The Year We Fell Apart (9 page)

“Okay, I get it. You have never liked Declan.”

“Like that feeling isn’t mutual. He practically begged you to stop hanging out with me, as I recall. And whatever, it’s not even about that. Do you seriously not remember how long it took you to get over him last time?”

My eyes drift to her windowsill and land on the orchid her ex-boyfriend Christopher gave her last summer. Christopher, the boy she still has pictures of on her phone. She would never admit she holds on to a flower and a few blurry photographs because she never really let go of Christopher.

I fold the skirt neatly and put it on the bed. “I remember.”

“Be careful how close you let him get.”

A sequined top lands next to me.

“Try that,” she tells me, already stepping out of the skirt she just put on and kicking it aside. “Ugh. My thighs are getting so fat. I need to do some serious lunges before I wear that again.”

“Sadie, you’re a twig. Knock it off.”

She wrinkles her nose at her reflection. Turning to look at her profile, she sighs. “With no muscle definition. I’m going to start running tomorrow, I swear.”

This is beginning to feel a lot like when someone complains about how disappointed they are in their terrible SAT score, and yours is significantly worse. Whenever Sadie criticizes her chest-stomach-hips-thighs, I automatically compare them to mine. And believe me, my score is definitely lower. Sadie always tells me otherwise, that she wishes she had my legs, or would kill for my butt. But in reality, going from two-a-day swim practices to hardly exercising at all is beginning to change my body. It’s hard, though, because my stomach hasn’t gotten the memo and I’m still hungry. All. The. Time.

I swap my shirt for hers. “Well, what do you think?”

Sadie yanks on my forearms to uncross them. She looks me over and nods her approval. “Wear it tonight.”

I look at myself in the mirror. Despite the couple pounds I’ve gained, I don’t look too bad. It’s a cute top. A bit tight, but less revealing than I thought it would be, with just the right amount of cleavage.

Sadie’s now wrapped in an even shorter skirt than the last one. “Ready?”

“Yeah.” I grab my purse and hand her the to-go bottle, taking one last look at her orchid before following her out the door.

Her dad jumps up from the kitchen table when we get downstairs.

“We’re going out,” Sadie calls to him as she slips into a pair of wedges and tosses me my flip-flops.

He rocks onto his heels and smiles at us. “Not too late!”

“Mmkaybye,”
she says, already halfway out the door.

  *  *  *  

I screw my face up until the taste of lukewarm vodka passes. Blowing out a fiery breath, I eye the far corner of the campsite, where Cory, Gwen, and Mackenzie are standing in a loose circle near the keg.

“Who are these girls, anyway?” Sadie grumbles. She nods in their direction.

She’s giving them The Look. The one where she clenches her teeth and wrinkles her nose, and her top lip curls up just slightly. It almost makes her ugly. Almost.

When she gives someone that look, I know the next ten to fifteen minutes will be spent discussing their numerous flaws as well as the various, unforgivable ways they’ve offended her.

“Gwen is the one with dark hair who looks pissed off most of the time. The blonde is Mackenzie. They’re in my photography class.”

“Is Mackenzie from 1955?” She squints in distaste at the full, tea-length skirt Mackenzie has on.

“At least she knows who she is.”

I scan the party again. A few people are relaying wood over to the bonfire pit in the middle of the clearing, where another team of guys is alternating between chugging from red plastic cups and trying to get the fire going. All that results is a funnel of white smoke. They haven’t realized the kindling is too damp, and at this rate they’ll be lit well before the fire. Cory and the girls move off to the side as a group gathers around the keg. Declan has to be around somewhere if Cory is here.

I’m really not as worked up about him as Sadie thinks. I know that one night isn’t going to change anything; that there’s no bridge back to who we were before. And I was being honest when I told Gwen we were just friends.

But I did feel
something
shift between us up on that water tower. It’s not completely crazy to think he might have felt it too.

“Well, she looks ridiculous,” Sadie says. She rests her foot on the front bumper and leans back against the hood. “Who invited her?”

I take another sip of vodka and grimace. “Declan did. Kind of.”

“Mm, that figures. Your charity case is taking on one of his own,” she says. My jaw tightens. Sadie either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care. “Anyway, all I meant was you’re way hotter.”

