The Prologue (9 page)

Tears are pricking my eyes, because his hands are trembling and I know that he’s completely serious. One time, when I really had tried to break it off, he had called me, and I’d heard nothing on the line but the sound of a gun cocking, over and over. I’d become a hysterical mess, and that was when I realized how trapped I truly was, that if I didn’t want to become a murderer, I had to stay with Tony, keep our secret. And keep it I have.

“I’m not going to leave you,” I say, and I say it over and over. “I’ll never leave you. I love you. I’ll stay here with you, Tony. I won’t leave you.”

Finally, he seems to come back to reality, as though this time he was the one that had floated away, and a saner look enters his eyes, which are bright with unshed tears of panic. Slowly, he lets go of my hair and takes a step back from me, and we’re both trembling, the air heavy with tension and emotion.

“Don’t ever make me do that again,” Tony finally mutters. “You know I hate it when you make me scare you.”

“I know,” I say, looking at the floor, sniffling hard to hold back my tears. “I’m sorry, Tony.”

“And don’t ever scare me like that again,” he snaps. “If you’re going to try and break up with me, at least grow up and don’t tiptoe around it. And if you want to go to Stanford, I guess you can fucking do what you want. Don’t expect me to be able to come to your rescue all the time like I do now.”

Without warning, the side of my face is stinging in pain, and I let out a little cry and cover it with the palm of my own hand. I look up at Tony, wishing I could do something crazy, like slap him right back. But I know that would cause him to go off the edge, to completely lose control. It would be like signing my own death warrant.

Instead, I grit out between clenched teeth, “You said you were going to stop that.”

“And you said you were going to try harder!” Tony shouts back right in my face. “Going to school across the country isn’t trying, Evie! I’m so tired of trying to help you, to fix you! I’m done with this!”

He angrily stomps to the island and throws all his books into his bag, then jerks another stool to the floor, cussing violently. And then he’s gone, the front door slamming behind him, shaking the whole house. I wait for a moment, until I hear his tires squealing as he leaves, making sure he’s well and truly gone.

Slowly, I lower my hand from my cheek and restore the two stools to their proper places, using the utmost care to align them perfectly with the remaining two stools. A part of me feels inexplicably relieved, wondering if Tony just tried to leave
me
. I know it won’t be permanent, that in his dysfunctional way he actually does love me and that he’ll come back, but I feel a tiny sense of relief, excitement at the respite from dealing with him.

And then, deep down, there’s the traitorous part of me that is crying at having upset him, that is sick with dread that he might actually leave me. Worry about my identity without him, the part that loves Tony because he’s sick and this isn’t really him. The part that wants to call him right now and beg for his forgiveness.

The two parts of me, always fighting each other.

Jenny is the first of the girls to arrive, and even though it’s only six in the evening, I’m already dressed in my pajamas to avoid the necessity of changing in front of them. The bruise on my ribs is a disgusting thing now, turning yellow and green, but it’s gone from hurting all the time to being just a dull ache. I can’t wait for it to completely heal and fade so I can forget about it, all about that day, and about Zeke seeing it too.

Chantal and Grace are right behind Jenny, and Tiffany is the last to arrive, strutting inside and carelessly dumping her bag on the entryway floor. We gather in the kitchen around the pizza I ordered, though Jenny and I are pretty much the only ones who eat it. The other three girls pick at the salad that I also put out, knowing they wouldn’t want the greasy pizza. I meet Jenny’s eyes and we grin at each other, having the same thought: more for the two of us.

Tiffany’s voice finally cuts above the high pitched girl chatter, in a slow, rich girl drawl. “All right, enough of the chitchat. Please tell me you’re not going to be a spoilsport and not let us drink, Evie.”

I look over at Jenny, and she gives me a pouty face, and I grin and turn to the fridge, pulling out a bottle of wine, and some rum and pineapple juice, because I know its Jenny’s favorite. The other girls are snobs when it comes to drinking. Normally, I really don’t allow them because I don’t want the responsibility, but today I’m thinking the blessed release of being drunk sounds like a wonderful thing.

