Again Page 17

  “Hello?” she said, not like we’d been disconnected, like I was ignoring her.

  “I can’t wait,” I managed to get out. I had a week to worry about it. I could sound excited with her on the phone.

  “I have to take the bus. Can you believe it? There isn’t even a train to Kingston. What kind of Podunk town are you in?”

  “It’s small.”

  “If I get killed while I’m waiting at Port Authority it’s your fault,” she said with a hearty laugh.

  “Did you get a hotel too?” I asked casually. “We can stay there together.”

  Maybe I could keep her out of the dorm and away from Dawn. Who was I kidding? Away from Carter.

  “Don’t even try it,” she said. “You’re not the only one who’s going to get a bit of the college treatment, the whole treatment.”

  I knew exactly what she meant. What I’d experienced weekend one—a party, the kind of place where not following the rules was the rule. When you’re coming from where she was—adulthood—a place where everyone has a regulation for you to follow, how could you not crave that?

  “I’m not drinking or anything, it’s not like a nonstop celebration here,” I tried.

  “Compared to my life right now,” she said, “anything would feel like one.”

  I breathed out. I would never win this fight.

  “Don’t worry. I can say I’m your older sister. I won’t blow your cover.”

  I remembered all the lies I’d told. How she would have to tell them now, too. “If you’re my sister you should know our parents are dead. I’m nineteen and I got kicked out of my old school. Oh, also, my old roommate was a Mormon.”

  I heard her laugh again. “Damn, you’ve been busy.”

  She had no idea.

  After I hung up, I walked back into the room trying to shove away the complications Veronica’s visit would create. The sun was starting to rise. Carter stirred in the bed, his eyes like the antidote to everything plaguing me.

  “You’re still here,” he said, the heaviness of sleep in his voice, of praying I wasn’t just a dream.

  “I am, but I should probably go soon,” I said. I didn’t want to leave, but if we’d had to hide what was happening when we were walking back to the dorm together, we’d definitely have to hide what had happened last night

  “Can we have a few more minutes before real life starts?” he asked, pulling the sheet down for me to join him and revealing his whole beautiful body. My gaze traveled along his shoulders, down the firm curve of his chest, the hollow of his navel.

  How could I say no?

  I wished we had a few more hours, a few more years, before real life had to start. I snuggled in, smelling sweat and sex and the aftershave they advertised on MTV that was now familiar instead of foreign.

  “I shouldn’t t fall asleep,” I said.

  “I won’t let you,” he replied, the vibration of his voice drumming against my side. He moved his fingers from the skin next to my breast all the way down my torso, tracing my curves, a move that tickled and sizzled.

  “Wow, you are voracious,” I laughed.

  “When I find something I like,” he said, “I don’t waste it.” The sunlight sparkled around his blond hair as he leaned in and kissed me, deep and long, sending coils of need through me.

  He pulled back and watched me, took me in like a drink for a thirst he didn’t even know he had.

  “I also don’t take what I like for granted,” he said, brushing two fingers down along my jawline.

  Something about those words hurt in the place that Old Kate still survived. I realized that even living what, in all ways, was a fake life, New Kate had found something more real than she’d ever known.

  It didn’t seem right to have it dirtied by a lie.

  A lie I didn’t have to keep telling, completely.

  I might not be able to tell Carter everything, but I could say the main thing—the only real stumbling block between us being us—who I truly was.

  I could share who the Kate I’d been hiding underneath had been.

  “I need to tell you something.”

  “Anything,” he replied.

  “When you hear it you might not agree,” I stalled.

  “You can tell me”—he paused—“anything.” He kissed the tip of my nose.

  I breathed out, pulled the sheets to my chin. “I’m not who you think I am,” I tried at first.

  “What are you, working undercover or something?” he laughed.

  “Um,” I bit my lip. “That would be a better explanation than what’s really going on.”

  His eyes were wide and expectant.

  “Well, for starters, my parents aren’t dead,” I said.

  “What?” he asked, like he’d been spooked by a ghost. He pulled away from me like I was a stranger in his bed.

  “My mom is still alive, and yes,” I added, “sometimes I do wish she was dead. I don’t know my father.”

  “I don’t understand,” he said, shaking his head. “Why would you lie?”

  “I came here to start over,” I said, giving him a little more, “and when you asked me about my parents I wasn’t prepared, so I just kind of said it.”

  “I know all about wanting to start over,” he said, “but that’s…”

  “I’m sorry I lied to you,” I interrupted, “but I couldn’t have known we’d end up here.”

  “No,” he said, “neither of us could have.”

  “I actually like you,” I said, “and because of that I don’t want to keep lying about this. I failed out of my last school. Crashed and burned in a heap of alcohol and bad decisions. I’ve been crashing ever since. It was either come back to college and try again, or go to rehab,” I added, giving him a little more—more truth than I’d ever given. “I chose school.”

  There was something I couldn’t identify in his eyes, but it wasn’t anger.

  “You made the right choice,” he said, drawing me in to him.

  “I am me in all the ways that count. I’m just a new version, if that makes sense.”

  “Oddly,” he said, moving his lips to my scalp, “it does.”

