Breakable (23 page)

Chapter Twenty-Eight

 “You
know, you never did answer the question.” Doc’s voice is quiet, sympathetic.

“Which
one?” It’s a decoy. He hasn’t forgotten the portraits. Neither have I. But if I
can keep him talking about something else for long enough, maybe he will.

He
gives me a look that says he knows what I’m up to. But he plays along. “I asked
you, if you’d known then what you know now, would you still have gone that
night?”

I
sigh. “No. Maybe? I don’t know.” I squirm. The clock says 1:00pm. “I mean, it
sucked, you know? But there was one part where I was really happy. I don’t get
to feel that way very often.”

Dex
and I got out of the building and trotted back across the quad, dodging several
groups of students from the dance and a couple teachers. Then we were clacking
across the parking lot.

I
groaned. “Can we slow down? My feet are killing me.”

Dex
slowed immediately. “Sorry, sure.” His hand loosened on my wrist, then slid
down until his fingers twined in mine. “Sorry,” he said again. But I could feel
the restraint in him. He wanted to be running, not crawling along with me.

The
lights on the walkways were dim and spread out, but each cast a glow over Dex’s
features. He looked straight ahead, brows furrowed over those grey eyes that
used to make me shiver. His sandy hair was a little mussed – he must have been
running his hands through it. Or had I done that when we were kissing? A
nervous snigger erupted before I could swallow it.

Dex
looked down with a strange expression. “What’s funny?”

“Nothing,
just… You’re acting like we’re running from the mafia.”

He
grinned, sheepish. “You’re not afraid your mom will come for you?”

I
shook my head and hugged his arm. “No. I didn’t have to lie to her. She
understood. She did the same thing after her junior prom.”

As
soon as the words were out I knew it sounded like I wasn’t talking about going
to a beach house. Dex’s eyes cut to mine and his grin widened. I almost
corrected myself – until I realized Mom probably
had
done both those
things after her junior prom. Maybe the sad look on her face when she said goodbye
tonight wasn’t the standard nostalgia fare I’d thought.

Had
Older Me had been in this position before, too?

“Are
you, uh… excited?” Dex asked, hushed.

I
nodded. “I’m great.” Too bad I had to say it through gritted teeth.

Dex’s
eyes were on me, so I fixed my face into what I hoped was a nonchalant
expression and started walking a little faster. I didn’t want to think about
Older Me. I didn’t want to question if I’d done the right thing. I
really
didn’t
want to think about Karyn at the house tonight with Mark and how it should have
been me. How, if Older Me hadn’t sabotaged my entire life…

I
didn’t want to think about Older Me.

I
gripped Dex’s hand tighter and kept my eyes fixed forward, waiting to see his
car and our escape.

Tonight
would be great. It would be huge. It would change my life. And I’d never look
back. Never.

Conversation
dwindled during the drive. I was too obsessed with trying to figure out if I
could actually go through with losing my virginity. The virginity no one
believed I had.

Dex
seemed preoccupied too. He missed our exit twice. It took two hours to reach
the beach house. By the time we pulled up, his hands were white-knuckled on the
steering wheel.

The
house glimmered in the deep shade of shaggy trees growing on the edge of sand
dunes that kept it out of view of its neighbors. It was a massive, two-storied
square with a wrap-around porch and gabled windows in the roof. It looked like
it should have been nestled in the cotton fields of Alabama. Turned out Finn
was a jerk, but his mom had taste.

Dex
pulled the car off the wide driveway under a tree and turned it off. Now the
engine noise was gone, all I could hear was the sea.

I
adore the sound of breaking waves.

I
grabbed Dex’s hand and smiled when he looked at me. “Let’s go for a walk on the
beach.”

“Sure.”

Pretending
his smile didn’t look forced, I opened my door. “Let’s take our bags and stuff
inside first, though, okay?” Dex eyed the house.

“Yeah.
Of course.” Was he just trying to get me into the bedroom?

Hand
in hand, we crossed the driveway.

Music
drifted out of every window and open door. Lights blazed from each square pane.
But voices rose from the front of the house, where it faced the waves. So we followed
the wrap-around porch all the way up the broad side to the front facing the
beach.

When
we turned the second corner, light spilled across the deck and onto the grassy
dune, while the music rose loud enough to cover normal conversation.

A
guy leaned against the railing of the porch, nursing a beer and talking to
someone inside, out of our line of sight.

The
sight of the beer gave me butterflies. I looked up at Dex to gauge his reaction
– would he drink tonight? – as he smiled and called out to the guy.

“Hey,
Roger, good to see you, man. I didn’t know you were coming.”

The
guy – Roger apparently – a dark-haired, dark-eyed, skinny guy with very
strategic stubble, turned and grinned back.

“Dex!
You’re back!” His eyes widened when he looked at me and he stood straight,
giving two thumbs up even with the beer in his hand. “And you got another girl
through the shut out. Good work!”

I
had no clue what that meant, but the guy’s tongue was too thick on the words
and his smile too bright, so I figured he probably wasn’t making much sense to
anyone. But to my dismay, Dex stopped to talk to him, dropping our bags at his
feet on the boards of the porch. Roger clapped Dex’s shoulder and started
talking, but his eyes kept drifting to my chest.

Sigh.

Huge
French doors opened into the house right beside us, and a long, hardwood floor
stretched through a living room longer than my house was tall. Voices rose from
inside, the floor above, and out on the sand. But apart from Liam leaning on
the wall inside the door – who nodded when our eyes met – no one else was in
sight.

