Wicked Games (9 page)

Tears streaming down her face, she fled to her mom’s car. She watched her hands shake as she pulled out of her parking spot and drove slowly, slowly, slowly home. She kept losing herself in thought, catching herself just as her car listed one way or another. But she made it eventually.

The lights were on in the family room. Her parents sat in their usual places—mom on the couch, dad in his club chair—watching, probably, one of those tedious BBC comedies they liked so much. No way could she let her mother see her like this. No way could she deal with the hundred thousand questions her mother would ask.

She snuck in, called out—croaked, really, she could barely get her mouth to form the words—“I’m home,” and raced up the stairs to her bedroom.

Locked inside, she turned on the overhead light and looked around the room. It was such a sad place. The bright, happy colors and hopeful decorations just seemed to make it sadder.

She flopped onto the bed, lying on her back, and
yanked her pillow toward herself. She covered her face with it, and pressed down. How great would it be if she could hold it there long enough to knock herself out, to stop her breathing. How great would it be if she had that kind of courage.

Instead she screamed into the muffling fabric, screamed until her throat hurt.

Then she flung the pillow away and sat up in a daze.

She bounced between searing outrage—how could he cheat on her? How could he have dared? Was she so horrid, so deformed and ugly inside, that she didn’t deserve his love anymore?—and annihilating self-hatred—what did Jules have that she didn’t? Sure, she was pretty, she knew how to do her make up real nice, but what was she really? A loser theater chick. She probably thought having pillow fights with her gay BFF Peter Talbot was what love was all about. And, still, Carter was out on a date with her. It mystified Lilah, baffled her.

She peered into the mirror above her vanity and twirled the mascara brush across her eyelid. When had she sat down here and started putting on makeup? She wasn’t sure. She’d been so lost in thought that the things she was doing with her body were a blank. Apparently, she’d dusted her eyelids with a subtle, shimmering purple eye shadow. She’d covered her cheeks in dark crème blush.

Leaning in close, she studied the pores of her skin
and wondered if Carter would think she looked pretty. Not as pretty as Jules, probably. She fished a tube of lipstick out of the mess of makeup and beautifying tools and loose necklaces and earrings piled on the vanity.

Jules wasn’t the only one who could tart herself up. If that’s what Carter wanted, well, she could do it, too. She’d show Carter how sexy she could be.

As she applied the lipstick, Lilah noticed how thin her lips really were. Not at all plump and luscious like Jules’s. She rubbed more lipstick on. And more. And more. Incrementally increasing the size of her lips.

The tears were rolling down her face now, taking the mascara she’d just applied down with them. She’d fix that later. Right now, she had to get the lips right. She stared with tunnel vision at her mouth and applied a little more lipstick.

When she adjusted her focus to assess her entire face, she saw a grotesque clown mask staring back at her. The lipstick was streaked all over her cheeks, a big garish splash of red from ear to ear. The mascara had turned into two huge, polluted deltas beneath her bloodshot eyes. She was hideous. Everything about her. Hideous.

How could she have ever thought Carter would stay with a person like her?

Repulsed by herself, she fell onto the bed and there was Lionel the Lion, the stuffed animal that Carter had won her—
her
, not that bitch Jules,
her
—which was the
way things were supposed to be. But they weren’t like that anymore. She punched the toy in the face. She punched it again. She punched it until its nose was smashed backward inside its face. Then she flung it away, too.

She knew what she should do. She should pull herself out of this stupor, at least for long enough to take one of the pills that Dr. Timmler had prescribed for her. She didn’t want to. She hated taking the pills. She hated the way they numbed her mind and separated her from the reality of her emotions. But they were meant for moments exactly like this one.

When she reached for the bottle on her bedside table, though, a letter her mom must have placed there distracted her. It was addressed to her, unopened, she saw with relief—for once her mother had resisted snooping in her mail—and the upper left-hand corner displayed the blue-and-red shield of the University of Pennsylvania.

Finally, something good has happened to me today,
she thought as she tore the envelope open. But when she read what was written on the letter inside, she just sobbed all that much more.

It was almost
midnight. A full moon hung above the water, shining its silvery light across the sand-strewn ground of the Slats. The time had just flown, and Carter and Jules now stood in the shadows under Jules’s house, in among the bleached wood stilts that held it up above the flood line.

Though neither of them wanted to admit it, it was time to say good-bye.

“I’m glad we did this,” said Carter.

Jules cracked that ironic, hard-to-read smile of hers. “We can do it again, anytime,” she said.

Carter ran his hand through his hair in that way that
she now realized he did when he was preoccupied with some hidden worry.

“Yeah,” he said. “That would be nice.”

They lingered there. Jules leaned against one of the stilts. Carter held himself a few feet away from her, keeping his distance as though if he got too close he’d fall into her and never be able to pull himself away.

“I guess . . . see ya,” she said.

“Yeah,” he said.

Neither of them knew quite how to leave the other. What was appropriate? Where was the line across which friends became something more? They weren’t sure. It was hard to see the lines on such an abstract map.

