The Way I Used to Be (29 page)

I slam my locker closed. “Hey, you had me at ‘Let's get outta here,' ” I say with a laugh. We run for the nearest exit.

CAELIN COMES HOME FOR
Thanksgiving as planned. He tries to act like things are fine between us, but we both know better. After dinner on Friday he comes to my room, knocking on my door. He pokes his head inside, and says, “So, Edy—tomorrow? You and me. We still on?”

“I guess.” I shrug.

“Great.” He smiles, then stands there awkwardly. “Well, I'm heading out, so . . .” He raises his hand to wave, starts to walk away.

“I'm heading out too,” I call after him, like it's some kind of competition.

He reappears in my doorway. “You are?”

“Yeah, so?”

“Nothing,” he says, but he gives me this grave look. “Just, you know, please be careful, okay, Edy?”

I roll my eyes and go back to picking out clothes from my closet.

There's a buzz, a vibration in the air, as Mara and I, and Cameron and Steve, drive to this party at the dorm of a friend of a friend of a roommate of a friend who knows Steve's cousin. Which is almost like being invited. And that's good enough, because everyone has been trapped in small, confined spaces with their families for more than two days and is about to spontaneously combust. Or maybe that's just me. We hold a one-two-three-not-it contest in the car to see who will be our designated driver. Cameron was the slowest; thus he must remain sober.

“I don't care, I just want to be with Mara,” he announces. “I don't have to get wasted to have a good time.”

Steve opens the damn car door for me. I ignore him.

“That's nice, Cameron. I, however, do have to be wasted to have a good time, so can we just get in there already?” I start walking ahead, toward the music. Steve laughs. It wasn't a joke, I almost tell him. In fact, I couldn't fucking be more serious. Not only do I need to be wasted to have a good time, I need to be wasted to even be conscious right now, knowing I still have the whole weekend ahead of me before Caelin leaves, and Kevin along with him. I feel like I need to go shoot heroin or something. If only I knew where to get some, I just might.

Mara catches up with me. “All right. So, are you interested or not?”

“In him?” I nod my head back at Steve. “No, of course not.”

“Come on, Edy, why not?” she asks, looping her arm in mine so our elbows are locked.

“Because he's so . . .” I glance behind us, and he waves an arm in the air at me. “He's so—”

“What, so nice? He's too nice for you, too smart, too adorably cute and sweet?”

I kick a loose chunk of pavement down the pathway in front of us. “Just don't expect me to sleep with him, all right?”

“I don't!” she shouts, rushing ahead a few steps to kick the rock before I can, jerking my arm, making me stumble forward.

“Yeah, well, he does!” I take a big step and give it one last good kick, launching it into a row of hedges lining the sidewalk and putting an end to our little diversion.

“He does not—” She stops, then whispering, pulling herself closer to me, says, “Expect you to sleep with him.”

“He expects something, I can tell.” I look back at him and Cameron again; they're laughing, shoving each other's arms as they catch up with us.

“You're hopeless, you really are,” she says with a laugh. “He's a nice, decent guy who's interested in you. Can't you just let it happen?”

Four and a half red plastic cups later, I'm standing in a crowded, alcohol-drenched, bass-filled hallway with Steve asking me inane questions about myself.

“So, have you decided where you're going to school next year?” he shouts above all the other noise.

I'm not going to school next year, but it's not worth saying. So I just take another sip and let Steve keep talking.

“Have you thought about going here?” he asks me. “I know it's a state school and all, but it's close to home—so that's good, right?”

“Uh-huh.” I take another big gulp; it burns on the way down. Caelin could've gone here, stayed home. But he was too good for state school. He could've had a free ride—full scholarship and everything. I'll never have anything like that, never know what that must feel like, but it wasn't enough for him. He had to leave. Leave me here to rot. Leave me to take on Vanessa and Conner all by myself. Asshole.

“I'm stuck between . . . ,” Steve begins. But I have no idea what he's saying because two guys are running shirtless through the hall screaming at the top of their lungs, and he doesn't even seem to notice. “So . . . basically . . .” I catch bits and pieces. “They have this amazing liberal arts program, but it's just so expensive, so I don't know. It's not like my grades are that wonderful that I could get scholarships.”

I nod along, pretend I'm listening.

“So, do you like photography?” he shouts.

“Huh?”

“I said do you like photography?” he repeats even louder. I had actually heard him the first time, I just couldn't figure out where that came from. Maybe it was part of what I missed before. I remember he did photography for the yearbook freshman year.

“Uh, yeah. Sure.”

“You should come by my house this weekend. I'll show you my darkroom.”

I laugh. That's a new one. He gets at least a couple of points for creativity.

“What's funny?” he asks, his mouth in a confused smile.

“Nothing, it's just—your darkroom—what is that supposed to mean?”

“My darkroom. I turned my bedroom closet into a darkroom. You know, to develop pictures.”

“Oh, a darkroom.” Literally.

“Right.”

“Right.”

“So?” he asks.

“So . . . ,” I repeat, “what?”

“So, do you want to?”

“Want to what?”

“Come over.”

“Oh.”

“No?”

“No, I said
oh
,” I tell him, louder.

“Oh. So, yes then?”

“Um . . .”

“What?”

“Fine.”

“What time?” he asks. “I don't know, whenever you want, I guess. I work mornings, so . . . I don't know, maybe, like, in the afternoon?”

And this is why people don't have conversations at parties like these. I finish off what's left in my cup. Goddamn talking. “Hey, Steve?” I smile sweetly, manipulating his wholesome little heart. “Would you mind getting me another drink?” I'm going to need it.

