The Trouble with Lexie (22 page)

“She did. He didn't. He was pissed. He walked me to the car and was saying all sorts of things to me before I drove off.”

“Like what?”

Lexie shook her head. Her heartbreak, which had been tamped down due to the intense panic this morning, pulsed through her body in full force at the memory of Daniel speaking to her in that foreign voice. “I don't remember what he said as much as I remember that he seemed to hate me.”

“So you came here, woke up Ethan, and revenge-fucked him?”

“No. That was totally unplanned. I think I ran into him when I was going into the building. Or maybe I ran into him in the hall. Wait. I ran into him outside the building. And I was messed up on the Klonopin—”

“How many did you take?”

“One before we went to the bar—”

“And you did all those shots?! Are you trying to kill yourself?”

“Maybe a couple more at the Waites' house? And—” Lexie suddenly remembered taking the Klonopin off her breasts with Ethan. She cringed. “I took one with Ethan.”

“He took one, too?!”

“Yeah.” Lexie wanted to bang her head against the pew in front of her and knock herself out cold.

“So you drugged him
and
fucked him?”

“Uh-huh. And it gets worse.”

“Honey, I don't know how much worse this could get. Did you
and Ethan run out and rob a convenience store, pick up a hitchhiker on the way home, and then blow him together in the car?”

“I accidentally stole Jen Waite's vibrator.”

Amy looked at Lexie and then she burst out laughing. Within seconds Lexie was crying and laughing at the same time.

“All right,” Amy said, once she had pulled herself together. “This is supremely fucked up, but I think you'll be able to get out of it. I don't think Ethan will tell anyone.”

“Yeah. He's way more mature than most boys his age.”

“Apparently.” Amy gave a sly smile. “And if Jen Waite was dumb enough to buy your story, there'll be no problem there. Daniel's not going to tell her the truth.”

“I have to get my shit together.” Lexie pushed the meat of her palms into her eyes to stop herself from crying. “I need to forget about what happened last night and forget about the eight months I wasted being in love with someone who wasn't who he said he was.” She dropped her hands.

“Have you heard from Daniel since they found you in their bed?”

“No.” Lexie pulled her cell from her jeans pocket and clicked over to her texts. Betsy had written
huh?
in response to Lexie having sent her a picture of the Waite bathroom. Lexie clicked on Daniel's name. “Oh shit.” Her stomach lurched. “I have no memory of this.”

“Did he text?” Amy took the phone from Lexie's hand. She looked down at the screen. There was an outgoing text from Lexie. It said:
I just fucked Ethan. He's a way better lover than you.

S
HE MIGHT AS WELL HAVE HAD THE FLU, FOR LEXIE COULD BARELY
get herself out of bed. Daniel hadn't contacted her all day and Amy would not allow Lexie to call or text him, though she was desperate to do so.

“What time is it?” Lexie had slept for what may have been ten minutes and may have been ten hours. The curtains were shut but the bedside lamp was on, giving the small room a glow like the inside of a train car.

“Six.” Amy was sitting beside Lexie, reading one of the books that had been on Lexie's nightstand.

“Go meet Cal for dinner. I promise I'll be fine.”

Amy closed the book and stared at Lexie. “You're not going to call him, right?”

“I swear. Well, maybe. Okay, yes, I'm going to contact him. I can't let that last text sit there undiscussed.”

Amy sighed. “Fine. Get it over with while I'm here. And re
member, tell him that as far as that text is concerned you made it up to be mean.”

“I know, I know.” Lexie sat up. She wore a Ruxton T-shirt and a pair of Daniel's boxer shorts she had taken from his Boston place. When she had put them on, she told Amy they were Peter's. Peter, who didn't own underwear. Amy would have thrown them away had she known the truth.

Lexie reached under the pillow and pulled out her phone.

“Welcome?” Lexie turned the phone to Amy. “Why does it say
Welcome
?” The word
welcome
in several different languages scrolled across the screen.

“Let me see.” Amy took the phone from Lexie's hand and touched the word in English. “This is ridiculous!” Amy jerked her head from Lexie to the phone and back again.

“What? Did I send another unconscious text?” Amy's panic woke up Lexie. It felt like her blood had finally thawed and her brain was only now getting enough oxygen to think clearly.

“Your phone's been erased!” Amy swiped off the
WELCOME
screen and then handed the phone to Lexie. “Put in your password.”

Lexie typed slowly with her first finger. “Why is it erased?” The password didn't work. She typed it again. It still didn't work.

“Gimme that.” Amy took the phone. “What's your password?”

“Three two six four three five. It spells
Daniel
.”

Amy rolled her eyes. She punched in the numbers slowly, with deliberation. “What a fucking asshole!”

“What?”

“Your password's been changed. Did you back up everything onto your computer?”

“No. Daniel told me not to because it's the school's computer.”

“Well, what about the cloud? Doesn't the cloud back it up automatically?”

