“I’m not promising I’ll keep it,” I warned, taking another sip of coffee. “As I just demonstrated, I spill my guts after I’ve had too much to drink.”
He laughed and shook his head. “That’s okay. I think I could survive, even if you did tell the world.”
“You sure about that?”
“Yes, I’m sure.” He leaned back in his seat, folding his arms behind his head with a sigh. “So, the truth is, I had a very, very similar experience to yours.”
“Really? How’s that?”
“Well, you may not realize this, but I was a big partier in high school. It’s actually kind of weird we didn’t run into each other a few times.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Really? I guess I just figured that graduation party was a fluke, based on the way you’ve been acting.”
“Hardly,” he said. “That’s how I know so much. Like the mints and the coffee, and Mom’s sleeping schedule. It’s also how Mom knows so much about the warning signs of drinking, how she figured out what happened to Bailey. I put her through hell for, like, three years. Ever since Dad died.”
“What?”
Nathan shrugged. “After Dad’s heart attack sophomore year, I got really… well, angry. Mom and Bailey had each other, but I didn’t have anyone. I felt like Dad had left me. Sounds dumb and selfish, I know, but that’s how it felt then. Some of the guys on the basketball team asked me to come party with them. They gave me pot and beer, and before long, I wasn’t angry anymore. I didn’t feel anything. Then it just became a habit.”
“I’m kind of shocked,” I admitted. “You act like my partying is so disgusting. I just thought… I don’t know what I thought.”
“Sorry,” he said. “I probably should have explained sooner, but I didn’t really want to think about it. I’m embarrassed now, remembering some of the stupid shit I did. God knows if Mom will ever completely trust me again.”
“Nathan, I’m still confused.”
“Graduation night was my last party,” he said. “Or at least my last drink. After that night, I decided I was done with all of it.”
“Why? What changed?”
A sly grin crept across Nathan’s face. “I got really, really wasted graduation night, and when I woke up, some sassy, sexy vixen had stolen my virginity.”
My jaw must have hit that sticky table.
“I thought we’d had a great night, but when I tried to get her number, she promised she’d never see me again,” he continued. “It kind of broke my heart. Call me a romantic, but I’d never expected my first time to be so… impersonal.”
“You’ve got to be shitting me,” I groaned, burying my face in my hands. “Oh my God. Oh my God. I was your first? Like, I took your virginity?”
“Yep.”
“But… you were really good.”
He blushed. “I bet you say that to all the boys.”
“No, I’m serious. You were sweet, like… gentle. The other guys I’ve been with just…”
“Used you?”
“Yeah. I mean, I guess it goes both ways, but… you were so different.”
“I liked you. I wanted to make you happy. I didn’t know what the hell I was doing, but thanks for saying I was good.”
“I just…” My brain was moving too slowly. My words faltered. “You… you weren’t a virgin. There’s no way.”
“I was.”
“But you’re eighteen,” I argued. “And hot. And a boy. You can’t tell me there weren’t opportunities.”
“There were. I just didn’t take them,” he said. “I saw so many of my teammates hook up with a different girl every weekend. Sure, it sounds great, but I just wasn’t into it. I didn’t want to be that kind of guy. I was waiting for something special—maybe not love, and definitely not marriage, but someone I liked a lot, someone I could see myself with for a while.”
I felt the weight of his words sink into my stomach. He’d wanted something special, someone special. Instead he’d gotten me.
“That’s why I quit drinking,” he said. “After you left, I realized what I’d become, and I didn’t like it. So I decided to change things. Start fresh.”
“Fuck. Nathan, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.”
“It’s okay.” He shrugged. This time, he did reach across the table to take my hand. “If it hadn’t been for you, I’d still be out there getting hammered every weekend. Still driving my mother crazy. I guess I just needed someone or something to shake me up. You taught me a lesson, Whit. And sometimes I hate you for it, but… but I’m trying not to.”
“You can hate me if you want to. I’d hate me.”
“But I don’t want to,” he said. “You’re part of my family—or you will be soon—and I want it to work. I’ve put Mom and Bailey through enough, and I want them to be happy now. That’s why I try so hard to keep it bottled up, how seeing you makes me feel, but sometimes I just… I’m sorry. For some of the things I’ve said.”
“You were right, though. About me being a whore. If I hadn’t acted like such a… If I’d been different, Theo wouldn’t have—”
“Stop it,” he said. “I don’t care how you acted. What happened tonight wasn’t your fault.”
“You weren’t there.”
“It doesn’t matter. It wasn’t your fault, Whitley. And you’re not a whore.”
I didn’t say anything. I just stared at Nathan’s hand on mine for a long moment. I’d done to him essentially the same thing that senior boy had done to me when I was fifteen. I’d used him and abandoned him and taken something from him. But instead of regressing like I had, falling into the habits and giving up on people and happiness and anything good, Nathan had worked to turn himself around, to change everything, no matter what people thought.
If he were a drug addict, I would have been his rock bottom.
“Thank you,” I said.
“For what?”
“For trying not to hate me.”
CHAPTER 19
Sylvia knocked on the guest room door the next morning. For once, she didn’t wake me up. I hadn’t been able to sleep much that night, between the coffee and the terrifying memories of Theo. And staying up all night had only made the hangover worse. This one was on par with the one I’d had the morning after graduation.
“We need to have a talk,” Sylvia said as soon as I pulled open the door.
“Okay,” I said, letting her inside.
I wasn’t wearing skimpy pajamas this time. After what had happened last night, I’d felt the need to be fully covered. I was wearing baggy sweats and an ancient T-shirt, and it still didn’t feel like enough.
“I heard Nathan leave last night,” she said, folding her arms over her chest. “To pick you up at three am. I thought you were staying over at Harrison’s.”
“I was supposed to.”
I eased myself back onto the bed. Pain shot through my head, and I winced.
“Change of plans?”
“You could say that.”
“Whitley,” Sylvia groaned, running her hands through her hair. “Look, I don’t want to be the wicked stepmother. I know what it’s like to have a stepmom you hate—my stepmother treated my sister and me like we were juvenile delinquents. I don’t want to be like that, but now you’ve clearly got a hangover, and you had Nathan out early in the morning—”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“I just can’t go through this again,” she went on. At first I didn’t know what she meant, but then I remembered Nathan’s confession. He’d said he made her crazy for years. “I don’t want you to hate me, but I can’t do this. I can’t let my daughter be around this kind of behavior.”
“I know. Like I said, I’m sorry. It won’t happen again, okay?”
“My question is why you had Nathan bring you home,” she said. “You were loud in the hallway this morning. If you were going to get drunk, why didn’t you stay at Harrison’s? You knew I’d be upset if I noticed.”