I
glanced at my bag on the porch at Dex’s feet. I’d wanted to check my make-up
and stuff, but the idea of taking my bag and finding a room… it was too
committed
.

Instead,
I tapped Dex on the shoulder and told him I was going to find a bathroom, He
nodded and winked. Shivering, I wandered into the house.

The
entire house was hardwood floors and vaulted ceilings. Music blared from a
sound system piped into every room – including the bathroom I found.

When
I stepped back into the hall, voices rose from an open door further into the
house. One of the laughs sounded like Mark’s, so I started in that direction,
relieved. The idea of Mark and Karyn alone in one of the rooms over my head
made my skin feel tight.

But
just before I stepped into the light spilling out of the doorway, Dex’s voice
rose above the other noise. I froze.

“…don’t
think she’d do it. Seriously. She’s trying way too hard to get in with
everyone.”

The
high-pitched cackle that followed that comment raised the hairs on the back of
my neck.

Belinda
. “She’s such a loser. Why are you even
here with her?”

“Shhhhh,
keep it down. I don’t know where she is.”

“I
asked you why you came with Stacy, Dex,” she said, too loudly.

He
shushed her again. “Stop it!” But there was a smile in his voice. Then Belinda
squeaked and shuffled footsteps rose over the music.

“Stop
it! Stop tickling!” Belinda giggled. A shiver rode down my spine.

Dex
laughed. More shuffling, and a thump. Then it all went quiet.

In
fact, they were quiet for so long, I figured maybe they’d moved into the next
room. But just as I was about to peer around the side to check, Belinda spoke
again, in a strangely anxious tone.

“I’m
serious, Dex. Why’d you bring
her?
” The disdain in her tone was no surprise.
But it still hurt.

“Well,
someone
told me I didn’t stand a chance. I didn’t want to be alone
tonight, so…” Dex’s tone suggested he wasn’t talking about the prom.

A
cutting scoff erupted from Belinda. “You believed me?” She made a weird noise.
Dex laughed. “Okay, fine,” she said. “My bad. But you’ve gotta get some game,
Dex. You can’t believe everything a girl tells you. Especially when she’s
smiling
…I
mean, you know…”

Her
voice dropped so I couldn’t hear. Then she laughed and Dex whined “Aw, Belle!”
Both their voices faded into the music then.

I
stood with the wall at my back. My entire body trembled.

So…
Dex had only asked me because he’d believed Belinda would say no.

He
only asked me because he was too insecure to get shot down by someone else.

And
he hadn’t wanted to be
alone
. Apparently I was a safe bet.

He
wanted to get laid. That’s all this was about.

Oh,
geez.

Then,
to add insult to injury, footsteps started in the hallway, quickly followed by
Finn’s voice. “…I won’t. But it bugs me that she’s here.”

Another
voice I didn’t recognize asked, “Why’d he bring her?”

Finn
snorted. “Belinda has a three-month rule. He wouldn’t have stood a chance.”

“So?
Wait three months. It’s gotta be better than sleeping with Gingermutt.”

My
stomach dropped to my toes.

“I’m
not going to stand in the way of Dex popping his cherry. But I’ll remind him
that she sleeps in the kennel when they’re finished.”

They
both laughed and the last of my hope died. I backed away from the light, away
from the voices, tears streaming down my cheeks, moving in jerky, awkward
steps. My feet were cement, my legs blocks of wood.

Dex
didn’t care about me. He wasn’t nice because he liked me. He only brought me here
for sex. And somehow he’d made Finn be nice so I wouldn’t say no.

Well,
he was out of luck.

Then,
underneath the gut wrenching humiliation, I was washed in relief so tangible,
it brought goosebumps to my skin.

I
whirled, stumbled down the hall, past the door into the long living room
straight ahead until another door opened on my left. The room was dark, but the
windows glowed with the light of a night sky and the silhouette of trees. A
door lead to the porch outside. The other side of the house. The dark side. No
one was out there.

I
clapped a hand over my mouth to stifle my sobs, slipped outside and ran along
the house until I was deep in the shadows of the porch, at the back where the
trees grew over it and as far from the light and sounds of music as I could
get.

Tears
slid down my cheeks, made my nose run, made me croak, but I couldn’t let them
go. I couldn’t let someone hear me and find me. I couldn’t face any
of
them.

They
all
must have known! It’s why they’d let me tag along tonight. For Dex’s
sake. Because they accepted him and he was using me.

I
should never have come here. I should never have let myself believe Dex
actually liked me. I’d known it. Deep down, I’d known he didn’t care. But I
talked myself into it because that felt better than admitting the truth.

I
shuddered, threw my arms around myself as the seams in my chest creaked and
groaned. I felt like I was holding all my pieces together. And just one wrong
bump…

I
wanted to yell and scream and hit someone. I wanted to throw something at Older
Me and hate her for being right. I wanted to embarrass Dex even more than he’d
embarrassed me.

Oh,
geez. I had to get out of there.

How?
My bag was with Dex. I’d come in his car. Mom wasn’t going to drive all the way
out here unless I freaked her out with the truth – and I couldn’t face that.

If
I was going to figure it out I had to calm down. I wiped away tears, imagining
wiping away the words I’d heard, breathing in time with the motion. Eventually
I calmed enough to slow the tears to a leak, rather than a torrent. But no
matter how I looked at it, there was only one option.

Mark.

That
brought more tears.

Mark
was here. And if I told him what I’d heard, he’d take me home.

But
I didn’t know where he was. And wherever he was, I’d no doubt find Karyn too.
What if they were upstairs right now?!

I
sucked in deep breaths of sea air and told myself I had to get it together.