Chapter 10

10

The night is quiet and bare: a vacuum of sound. It must be chilly, but I don’t notice it, either because I’ve been drinking or because my blood is boiling, or maybe both. I hold Irene’s hand until we make it past Charlotte’s front walk. She stops cold and pulls her hand away.

We square off, facing each other. Her chest is heaving; her eyes are daggers.

“I’m sorry,” I say quietly.

She glances away. “Like I said.” Her voice is eerily calm. “You’re arrogant to think you understand my enemies better than I do.”

I swallow. “You’re right.”

Danielle and Honey-Belle catch up to us at the car. Honey-Belle falls all over Irene, petting her hair and asking if she’s okay.

“I’m fine,” Irene says flatly, holding Honey-Belle at arm’s length. “Please stop smothering me.”

“Charlotte Pascal is trash,” Danielle says. Her eyes take on that destructive look she gets on the basketball court, but she looks unexpectedly at Irene. “You’d better be sincere about being gay, though. You can’t fake liking girls for votes.”

“Of course she’s sincere,” Honey-Belle snaps. “You don’t know the process she’s gone through—you can’t imagine the internalized homophobia—”

“My best friend is gay, too, Honey-Belle,” Danielle says loudly. “So you’ll understand if I want to make sure she’s not being led along by this whole thing.”

Irene snorts derisively. She falls back against the car, shaking her head. “‘Led along.’ That’s an interesting way to put it.”

“What does that mean?” Honey-Belle asks.

Irene and I lock eyes. I prepare for her to throw this whole arrangement away, and in that moment, I almost want her to. This scheme has caused more trouble than it’s worth. For both of us.

But as usual, she surprises me.

“Nothing.” She sniffs. “Let’s just get out of here. I’m tired of thinking. I’m tired of acting.”

Honey-Belle nods sympathetically. Danielle sets her mouth, but she glances toward me, deferring.

“Okay,” I say, trying to anchor myself. “Let’s go. But someone else needs to drive.”

“I can,” Honey-Belle says. “I didn’t drink anything.”

I nod, hand her my keys, and slink into the back seat. When Danielle slides in next to me, I meet her eyes sheepishly. “Did you tell the boys we won’t be back?”

“Yeah,” she says shortly. She was getting such good quality time with Kevin, but she gave it up to check on my fake girlfriend and me. Not for the first time, I feel unworthy of her friendship.

Irene tucks herself into the passenger seat in front of me. I watch her expression in the side mirror as we pull away from the curb. She looks utterly defeated. I know it’s not directly because of me, but I still feel the weight of it.

It wasn’t your fault, Mom said the day of the accident, but it’s still your responsibility.

I speak before I can think twice about it.

“Maybe we should keep hanging out, just the four of us.”

Danielle stares at me like I’m malfunctioning. Irene maintains her stony silence. But Honey-Belle, God bless her, gasps with delight.

“I love that idea! Like a girls’ sleepover?” She gasps again. “We could have a self-care night in my Jacuzzi!”

Danielle’s interest piques. “Wait, hold on. You have a Jacuzzi?”

“Yeah, with seven types of bubbles and color-changing lights!”

Danielle bites her lip. She’s always loved Jacuzzis. I catch her eye, and she sighs in resignation. “Fuck it, I’m in.”

“Great!” Honey-Belle trills.

“Irene?” I ask hopefully.

Irene clears her throat and shifts in her seat. “Fine.”

Honey-Belle cheers and spins the car in the other direction.

---

The Hewett house is very much what you would expect of the Grandma Earl Christmas Emporium heirs. It’s like a gingerbread house come to life, with swirls of color and light. I can hear the thrill in Mrs. Zander’s voice when Danielle calls to say we’ll be staying here tonight.

“Is it true they have a hidden library?” Mrs. Zander asks. Danielle hastens to click the volume down on her phone, but we can still hear her mom’s excited voice. “Teddy wants to know if they really have a ball pit in the basement!”

“We do!” Honey-Belle beams. “Your brother can play here anytime!”

Danielle blushes and hastily tells her mom goodnight.

