“Lex, I—what about the road trip?”
She winced. “I’m not ready for Alaska yet, Charlie.”
“What are you going to do, Alexandra?” I heard myself snapping, taking it out on her, unfairly, but I couldn’t seem to stop myself. “Drink and fuck with a rock star until he gets bored of you?” I glanced at Myles. “No offense, Myles, really.”
He lifted an eyebrow, irritation on his face. “I mean, I do take offense to that, Charlie. I’m not like that, with anyone, and I never have been. Plus, I genuinely like Lexie, a lot. And we do more than just drink and fuck. Not to fucking mention, what business is it of yours what we do together?”
“Lex, we had a plan. What about college? What about what happened? What is your plan?”
“Charlie, don’t.” She stood up and faced me, nose to nose. “This is what I want. I’m sorry that doesn’t fit into your plans for my life, but I don’t answer to you.”
“Maybe you should.”
“Because your judgment is working outso wellfor you,” she snapped.
“Girls, come on—” Myles said.
“Shut up, Myles,” Lexie and I snapped in unison.
I stared at Lexie. “After what happened back East, I think you’d—”
“You don’tknowwhat happened back East, Charlotte!”
“Because you wouldn’t tell me!” I shouted. I glanced, saw Crow leaning in the doorway of the bus, watching. I ignored him.
“You want to know? Fine, I’ll tell you. Today must be the day we unburden ourselves of terrible secrets.” She stood tall, eyes proud, pain and anger on her face. “I got pregnant with Marcus’s baby. I took about a dozen tests, including a blood test at a hospital. I told him, and he…he—” Her face crumpled momentarily. “At first he didn’t believe me. When I showed him the results of the blood test, he accused me of doing it on purpose. To trap him into being with me. I left, and he showed up at my dorm. I wouldn’t see him. So then when I decided we had to talk, I went to his house. He…we…we ended up screwing again, what we both sort of knew was going to be the last time, and that was when his wife showed up. Caught us in the act.”
“Oh god, Lexie,” I breathed.
“His kids were there. They saw us too. Saw me fucking their daddy.” She blinked hard. “Want to know the real kicker, which I didn’t know until later? His wife was the school dean’s niece. She went to him. Got me kicked out of school. Revoked my scholarship. The dean himself called every other dean he knew and blacklisted me.” A sob. “And Marcus…told his wife I’d seduced him. Some brain-dead story that made it all my fault.”
“What an asshole,” I muttered.
“That asshole gave me three grand, told me I knew what to do, and that he never wanted to see me again.” She picked up the empty bottle of Johnnie, stared at it as if wishing it were full. “I took the money, and I did exactly what he expected me to do.”
I covered my mouth. “Alexandra, no.”
“Alexandra, yes.” She chewed on her lip. “What was I going to do, Charlotte? Run back to Mommy, knocked up at twenty-one by my university professor? I don’t think so.” Her eyes cut to mine. “So yeah, Charlotte, I had an abortion.”
I felt gutted. “Alone?”
“Yes, alone. Went in alone, went through it alone, came out and went home, alone. It was only later I went a little crazy and called you. When I realized I had to leave school, and that I had nowhere to go. I packed up the bulk of my shit and sent it to Alaska, to Mom. It’s already there. What’s in your car is everything I have with me.” She blinked back tears. “Well, it’s in Myles’s room, now. My stuff, I mean.”
I couldn’t hold back tears. “Why didn’t you call me earlier?”
“And have you talk me out of it? I have plans for my life, Charlotte, and they don’t include kids at twenty-one, when I haven’t accomplished any of my life goals.”
“What are your life goals, Lex?”
“I don’t even know anymore!” She turned away, stared out the tinted privacy glass window. “You know what I wanted to be when I grew up, my whole childhood?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “A musician.”
I rocked back on my heels. “What?”
“You were busy with school and all your overachiever extracurricular activities, so you never saw, but you know where I was? In my room, alone, with my guitar and my ukulele, writing songs. I have a folder with hundreds of songs. CD recordings of myself. Videos of myself taken on Mom’s old phone, saved to a cloud drive.” She paused. “Then, when I was a junior, Dad sat me down and…and told me I was—that I wasn’t talented enough to make it as a musician, and that I should set my sights on a more realistic goal.”
I shook my head. “He didn’t.”
“He fucking did.” She was shaking. “That…it killed me. Destroyed me. I cried for days. I mean, he was mydad. I thought he…if he said that, it must be true. I didn’t know any better. He didn’t believe in me. Shut my dreams down. So that’s when I figured I’d just…” She shrugged. “Go to school. I’d planned on moving to Nashville and working my way up as a singer-songwriter, but when Dad said that to me, I just…I lost myself. Got accepted to U-Conn, and found something like a passion for life in feminist lit and all that.”
