Broken Fairytales (23 page)

Then she suggested inviting Chase with us
to get her tattoo, and my mind switched gears, caught off-guard that she would suggest bringing my brother with us when
I hadn’t
even
told her about my newly
formed relationship with him.
For all she knew, Chase and I were still as distant as we’d always been.
When I
probed
he
r about it
,
she just said that since
he had tattoos
, she thought he might want to go with us, and I found myself questioning why he’d even crossed her mind. Apparently Chase and Rachel had become friendly at some point
,
but I’d never been looped in. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.

I brought it
up to Chase while we la
y
on the beach on
Saturday. My dad was in town, and he’d taken our mom
to play golf, so we were lounging b
ehind the house with Keely, Jared
and Molly, enjoying the day, but watching the black clouds t
hat hovered just to the north.
There was
another
big storm expected to hit that night. 

I pulled my
ear buds
out of my ears and poked Chase
,
who was engrossed
in a book
by Ayn Rand.
Next to him, Molly was asleep under the big umbrella she brought with her every day, claiming that her English s
kin was allergic to the sun. Ironically
Jared and
Keely were about twenty feet out in the water swimming and splashing each other.
He seemed to have no aversion to the sun. I had a feeling Molly was channeling Gwen Stefani
, circa 1996,
just a little bit and enjoyed her pale pallor.

“What?” Chase asked
curtly, not looking up from his book.

“I have a question,” I said, looking
at him over my oversized sunglasses
.

“Go ahe
ad.”
He still hadn’t looked up.

“When did you and Rachel become friends?”

“We’re not,” he said, more focused on his book than on me.

“She thinks you are. She wanted to se
e if you’ll come with us so she can get a
tattoo
when she visits.”

Chase
finally looked up from his book.
“She’s getting a tattoo
?” he asked, and I could see he was having trouble hiding the smirk his lips were curving into.

“Yeah, apparently this guy she’s dating likes them, so she wants to do it to surprise him.”

“Really,” he said, and I could see him mulling that over in his mind. “
What of?
”

“
I’m not sure
. We didn’t get that far, but she said something about
getting some quote on her rib cage, but she hadn’t figured out what quote she wants
.”

I watched Chase swallow and fight the smile that wouldn’t stay off of his lips. “I think that’s kind of hot.”

I kicked sand on his feet. “You would. Ugh, you’re not thinking about hooking up with Rachel, are you?”

Chase shot me a look like I was
nut
s. “I don’t date sorority chicks.
”

“She’s more than a sorority chick
, Chase. She’s a really great person
. She’s beautiful
, and she loves music, she’s cool and funny. You’d be lucky to date her.”

He raised his eyebrows at me. “Why are you trying to sell me on her if you don’t want me to d
ate her?”

“I’m not. I’m just saying. She’s pretty amazing.”

“She has been looking pretty hot lately,
too,
” Chase said, setting his book down and stretching out on his towel. “When’s she coming to visit?”

I knew he was just teasing, but I smacked him on the arm anyway.

“Ow,” he said, laughing and rubbing his arm. “What was that for? I just agreed with you.”

“Chase Cole, you’d better keep your hands off my best friend when she comes to visit in a few weeks. She is off-limits,” I said, sitting up and crossing my arms.

He lifted his sunglasses from his eyes, appraising me, “So even though you’ve deemed me a decent guy, I’m not good enough for Rachel?”

“Do you want to be good enough for Rachel?”

“I didn’t say that, but you’re being pretty hypocritical, Emily.”

In desperate need of an out, because I couldn’t really explain why I didn’t think Rachel and Chase dating was a good idea, I thankfully remembered something Molly had shared with me the first night we’d met.

“Do
n’t you have a girlfriend,” I said, hoping he would bite.

“Yeah
, I do.”

“
Then you shouldn’t be interested in Rachel.”

“Who said I was?!” Chase said, clearly getting exasperated with me.

Yeah, I guess he never really said that outright.

“What’s
your girlfriend’s name?”

He looked over at me. “Amy.”

“Amy,” I repeated.
“Where did you meet her?”

“
New York
.”

“When?”

“In the spring.”

“What does she do?”

“She’s a student,” he said,
with a finality in
his voice that told me the conversation wasn’t going any further.

It seemed that although we’d become
semi-
friends, my brother wasn’t interested in discuss
ing his personal life with me.
He was still as secretive as ever
, so
I settled for being in the dark
and went to join Keely and Jared
in the ocean.

