Summer's Desire (44 page)

"That
is
reassuring, that
it's not you driving," I tell her only half-jokingly. "But really,
there's nothing I need to buy..."

"Summer, it's the mall! You don't
need a special reason for going to the mall! Come on, it'll be fun!"

I don't know about fun... but it's not
like I have anything better to do. Quite the opposite, in fact, what with Seth
being gone. Maybe an outing will help me get my mind off my worries. A light
bulb lights up in my mind. Even better, maybe I can meet up with Seth in Grand
Rapids after the trip to the mall, and we can drive back together.

"All right, Susan. I'm in."

"Yay! I finally got you to go
shopping with us! My persuasion powers are like Jedi Master–grade."

I grin. "So is your modesty."
Then, struck by a sudden suspicion, I ask, "Who else is coming?"

An infinitesimal hesitation. "Oh,
just me, you know, and Tracy..."

"Yes..."

"And Mandy..."

"Okay."

"And... there's a tiny, smallish,
itsy bitsy chance Elle might meet us there."

"Really, Susan? And you didn't
think to mention that before?"

"Well, if I had, I couldn't have tricked
you into saying yes," she points out with perfect satisfaction and just a smidge
of shame. "You already agreed, so you can't back down now!"

"But Susan, did it have to be
Elle
?"

"I know, I know, Summer, but truth
is she said she felt bad about being... you know, so mean and jealous of you, and
wanted to apologize."

"Really."

"You'll give her a chance, Summer? Like,
I know she's not the easiest person to get along with, but we've been friends
since kindergarten, and she's different than you think. Pretty please, give her
another chance!"

I sigh. "Let's just see how
tomorrow goes, all right?"

"Yay! I promise you, Summer, we'll
have the most super time!"

Somehow, I doubt it.

* * *

It's the first time I've ever gone
shopping with girls my age, and saying that I'm feeling overwhelmed and swept
over and helplessly caught in a veritable hurricane of shopping enthusiasm and
proficiency would be an understatement. I can honestly say that Susan, Tracy,
and Mandy could compete in the shopping Olympics and win, no sweat.

They've been like bunnies on batteries
ever since we entered the mall three hours ago, and I've had my hands full just
trying to keep up with them as they flitted from store to store, trying out the
most outrageous (two thirds of the time) and beautiful (the rest of the time)
clothes and buying almost half of them. They're laden with dozens of shopping
bags and they've finally paused—thank goodness!—for breath. Or more accurately,
for an early lunch; I don't think they need to breathe as long as they're
shopping, but they do need sustenance to have the energy to go on.

The four of us are sitting at a table in
the food court, eating salads, and I notice that Tracy is looking at me with
something akin to admiration.

"Tracy, you're staring."

She shakes her head. "I'm sorry,
Summer. It's just hard not to feel awe at your self-restraint. You've been at
the mall for all of three hours, gone with us through dozens of shops, and yet
you haven't bought a single thing. Mom would
love
to have you as her
daughter."

I smile. "I think your Mom is happy
enough with the daughter she already has."

"Besides," Mandy adds with a
smirk, "Summer did buy something."

"Please!" Susan scoffs
absentmindedly, frowning at her phone. "She bought something for her inamorato;
that's got to be breaking all sorts of laws: buying something for your man but
nothing for yourself!"

I don't know about breaking any laws,
but I'm very happy with my one purchase. I've bought a keychain for Seth (he
uses just a regular metal ring now for his keys), and it's nothing fancy, just
the steel key ring linked to a leather key fob. But the leather is intricately
crafted, with lots of swirling, interesting patterns—and if you look very
closely, you can distinguish, right in the center of the model, a small heart-shaped
form.

Mandy smiles wider. "Maybe in this
case Summer's better served by making her—how'd you call him?—inamorato happy.
Then he'll be making her a very, very happy girl in return."

"Ugh, I can't believe that traitor!"
explodes Susan, slamming her phone on the table.

"Elle's still not answering her
phone?" I ask. Susan's been calling her all morning.

"Straight to voice mail every single
time. I can't believe she's stood us up! Especially when this trip was really
her idea so she could make it up to you, Summer."

Make it up to me? Yeah right.

My phone pings with an incoming message.
I open it and all blood drains from my face.

* * *

I'm at the address specified in the text
message. I took a taxi to get here, which is a first for me and which cleaned
me out of all the cash I had on me. But I had no choice if I wanted to find
this place. And I did.

I enter the apartment building, go up
one flight of stairs, and stop in front of the door marked No. 14. I raise my
hand to knock but change my mind and just turn the door knob instead. The door
opens.

My heart is a clawing creature twisting inside
my chest, fluttering in an uneven rhythm. I try calling Seth one last time, but
it goes straight to voicemail again. I forward him the message and pass through
the door. I don't bother to close the door behind me.

I'm in a big, sunny living room. I see
two doors: one to my right, closed, and one left half-open to my left. The pink,
frilly bra lying on the floor is closer to the left door, so that's where I
head.

Before the door, I pause... just for one
moment. Then I push against it and it slides open with ease. I pass through it
and into a large bedroom.

My eyes fall on the white, fluffy carpet
first—the obscene backdrop to a haphazard trail of discarded clothes, which
leads to the bed at the opposite side of the room. The male jeans and
long-sleeved jersey on the floor I recognize.

The huge bed is another obscenity in the
bright morning light, with its sheets all twisted and tangled as if they had
been the battleground of a very physical war.

Our bed back home always looks that way
in the mornings, when Seth and I rise up from it.

Only there are never any used condom
wrappers lying on the floor beside our bed—unlike here.

