The After Girls (27 page)

“No,” she said. “Audie told me he died in a car accident.”

“Yeah, that’s what everyone said. It’s not true.”

“No,” Sydney said. “No. It has to be. Audie said.”

“Did she go to the funeral? Because Jake says he’s alive.”

“No,” she said. “It was somewhere far away.” She realized how futile it sounded as she said it. “She couldn’t go.”

Ella just stared at her. She waited a minute before speaking. “He didn’t die,” she said slowly. Surely. “He left them.”

“I don’t understand,” Sydney stammered. “Audie said that they were in love. Audie said that he was nice. She said — ”

“I don’t care what Audie said,” Ella’s voice was firm. “Why were you asking her about him anyway?”

“I don’t know,” Sydney said. “He came up, and then she was just saying all these things, and he sounded so nice, and — and — ”

“Why didn’t you tell me any of this?”

“You were preoccupied.” Ella rolled her eyes at that, but Sydney didn’t care. She didn’t have time to worry about her being mad — she was too busy trying to put it together. Trying to understand. She knew Astrid was reserved, she knew she didn’t like to talk about the bad things, but her dad — she had a dad — living and breathing — and she’d told them he died?

“Wait?” she said. “Wait, what? You say we saw him?”

Ella nodded. “Remember the man in the suit who was crying?”

“What are you talking about?”

“At the funeral.”

Sydney racked her brain — she remembered the casket and the way Grace had looked and the way Ella had seemed like she was going to fall apart any second if she didn’t hug her, hold her together.

And then she saw him. The man, crying. Crying for his daughter.

And the tears came to her now, so hard and fast that she didn’t even feel them coming until her face was wet, and Ella was the one holding her together now, as her body shook so hard that they rocked Carter’s shitty old car.

Astrid’s dad was alive. And she’d never told them the truth.

And in a flash Sydney knew it, and it was so real, it hurt, sending a new round of sobs right through her.

They hadn’t really known their friend.

They hadn’t known her at all.

Ella managed to clean Sydney up before they left the car and headed into the party. She hadn’t checked her phone again. She didn’t want to. She didn’t want to go at all, really, but she knew that it would be better to at least make an appearance. Plus, she couldn’t leave Sydney now. Not until she’d at least calmed down.

It wasn’t hard to find Max, Carter, or Jake. They were congregated around the cooler, on an enormous porch that opened up to a view of the mountains that was unreal.

Carter grabbed them beers, and Ella watched as Sydney opened hers quick. She took a gulp — a long one — swallowed, waited a minute. Took another.

“Careful,” Ella said, but she opened hers as well, taking a sip as she scanned the yard for Ben. She didn’t see him.

Jake grabbed another beer for himself and walked over to where she stood. “Hey,” he said. “You guys alright?” He looked from her back to Sydney.

Ella nodded. He narrowed his eyes then and lowered his voice so it was almost a whisper. He leaned in close. “Did you tell her?”

But she didn’t have time to answer.

“There you are,” she heard Ben’s voice behind her. Loud.

She turned around. “Hey,” she said, putting on her best fake smile. “I’ve been looking for you.”

“I’ve been calling you all night,” he said. “
Allll
night.”

“I know,” she said. “I completely forgot, and my phone was off.”

“Why?”

“For the séance,” Max piped in.

She turned to him and gave him a look — not that he cared.

“Excuse me, what?” Ben asked, his voice getting louder. “Like to talk to dead people?”

He stared at her, his face red with anger. Or alcohol. Or both. She could tell that he was drunk — and it wasn’t like Ben to get drunk.

“I’m really sorry,” Ella said. “I should have called you.”

“Yeah, you should have called me,” Ben snapped.

“Whoa, dude,” Jake said, stepping forward. “She said she was sorry.”

“Shut up,” Ben said, without even looking at Jake. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Sydney, Max, and Carter slowly step away, giving them space. She wished she could just walk away with them.

“Did he go, too?” Ben asked.

She didn’t answer, but that was answer enough. “I see,” he said, nodding his head up and down. He threw his arm around her, giving her shoulder a squeeze. His beer can was icy against her skin, and he was holding her too tight. “So you’re telling me that you blew me off so you could do something that I wasn’t even told about with Indie Boy? Am I missing something?”