With a wry smile, Carter said, “
Friend
.”

And then he held out his hand to shake.

Jules wilted a little, letting the actress in her perform a deflating gesture that seemed to convey,
Really, that’s the way we’re going to play this?
But she took his hand and shook.

Their hands clung together, their fingers slipping lightly around one another. Gradually, almost despite themselves, they moved toward each other until they were inches apart, their noses grazing, their eyes locked and searching the depths of each other’s secret selves. It was like their bodies were acting of their own volition, like they had no control at all over what was happening.

Carter pulled his head away briefly, but then he gave
in. Their lips brushed against each other. They kissed. A feeling of inevitability and rightness passed between them. Carter could feel the soft give of her mouth against his skin.

Flash memories of that night after Jeff’s party sparked in Carter’s mind, the feel of their naked skin in the water, how they were entwined in each other’s arms. A small ache lit in his heart.

He yanked himself away.

“I can’t do this,” he said. He had both hands to his head, his elbows out at his sides, like he was trying to keep his brain from exploding.

Jules tried not to let her disappointment show. She leaned back against the stilt and waited for his explanation.

“It’s . . .” He lost himself in Jules’s face for a moment. “It’s not fair to Lilah.”

“You’re gonna try to work it out with her, then?” said Jules sadly, trying to appear understanding.

He couldn’t tell Jules he was afraid of Lilah hurting herself. That would have been too much of a breach of trust. But he owed Jules an explanation. He chose his words carefully. “I have to,” he said. “She’s going through something. I’m not even sure what it is, but I owe it to her to see her through it.”

Disappointment ticked at the edge of Jules’s mouth. “Good luck with that,” she said, not sure if she meant
this or if she was being sarcastic.

“I can’t, um . . .” He cleared his throat. “We probably shouldn’t hang out for a while.”

Jules nodded in sympathy, but then she pushed back just a little bit. “That sucks. I thought you and I had fun,” she said.

“It’s not . . . don’t get me wrong,” said Carter. “The problem is that I had too much fun. And—”

“Yeah, I know. Lilah.”

Jules quickly stepped around the beat-up old Honda that she’d inherited from her mother, putting some distance between the two of them.

Carter watched her, waited. When she reached the wooden stairs that would take her up to the house, she turned. She was out of the shadows now. The moonlight caught her hair.

Flashing a little wave, just a quick flap of her fingers, a whisper of a smile fluttering on her lips, Jules disappeared up the stairs.

And just like that, their date that was not a date was over.

Carter took the long way through Jules’s neighborhood, past the bungalows and stilt houses. As he wandered along the sand-strewn road, passing shuttered boutiques and fried-alligator depots, Carter mulled over the events of the night. He’d managed to resist. There was satisfaction in this, but also, weirdly, sadness. He
wondered if he’d just walked away from his one true chance at happiness. He wished that being true to Lilah didn’t feel like such a betrayal of himself.

Eventually he reached the edge of downtown, where there were sidewalks and bright streetlights and all the gleam and glitter of a thriving Florida beach town.

Cutting toward the beach, heading loosely toward Shearwater Boulevard, where his car was still parked in one of the rows of public parking lining the turnaround, he allowed himself a small smile. At least he’d had that one glorious night with Jules. He’d be able to keep that memory tucked inside himself forever.

Under the word balloon, Lilah had attached a photo. The weathered, wooden planks of a bench on the promenade. A familiar message carved there by Carter’s hand.
CARTER + LILAH
is what it said.

That Thursday afternoon
all the seniors were let out of seventh and eighth periods to go to the theater building for the senior awards ceremony.

Jeff got Class Comedian. He did a pratfall up the steps and when he was handed his plaque, he pulled out his Elvis impression and said, “Thankyou, thankyouverymuch.”

The legendarily douchey Donny Calhoon got the Ladies’ Man award.

Jerome Atkins, who was six foot eight and headed to Duke on a full scholarship, got Class Athlete.

When Jules was awarded Best Actress, Lilah’s
stomach roiled with nausea. To make up for this, she clapped extra hard.

Carter clapped, too, but less enthusiastically. He was afraid Lilah might see his feelings for Jules.

She leaned toward him and said, “She’s amazingly talented, isn’t she?”

“She was good in
Camelot
,” he said, shifting in his seat uncomfortably. They’d never spoken about Jules before. This was the first glimmer he’d received that Lilah even knew she existed. He studied her face for some hidden agenda, but he couldn’t find any hint of suspicion.

“I’m happy for her,” Lilah said. She snaked her arm around Carter’s and squeezed.

She tried not to notice how his whole body tensed in response.

The awards went on and on. The school had a policy in place to ensure that every single graduating senior was given something, even if it was something lame like Nicest Smile or Class Mechanic.

Lilah and Carter were named Class Couple. When their names were called, they looked at each other in astonishment. Scattered applause broke out in the auditorium.

“Are they making fun of us?” she asked him.