Her hand goes to her braless chest. “No way? Can’t be true!”
"Marina! I thought you were on my side!"
"I am. That's why I can't believe it. That boy is in love. Why would he sleep with anyone else?" She's tapping her chin with her finger, lost in her thoughts.
I begin laughing. “Justin? In love with me? I don’t think so.” I shake my head.
She finally focuses on me with the words: “Foolish kids.”
We hug, kiss goodbyes, and I give her the address I’ll be staying at.
The drive to Boston is uneventful. I don’t cry a single tear after the waterfall with Mark. All I want now is to fall flat on a bed—any bed—and get lost in sleep.
When I stop at Archie's driveway, I need to make sure if I'm at the right place becausema-a-an, that house is enormous. It's made of red brick, the entrance has four white columns, and the door is a double with painted glass on either side. The landscaping is marvelous. All types of plants from different climate zones perfectly match each other. I’m not sure how he keeps all of them alive, but he probably pays a fortune to his landscaping company.
I check again—yep, the address is correct. I get out of the car and walk to the door. Right when I'm about to ring the bell, it opens, and Archie steps out with a broad smile across his face.
“Welcome home!” He spreads his arms. And I begin bawling. Again. “Oh shit.” He says, pulling me inside and giving me a hug. “Do you want me to go and break his nose?”
A muffled laugh escapes me. “How do you know that it was him?”
He makes atsking noise. “Please. Why else would you be here at night? The idiot messed up. My gain. I just got myself a future star. C’mon in.” He gently leads me inside the house.
And with that, a new chapter of my life starts. I get into the school and work at Archie’s parlor in my free time. It’s not so much a job but also experience I put toward hours at school. A win-win.
That first night I cry. A lot. I thought we shared something. There was something special—it turns out I was wrong. The second night I cry, too. Same with the third and the fourth. And many nights after. During the day, I put a brave face on, but at night I take the happy mask off and let my real feelings pour out of me. Quite literally: waterfall nights follow every single day.
I talk with Freya daily on the phone, and she asks me if I'm ready to share every time. At this point, I don't even want to remember. I don't want to relive that horrible moment when I understood that my feelings were shit on by the one person I let myself be vulnerable with.
After four weeks, I stopped crying at night, but the ever-present ache in my chest remained there forever.
ChapterThirty
JUSTIN
I wake up to a weird smell surrounding me. It's too sweet and suffocating. I scratch my throat because it’s literally hurting me.
After a quick look around, I note that everything is the same, but I’m undressed. Weird. When I crash, I usually don’t have time to get prepared.
I try to find the source of the weird smell, but I can’t, so I decide to just strip the sheets. But first, I check my phone.Damn, it's dead. No wonder, I was probably out for hours. Plugging it in, I head to the shower.
Good thing I fucking made it home before crashing. Otherwise, it'd be embarrassing. Yesterday—or was it the day before yesterday? I’m lost with this time shit after so many hours of being out—I wanted to go to the trailer park she used to live at and talk to Mark. Since I've decided to find peace for myself, I need to make amends, and fuck do I need to apologize to that guy. And also, I wanted to test the waters and see what sort of relationship they have. I'll be a fool not to admit that he's been around a lot, and they grew up together. So I hoped to find him there. Color me surprised when it turned out he doesn’t live there anymore. Instead, his old trailer is still occupied by some drunk who sort of reminds me of Mark. Can it be his dad? I don’t blame the dude for leaving then.
I stuck around the trailer park longer than planned, but I got some valuable information from the neighbors. Some folks who saw Kayla growing up still remembered her mother, and they told me a few horror stories that will keep me up at night for many years to come. Stories about Kayla running away from home whenever her mom brought her new boyfriends home, and how she would always hide at Mark's place, waiting for the men to leave; and how she was left alone when her mother and sister checked out of town after hitting a woman and her child with their car, leaving Kayla with the shame and unrequited guilt. That's where the story got interesting. They told me that said woman visited her a few times before she'd moved in with Marina, right after the accident, and she brought "friends" with her. And that word "friends" bugged the hell out of me. I couldn’t pinpoint why exactly. Kayla was fifteen when her mother checked out of town so that "friendship" seems even weirder.
So, I drove to Springfield to ask if anyone knew any information. My search turned out fruitless, but I had spent far too many hours awake by then, and my body was crashing. I barely made it home before my lights were out. That's how my last two days went.
I miss Kayla, and all I want right now is to hold her in my arms, preferably not telling her where I was these last couple of days. I can't wait any longer, so I speed up my shower.
Twenty minutes later, I make myself a coffee and pick up my phone. It's nine-thirty at night. Fuck, just awesome. Now the next few days will be thoroughly fucked. I have a bunch of phone calls and messages from Kayla, a few from my parents, and a couple from Freya and Alex. Alright. I've been out for maybe fourteen hours but judging by the number of missed calls, it might as well be a week.
I dial Kayla's number, and it goes straight to voicemail. Okay, odd. I try again with the same success. I shoot a quick text asking her to call me back, but it's undeliverable.O-o-okay, now I begin to worry a little. I finish my coffee in one big gulp and run downstairs. The garage is locked up, and everything is neat and in its place. I can always rely on Paul. He's a loyal guy and a good worker. I pay him handsomely for that.
The whole drive to her place, I’m nervous; my knee can't stop jumping.
And for a good reason.
There are no lights on in the trailer and no Jeep parked next to it. No folding chairs out front that she likes to sit in and draw. None of her stuff around.