After that, it’s a matter of figuring out swimwear for the Jacuzzi. Irene has her own bathing suit she keeps at the Hewetts’ house—it’s as red as the devil, which doesn’t surprise me in the slightest—and Honey-Belle has a flowery bikini she’s outgrown that fits Danielle’s petite frame well enough.

But as for me?

“How about this top, Scottie?” Honey-Belle asks, handing me a flaming orange racerback that clashes horribly with my hair. It looks too big for me, but maybe the racerback will keep it in place. I pull it on and turn around to show the others.

“You look like a carrot,” Irene says, snorting. Her hands are at her hips, her bare stomach shining in the lamplight. I catch myself staring and turn toward Danielle instead.

“Baywatch thinks she’s funny,” I say, jerking my thumb toward Irene.

“She is,” Danielle says.

Honey-Belle leads us through the merry house with its twinkling lights and pink-cheeked nutcrackers until we reach a sunroom with a Jacuzzi squat in the center. It’s one of those aboveground whirlpools with an insulated cover, which Irene and Honey-Belle pull off the top in a way that suggests they’ve done this a million times before.

“It’s … bedazzled,” Danielle whispers to me. There’s no need for her to point it out: The glinting gemstones catch the light on every part of the outer shell.

I can’t help laughing, because the more I hang out with Honey-Belle, the less any of this surprises me.

Honey-Belle fiddles with the controller until the hot tub roars to life, the jets glug-glug-glugging while bubbles pop at the surface. We sink into the hot water and stretch against the four sides of the tub.

“This is heaven,” Danielle says with her eyes closed. “Screw that party, we should’ve been doing this the whole time.”

Irene sinks low enough for the water to reach her chin. Her expression clouds over, and I think she must be ruminating on Charlotte’s cruel gag. I feel another stab of guilt in my chest.

Honey-Belle must be thinking along the same lines, because she affectionately scratches Irene’s head and says, “How about we play How’s Your Heart?”

Irene laughs. “You can, Honey-Belle.”

“What is it?” Danielle asks skeptically.

“It’s what it sounds like,” Honey-Belle says brightly. “Everyone goes around and shares how their heart feels right now. Mom and Dad and I play it all the time.”

Danielle meets my eyes with a look that says This can’t be real.

“I’ll start,” Honey-Belle says, undeterred. “My heart feels happy from talking to Gunther tonight. He’s so sweet and interesting.” She bites her lip demurely. “I didn’t know he was so funny.”

“Is he, though?” I mutter to Danielle.

Danielle doesn’t hear me; she’s staring keenly at Honey-Belle. “How do you admit that so easily?”

“What? That I like Gunther?”

Danielle twists her mouth, self-conscious. “Yeah. What if he doesn’t like you back?”

Honey-Belle shrugs. “That’s up to him, not me. I always say when I like things so the universe will hear me clearly. Actually, that’s how Irene and I became friends! I told her I liked her aura. It’s shimmery and bold, as I’m sure y’all have noticed.” She shakes Danielle’s forearm. “Why, do you like someone?”

“No, no, definitely not.” Danielle clears her throat. “I was just asking hypothetically.”

“That’s too bad, because there’s probably lots of guys who like you. You’re a natural leader and you’re super brainy and, to top it all off, you have Cleopatra eyes. You could rule a whole kingdom with a scepter and a necklace of rubies.”

Danielle blinks rapidly. “Er … thank you.”

“Anytime.” Honey-Belle beams. “Your turn: How’s your heart?”

“Um.” Danielle shifts to spread her arms wider. “My heart feels anxious. It’s like I’m always on the edge of something. The next test, the next big game, the next college acceptance letter. I have a hard time being happy where I am.”

I’ve never heard Danielle speak like this. A surge of affection shoots up through my chest. I want to reach across the hot tub and hug her.

“That sounds mega stressful,” Honey-Belle coos. “Thank you for sharing and helping to cement our bond of vulnerability. Okay, Ireenie, you’re next.”

Irene, who has been taking all this in as quietly as I have, shakes her head. “Not tonight, Honey-Belle.”

“Oh come on. We can tell you’re upset about the party.”