**
*

That night as I got dressed to go out, I noticed the wind had s
tarted to pick up, rustling
the sea grass below
my window
.
Thankfully we weren’t going to the beach, but t
o a house a few blocks away
, because it really looked like it
was going to pour any second.
I t
hrew my favorite navy blue
hoodie on over a white tee and a khaki skirt
thinking that I’d want my hood if we got caught in the rain.
             

Thankfully the rain held off as we made our way down the street in the opposit
e direction we usually walked.
Molly had come over from her place with he
r c
ousin Leo
who might have been the tallest guy I’d ever met.
He
was a few years older than us
, and
I’d talked to him a ha
ndful of times
, but he was a quiet guy, so he didn’t say
much as we walked.
He didn’t smoke either, so while Chase and Molly shared a j
oint, I hung back with Leo
, and h
e told me a
ll about his girlfriend
who was home in Pennsylvania for the summer.

It was only a ten minute walk to the party which was
at a
small
house on the beach.
Even though it was somewhat early, I could tell a lot of
people were already gathered
together
.
As we walked up the stairs, we were greeted by people sitting on the chairs and railings on the front por
ch and spilling onto the steps.
The inside of the house was just as crowded with people
in various states of intoxication
. 

With Molly leading the way, the four of us made our way to the keg in the kitchen, filling up our cup
s and going our separate ways.
Finding myself alone,
as usual,
I wandered over to the living room where a group of people
I knew
were playing D
rinking
Jenga
.
I stood wa
tching, sipping my beer as I tried to figure out how exactly it
was different from
the regular Jenga
I’d played as a kid.

“You want in, Em,” a guy on summer break
from
UNC named Byron asked me.
He was a sophomore, and
I hadn’t met him before that summer, but I knew some of his Sigma Chi frat brothers. We’d played the ‘do you know’ game when we realized we both went to UNC.

I shrugg
ed.
“Sure, why not.”

I’d noticed that there were messages written on the little pieces, which indicated what the player had to do after successfully removing the piece from the stack and placing it safely on top
again.
So far I’d seen people chug a beer, take off a piece of clothing and tell a secret about th
emselves
.
I was a little afraid to ask what the person who knocked down the stack of blocks had to do.

“Sit down,” a girl named Tania
said, patting the empty
seat next to hers, so I sat
and waited for my turn. 

They’d just started, so only five pieces had been re
moved and placed back on top.
When it was my turn, I selected a safe piece in th
e middle, pulled it out cleanly
, read it and put it back on top. 

“What’
s it say,” Byron ask
ed, looking at me expectantly.
Something told me he’d started drinking a few hou
rs before and was
overly excited about everyone else catching up with him.

“Take five sips of beer,” I said, reading the small piece of wood and placing it gently on top of the stack.
I then proceeded to take five sips of my beer in quick succession, the bubbles burning slightly as they went down
so fast
.

Next to me, Tania
pulled out a pie
ce and groaned as she read it.
“Get everyone at the table new beers,” she said, as she begrudgingly got up and went into the kitchen.

While she was gone, we continued around the table
,
and I watched as the other players followed the dir
ections on their wooden piece.
When it got to the girl next to me, she pulled out a piece and frowned.

“What’s this?” she asked, looking directly at Byron. 

He leaned forward across the table to
see what she was holding him. “Yes!
” he said
, pumping his fist in the air.
The girl frowned, causing Byron’s face to fall. “Com
e on,
Michelle
, it’s not that bad.
Give me some credit.”

I leaned forward, trying to read what it said and just made out the words ‘kiss’ and ‘Byron’.  I watched as Byron made his way around the table toward
Michelle
, who was crossing her arms and shaking her head. 

“I won’t do it,” she said, pushing her lips together in defiance.

“
Michelle
,” Byron said, the smile vanishing from his face. “I said I was sorry, okay.”

“What is he sorry for?” I leaned over and asked
Tania, who ha
d retu
rned with drinks for everyone.
“
Writing ‘Kiss Byron’ on the game piece
?”

She shook her head. “No,” she whispered back.
“
Michelle
and Byron went out for about six months
last year.
When she broke up
with him, he took a pair of her underwear and hung them
out his
window
at the frat house
like a flag and told everyone they were
hers.
She didn’t speak to him for a few months, so this should be very interesting.”

“
Michelle
, you have to do
it,” Byron said. “Game rules.
You agreed to them when you sat down.”

“I didn’t know I was going to have to kiss
you
,” she spat at him.

He shrugged sheepishly, and something mad
e me wonder if he’d put the piece
in there on purpose, knowing there wa
s a chance she might pick it.
Worst case, some other girl would pick
it and he’d get to kiss her
. It was very sneaky
but somewhat brilliant
.

“Rules are rules, Mich
,” he said, coming closer to her, as she was leaning back toward me.