Someone Else (13 page)

I just shook my head, thinking it wasn’t a smart idea to engage him.

“You see, Taylor my darling,” he said, putting a heavy arm around me as we reached the Volkswagen. “My little brother over there may be smarter than me, nicer than me, and better-looking than me, but I’ll always be the charming one with the scintillating personality. You remember that, okay?”

“Sure,” I said, and he lowered his arm from my shoulders, sent Michael an exultant grin, and climbed into the car. Michael made a scoffing sound as the two of us slid in after him.

As we pulled away from the curb, Josh leaned in between our seats, his strong alcohol breath wafting into the front of the car. “Drop me off at Kelsey’s, would you, bro? I’m meeting some friends there. ”

Michael didn’t answer. Instead, he drove across several blocks as if he knew exactly where he was headed. The car came to a stop in front of a small, run-down bar. A hanging wooden sign above the door read
Kelsey’s
and below that another sign, this one bright blue neon, promoted beer on tap and giant-screen TVs.

“Thanks, bro,” Josh said as he got out of the car. “I’ll call a cab in a couple of hours. See you, Taylor.”

“Bye.”

Michael pulled away from the bar and drove toward the highway. When I glanced over at him, his face was void of expression. He unconsciously reached over to turn on the radio, filling the car with a blaring commercial for a mattress store. I had no idea what to say. Michael obviously didn’t either because he didn’t speak again until we were almost back to his house.

“This is going to kill my mother,” he said, his eyes on the road in front of us. “And my father…” He swore again and I reached over and placed my hand on his leg. I knew how hopeful he had been that his brother would succeed in staying sober for the duration of the holiday, at least. “I did it,” he added as we turned into his driveway. “I brought him there, to a place with a bar. Then I drove him to another bar. What the hell was I thinking?”

“You didn’t force him to drink,” I said, glancing up at the house. Only a few cars remained, but the house was still ablaze with color. “There was alcohol at the party too.”

“He couldn’t drink anything here, not with my parents around. So he tricked me into getting him away from the house. I should’ve known.” He unbuckled his seat belt, his mouth a thin line. “You know, he’s the reason I limit my drinking at school. Because I don’t want to end up like him, a user with no conscience.”

“You think he has no conscience?”

He glanced behind him as though Josh was still there, listening to every word, “I’m sure he feels regret for the things he does when he’s messed up, but he buries it under more alcohol or drugs to shut it up. He doesn’t have the balls to take responsibility for all the promises he breaks.”

I dug my nails into my palms, gathering the nerve to say what I was about to say. What I
needed
to say, whenever the right opening came along. I hated to use his brother’s relapse as a springboard, but now, with the impact of the past two hours still lingering between us, I knew he’d tell me the truth.

“What about you?” I asked, as if I were simply curious. “Have you ever broken a promise?”

He looked at me, his face bathed in the glow of the house lights, and when my meaning dawned on him he turned away, gazing out the window and into the darkness. He stayed that way for a while, his jaw twitching like it did when he was tense.

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “A couple of weeks ago I called you and that girl answered your phone. Lauren. It sounded like she’d just woken up.” My voice sounded small and hurt, which was exactly how I’d been feeling since it happened. Now that it was finally out, I expected to feel better, cleansed, but if anything I felt worse. Especially since Michael wasn’t saying anything. He just sat there, staring and twitching. “So.” The word sliced the thick silence. “Do you regret anything?”

Finally, he turned back to me, his jaw tight but still. “I’ve never cheated on you,” he said slowly. “And I never will. You know that.”

Do I?
I thought, and then realized that no, you could never be truly sure of anyone. “But you’ve been tempted at Avery. Lauren’s been tempting you. She wants to be more than friends.”

“We hang out sometimes, but we’ve never—I haven’t done anything to feel guilty about. It’s crazy up there…the girls…”

“I get it.” I didn’t want to hear anything about “the girls” at Avery. My imagination was unsettling enough without adding factual details. “And I never thought you hooked up with her, but I can tell there’s something going on with you two. I’m not stupid.”

