***
The relief I felt when I saw him—after stumbling around Lindholmen Island drunk and on the verge of a panic attack—was unparalleled. I collapsed into his arms, allowed him to lead me blindly back through the dense trees to the row of rooms our group shared.
I never once questioned how he found me, what he’d been doing wandering in the wooded area behind our hostel like I had been.
I should have.
And then, we were back in my room. I started it, I’ll admit that much. He tried to leave me in the doorway, to drop me off for the night, but the alcohol, the sadness, the regret, all of it mixed into a lethal combination, and in that moment, I wanted nothing more than a connection, for someone to want me back. I threw myself at him, my lips landing messily on his.
“You’re drunk,” he mumbled into my neck halfheartedly, but I ignored him, leading him to the bed instead.
He was gone when I woke up the next morning.
I figured that would be it, a one and done, but to my surprise—and not total disgust—it happened again the next night, and the next. There was something about the fact that he’d seen me at my lowest point and still accepted me that kept me coming back. We kept it secret. I didn’t care about the others finding out. In fact, I would have loved to see the jealousy on Kyan’s face when he learned I’d been sleeping with his “best mate,” but Josh had some excuse about not wanting the others gossiping about his private business.
I didn’t care, to tell the truth. Until the last night in the Whitsundays. I was drunk, as usual, and Adrien had made some comment that set me off earlier in the night. I’d been talking to one of the Swedish backpackers staying at our hostel, and when he walked away, I overheard her whisper something intentionally loud enough for me to hear about how I could neverseal the deal.
“I’m going to tell her about us,” I said, as Josh and I lay in his bed, Kyan sleeping over in Adrien’s room as usual. “That will shut her up.”
“No.”
Josh’s response was so firm that I shrank back. Keeping our relationship—or whatever it was—on the down-low was one thing, but why was Josh so intent on keeping it a secret from everyone?
“Okay, what is this? Are you embarrassed to be hooking up with me or what?”
“You don’t even know who I am, do you?” he asked.
“What do you mean?”
He laughed, a hard sound that seemed to echo against the walls. “I was on your brother’s football team when I was freshman. He was a senior. I was in your grade, and you still don’t even recognize me?”
The upbeat, joking expression he always wore was replaced by a mask—cold eyes and a thin line for his lips—and I felt something crack inside me, as if my chest was cleaving in two.
I thought of those high school years, how I walked through a perpetual fog, barely noticing anyone or anything around me, always counting the minutes until my brother made his next move.
“You said you’re from California,” I said, my voice a barely audible squeak.
“No, I said I go to school in California. I grew up in Atlanta.”
I felt a coldness enter my veins. How could I have been so blind? How could I have not recognized him?
“Your brother, Jimmy, was my idol,” Josh continued. “I was an only child; my dad was barely in the picture. More concerned with fucking his secretary and any other woman who smiled at him than staying home and raising his own son. But Jimmy, he was like the older brother I never had. He’d stay late after practice, helping me with drills, giving me advice about girls and college and… I mean, I loved him.”
I sat there, still shocked that this was happening. His words didn’t seem to fit together right in my head.
“He was like my role model. And then, well, you know what happened to him.”
I felt my hand back on the wheel of the car all those years ago. The headlights twisting as we swerved, the crash of glass as it fractured around us.
“I’d driven with Jimmy before, to parties and things. He was a good driver, knew how to handle himself even after a few beers. It didn’t take long for people to start talking, for the rumors to start about his weird fat sister who was in the car with him that night. How she had something to do with it.”
I flinched.Weird. Fat.The labels I’d spent years trying to drop.
I’d come all this way to leave that girl behind. To try to start over, to make the others believe I was someone different.
But she followed me.
“I barely recognized you at orientation, I’ll give you that,” he continued. “You did a good job trying to become someone different. The hair, the diet.” His eyes skirted over my naked body appreciatively. “But the name gave it away. Barton. Jimmy’s last name wasn’t that common, and when I looked closely, I could see it. The family resemblance, in the chin.”