“Well, yeah, normally, but Daniel fixed my phone so it doesn't back up to the cloud. He was worried about someone at Ruxton taking my computer and—” Lexie stopped as she realized what was gone: every photo of herself and Daniel. Every text between the two of them. Besides a couple pairs of earrings and a watch, the texts and photos were the only artifacts she had from her eight months of believing she was with her one great love.

“He is such a Yankee asshole.” Amy appeared to be more furious at Daniel than she'd been at Lexie for sleeping with Ethan.

“Did
he
erase my phone?” Lexie couldn't align the Daniel she thought she knew with the Daniel who was currently presenting himself.

“Yes! You traded passwords, IDs . . . everything!” Amy gave Lexie a slap on the shoulder with the back of her hand.

“I can't believe he thinks I'd send that stuff to Jen . . . that'd I'd out him.” Lexie was genuinely hurt. Yes, he was a lying asshole. But she wasn't! She wouldn't betray him!

“Do you remember his password?” Amy got off the bed and fetched Lexie's laptop from the dresser. She brought it to the bed and handed it to Lexie who immediately started typing.

“It doesn't work.” Lexie looked up at Amy.

“I bet it only worked the week he gave it to you, the week you and I went through his email. And you know what else?”

“What?” Lexie didn't want to know. Hadn't she bottomed out already?

“I guarantee he had cleaned out, deleted, and erased any emails
that would indicate he was married and had left those few to throw us off.”

“To throw
me
off. He probably didn't imagine you were checking with me.”

“Oh, no. He imagined that. Someone as sinister and underhanded as Daniel Waite knew perfectly well I would get on that computer with you and check. This is bullshit!” Lexie had never seen Amy so angry. It was nice to know that there was someone in the world who was fully on Lexie's side.

Lexie closed the computer and pushed it aside. She leaned over the edge of the bed and let her cell phone drop to the floor. “I'm done.”

“What do you mean you're done?”

Lexie pulled up the covers and wormed down deep into the bed. “I mean, this is over. It's probably better that he erased my phone. It will prevent me from sitting around looking at photos, reading old texts, and wallowing about what I thought we had.”

“What you had was not real.”

“I know.” Lexie closed her eyes. “It'll be easier for me to move on if there's no evidence.”

“You probably sent me a picture or two.” Amy scrolled through her texts with Lexie.

“No, I didn't.” Lexie shook her head. She'd never thought of herself as someone so easily duped. But evidence to the contrary was right before her. Daniel had asked her to never download or send out a photo of the two of them together until Ethan knew about the relationship. He claimed he didn't trust the Internet and Lexie had honored his wishes. And they had never emailed because Daniel had told her the desktop computer at the lake house
had all his accounts on it, password free. Ethan used that computer when he was home and Daniel didn't want him finding out about them—their pending marriage (
ha!
)—until he had told his son the full story.

“You're right.” Amy kept searching as if she didn't quite believe it. “I don't have any photos of you two.”

“I'm going back to sleep.” Lexie shut her eyes. She'd had enough of reality. Unconsciousness in any form—sleep or death—was all she wanted.

SOMEONE WAS POUNDING ON THE DOOR. LEXIE OPENED HER EYES.
There was no knowing how long she'd been out. The bedside lamp was on and the curtains were closed but Lexie could tell it was night. Amy was gone. There was a note on the bedside table:
I'm at Cal's. I stuck a notice on your door that says you're sick and to call Artie if there's an emergency. —A

The pounding continued. Lexie got out of bed, pulled off the boxer shorts, and pulled on her jeans. She stood firm as a pointing dog, listening to the persistent thumps. Her heart beat along with the rhythm. If Amy's note was on the door, it couldn't be a student banging. They were, for the most part, too obedient to disregard the note. And it couldn't be Amy. She had a key. None of the faculty would be so rude as to bang like that . . . it had to be Daniel.

Lexie couldn't stop herself from running into the bathroom, putting on mascara and brushing her teeth. What she wanted more than anything was for Daniel to tell her that he'd made a mistake, he was leaving Jen and he wanted to be forgiven. All the deception . . . well, it was a mix-up! He wasn't that horrible guy after all!

Lexie smeared Vaseline on her lips and went to the door. Ethan was on the other side. His face was red; his eyes were redder. He pushed in past Lexie and stood in the middle of the living room.

Lexie locked the door behind him in case someone else decided to pop in. “What's going on?” She tried to remain calm but her heart pummeled against her like a trapped animal.

“You tell me what's going on!”

“Shhh.” Lexie put her finger to her lips. Her hand shook. “Sit down.”

“I don't want to sit down.”

“I'll sit.” Lexie sat on a chair and looked up at Ethan. She felt the physical imbalance in power as he hovered over her. But standing with her wobbly legs offered a worse option than cowering below Ethan. Soon enough, Ethan sat on the couch opposite her. He leaned over his knees and dropped his head into his hands.