“She knows about you and she knows nothing can happen. Jesus. I’m doing the best I can. You think it’s easy for me?” He paused when he realized he’d raised his voice. “I’m trying,” he said more calmly, “but I’m still human. You can’t tell me you’ve never felt attracted to anyone else.”

I thought of Dylan’s dimples. His lips on my hair as we danced.

“No, I can’t tell you that,” I agreed. “I have a Lauren too.”

It felt good to say that and then watch the insecurity I always felt cross someone else’s face. And, like me, his hurt usually surfaced as anger. “What does that mean, exactly?”

“A friend who wants it to be more even though he knows it can’t happen.”

“And you’re attracted to this guy?”

“There’s something there. Just like with you and Lauren.”

I didn’t look over at him, but I sensed his reaction from where I sat. He was mad. Hurt. Jealous. The same things I felt, only now he would share the burden. We sat that way for a long time, the two feet between us feeling more like two miles.

“I’m going to take you home now,” he said, finally, his words coming out strained in his effort to control himself. “I just need some time. Okay?”

I nodded, not trusting myself to speak. I needed some time too. Time to deal with the can of worms I’d just opened and dumped all over the front seat of Michael’s car. Time to figure out a way to contain the mess we’d made before it slithered beyond repair.

Chapter 12

“How about this for Mom?” Robin held up a book entitled
Your Defiant Teen: 10 Steps to Resolve Conflict and Rebuild Your Relationship.
“Rebuild,” she said, sliding the book back in place on the shelf. “How can you
re
build what you never built in the first place?”

“Christmas will be over soon,” I said, starting down the next aisle. We were at the book store in the mall, on the hunt for a particular graphic novel that Emma had said she wanted. Hers was the last Christmas gift I needed to buy.

“They’ll be back to ignoring me by Monday. I can’t wait.”

When I called Robin that morning to invite her to go shopping with me, she’d jumped at the chance to get out of the house. Her mother and stepfather had both taken this week off work, and according to Robin, they were driving her crazy with their “let’s pretend we’re a happy family at Christmas” attitudes. “They put up a
tree
,” she’d told me on the way to the mall. “And they wanted me to
decorate
it with them. I mean, what the hell? I never had Christmas trees growing up. Never. So she marries Alan and all of a sudden we’re the goddamn Brady Bunch?”

Leave it to Robin to suspect an ulterior motive in Christmas tree trimming.

“Here it is,” I said now as we stood in the graphic novel section. I picked up the book Emma wanted and turned it over to check the price, then wished I hadn’t.

“Emma’s so cool,” Robin said, grabbing the book from me and idly flipping through it. “When we were her age all we did was try on makeup and read those stupid fan magazines. She has much better taste than we did.”

More like expensive taste. I trotted up to the cash register and handed over the rest of my shopping money. With that done, we headed toward the food court.

“I have exactly seven dollars and eighty-three cents to my name,” I said. “Fries?”

“Well, duh.”

We joined the huge lineup. It was the day before Christmas Eve and the mall was insane with last minute shoppers. While we waited, Robin took three calls on her cell and spent the rest of the time texting. This was what she did now on the rare occasion we were together. She had a whole new set of friends, exciting friends whose sole mission in life was to party with a capital P. They kept her pretty busy.

“So I was going to ask you something,” she said, stuffing the phone in her purse. “This guy I know is having a huge New Year’s party and everyone who is anyone is going. I was wondering if you and Michael had plans already or if you wanted to go.”

I studied the menu board. “Um…”

“What?”

Luckily we were next in line to order, so I was saved from having to answer right away. This gave me time to figure out what I could possibly say to make her understand why I didn’t think I’d be doing anything for New Year’s Eve this year. But by the time we’d found a table and settled in with our fries, I still wasn’t any closer to an answer. For her or for myself.