I know Sadie is just trying to be nice. But I don’t need to be prettier than Mackenzie, or anyone else for that matter.

A couple yards to my left, Declan strides back to the thick of the party.

“Hey, Declan!” I hop off the car and take a step toward him.

He must not have heard me. He keeps walking, and in one violent swing, he snaps the twig in his hand against a tree trunk. The open aggression of the gesture unnerves me.

Sadie nudges my arm with the bottle. “One more and then let’s go.”

I take another quick sip and Sadie stashes the vodka back in her purse. She grabs some bug repellent out of her trunk and we take turns spraying the backs of each other’s legs and arms. The chemicals coat my tongue, and I cough and back out of the cloud of DEET.

We walk up the row of cars into a clearing where forty or so people are split into small groups. The site is about a mile into the forest, and people are already taking full advantage of the fact that we can be as loud as we want.

Cheers erupt as the bonfire finally catches, and it takes a few moments for the series of congratulatory back-pats and fist-pumps to subside. I love a good campfire—the sound of logs hissing and crackling as they heat up, the smell of burned leaves left on my clothes and in my hair. But I try to keep Sadie away from open flames if I can help it, so I steer us toward the far side where Will and a few other guys from school have set up to play beer pong.

This new location also happens to have a view of Declan, who’s rejoined the circle next to Cory. I know I need to stop looking at him. But the thing is, he’s wearing this green golf shirt that I’ve seen a thousand times. The soft cotton one that always smells like his citrus detergent. Only it fits him differently now. Like if he flexed it might burst open and reveal a giant S across his chest.

God. I seriously need to stop looking at him.

Gwen catches my eye and waves. I try to gesture that I’ll be over in a minute. Her nose wrinkles and she shakes her head. I guess I’m not that good at sign language.

I turn back to Sadie, who hands me a beer. Before I can ask where she even got it, she raises both arms over her head and opens her mouth at something over my shoulder.

“Pooh Bear!”

Oh boy.

Kyle snakes his arm around my waist and pulls me into a side hug. “Hey, Sloan, having a good time?”

“Yeah!” Sadie says. She sends me a wink. “Harper was just telling me what a great time she’s having.”

“Glad to hear it.”

Kyle’s hand is lingering. I step away and sneak a glance at my friends. Declan’s back is to me. Gwen nods distractedly to something he’s saying, but she’s watching me.

I have to get away from Kyle.

No sooner do I think this than he once again shuffles closer. His hand slides around my hip and his fingers find their way into my back pocket. His toxic cologne smothers me. Honestly, what is he thinking with that stuff?

“Nice night for a walk. If you’re interested later.”

Putting my hand firmly on his shoulder to keep him in place, I take a stride backward. “I’m going to go catch up with some friends now.”

“Cool,” he says with eyes that travel farther south by the second.

Sadie is already snuggled up to Will, so I wander over to Declan and that group by myself. As I slide between two people, I glance up and catch a rigid look on Declan’s face. I hesitate for a moment before pushing the rest of the way through.

He’s standing alone when I reach him. “Hey.”

“Hi.”

“That was a fun class this morning, huh?”

He nods and looks over my head. Looks everywhere but at me.

“You okay tonight, Dec?”

Finally, he meets my gaze. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

When Declan first went away last August, we spoke every night after dinner. Even on the nights we had nothing to say, the nights when all we could do was lie in bed with our phones pressed against our ears and listen to each other breathe. We were in love; we were
finally
together. And we were determined not to let the distance undermine our relationship. But after a few weeks, he started to slip. The calls became every other night. And before long, our conversations were even more painful than the silence.

I tried not to let it show how lonely I was without him. I didn’t tell him about crying myself to sleep or about how I couldn’t bear to go to the tree house anymore. Never told him how much it hurt when he’d forget to call me back. Because I wasn’t going to be that kind of girlfriend, the kind so dependent on her boyfriend that she can’t manage to be happy without him. Or the kind who would turn his time of need into something all about myself. I just tried to cope with it as best I could. Which, as it turns out, was not very well at all.

I dig my toe into pine needles and sand. “I don’t know,” I say in a small voice.

Gwen is over by the keg now, with Mackenzie and Cory. Everyone except Mackenzie is filling a red plastic cup. My own drink weighs down my hand. I lower it to hip level.