“Dude,” Jake said, stepping even closer. “It’s no big deal.”

“Dude,”
Ben said before looking back to Ella, and back at Jake again. “I wasn’t talking to you.”

“Hey,” Jake said. “No need to freak out.”

“No need to freak out? Says the guy spending all his time with my girlfriend?”

“All we did was go to a show together. No big deal.”

Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit.

Ben turned back to her, his jaw agape. For a second he didn’t look like angry Ben, like drunk Ben, like super-annoying, insecure Ben. He just looked like Ben. And he looked like he’d been betrayed.

“What is he talking about?” he asked, as if the whole macho thing had been an act until now. As if he’d really trusted her and was just giving Jake a hard time because he’d had one too many beers. The corners of his eyes turned down slightly, and she knew that she’d hurt him. It made her feel selfish. All hollow inside. “I thought you went with Sydney.”

“I never said that,” she said weakly, her voice shaky and soft.

“You never said that?” he yelled. His eyes were still sad but there was something else in them now. Fire. “You sure as hell implied it.” He took another big sip of beer.

“Hey,” Jake said, putting his hand on Ben’s shoulder.
Wrong move.
“We can work all this out when we’re all a little calmer.”

“Get your hands off me,” Ben said, giving him a shove. “And stay away from my girlfriend.”

“You don’t own her,” Jake said, giving him a shove back. “If she wants to hang out with me, she can.”

“Come on, guys,” she said, but they weren’t looking at her. “Don’t do this.”

But Ben wasn’t one to be pushed. Especially not in this state. She tried to grab his t-shirt, but he shrugged her off, and before she could do anything else, he was pushing back, tackling Jake to the ground. Girls around her screamed and almost on cue, people crowded around as Ben and Jake’s bodies fell to the grass.

“Fight,” an annoying, greasy freshman yelled.

The fight-obsessed losers pushed in front of her, but she wiggled through in time to see Ben throw the first punch. Blood dripped down Jake’s nose, but even though he was so much skinnier than Ben, he rolled away from him and lashed back, pushing him to the ground, his hand connecting with Ben’s eye.

“Stop it,” she pushed herself through and grabbed Jake’s shirt, digging her fingers into his shoulder. “Stop it,” she screamed, but he ignored her, shaking her off. They continued to go at it, and she looked up to see Sydney ushering Max and Carter towards the action. In a matter of seconds, they had pulled the two apart, Max holding Jake back, Carter offering a hand to Ben.

“Jesus,” Ben said, still on the ground. Dirt and blood covered his face.

Jake spit in his direction, his saliva tinged with red. “You know, if you weren’t such a controlling dick maybe she’d want to spend more time with you.”

Ben jumped up at that, but before he could get anywhere, Ella stepped in the middle of them.

“Stop,” she screamed. “Stop it!”

They calmed down, as if only now remembering why they were fighting in the first place. Her.

She turned to Ben. “You’re drunk, okay? We’ll talk about everything in the morning when it’s clearer and you can realize what an ass you’ve been.” Ben shrugged as he wiped some of the dirt from his face.

Then she turned to Jake who looked almost decidedly smug. “I don’t need you to defend me,” she said. “And I don’t need you to mediate my relationship. And I definitely don’t need you to judge who and who is not controlling me,” she snapped. “I’m in control of me. No one else.” And before he could protest, she pushed through the sweaty bodies around her, getting away as quickly as she could.

Sydney was right there, waiting for her, but Ella just shook her head. Between the journal and the cabin and the news about Astrid’s dad and the breakdown in the car and now this, she didn’t have any energy anymore. She didn’t have the energy to be sad. She didn’t have the energy to talk about it. She didn’t have the energy to accept Syddie’s help. She didn’t have the energy to try and forgive Jake or Ben.

“Please,” she said. “I just need to be alone.”

“How are you going to get home?” Sydney asked, but Ella just kept walking.

“Ella,” she said, grabbing onto her arm. “You can’t walk, not this late at night … hold on one sec,” Sydney said, as she disappeared back into the crowd.

Ella let out a sigh. All she wanted to do was go home and go to bed and forget about everyone, everyone in the whole world. Forget about the night. The whole year. Forget about Astrid. Forget they had ever been friends.