Things with Michael were strained to say the least. Not only was he stressed about Josh—who was slipping back into his old ways at an alarming pace—but it had been five days since the canned worm explosion and nothing had really been resolved. When he’d dropped me off the night of his parents’ party, his knuckles white on the steering wheel, I’d climbed out of the car knowing that from that moment on everything would be different. Awkward. And it was. We still saw each other every day, spent time either alone or with friends or with my family or his, but every second seemed loaded with unspoken words and anxiety over exactly when the other shoe would drop. We didn’t talk about Lauren or Dylan, but they were always present in the background, the elephants in the room that we both saw but didn’t mention. I knew that any day now, those elephants were going to grow tired of being ignored and start a stampede.

And there was no way to predict the intensity of their destruction, or what would be left standing by the time the New Year rolled around.

“I’m not sure what our plans are,” I said to Robin now, and then I told her everything while she sat there, eyes huge, unconsciously shoveling fries into her mouth.

“Wow,” she said when I finished. “I had no idea. Why didn’t you tell me?”

I gave her a look that said
How could I tell you when I can barely even get you on the phone these days?
“Now you know. We’re not as perfect for each other as you always thought.”

“You are, though. That’s why you guys will get through this, like you got through every other test in your relationship. This is just another bump in the road.”

“I don’t know. This isn’t the same as some bitchy girl flirting with him or my mom trying to forbid me from seeing him. I don’t know if we’ll bounce back from this one.”

“Don’t say that.” She stretched out her legs, which were clad in dark skinny jeans and those crazy Catwoman boots. “Look, to be totally honest with you, I can’t imagine being with one guy for as long as you’ve been with Michael. But what you guys have is rare, Tay. You
are
perfect for each other. I knew it from the beginning and so did you.”

“If we’re so perfect together, then why is this happening? We shouldn’t have other people coming between us just because he went away to college.”

“Jesus, Taylor, cut yourself some slack. You guys aren’t married. You both have a pulse. Feeling attracted to other people isn’t a mortal sin, you know. The most solid couples in the world go through this once in a while. I bet your dad checks out hot college chicks all the time at work.”

I cringed. “Robin. I’m trying to eat here.”

“It’s true.”

Maybe it was true, but that didn’t make it any less traumatic. Besides, Michael and I had gone beyond simply checking out the opposite sex; everyone did that, committed or not. But not everyone allowed it to go further, past the superficial stage. Not everyone felt secure enough in their relationship to keep it from happening in the first place.

We finished our fries and left, Robin texting like mad right up until we got in the car. “Can you drop me at Isabelle’s?” she asked, flipping down the visor to check her teeth for potato gunk.

“I guess so.” I’d been hoping we could spend more time together, though I realized by now that I’d become the “time killer” friend, the one you only hung around with when you had nothing more exciting going on.

We drove to Redwood Hills and stopped in front of Isabelle’s house, which was decorated to the hilt with soft white lights. The driveway was empty, and I wondered briefly if her parents had left her alone for Christmas.

“Want to come in?” Robin asked, gathering her purse and phone. “We’re going to make pear martinis and watch Food TV all night. Izzie’s bonkers over those cooking shows.”

“No, thanks. I have plans for later.”

“Oh,” she said, not bothering to ask what they were. “Well, thanks for the lift. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

“Yep,” I said, not bothering to add that I wouldn’t hold my breath. “Hey, if you want, you can spend Christmas at Dad’s with me. I’ll be there until the twenty-sixth. Let me know tomorrow, okay?”

She swung the door shut. “Sure, if I survive Brady hell.”

Waving, I pulled away from the curb and pointed the car in the direction of home. It felt weird being in Redwood Hills when I wasn’t going to Michael’s house. He’d been gone all day, visiting some of his many relatives, but we’d planned to meet up later at R.J.’s house.

At home I found my father and stepmother in the kitchen, cooking dinner together. Lynn was doing the bulk of the work while Dad did the little tasks, like washing lettuce and setting the oven timer. When I offered to help they brushed me off, but not in an unwelcoming way. Still, I felt the way I always did when I was in the presence of my dad and stepmom together like this—superfluous. An outsider. Barred from the cohesive circle that always surrounded them.

As I watched them working together so fluidly, anticipating each other’s moves before they happened, I couldn’t imagine either of them having eyes for anyone but each other.

****