downstairs and play in that monstrosity of a beer-pong tournament. And we won’t think about it. OK?” He leads me out into the hallway without stopping his monologue. “We’ll eat some cheese. I’ll charm your family. We won’t talk about kissing or sleepovers, or how soft that spot is just behind your ear—”

“Taylor!” I yelp when he runs his nose along the spot in question.

I hurry out of reach, unable to stop a smile. It is hard to hold on to an emotional shank spiral when he is here teasing me, pretending like nothing happened. He follows along at my heels.

“And we won’t talk about desserts or secret jobs, or that little sound you make in the back of your throat when I—”

He trails off just as we step out onto the veranda, and everybody looks up at us.

“Well, well, well. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Mackenzie blush!” Malin calls from the Ping-Pong table. “Quick, somebody snap a photo for posterity!”

I sit quietly at the table for most of the afternoon, watching Taylor doing exactly what he said he would. My parents are ready to adopt him by the time everyone leaves to go change for dinner. He’s thrown me quick smiles and winks, and everyone tries to include me in conversation, but I can’t make myself join in.

I am relieved. Every single part of me is relieved that he is sitting here making jokes, deflecting everyone’s attention away from how weird I am acting. But feeling relief comes with the ever-increasing anxiety about what that relief says about me. This morning I ran out, and I told myself that I was upset because of how far I’d let things go and how easily I slipped into intimacy with him when I never allow that with anybody. But if that is true, if I was only upset about slipping up and not about being at odds with Taylor, why am I so grateful to have him here now?

I hurry back to my room and go through the motions of taking a shower. Since I spent the entire day dressed like a meth addict, I think I should put in at least a little effort for dinner.

We aren’t headed anywhere fancy, just following another long-standing tradition of visiting our favorite Mexican restaurant on the night before the Fourth. I don’t even know when it started, but we’ve been going to the same place every year for as long as I can remember.

I start to grab a pair of skinny jeans from my closet when Malin bursts into the room without knocking. She is wearing a white linen baby-doll dress that does everything for her long legs, and she has some sort of coral fabric wrapped around her throat like a scarf. She closes the door behind her and launches herself onto my bed just as she used to when we were little.

I start to slip a foot into the jeans when she scoffs.

“Holy Moses, not those!” She stares daggers at my pants. “I brought something better!”

She sits up abruptly and starts to unwind the material from around her neck. When it comes loose she lays the maxi dress on the bed next to her.

“I’m not really a dress kind of girl,” I say, stating the obvious.

“Don’t be such a bum!” She flashes me a grin. “A maxi dress is the equivalent of wearing a muumuu in public, and you
are
the kind of girl who likes to wear clothes large enough to accommodate at least three people at once.”

She goes into my bathroom and comes out with some hair products. Before I can protest she’s applied three different things and is styling my hair with her fingertips. It takes too much effort to argue, so I don’t.

When she is done she stands back and smiles as she appraises her work. She reaches out without looking and grabs the dress off the bed behind her to thrust it into my hands.

“This won’t fit,” I grumble.

“It’s too long on me,” she replies in a saccharine tone, “so it’ll fit you perfectly.”

I work the material around in my hands, looking for another flaw. It is cotton, so I can’t complain about comfort or the dress being too formal. But a halter neckline and the fact that it is backless make it feel too dressy.

“I won’t be able to wear a bra.” I raise my eyebrows at her.

“Please.” She pulls lip gloss out of the pocket of her dress and dabs some on. “Women all over this country pay doctors good money to get boobs as perky as yours.”

She hands me the gloss and turns to flounce out of the room as quickly as she came in.

“Mali, I don’t want—”

“Good effing grief, Max,” she says without turning around. “Just wear the effing dress!”

When I come downstairs fifteen minutes later, I am wearing the effing dress.

Thanks to Malin my hair is shaggy and mussed to perfection, and since mascara was the only makeup I’d had on, her lip gloss goes a long way towards helping me look less pale.

I hear conversation from the living room and start to head in that direction, but Landon finds me first, with a little shot clutched between two fingers. Miko is right behind her, holding one in each hand.

“Max, you look so pretty!” she coos at me.

The compliment makes me feel even more anxious. I shouldn’t have worn the dress.

“Thanks,” I answer quietly.

“Oh jeez.” Miko pushes her way around Landon and thrusts a shot into my hand. “It’s worse than we thought if you’re being all demure and polite!”

They both look at me in confusion.

“What’s going on, girl?” Landon asks gently.

I am not even sure where to begin. I shrug uncomfortably.

Landon’s shoulders fall a little, as if she expected that response but hoped it would be something else. She holds up her little glass between the three of us.

“To Sandra?” she asks.

