From What I Remember (37 page)

ey, you,” Max says, smiling lazily. “We got pretty messed up last night.”

“Yeah,” I say, hoping he’ll offer more, giving me a better picture of what exactly happened toward the end of the evening, when my disc got erased.

“I hope we didn’t do anything stupid,” I say, fishing for information.

“Yeah, pretty sure we did.” Max laughs softly and his eyes close again.

That’s all I get?

Max takes my hand in his, which is when I see them—two identical gold bands. One on his hand. One on mine.

The rings catch the sun; light shoots off the gold and bounces around the room.

What exactly happened last night? I am ablaze with an unsettling mix of passion and panic. I’m sweating now, which can’t possibly be appealing. What have I done? I’ve got high school graduation, a summer internship at the San Diego Arts Council, New York University in the fall, and parents who are going to freak. I’ve been MIA for the past twenty-four hours. I’m in Mexico with Max. And we’re wearing rings that look suspiciously like wedding bands. This is bad. Very, very bad.

I’ve never even been on a date.

Or had sex.

Or have I?

I sit up, intent on hatching a plan, and that’s when I see Lily Wentworth standing in the doorway, staring at me.

hat. The. Fuck. Max?”

I hear her before I see her: the unmistakably piercing sound of Lily.

I am going to kill Charlie. What part of “come alone” wasn’t clear?

It’s a rude awakening to what is bound to become a bear of a day.

I lift my head to see Lily standing in the doorway. If this were a cartoon, smoke would be rising from her head. Her body would be engulfed in flames.

I am in some serious shit.

I look over at Kylie looking at Lily, and sure enough, she is flipping out. Her eyes are as big as saucers. If
she
were a cartoon, her eyeballs would be popping out of her head and rolling onto the floor. Unfortunately, none of us are cartoons. This is not a comic book. It’s real life. And what was once a romance is now a horror show.

I have no idea what to do. I am not the guy who smoothes out these kinds of situations. I’m not a peacekeeper, like Charlie. I’m the guy who looks for the exit at times like this.

I can see Charlie standing awkwardly next to Lily.

“Dude?” I say to him.

“Sorry, man.”

Damn. I am so pissed at Charlie.

his cannot be happening. It’s like some cruel joke. Or a bad dream. Or a mirage. On the off chance that my brain has scrambled the image, I close my eyes. When I reopen them, the same gruesome tableau is still there, the bodies splayed out before me like the goddamn Alamo. Max and Kylie. Kylie and Max. In bed together. In bed together. I’m trying to process it, but I can’t make sense of it. It’s too bizarre. Too infuriating. Too everything.

Maybe there’s some kind of logical explanation for why they’re in bed together, other than the fact that they’ve just had sex. Yeah, as if.

This is where Max has been on the last day of school? While I’ve been living in my own private hell, suffering my dad’s indignities all alone, he’s been hanging out in Ensenada? Screwing Kylie Flores, of all people?

I am so livid I can’t think straight. I want to pull my hair out. I want to pull Max’s hair out.

I mean, seriously. What. The. Fuck?

Max is such an asshole.

“Let’s give him a minute,” Charlie says. I forgot he was even here.

“Let’s not!” I insist. I mean, Max has had twenty-four freaking hours. What does he need with another minute?