“I’m fine.”

“Your aura has gone dark and spiky,” Honey-Belle says pointedly.

Irene dips her head back so she’s looking at the ceiling. “Fine. My heart feels betrayed.” She pauses. “I’m also hungry.”

Honey-Belle smiles. “I was waiting for that. Nachos?”

“God, yes, please.”

“Coming right up. Danielle, will you help me?”

“What?” Danielle says. “But it’s so warm in here—”

Honey-Belle stares meaningfully at her and does an obvious head cock in my direction; she clearly wants me to have a moment alone with the angsty Irene.

“Yeah, yeah,” Danielle grumbles, following Honey-Belle out of the Jacuzzi. “Y’all better have jalapeños…”

Irene and I are left in a loaded silence as their voices trail out of the room. We ignore each other from opposite sides of the hot tub until a full minute has passed.

“It’s your turn,” Irene says suddenly.

“What?” I ask, even though I know what she means.

She stares expectantly at me, unimpressed with my feigned ignorance. I roll my eyes and stretch my arms across the top of the tub.

“I feel—”

“No,” she cuts me off. By the look on her face, I can tell she’s enjoying my discomfort. “Not ‘I.’ You know the format.”

I glare at her. “My heart feels mixed emotions.”

“Like?”

“I guess you could say there’s a tiny part of my heart that feels bad for subjecting you to Charlotte. And maybe my heart feels guilty about it.”

Irene squints across the haze. “And here I thought you couldn’t admit to being wrong.”

“I guess you made an incorrect assumption, then, huh?”

The ghost of a smirk flits across her mouth. I think we’re going to leave it at that until she says, in a reckless sort of way, “You know I was lying in that video, right?”

We blink at each other across the roiling, gurgling water. I hesitate, knowing it’s risky for me to call her out. I take the plunge anyway.

“You had feelings for her, didn’t you?”

The way she tightens her mouth tells me everything.

“But she didn’t like you back…,” I say, putting the pieces together, “and she’s obviously a sociopath, so she knew how to use it against you … Let me guess: Did she make out with you ‘for fun’ and act like you were crazy for reading into it?”

Irene’s expression darkens. Her chest rises and falls beneath the water. I force myself to keep my eyes above her neckline.

“The first time we hooked up was the same night she took that video,” Irene says.

“You’re shitting me.”

“I’m not.”

“So you knew she was filming you?”

“I was too drunk to care.” She pauses. “I drank a lot back then.”

“And now you don’t.” It’s not a question. I’d inferred as much after watching her sip water all night.

She turns away and glances up at the dark skylight. “Did you and Tally sleep together?”

The question knocks the breath out of me. For a long beat, I can’t answer. “Now who thinks they’re entitled to personal history?”

Irene doesn’t laugh. Her eyes burn into mine. “Did you?”

I look away from her. “Yes.”

We’re silent. The Jacuzzi bubbles simmer and pop.

“Did you and Charlotte sleep together?”

Irene brushes a finger against her chin. “Only when we were drunk.”

“And she has the nerve to pull that shit on you tonight?”

Irene is quiet. Then she says: “Charlotte hates me because I loved her.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Says the girl who can’t figure out whether she wants to bone or murder her ex-girlfriend.”

I fall silent.

“Charlotte is the reason I have this scar.” She touches her eyebrow, smoothing it over like one day she can make it full again. Even in the dim light of the hot tub, I can see the break in her skin.

“We went to this Candlehawk party last year,” she continues. “It was the craziest shit I’ve ever seen. Pills everywhere you looked, girls feeling each other up while people watched, some guy sobbing in the corner because he was so tweaked out. All I wanted was to go home and be together, just the two of us, but Charlotte caught a glimpse of Prescott from across the room, and that was the end of it.”

Prescott. The Candlehawk boyfriend. The pompous jerk who assisted Charlotte tonight.

“She asked him to drive us to her house. He was so wasted he could hardly stand up straight. I refused to get in his car, or to let her get in his car, but Charlotte was so messed up she started fighting me. She kept yelling about how I was in love with her but could never have her, and I was a jealous loser, and that it was totally pathetic and—” she cuts herself off. “I tried to grab her, but she shoved me off. I smashed into this huge cabinet and cut my face on the corner.”