“Please tell me what's going on,” Lexie said.

“You fucked my dad.” Ethan looked up at Lexie.

“Watch your language.” It was all Lexie could think to say.

“You and I fucked, so I can say fuck. You. Fucked. My dad.” Ethan used his long, thick finger to point out each word.

“Why do you think that?” Lexie asked carefully.

“Because he and my mother took me out to the Inn on the Lake to warn me about you.”

Lexie's stomach was like a falling elevator. “Warn you?”

“You fucked my dad. You fucked me. You told my dad you fucked me. You broke into my house and you stole personal items from my mother.”

“What did I steal from your mother?” Would they actually tell Ethan about the vibrator?

“Personal stuff from her bedside drawer and her prescription antianxiety meds, which I ate off your tits, by the way.” Ethan stared at Lexie's chest in a way that made her feel like she had no control over her own body. She focused on her breathing. It was entirely possible that she might pass out and so she put all her energy into staying conscious.

“I'm sorry,” Lexie whispered. There wasn't energy enough to speak louder.

“You're a low-life, poor girl from some shit-hole town in California and you became obsessed with me, my dad, my family—”

He wasn't particularly wrong. She was a poor girl from a shit-hole town. And if loving Daniel so much that she would leave her fiancé for him wasn't an obsession, what was it?

“Is this who you want to be?” Lexie asked Ethan. “Someone who sees people not as fortunate as himself as lowlifes?”
Breathe,
Lexie said to herself.

“Who should I be? Someone like you?” Ethan's nostrils flared like a bull's.

“No.” At least not the person she'd been the past couple days.

“I thought we had something cool going on!”

“What we had was—” Lexie had no idea how to finish that sentence. She was glad when Ethan interrupted.

“Don't sit here and lie to me. My dad told us everything.”

“What is everything? What exactly did he tell you?” Lexie asked carefully.

“You met my dad in a bar, got him wasted, and fucked him. Then you stalked him like a crazy lunatic, you broke into our house, and when you couldn't have him again, you seduced me instead. Well, guess what? You are fucked. My dad's meeting with
Mr. McClear and maybe even the police tomorrow afternoon. You're going to be out of a job, out of a home . . . you're probably out of the whole state because there is no one in all of New England who will hire you now. My parents will be sure of that.”

“I see.” Without photos, without texts, it was her word against theirs. There was the option of finding someone at the Inn at the Lake to confirm her and Daniel's weekly night there . . . or speaking to the doormen at Daniel's building in Boston . . . but this was Daniel Waite. The doormen, the room service guy, the clerk at the Inn at the Lake, likely they would side with the guy who regularly slipped them folded bills. When your job depends on discretion, why vouch for the low-life girl from a shit-hole town in California?

“Everyone in this school's gonna know that you fucked a student.” Ethan stared at Lexie as if daring her to hold his gaze. Or maybe daring her to deny the charges.

“I suppose they will.” She didn't believe that. Don McClear and Janet Irwin and even Daniel Waite were committed to the idea that The Ruxton Academy was a place where nothing sordid, dark, or slippery went down. Lexie couldn't imagine they would risk the press finding out that the school counselor at one of New England's most elite boarding schools had slept with a student. Other than charges of racism in the '60s (all of it justified, Lexie assumed), no bad press had come out of Ruxton. It was as locked down as the Vatican.

“My mother's scared out of her mind! Do you know my dad is hiring a bodyguard for her? Seriously. My mom is going to have a fucking bodyguard! And we know that you probably drugged my dad to fuck him because you sure as hell drugged me. He says he doesn't even remember what happened! That's how good a fuck you were; my dad has
no memory
of ever even fucking you!
The only reason he knows it happened is because of the relentless stalking you did.”

Lexie was half-tempted to tell Ethan the truth. Although he probably wouldn't believe her. Also, she didn't want to change his world that way; she'd already altered things enough. This was her gift to Ethan Waite: She'd allow him to carry on thinking that he had grown up in the most fortunate circumstances with the most wonderful people. She'd let him walk through life certain that the genetic matter that had created him was all good and he, therefore, could have faith in his own goodness. “So why are you here?” she asked gently.

“I don't know. I was told to avoid you and to not say a word to you about anything. Ever. They're going to ambush you at some point, like when all the students are at their first period class on Monday. They'll have security and everything and you'll have to leave right then. They're even going to confiscate your computer.”

Maybe Daniel was worried that Lexie had downloaded photos in spite of what he'd asked. Lexie supposed when you were always lying yourself, it was hard to imagine that everyone else was being true. Daniel probably planned to have the computer handed over to him so he could destroy it. Don McClear wouldn't second-guess anything Daniel suggested. With annual donations that could build entire schools in needy neighborhoods, Daniel Waite could ask for and get whatever he wanted at Ruxton.

Lexie swallowed away the urge to cry. “Why aren't they coming tonight? Why not right now?”