  “I was such a mess,” I said, opening the spout to a place inside me I’d never shown anyone, “my only choice felt like starting over again. It was, like, all I had left. It was continue to make the same bad decisions or make totally new better ones, as a new better person.”

  “It’s okay. You don’t have to keep going. I honestly get it.”

  I hugged him. Having given him even a part of my truth was soothing. He didn’t know everything, but he knew a lot. If we stayed together, if what we had kept growing, I’d tell him the rest.

  I had to keep my age-disguise intact for now at least, because as important as Carter seemed, my possible scholarship, my second chance, was even more so.

  “Do you have anything to tell me?” I asked, thinking of his freshman year. A time I could tell he’d been desperate to move on from, desperate to hide away.

  He was silent. His eyes distant like uncharted seas on an old treasure map.

  “Now’s your chance,” I said. I could tell there was something there. I touched his face, trying to bring him back to me.

  He shook his head, embraced me tighter. “Just that I never want to let you go.”

  Could I have been wrong about his silences, his furtive glances? Could what he had done not been such a big deal at all?

  “That’s no secret,” I said, running my finger along his lips.

  “You know me, Kate,” he said, taking my hand, squeezing his around it, “better than anyone ever has, or probably ever will.”

  I guess I had been the only one keeping a secret. At least the worst of it was out.

  I slipped out into the hallway and closed Carter’s door quietly behind me. I was trying my best to be stealthy with my disheveled clothes and even more disheveled hair. Unfortunately, there was nothing clandestine about me. I was basically wearing a sandwich board over my shoulder
s reading I got laid.

  It doesn’t matter how short your walk of shame is, you always wish it was shorter.

  When Steph and Alex came around the corner at the end of the hall, my stomach plummeted to the floor, and I suddenly wished my walk of shame couldn’t even be measured by the naked eye.

  They were still in their clothes from the night before, tight jeans and tighter sweaters. Alex in hot pink and Steph in bright aqua blue. Their hair was matted, their movements impaired. Clearly they were on their own walk of shame. The problem was, I was pretty sure they had seen the door I came out of, which made mine all the more shameful.

  I moved down the hall, my focus above their heads, avoiding the inevitable for as long as I could, ignoring my heart knocking against my ribcage. As they got closer I smelled smoke, beer, the stench of a party, everything I’d been able to lock out in Carter’s room, everything Carter had been able to keep me safe from.

  I should have never left.

  “Morning floor meeting?” Steph sneered at my bare feet.

  “Morning private floor meeting?” Alex added.

  They tapped their high heeled black boots against the carpet, waiting for my response.

  I hated that I felt like I had to answer. I wasn’t embarrassed about what I’d done. Well, at least I hadn’t been until they’d asked. Each letter of their words slapped my cheeks and neck, making them bright red.

  “I had to get some notes for class,” I finally said. For someone who had gotten so good at lying I should have been able to come up with a better one, but Steph and Alex rattled me.

  Switched me right back into the Kate I’d been during college-take-one.

  “It’s a little early for that,” Steph said.

  “Even for Twilight’s twin,” Alex added.

  I needed to walk away, but they were blocking me. They stood next to each other with their arms crossed, elbows touching.

  “It’s never too early to start studying,” I said, smiling so hard my teeth might’ve fallen out. At least maybe then I could choke on one so I could stop talking to them.

  “You lie just as well as your boyfriend,” Steph said.

  “Maybe better,” Alex added.

  My lips deflated, my body went limp. There was too much to even respond to. First, Steph had called Carter my boyfriend. Second, she knew I was lying and I couldn’t help but wonder if she meant for more than just what I’d told him, if somehow they had heard the words I’d admitted minutes ago. Third, and possibly worst of all, Carter was lying about something too.

  They’d asked me if I’d known what he’d done and I brushed it off like it was nothing. Clearly it was something—a thing he still couldn’t tell me, even when I asked.

  But I couldn’t show I was bothered by any of it.

  “Now you know,” I said, steeling myself straighter and nodding at Carter’s door.

  “But do you know?” Steph asked.

  “What are you, still drunk or something?” I asked, mirroring their crossed arms with my own.

  “She doesn’t. There’s no way, if they were just doing what it looks like they were doing,” Steph said.

  “Maybe he told her,” Alex replied.

  “If he had,” Steph said, “would she be slinking out of his room like a slutty hag?”

  “Maybe that’s why she’s slinking out,” Steph said.

  “Or maybe she likes it rough,” Alex said.

  “No one likes it that rough,” Steph replied.

  “Shut up already, I don’t care,” I finally said, because if I hadn’t, who knew how long they would have gone on?

  “Which means you don’t know, like we thought,” Steph flicked her chin at Carter’s door. “You should ask him.”

  “Or anyone else on campus,” Alex shrugged.

  I was uneven. Cold sweat masked me, my shoulders sunk. Sure, I was still keeping something from Carter, but I’d told him a big truth. I’d told him something no one else in the world, not even Veronica, knew. Not only that, I’d asked him if he had anything to tell me. I gave him the opportunity to share his past.

  And…he’d lied.