All of us drinking . . . that would explain why Declan is so out of sorts. Not that he hasn’t tried it himself, but that was before a drunk driver killed his mother. As far as I know, Declan hasn’t touched alcohol since.

Still, I don’t know what else he expected from a kegger in the woods.

Someone throws a bunch of pine needles onto the bonfire, sending sparks up toward the sky. The needles smoke out and the party suddenly smells like Christmas. Like a thousand afternoons spent playing hide-and-seek in the forest with Declan.

“So.” I tuck my hair behind my ear. Then I can’t keep my hand still, so I do it again. “Your dad must be happy to have you home.”

“Don’t know about that. You remember what he’s like.”

I remember hearing him yell at Declan for leaving dirty dishes in the sink, or for forgetting his basketball in the driveway. He’d holler over the smallest of infractions, with little regard for how much it upset his family.

And then I remember the way he hugged Declan the day he left for boarding school. Holding on so hard I thought he’d never let go.

“I know he’s tough . . . but you haven’t seen him since Christmas, right?”

“Yeah, well. I think he’s gotten used to being on his own. But he’s out of town on business half the time and I’ll be caddying most weekends, so I doubt we’ll cross paths much these next couple months. Then I’ll go back to school. Problem solved.”

“Oh . . . school is still good, then?”

“Yeah, great. Really great. Thanks for asking.”

The wind picks up, funneling smoke straight at us. We both shuffle to the side and Declan leans against the trunk of a pine tree, looking away again.

This attitude is what I’ve expected ever since seeing him in Cory’s driveway. I just don’t know why he waited until now to show it. And I don’t understand what’s changed since the Fourth.

Unless I imagined everything about that night. Confused sympathy for affection. And I must have, because if his stiff posture and closed-off demeanor are any indication, I’ll be lucky to get another hour out of this trial friendship of ours.

It was unfair to break down in front of him that night. I can’t blame him for wanting to set boundaries. He probably wishes he never started speaking to me again in the first place.

Mackenzie comes over with Cory. “You came! Wow, you look different,” she says.

Gwen follows behind them. “Smokin’.”

Cory purses his lips. He clearly disagrees with her assessment, but he can also kiss my ass.

I manage not to look at Declan for his reaction. “Thanks. You girls look great too. Mackenzie, I love your skirt.”

“Oh, thanks!” She looks down and makes the full skirt sway a little side to side. “I work at Second Helpings. That vintage store on Ninth? Most of my paycheck tends to go right back to the owner.”

“Mackenzie wants to work in costume design,” Declan adds. He turns to her. “Harper isn’t really interested in theater.”

“No, that’s . . .” I frown at Declan. Where did that come from? “I think that’s great,” I finish.

Gwen clears her throat. “Need a refill, Harper? I do. Let’s go.” She hooks her arm through mine and leads me to the keg. “So who was that guy you were talking to a minute ago?”

“He’s no one.” I pump the keg a few times and fill both cups. “Just this guy from school.”

“So you two aren’t . . .”

“No. Definitely not.”

She nods thoughtfully, and I glance over my shoulder. Declan is over by the speakers now, talking to Catherine Daniels. Catherine has been crushing on Declan since the sixth grade. And if he didn’t know it before, he does now.

She pulls him toward the dance party and promptly shoves her huge boobs in his face.

Well. Who can compete with that.

With a tight smile I excuse myself from Gwen, following the perimeter of the clearing and sipping my beer. The farther away from the fire I get, the more I notice how much the temperature has dropped since the sun went down. The song changes, but Declan and Catherine keep dancing. I remind myself I have no claim on Declan. None whatsoever.

Especially now that Catherine is ever-so-discreetly grinding her ass into his crotchal region. God, could she be any more aggressive? Not that Declan seems to mind. He is a guy, after all. And they’re all the same. Every. Single. One of them.

Not that it’s any of my business if Catherine is his type. It’s just, I could understand why he would be interested in someone like Mackenzie, with her shiny ponytail and tiny waist. But now all of a sudden he’s into this girl who insists on being called
Cat
? And who, for the record, actually had to serve a suspension last year for breaking the dress code eleven days in a row. No joke.
Eleven warnings,
this girl had. Just put on a fucking sweater.