I think of the lore surrounding her eyebrow scar. She got too drunk at a party. She swam into the side of the pool when she was wasted. She fell off the bed when she was having crazy, anonymous sex. What a cruel, bastardized version of the truth.

And then I remember the many times I wanted to thank the person who put that scar there. It makes me sick to my stomach.

“Charlotte’s an asshole,” I tell her. “She should be thanking her lucky stars you stopped her from getting into that car.”

“But I didn’t,” Irene says. There’s a tinge of regret in her tone. “I was drunk, too, and all I could focus on was my face bleeding. I let her go off with him and he got pulled over a mile from his house. He should have gotten a DUI, but his parents were friends with the Candlehawk police chief, so they let him go with a warning. Charlotte was escorted home, her parents freaked out and told Coach Banza and the other soccer coaches, and she got benched for the first five games of what was supposed to be her big debut year.”

“And she blames you for this?”

Irene smiles wryly.

“But you tried to stop her!”

“She thinks I should have tried harder. And I don’t know, maybe I should have. But sometimes it just hurts too much.”

I let the story settle around us. “I’m sorry I made you go tonight.”

Her eyes take me in. “You didn’t make me do anything. I knew what I was stepping into.”

“Still. I’m sorry I didn’t take it seriously when you told me how toxic it was between you.”

“It’s fine, Scottie,” she says, brushing my apology away. The way she says my name is comfortable and worn. “I’m not the only one dealing with a toxic fallout.”

My heart pangs, remembering Tally at the party tonight. “Yeah. I guess.”

I want to talk more, but Danielle and Honey-Belle barge in with their tray of nachos. Irene sits up and forces enthusiasm, and I remember what she said leaving Charlotte’s tonight. I’m tired of thinking. I’m tired of acting.

For once, I don’t call her on it. We kick back in the hot tub and feast until we’re wrinkled as prunes.

---

When it’s time for bed, Honey-Belle surprises us by offering her bedroom.

“Oh no—” Irene and I say together.

“Really, I want you to have it!” Honey-Belle insists, grasping our hands. “Danielle and I can sleep in the bunk bed room.”

Behind her, Danielle struggles to hold a straight face. I can see the laugh fighting to burst out of her.

“Honey-Belle, don’t be a martyr,” Irene says urgently. “You love your bed.”

“And I also love you,” Honey-Belle says, tugging on a loose tendril of Irene’s hair. “And your girlfriend.”

Irene looks pointedly at me, but I’m at a loss for how to get out of this one.

“Sounds cozy,” Danielle pipes up. “You guys can snuggle up and whisper sweet nothings while you fall asleep. What could be better?”

I shoot her the most intense death glare I can muster, but she just grins.

“So it’s settled, then,” Honey-Belle says brightly. “Let me get you some cozy pj’s to make the snuggling even better.”

---

Sometime later, I find myself standing in the middle of a bedroom that is unmistakably Honey-Belle’s. There’s an entire wall of stuffed animals, most of which are unicorns. I count nine different music boxes atop the dressers, desk, and nightstand. The sleigh-style bed is covered with a fluffy yellow comforter beneath a high white canopy.

Irene moves to stand on the opposite side of the bed, eyeing it like a sewer she’s dreading climbing into. I step up to my side and wait. There’s a swell of silence as we delay the inevitable.

“Fuck,” I say finally.

“Hmph,” she snorts in agreement.

“You couldn’t convince her to put us in the bunk bed room? She’s your friend.”

“This is your stupid scheme, and I didn’t see you making any effort.”

I shake my head. “It’s impossible to argue with her. It’s like upsetting a baby.”

“Don’t patronize her.”

“I’m not, but you know what I mean.”

“You definitely are, but whatever.” She snatches her pajamas out of her duffel bag in a way that suggests the conversation is over. I lay my borrowed pair out on the bed. We both go still. There’s another swell of silence.

“Nervous to change in front of me, snookums?” I ask.