“To Sandra.” Miko and I clink glasses with her without hesitation, and we all swallow the shot of Jack. It probably isn’t the wisest course of action for me to have straight liquor, but it does take a little bit of the edge off the anxiety I can’t seem to shake.

“You look just gorgeous!” my mother says, coming up behind us.

When I turn around she is beaming. She loves it when I wear a dress; it reminds her of someone else. I discard the memory with a quick shake of my head.

Over her shoulder I see Taylor walk out of the living room, laughing with my brothers. His face lights up when he sees me.

“Kenzie, why don’t you ride with Daddy and me, and you can tell us how everything is at the bar,” Mom says, pulling me towards the door. My palms get sweaty and my steps falter. She must have misunderstood the reason for my hesitation, because she calls back behind us. “Taylor, you come along with us too!”

“Yes ma’am,” I hear him say.

All the stress I released with the alcohol comes back with a vengeance. My anxiety is getting worse.

At dinner I try to keep up with the conversation, but I am too wrapped up in my own head. I can’t stop thinking about Taylor, my job, and all the lies I am keeping up with. I get more anxious with every passing minute. Everyone is telling stories, and I try to look attentive; I even laugh in the right spots, but I know Taylor isn’t convinced. He keeps sneaking me questioning glances that I don’t answer. I manage to eat most of my dinner, but only because I know my mother is paying attention.

When we get back home Malin demands a board-game tournament, and everyone heads to the game room to choose something. The room is big and filled with everything from pool to darts to pinball, which kept us occupied as kids. Now it also boasts a fantastic bar filled with top-shelf liquor to keep us occupied as adults.

It is probably stupid, but I think a drink might help me calm down or at least clear my head enough to understand why I feel so apprehensive. I kick off my sandals in the corner and head towards the alcohol. As usual, as soon as I get anywhere near one of them, my brothers call out drink orders. Everyone else follows suit.

Brody and Liam play darts, and the girls debate the merits of all the board games in an attempt to decide what we should play. My parents have parked themselves on the big sectional in the corner, and even though I don’t look up, I can feel Taylor watching me. Making the cocktails is good, actually, because for about twenty minutes it gives me something to do with my shaky hands. Once everyone has a drink, I make my own and take a swallow that decreases the liquid in my glass by half.

“What about Scrabble?” Miko asks the room.

“No!” my brothers say in unison.

“Max will murder you at Scrabble,” Malin tells her seriously. “You have no idea.”

Taylor catches my eye and smiles. I look away and take another drink.

Landon and Miko are both sitting on the floor in the corner, and they go back to digging through the game shelves.

“What about Password?” Mom asks everybody.

“You cheat at Password!” Malin laughs back at her.

Mom’s only response is a giggle and a raise of her eyebrows. My dad leans over and kisses her cheek as if even after all these years she is still the coolest person he knows.

Liam lets out a whoop when he strikes the bull’s-eye, and I turn to watch him handing out high fives at the same moment Landon gasps. I don’t turn immediately, because Landon is overly dramatic and could be reacting to anything. I start to take another sip of my drink when she squeals.

“Max, is this
you
?”

Everything in me stills completely.

I am walking across the room towards her before my eyes can even focus on what she is holding. I stop a foot away from where she and Miko sit in the corner. They are flipping through an old photo album, the kind that my mom used to have everywhere until I begged her to put them away. She put them here, along with all the other pictures of me from before, so I wouldn’t see them and have to be reminded.

The blood starts pounding through my body, and my heart is beating so hard I can hear it in my ears. Nobody else seems to notice my distress. Landon and Miko are immersed in the pictures on each page.

Landon’s voice is filled with laughter. “All this time you have given me grief!” she says without looking up. “How many blonde jokes have you told me? How many times have you teased me about the color pink? Max, you looked like a Barbie doll!” She laughs outright now.

Miko nods in agreement. “Seriously, dude, why did you chop your hair off? Even I want to make out with you in this photo!”

I rub my palms down the front of my dress, fighting the urge to be sick. Malin leans over the page to see the photo they are looking at. I don’t need to get closer to see the images; I know what they show. A lifetime of shots of me with the same blonde hair as my mother and the same pampered outlook on life that Malin has now.

“Oh, she did that freshman year at Georgetown,” she says flippantly.

“When were you at Georgetown?” Landon asks, turning the page.

“She went there for part of her undergrad.” Malin reaches out and starts shuffling a deck of cards as she shares more facts. “Went away that year with this perfect, long blonde hair and a golden tan, then came back at summertime all angry goth. You’d actually probably die of disbelief if you knew what she was like then,” Malin continues, blissfully unaware of her story’s effect on me in the way only a sheltered twenty-two-year-old can be.