Sydney popped up a minute later, dragging Carter with her. “He can drive you,” she said. “He hasn’t had anything to drink yet.”

“You don’t have to.”

“It’s no big deal,” Carter said. “I can come back as soon as I drop you off. I’m sorry shit hit the fan tonight.”

“It’s okay,” Ella said. “Let’s just go.”

And Sydney gave her a hug — tight — and Carter led the way out, and she followed as quickly as she could because she didn’t want anyone else to try and stop her.

It wasn’t until she was home, until she was in bed, almost reaching sleep, that she heard the ding of her phone. She reached for it reluctantly — she didn’t want to talk to anyone, not Ben or Jake or Sydney — she was prepared to be annoyed.

She had a new text.

She clicked.

And she felt her breath catch in her throat, because it was what she’d asked for, what they’d joined together to beg for tonight. It was the proof that she wanted and needed and feared at the same time. But having it didn’t make her feel good — it only made her feel sick.

A text. A text from Astrid.

It’s all my fault.

“Well,
I
need another drink,” Max said, once Carter was gone and the crowd had cleared. “Mine got spilled by your friend’s asshole boyfriend.”

“He’s not an asshole,” Sydney said, watching as Ben’s football buddies surrounded him on the lawn. She didn’t know what had happened to Jake, and she didn’t care. She’d thought that his flirtation with Ella was cute, funny — something to tease her about — but now she just felt bad for Ben. Even if he had been an asshole.

“Whatever,” Max said. “You want one?”

“Sure.” Sydney followed him to the coolers.

In the distance, one of the football players pushed a blond-haired girl who looked to be about a size 2 into the pool. Sydney rolled her eyes, but Max looked like he enjoyed it. “We just had to come to a football party, didn’t we?” she snapped.

“Well, we’re here now,” he said. “How about something a little stronger?” She followed his gaze. On the porch, there was a bowl of red punch with no ice cubes that looked brutally dangerous.

“Perfect,” she said.

Max went straight to it and filled a plastic cup for him and another for her. He took a big gulp and his Adam’s apple went
glug-glug-glug-glug-glug
. Sydney stared at the fuchsia stuff in her cup, and for a second, she wondered if this was how alcoholics got their start, if they all had a friend who died or some other stupid thing that they wanted to forget.

“I should drink less,” she said. “When things get better.”

Max just laughed. “As long as you don’t start tonight.”

Sydney nodded without looking up. She took a big sip, and the sound of it — the familiar slurp, the echo in her ears as it rushed down her throat — drowned out the thumping bass and the sounds of fake girls giggling by the pool. It sounded like the beginning of forgetting. It sounded like something good.

And she took another sip and promised herself that it wouldn’t always be like this.

• • •

However long later, the world was beginning to spin.

Sydney was sitting on a dusty floor in a room of Pat Whoever’s huge house drinking beer and playing Circle of Death, Max on one side, Carter on the other — he’d come back to the party at some point, and after a few cups of punch seemed just about as drunk as they were.

It was Max’s turn, and he slowly turned over a King.

“Aha,” Sydney said, focusing very hard on the King’s stern face. “You get to make a rule.”

Max stroked his chin slowly, and then his eyes lit up. “I’ve got one,” he said. “When I say so, you have to do whatever I say.”

“That’s not a rule,” Carter said, but his words were already beginning to slur. “That’s bulllllshit.”

“I’m the King!” Max yelled. “I can do it if I want.” He burst into laughter.

“That’s not a ruuullle,” Carter said again, but Sydney could see that his eyes were drooping. He set his beer down and leaned back on his elbows and scooted towards the couch. He’d be out in seconds.

She pulled herself up, knocking her cup over, but it didn’t really matter because it was empty, and she scanned the room until she found what she needed.

Bingo!

She grabbed a big fluffy pillow and stumbled over to Carter. He was lying on the floor, and she tucked it under his head. “There.”

She sat back down and Max was staring at her.

“How about my rule?”

“Huh?” she asked.

“You have to do what I say.”

“And what’s that?” she asked. The room was definitely spinning now. Carter was beginning to snore.

“When I ask, you have to kiss me.”

Sydney shook her head, leaning back, far away from him. Far, far away from him. That’s not what he was supposed to say. She didn’t want to kiss Max anyway. He wasn’t the one she wanted anymore.