“Yeah! Yeah, of course. Yeah, I'll be right back.” And he happily disappears with my red plastic cup into the sea of faces.

“Hey, looks like you need a drink there?” says a guy who just sauntered up and is leaning against the wall next to me, holding a brown beer bottle in each hand.

He's not particularly attractive. But then again, he's not particularly anything. And that's kind of exactly what I'm looking for. “Maybe,” I answer.

“You don't live in this building, do you?” he asks as he hands me the bottle.

“No.” I take it. It's opened, though. I hope I'm sober enough to keep remembering not to drink from it. Although he wouldn't have to drug me to get me to leave with him; I'm ready to go right now.

“Didn't think so, I'd remember seeing you.” He smirks as his eyes travel down. I'm definitely sober enough to see what this is all about. “Where do you live?” he shouts, reluctantly meeting my eyes.

“Off campus.” Which is not a lie.

“Listen, I can barely hear you. . . . You wanna go down the hall . . . there's a room. . . .”

I take a huge sip of the beer he just placed in my hand.

Next thing I know, I'm following him down the hall, him dragging me along with a limp, dead-fish grip on my hand. He leads me into one of those suites like you see on TV with a common room and then separate bedrooms off to the sides. There are all kinds of people everywhere, laughing, shouting, making out on couches and chairs and coffee tables. We go into a room that has a
RESERVED FOR RACHAEL—ALL OTHERS WILL BE TOWED
sign on the door. There's a lava lamp casting creepy purple and blue underwater shadows over everything. Rachael could be back anytime. He takes the bottle from my hand and sets both of our beers down on Rachael's computer desk.

Stepping closer, he runs a couple of fingers down my arm, “So, uh, what's your major?”

“We don't have to talk,” I tell him, kicking my shoes off.

“Right on,” he says through beer breath.

We waste no time with pretense. He rips a button as he clumsily gets my shirt off. At this rate, Steve won't even know I was gone. In just four steps, we're tumbling into Rachael's tiny bed. He unbuckles, unbuttons, and unzips his pants. “God, you're fuckin' hot,” he murmurs into my mouth while trying to simultaneously kiss me, get my pants off, and get his hands inside my bra. I reach into my back pocket for my just-in-case-Steve-turned-out-to-be-not-just-a-dull-polite-guy condom. He takes his shirt off. His body feels soft and flabby against mine. That's fine. I don't care about that. I care only about this moment—about forgetting, about leaving myself behind.

Just as he's sliding my pants down over my butt, the door opens. I look at the doorway. Two bodies: Rachael, I presume, and the guy whose hand is attached to her hand.

“Dude, what the fuck?” the guy who's on top of me shouts at the two dark figures.

“This is
my
room, asshole!” A very tiny Rachael marches in and flips the light switch on; I cover my eyes with one hand, my body with the other.

“What the fuck?” I hear a strangely familiar voice say very slowly.

I spread my fingers and peek through. No. No, no, no.

“Eden, get up!” he shouts. “Hey! Get up right now, you fucking asshole, that's my sister!” he yells at the guy.

“Get out of my bed—this is disgusting!” Rachael screams at us, with her skinny jeans and faux-punk haircut, near tears. She could pass for cool, or at least interesting, out on the street. Too bad in here, her tweenie magazine centerfold posters of steamy, shirtless celebs give her away. She's more of a poser than I am, even. I start laughing. I want to ask her if her nose ring is magnetic, but I can't seem to remember how to use my voice at the moment. The guy hovers over me, looking down at me like I'm nuts.

“I'll kick your fucking ass”—Caelin charges the bed—“if you don't get the fuck off my sister right now!”

“Dude, chill the fuck out,” the anonymous guy on top of me says as he tries frantically to zip his pants back up so he can get off me.

“Everybody needs to get the hell out of here now!” a high-pitch-voiced Rachael shouts, hands on hips, looking not at all threatening, just comical.

Finally the guy is standing and I struggle to button and zip my jeans. “Caelin, whaddaareyou . . .doing—”
Here
, I was going to say. It surprises me how much I'm slurring, how slow I'm talking, how dizzy I suddenly feel, as I brace myself against the desk.

“What the hell are
you
doing?” he screams in my face. I can barely stand without falling over—I'm definitely drunker than I thought I was.

“And you,” he says, pushing the guy up against Rachael's wall, knocking over a stack of books on the floor. “She's sixteen years old, you pervert! What the hell do you think you're doing?”

“Stop it!” Rachael yells. “You're destroying my room.”

“Dude, chill—I didn't know that, okay? I don't want any trouble, really.” He holds his hands up in the don't-shoot-I'm-innocent way. He seems genuinely scared of my brother.

“I'm not six—”
Teen
, I try, but Caelin's eyes flash over to me and he has this look of disgust and hate in them that makes me freeze. Just freeze. Because my brother just caught me almost having sex with some guy in a room that he was supposed to be having sex in, with the girl whose room this actually is, and now I'm standing here in my lacy black bra and it's obviously hard for him, my own brother, not to look at my breasts.

“Jesus-fucking-Christ, Edy! Would you put some fucking clothes on?” He looks down and backs away from the guy.

“I'm outta here,” the guy says, scooping up his shirt as he stumbles out into the noise.

“Were you actually going to have sex with that guy, Eden? Do you even know him?”

I finish buttoning my shirt and pick the unopened condom up off the bed, shoving it back into my pocket. “So what, do you even know her?” I ask, gesturing to Rachael, who's inspecting her things to make sure we didn't steal or ruin anything.

“You know what, I really just want you both to get the hell out of here now—right now,” Rachael says, thrusting the two beer bottles into my brother's hands.

“I'm so sorry about this,” Caelin says, pulling her aside.