“Do you always project your neuroses onto other people?” She slips her towel off her body and I roll my eyes so I won’t accidentally look at her bare skin. She turns away to change, but glances back at me at the last second. “Don’t you dare creep on me.”

“Right, ’cause that’s what I’m thinking. I’d rather creep on a bunch of boys.”

“Funny,” she huffs, spinning around. She starts to pull off her bathing suit straps; her back muscles move in the dim light. I wonder how it would feel to press my lips to the nape of her neck—

No. Stop.

I squeeze my eyes shut and turn hastily around. I slip into my borrowed set of pajamas—a soft blue shirt with a ribbon at the collar and a pair of candy cane-striped bottoms. The only sound is the heavy thwap of our damp bathing suits hitting the floor. My heart won’t stop thumping in my neck.

Just as I’m pulling my hair out of my shirt, Irene clears her throat.

“Are you finished?”

“Yes.”

She turns around. Her eyes flicker briefly over my pajamas, but she doesn’t say anything, just gathers her toiletry bag. I stay quiet as she slips out of the room.

I’m not going to wash my face or brush my teeth alongside her, so I plop down on the bed and wait. I glance at her phone lying innocently on the bedside table and try to imagine what her pass code might be. I tell myself it’s probably 666, but the joke doesn’t amuse me the way it normally would. It’s been a weird, confusing night.

The last person I shared a bed with was Tally. It was summertime and her parents were out of town. We held each other beneath the sheets, and my heart pulsed at every touch of her skin. But that was months ago—long before she made out with another girl at a party, long before I set up a dating ruse to make her jealous.

Would I have rejected her for having garlic breath tonight? I know the answer immediately: No. I loved her too much.

But would she have rejected me?

“I knew you were the type to fall asleep without brushing your teeth first. Gross.”

Irene comes swooshing back into the bedroom, her loose pajama shirt hanging over her black joggers. I swallow down the unexpected emotion in my throat and try to level a retort her way.

“Are you wearing a retainer?” I shoot back. “God. Please don’t breathe in my direction tonight.”

“I’m sure you’ll smother me with a pillow if I do. You’d better hurry if you want to beat Honey-Belle. She takes forever in the bathroom.”

I grab my things and hustle out of the room, glad for an excuse to be alone again. I use the spare toothbrush Honey-Belle gave me, noticing how Irene has squeezed the toothpaste so it perfectly curls at the empty end. Freaking weirdo. I wash my face and take several deep breaths to clear my head.

When I slip back into Honey-Belle’s bedroom, Irene is tucked beneath the covers, playing on her phone. Her hair hangs long and wavy, the sides of it brushing her glasses. I had no idea she wore glasses.

“You’d better not touch me,” she says as I crawl into bed.

“In what universe would I touch you?”

“You look like a hand-grabber. Or a footsie freak.”

“No chance, weirdo.” It’s a lie: I was always grabbing for Tally’s hand when we shared a bed. I really hope I don’t subconsciously try that tonight. “What are you holding?”

The slightest patch of color blooms in her cheeks. She keeps her eyes glued to her phone. “Nothing.”

It looks like an old T-shirt, or maybe just a rag. She has it tucked under her arm in a way that suggests regular habit.

“Doesn’t look like nothing.”

“Shut up,” she mutters, but she doesn’t say anything more.

“No, really,” I say, rolling my head toward hers. “What’s the story?”

She’s silent for an annoyingly long minute. “It’s my mom’s old shirt. She let me nap with it when I was little.”

“Why?”

“Because it was soft,” she says irritably. “Why do you care?”

I shrug, unperturbed. “I just think it’s funny when you’re weird.”

“Everyone’s weird.” She rolls away and turns off the light. “Goodnight. Touch me and you die.”

The way she says it, it’s almost like she’s trying to make me laugh.

“Sweet dreams to you, too.”

It takes me a while to fall asleep. I can feel Irene struggling, too. It feels too intimate, too revealing, to sleep alongside each other like this. I’m too attuned to her breathing cycle, to the sound of her cheek finding the cold part of the pillow. I’m too aware of the smell of her hair, only inches from my face.