When I put the mug back down, Nathan grinned at me.
“I hate you.”
“You just wish you did,” he said.
I took another drink of coffee and picked up my piece of toast again.
“The face you make when you drink it is hilarious,” he teased.
I swallowed a slightly burned bite of bread. “If you aren’t careful, I’ll spit the next mouthful all over you,” I warned.
He laughed again, but it faded into silence within seconds. His face turned suddenly serious, and I braced myself, arms around my knees again. I knew what was on his mind. It was on mine, too. But I didn’t want to talk about it. Or think about it. Ever again.
“Please, don’t,” I said when he started to open his mouth. “Not right now, okay? I can’t talk about it right now…. Can we talk about anything but that?”
“Fine. But if you need to—”
“I know.”
“Okay.”
“Okay. Talk about something else.”
There was a long pause, then Nathan finally said, “I’m sorry.”
I stared at him, a little confused.
“I told you this afternoon, but you wouldn’t listen,” he said. “I mean it, though. What I said—”
I shook my head. “Don’t bother. It wasn’t like you were lying, after all.”
“But—”
“It’s fine,” I said. “It’s just… ironic.”
“What do you mean?”
“Back home in Indiana, when I was hooking up all the time with random guys, people called me a whore, but it was like… It wasn’t like everyone knew my name. But here? I’ve been good in comparison to what I used to do. I haven’t done anything with anyone but make out, yet everyone cares, everyone knows me. They call me a slut, but since I’ve been here, I haven’t even done anything.”
Nathan looked a little surprised. “You mean, you aren’t… You didn’t…?”
“Nope. The last time I got laid was graduation night,” I said. “And that wasn’t really a normal thing.”
“What do you mean?” he asked. He was sitting sideways in the booth, one leg hanging out into the aisle between the tables. He was playing with the hole in the knee of his jeans, his eyes on his fingers, like he was suddenly very interested in the denim. “How wasn’t it, uh, normal?”
“I don’t have sex with everyone,” I said. “I’ve hooked up a lot. But I could count the number of people I’ve slept with on one hand, including you. You’d never know it based on what people say, or those pictures, but…”
“Oh.”
I leaned back in my seat and stared out the dirty window. A few fireworks were still erupting from a church parking lot across the street.
“Weeks of posts, tons of comments, pictures he was tagged in… and my dad hasn’t said a word. He just untags himself.”
“That’s why you do this, isn’t it? Because of your dad?”
I turned to face Nathan again. “What do you mean?”
“Your dad,” he said. “Okay, this is going to sound really shrinkish, but I think you act like this—party, drink—because you want his attention. Don’t you?”
“No. That’s stupid.”
“Really?” He leaned across the table, his eyes on mine. I looked away, and he asked, “Then why?”
“Why what?”
“Why do you do it? Go out and get wasted all the time. Why?”
My first feeling was anger. I wanted to yell at Nathan and tell him that I lived this way because I wanted to. Because it was fun. Because it worked for me. But that was bullshit. Especially after what had happened tonight.
This wasn’t fun. It hadn’t been for a long time.
I thought of Bailey. I’d been so much like Bailey once. Somehow, I’d gone from that to… this.
“Remember when I told you that I had my first drink when I was fourteen?” I asked, turning to Nathan.
“Yeah.”
“Well, it was at a kegger. I went because all the cool high school kids would be there, and I wanted to make some new friends before freshman year. I went, I drank, and I tried to have fun. And I did. The hangover was hell, though, and I was sure I’d get grounded for drinking, but Mom didn’t even notice. I mean, she ate breakfast with me the next morning and everything. She probably heard me puking in the toilet. But she didn’t say a word.
“Since she didn’t care, I thought I might as well keep going to parties. I went to a few. I met some new people. We weren’t friends or anything. I didn’t have friends, because my middle school best friend, Nola, had stopped hanging out with me. Some girls told her I’d give her a bad reputation or something. But these new people seemed cool. They gave me liquor, and I liked it. I liked being giggly and happy, because I didn’t feel like that very often. Not since the divorce.”
Nathan was quiet. I turned my head to stare out the window again, watching a few more fireworks explode in the sky. I’d never told anyone this part of the story before. No one had asked until now.
“I got really, really smashed one night at the end of freshman year. I mean, the drunkest I’d ever been in my life. I passed out at this party and… Well, I don’t really remember what happened. But I lost my virginity to a guy I didn’t even know. A senior, I think. I felt somehow… I don’t know. Bonded to him? So I gave him my number. I think part of me assumed we were, like, dating or something stupid like that. Of course I don’t have to tell you that he never called. I never saw him again. And I was so humiliated and ashamed.”
I shifted uncomfortably, feeling Nathan’s eyes on me.
“I expected Mom to say something. To scold me for the way I was acting, or at least give me the stupid safe-sex talk. God, I came home drunk all the time. Sometimes I didn’t come home at all. But after that I just… I expected her to see how upset I was and to ask what had happened. Maybe she couldn’t tell I was depressed because she could never admit she was depressed, too. I don’t know. But she never said a word. I mean, she has to know what I’m doing…. She and Dad both have to. Dad has to know, and he hasn’t said anything.”
“So you do want attention.” It wasn’t an accusation. Not harsh. Just a statement.
“Or I did. You’ve seen Facebook. I’m getting plenty of it now,” I said.
“Yeah, but not from the right people.”
I saw Nathan’s fingers move on the table, spreading from a loose fist until all his fingertips touched the stained linoleum. Some people would have taken my hand by now. It just went to show how well he knew me. He knew I wasn’t the type to ask for comfort, so he wouldn’t touch me. Wouldn’t console me.
I cleared my throat. “Anyway. After that, after the first guy, I just kept partying. Maybe it only made me happy for a few hours, but at least I was happy. I tried to be more careful about how drunk I got. I’ve fucked up a few times, gotten trashed enough to agree to have sex, but only a few times.”
I replayed the memories of those boys. Greedy hands clutching at me, pulling me, pushing me. Theirs to use for a night. I guess I was using them, too. None of them had tried to force me, but now, in my head, they all looked like Theo.
“Whitley, you don’t think I… I mean, I didn’t…”
“Take advantage of me? No. If anything, I probably took advantage of you. If my very fuzzy memory is correct.” I smiled a little. “Sorry.”
“Still,” he said. “We probably shouldn’t have…”
“Believe me, Nathan, if I’d known your mom was marrying my father, I wouldn’t have slept with you. And I’ll probably wish I hadn’t told you this tomorrow, when I’m sober, but I had fun that night, thanks to you. So I don’t completely regret it.”
He gave me a small smile. “Do you want to know a secret?”