All the girls cheer, and Chantal pounds the granite countertop in approval. I even find a bottle of Fireball whiskey when I’m looking for a corkscrew, and bring that to the kitchen with shot glasses.

“Keys,” I demand, holding out my hand.

“Like we would,” Grace says, rolling her eyes, but they all obediently pass over their car keys and I put them on top of the fridge. “I plan on being drunk enough to pass out, believe me.”

“Still, there was that one time, at the party at Josh’s,” I say, and glare at Tiffany. The only reason she still has her license is because her dad donated a substantial amount of money to keep her name clear of a DUI.

Tiffany waves a careless hand. “Lesson learned. Besides, no one got hurt. Much.”

She’d sent someone to the hospital with a leg broken in three places, and like many of the rich and entitled, taken the chance to get a nose job herself. I shake my head, wondering why I even have these girls at my house, how we even became friends. But they are here, and tonight, I decide to just not care about anything but getting a buzz.

Pop music is cranked up as the drinks are poured down, and after three shots of Fireball and two drinks, I’m wondering what the big deal was with Tiffany. She and I are sliding around in our socks in the kitchen to The Avett Brothers, giggling like maniacs. She and I are the only ones who recognize the song, and only when it is over do we collapse back onto our stools at the kitchen island, laughing helplessly.

For the first time in nearly two weeks, my ribs aren’t hurting and Tony isn’t the first thing on my mind. It feels fantastic, and I have the idle thought that perhaps I should try and escape into this stupor more often.

“Time for a drinking game!” Chantal calls out. The three of them polished off the bottle of wine long ago, and have moved on to one from Clarissa’s stash that I hope isn’t too expensive, but I’m too drunk to really care at the moment. Besides, I hate Clarissa and it will be fun making her angry.

“What are we playing?” I ask, wavering on my stool as I try and make myself another drink.

Jenny is sitting next to me with a big, dopey smile on her face, swirling the ice in her glass around and around, a habit she’s had since elementary school. I lean close to her and whisper, “You should call Koby tonight.”

She jerks upright and stares at me. “No way!”

“Why not? Tell him about your undying love for him!” It seems like a fabulous idea to me, and I’m even thinking of calling Tony, because suddenly I miss him and want to hear his voice, the voice of earlier today. The soft one that still makes my insides melt and makes me feel warm and safe. The part of me that wants him back, that wants to make sure everything is all right between the two of us is coming to the forefront, and in my inebriated state, I feel helpless to keep it suppressed.

“Evie,” Jenny hisses, “not in front of them!” She jerks her head toward the other three girls, who are whispering about what game to play.

I fall obediently silent, just as Grace announces, “Let’s play, The Things We Can’t Change.”

Both Jenny and I groan.

“I hate that game,” Jenny complains, and her ice furiously swishes around her cup. “It’s so hard to follow when you’ve already been drinking!”

And I hate any game that tries to pry my secrets out of me. The game had started long ago, when a girl at our high school had died of cancer our freshman year, and they had forced everyone, even people who hadn’t known the girl, to visit the school’s psychologist and guidance counselors; a sort of excuse for a school-wide mental health check-up. None of my crowd had known the girl, but after we’d all been ‘examined’, we’d realized the same technique had been used on us.

The good old doctors had favored a thing called, The Things We Can’t Change, which was a sort of game where the student would say something they were afraid of, something they felt trapped by or were afraid was something beyond their control to change, and the doctor would tell them whether or not it was something within their power to change.

Needless to say, this was just an opening for a bunch of rich fourteen year old boys to tease, and Tony and his friends had gotten a kick out of asking outrageous questions, most of which were crude. They’d pretty much been kicked out of the offices.