On the bed, a beautiful, naked brunette
stretches languorously and opens her eyes. On seeing me, a brilliant, cruel
smile blooms on her face, and she slowly sits upright in bed. Then, even
slower, she draws the sheet up to cover her naked breasts.

"Who are you?" she asks, still
smiling.

"You know who I am. I got your
text."

"I don't know what you're talking
about," she says, not even bothering to try and sound sincere.

"Where's Seth?" I ask her
calmly.

"Where do you think he is?" she
retorts cattily, starting to comb her mussed hair with her fingers.

"I don't know. I haven't spoken to
him today." I called him several times this morning to tell him about my
trip with the girls, but his phone was turned off. The last time I talked to
him was last night—when before we hung up, he told me that he loved me.

And here I am now. I came to Grand
Rapids to make him a surprise. But the surprise's definitely on me.

"He went to buy me breakfast,"
the brunette purrs. "He's bringing it to me in bed."

"It's almost midday. Kind of late
for breakfast."

Her smile stretches wider, the blood-red
color of her lipstick quite a propos for this entire bloody mess, I think.

"We've had a busy morning,"
she says. "Seth's barely let me up for air, much less food." I
shudder at the sliminess of her words. "The poor boy, he was so deprived
of some good fucking. He fell on me like a starving beast."

It takes a supreme act of willpower to
keep my monstrous fury in check and not jump her and crush her poisonous, sleazy
smirk along with her face. I have to look away from her to try and regain a
semblance of calm.

"You should get going now, midget,"
she prompts when I just stand there, wordless and unmoving. "Tick-tock,
the clock's ticking. Your
boyfriend
will be back soon and you don't want
him to find you here."

I shudder again at her words. I turn and
look straight into her hateful eyes. "Sure I do. The party isn't complete
without him."

She jerks back in surprise but recovers
swiftly. "Poor, pathetic midget, so useless at keeping her man satisfied. Don't
you at least have a smidgeon of pride?"

"I do have pride. See how I haven't
lowered myself to your level and scratched your eyes out?"
Yet.

"How pathetic are you?" she
launches at me full volume, her smile nowhere in sight now. "You're worse
than a dog, still hanging around with your tongue lolling out, ready to throw
yourself at your master's feet! Even though he's been cheating on you!"

"Why should you care if I'm being pathetic?"

"Is it any wonder he went looking
for a real woman?!"

"I don't see any real woman in that
bed. Just a whore."

"His whore," she replies with
another smile, but this one noticeably brittle, "—and proud of it. Now
that you know it, leave!"

"I don't want to leave."

That's unmistakably a look of panic in
her eyes now. She jumps out of bed, wrapped in her sheet, and takes two steps
toward me. "You stupid midget! He's been screwing around behind your back!
Those are his clothes on the floor, he's fucked me all morning, he'll be back
any second so we can fuck some more—and you're still here?"

"Maybe I want to make sure that
there'll be no more screwing."

"He doesn't really want you, stupid
cow! He needs someone like me to fulfill his needs. You should cut your losses
before it's too late and you turn more pathetic than you already are!"

"You see, that's where you're
wrong: I'm not stupid. And I'm not leaving until Seth gets here."

She's pale as marble now, her eyes
glittering furiously. "Get the hell out of my house!"

"No. I have an invitation to be
here." When she looks at me blankly, I add, "Your text message."

"Then I'm leaving," she says
and makes to pass by me.

I take a side-step and block her way.
"You aren't leaving either." The menace in my voice surprises me, and
makes her fall back a step.

Then she comes rushing at me, and I
slide smoothly to the side and trip her up. Aided by my helpful push, she
crashes to the floor with a very satisfying thud. Seth's been teaching me some
interesting moves in the past few weeks. Of course, I'd hardly call myself an
expert, but she's only about my size, currently wrapped in a sheet that
seriously restricts her mobility, and she hasn't got a clue of the rage brewing
inside me and lending me strength. There's no way she can make it past me out
of this room.

Though she tries very hard.

Half an hour later I think I hear
someone stepping inside the apartment. Just a whisper of sound, and then I
perceive nothing more even though the door to the living room is half-open. I
only know of one person who can move so quietly.

A minute later, I hear: "Andrea? Did
you move my stuff from where I left it?"

I raise an eyebrow at Andrea who's
sitting on the floor beside the bed with her knees drawn to her chest, sporting
a blackening eye, scratched hands, and seriously messed up hair.

I'm feeling a few tender spots myself,
but they're less obvious, hidden beneath my clothes. And there's no question who's
hurt worse of the two of us.

"Andrea?" I hear again, and I glare
at her to answer.

"In here," she chokes out.

A moment later he pushes against the
door and appears in the doorway. I'm shocked at the way he looks—very tired and
pale and with a busted lip—but there's no doubt that he's even more shocked at
finding me here.

"Baby? What are y—" He stops
mid-word as his eyes slide lightning-quick around the room. I know that he
notices everything in just in that one quick second: my disheveled appearance,
the even more disheveled look of Andrea and that she's obviously naked under
her sheet, his clothes that are scattered all across the floor, the messy bed,
the empty condom wrappers that are lying on the floor. His face—his entire
body—turns to stone.

"I tried to call you earlier,"
I tell him.

In a slow movement utterly devoid of his
customary energy and decisiveness, he turns his head to look at me. A slight
tremor—so swift I wouldn't have noticed it if I wasn't watching so
carefully—quakes through him. His eyes are dark with something that I could
almost swear was fear. But I have never known Seth to be afraid of anything.