The Girl Who Fell(85)
“Leave it, Zeph.” Gregg reaches for me, but I slink him off. I clutch my cup so hard the plastic crackles in my fist, water slipping out over the side, shocking my skin with cold.
His free hand sits on her shoulder now, like it’s made to be there.
Alec’s hips sling closer to the girl’s, his body almost covering her in that blanket. My blanket. My thoughts fog.
Her hand rising to his hair, just over his ear.
His lips move but I can’t make out the words.
Her head lifts to his, her mouth inviting a kiss.
“Alec?” I whisper. The couple doesn’t stir. Maybe I’m too far away for him to hear me. Maybe it’s not really him. Loud music rushes into my ears. I step past the speakers, tuck behind the deck to listen.
He drops his head so close to her shoulder.
Is he kissing her neck? Asking her to go somewhere else? To be alone?
Her body pulling him in, so eager.
Lizzie and Gregg approach but I wave them away. I hush everything around me so I can hear this couple. And I hear them.
“You are really beautiful,” he tells her. “Sexy.”
I feel sick. The kind of sick I’ll never stop being sick from.
“You cold?” He rubs her forearms.
“Not with you.” Her flirt drips sugar.
“You want to go inside?”
Inside?
“Alec?” I blurt. The name I’ve held on my lips for months, the name that edged out Boston College.
He turns then, focuses on my face in the shadows. His hand drops from the twist of the girl’s hair. He takes a half step back from the house. I can’t read his expression. Is it satisfaction? Regret?
“Zephyr.” His voice silks out my name while my world implodes.
Words strangle my throat. I feel my jaw drop open but I can’t make sound. Who is this girl?
A million questions battle in my head but nothing catches. Confusion overwhelms me.
I bend into the stitching ache in my core. Lizzie says something behind me but her words are garbled, remote.
“What are you doing?” My question belongs to someone else. I cannot be here. This cannot be Alec.
Alec reaches for my wrist and holds tight. His grasp is a cold metallic restraint. I wrench my arm free.
“It’s not what it looks like.” His words are too simple, too regulated. Rage boils in me and he is so calm.
“It looked pretty clear to me,” Lizzie says.
Pain scorches my middle. “What was it, then?” I find these words somehow.
“Zephyr, I had no idea.” It’s the girl now. Tiny, young. An underclassman.
“Do I know you?” I whisper.
“I’m Katie. I tried out for JV field hockey”—she slinks a step away from Alec—“I didn’t know he was your boyfriend. Honest.”
These words lash like a taunt: boyfriend. Your boyfriend.
Then Gregg ushers the girl beyond my sightline.
Next to me, there is the heat of Lizzie’s body. “Zephyr, let’s go.” Anger spikes the edges of her words.
Alec grabs for me again, but I step away. “Look, it isn’t what you think. Zephyr, you of all people should understand things aren’t always what they seem.”
Lizzie bristles. “What is that supposed to mean?”
He ignores her, steps toward me. “What you saw. I wanted you to see that.”
Lizzie slaps Alec’s face hard enough to hush conversations in the forming crowd. His hand darts to his cheek, meeting the sting. “You”—she thrusts her finger in his face—“Are. A. Piece. Of. Shit. You don’t deserve Zephyr.” Each word drops cleanly, sharply. Daggers.
Gregg positions himself between Alec and Lizzie until she backs down. She grabs the sleeve of my coat. “C’mon, Zee, we’re leaving.”
Lizzie’s hand tugs at my jacket, but I don’t move. I’m trapped in this spot, tortured by the reoccurring image of Alec and another girl too close. Had they already kissed by the time I saw them? Done more? And he wanted me to see? And what if I hadn’t blurted out his name when I did?
“Zee!” Lizzie pleads.
Alec approaches me, wraps his arms around my waist. He twists me quickly, away from my friends. His head fills the sloped cove of my neck the way it has so many times. I smell mint and my body remembers. My knees weaken. But that girl must have smelled it too.
And how many other girls?
My head whirls. My brain stutters. “W-why would you want me to see you with another girl?”
Alec’s fingers slip down my sleeve, web their way around my fingers. I feel the squeeze he gives my hand, but it’s disconnected somehow, like I’m watching this happen to another girl.
His low words float to my ears. “Zephyr, nothing happened.”
Somehow I manage to speak. “It did. Or it was about to.”