It had been two months until school let out, and I had been with Tony for six months. I’d asked one serious question; I had told the doctor that I didn’t like the person I was expected to turn into, someone like Clarissa. Up until then, I hadn’t been much better than Tiffany or Chantal, and I was getting to be old enough to notice things, to see the way that they treated people, and the way patient, loving Jenny did. To see a difference between my dad’s attitude and Clarissa’s. And I knew which of these people I wanted to look up to, which I preferred to say they were proud of me. I’d asked if I was able to change who I was expected to be, and the psychologist had told me I could.

I’d walked out of the office with my confidence bolstered, ready to change, to make myself over. Two weeks later, everything had changed, and not because of my own decision. It was the first time Tony had touched me, and I had become trapped. Not just by Tony, but by who he expected me to be, and who I expected me to be. My change had been put on pause, arrested, manifesting only in my mind, and not in my outward attitude. I was as nice as I could be, but I was unable to shake the old friends I didn’t like, the stigma of being at the country club all the time, and reprimand Tony for his mistreatment of others.

“I think it’s fun,” Tiffany says, interrupting my thoughts. I look up, and see she’s looking slyly over at me. “Besides, I have some questions for Evangeline here.” I roll my eyes, because Tiffany doesn’t scare me at all.

The boys in our group had been so impressed with the little game that it made an appearance the next time we were all drinking together, at the end of the school year party at Adam’s house. A person would ask someone else a question, and they would have to say whether it was something they could or couldn’t change. For the set of the game, a designated answer, either can or can’t, meant you had to drink. It was a very complicated version of Truth, and most of the time the questions and answers didn’t add up. Usually, the boys just liked to mock the doctors, but Tiffany loved using it to get people to spill their secrets.

“I’ll start,” Grace says, pouring five new shots of Fireball and pushing each of them toward us. “Drink on ‘can’t’ this round. Chantal, can or can’t you change the fact that you hooked up with Josh after the wedding last weekend?”

Chantal scowls at the mention of her ex-boyfriend, and I remember the two of them latched together at the wedding. “Can’t,” she grinds out, and downs the shot. Then she points at Jenny. “Jen, can you or can’t you deny the fact that you flirted with Koby Phillips last week like Tiffany’s mom said?”

Jenny rolls her eyes but keeps her cool as she corrects in a perfect snobby girl voice, “Koby Phillips flirted with
me
, not the other way around, thank you very much.”

“Details!” Chantal waves a hand for Jenny to continue.

There are hoots and hollers as Jenny takes her shot, and I reflect on how stupid this game is, and wonder why we can’t just play beer pong or something. I’m thinking so deeply that I miss Jenny’s question to Tiffany, and I look up when I realize it’s gone quiet and Tiffany is pointing at me.

“What was that?” I ask. “Sorry.”

Tiffany is grinning like the Cheshire Cat, every bleached white tooth gleaming. “Can you or can’t you change the fact that you have a
thing
for Zeke Quain?”

I raise my eyebrows calmly at her.

“My mom and sister saw the two of you chatting together at her dance lesson on Monday,” Tiffany continues, eyes not moving from mine. “They said you looked pretty cozy.”

I don’t even blink. “Can,” I say carelessly, because it’s the truth. Without looking away, I use my forefinger to flick the shot toward her, since the rules dictate that now she’ll have to drink it. “I love Tony, not some random kid from the other side of the bridge.”

Tiffany picks up the shot and drinks it, never breaking eye contact either. I realize I’m going to have to be careful, because if she ever tells Tony about seeing me with Zeke, he’ll probably go off the edge on me again. Maybe even worse, because it would be hard to explain this chance meeting with Zeke.

“This game is so stupid,” Jenny finally whines, and when I look over at her, I know she’s rescuing me, and I’m grateful. “I don’t know who changed the music to oldies, but I want to dance.” She gets up and switches the music until old school Britney Spears, more our style, comes on.

“Me too,” I say, and jump off the stool.

We jump around until the other girls have no choice but to join us, and peace is restored once again. Three hours later, the party comes to an abrupt halt after Tiffany and Grace have passed out on the couches and Chantal vomits on the kitchen floor. Jenny gets her settled in the bathroom while I clean up the floor, glad I’m tipsy or the task would seem a lot more disgusting.