  Even though it probably shouldn’t have, it hurt. I’d felt like I owed him some truth, like I owed it to both of us. He clearly hadn’t.

  Maybe sex was just sex, even when it was with someone who seemed so special.

  I looked behind me. My eyes watered uncontrollably.

  “You’re even more pathetic than I thought,” Alex said.

  “You mean exactly as pathetic as we thought,” Steph said.

  They were right, I was. Even more than they knew, I was. As an adult I should have been able to stand up to them. At the very least, to stand up for myself, but instead I was silent and heavy with queasiness, wondering what age I’d finally need to hit to be comfortable in my own skin.

  How old was old enough not to care about the snickers and whispers of two nineteen-year-old bitches?

  I considered running back into Carter’s room, into his arms, the one place in this world that had actually felt right but, if he was keeping something from me, what was the point?

  Considering I was still keeping something from him, was there ever even a point?

  “Either tell me or get the hell out of the way so I can go back to my room,” I said, pushing my nausea down.

  Honestly, I didn’t care what Carter’s lie was, what he couldn’t say. I cared that he was lying about anything. That it was something apparently a lot of other people knew about, everyone knew about, which made me even more of a fool.

  Even a fake life sometimes came with real bullshit. I sucked in a deep breath.

  “We’re not going to tell you,” Alex said.

  “It’s going to be way more fun for you to have to ask him,” Steph said.

  “To have him have to tell you,” Alex said.

  “Or maybe you don’t care,” Steph shrugged.

  I couldn’t believe I did. I’d shared a truth with Carter and was met with his silence. If he didn’t feel like he could tell me something, maybe not the whole thing of what Alex and Steph were describing, but anything, even less of a sliver than I’d given him, then maybe what we had didn’t even matter.

  Maybe he was playing me, his actions as fake as my life here had been.

  Steph moved aside. “You should probably go. Now that you’ve been hanging out with Twilight, won’t you turn to dust or something if you’re out past six?”

  Before I could respond, they walked toward their room, leaving me in the hallway to deal with the aftermath of their words.

  Carter had lied to me, to my face. I might have deserved it, but Kate-take-two had not.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Carter

  I stood at the end of the path leading to the dorm with two steaming cups of coffee. I waited for Kate so we could walk to Civics class together. I could have knocked on her door, but this was better, more special. A surprise she wouldn’t expect, the way she always surprised me.

  If she didn’t come around the corner soon, we’d probably be late.

  Unfortunately, I wasn’t sure how late because I couldn’t check my phone without spilling coffee on myself.

  Maybe she was already on campus. I hoped so. I prayed it wasn’t the other fear gnawing at my brain like a rat. We hadn’t seen each other at all yesterday after she’d left my room. Had she spent it drinking? Was she not running late, but not even awake? Sleeping off whatever she had done when she wasn’t with me?

  Not that I hadn’t known about her drinking, but her revealing she had a problem to me had been a step for her, for us. At least I thought it was.

  Finally, she came down the path, and I flooded with relief. She wore her bright purple coat. It broke through the drabness of snow and gray skies all around us.

  “I brought you coffee,” I said, smiling, trying to pass her a cup.

  Her face was hard, different. It was the kind of look I’d seen from other people on campus, the kind I felt right in my gu
t, in each tick of my pulse now booming in my ears. It said how could you?

  The ground below me seemed to tilt as I understood her being late had nothing to do with her secret. It had everything to do with mine.

  The skipped beat of my heart went into overdrive. I should have known. Everything with her had been perfect. I was someone who didn’t deserve perfect; whether I had been the one to tell her the truth or not, I probably never deserved perfect.

  She didn’t reach for the coffee. She didn’t say anything. She just waited. Maybe she was giving me one last chance.

  I probably didn’t deserve that either.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, but it was hard to look at her because those words, those stupid words, never came close to what they needed to atone for.

  She waited with her arms at her sides. She was standing far enough away I couldn’t touch her; couldn’t kiss her anger away. I understood this was on purpose. There was no doubt she only wanted me to speak, say the thing I had been hiding.

  Why hadn’t I told her when she asked me? Because no matter what she’d told me, it would never have been as bad as what I’d done.

  “Is that all you’re going to say?”

  “Who told you?” I asked. The coffee felt as heavy as two barbells in my hands. The question was silly, but I was stalling, still hoping I could put back together what it was clear I’d broken.

  What my past would keep breaking as long as I kept letting it.

  “You didn’t,” she said.

  “I should have,” I said, trying to find her eyes, but she looked through me, not at me, waiting for more.

  She needed me to say it. To have the balls to tell her, to prove she meant enough to me for the words to come. She might have said she wanted the truth, but there was no going back from it.

  “I wasn’t sure how.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t understand.” Her skin was pale, her breath uneven. “I thought you cared about me.”

  “I do,” I pleaded. “I just wanted you to still care about me.”

  She started to turn away.

  “Wait,” I said, my voice rising. I hadn’t told her because I was afraid of losing her, but I was going to lose her anyway.

  “No, Carter.” She pointed her finger at the air in front of my chest. “That’s why you should have told me.”