Page 37 of You Say It First

“That’s not even—” Colby broke off. “I just don’t see how it’s worth it to ruin a perfectly good party having theoretical arguments, okay? That’s all I’m saying.”

“Nothing about this is theoretical to me!”

Colby scrubbed a hand through his hair. “Yeah,” he said, “I can see that.”

“What does that even mean?” Meg demanded. “Like, where exactly is the line for you for what’s worth giving a crap about? Do you laugh when he tells quote-unquote harmless jokes about gay people? Black people? Jewish p—”

“I didn’t even laugh at this one, Meg!”

“I don’t care! You didn’t tell him to shut up—you’re mad at me for telling him to shut up—and that’s the same thing. Worse, maybe.”

Colby shook his head again, mutely furious. God, where did she get off? Parachuting into his life out of nowhere with The Rich Girl’s Social Justice Handbook in one hand and The Field Guide to the Midwestern Hillbilly in the other? She might as well have been wearing a pith helmet. Colby knew exactly what she saw when she looked around this place—the same clueless, small-minded people she’d been expecting to get on the phone the first night she’d called his landline. She had no idea that Jordan had been at the top of their class the first three years of high school—he definitely knew what a fucking allegory was, no matter what he’d said for the sake of giving her a hard time earlier—or that Joanna had started her own side business doing fancy calligraphy on the internet. Meg didn’t know that after Colby’s dad’s funeral, Micah had shown up at his house and they’d played Warcraft for seven straight hours without either of them ever saying a word. Part of him wanted to tell her those things, and part of him felt like he didn’t owe her any explanation at all.

“This is ridiculous,” he said finally. It was getting colder now, a chilly wind rattling the overgrown trees that ringed the parking lot. All at once, Colby wanted to go home. “Obviously, we’re not going to agree here, so—”

“How can you not agree with me on this, though?” Meg interrupted, almost pleading. “Like, how can this not be important to you? You’re so smart about so many things. I don’t—”

“So anyone who disagrees with you is automatically a dumbass?”

“I mean, in general, of course not!”

“But about this.”

Meg didn’t answer for a moment, which was obviously an answer in itself. “This was a bad idea,” she finally said. She looked around for the invisible audience again, hugging herself a little; Colby could see the goose bumps that had sprung up on her pale, bare arms. “God, what am I even doing here?” she asked, more quietly this time. “I’m just—I’m eight hours from my house, and nobody even—” She broke off. “This was a bad idea.”

Her voice cracked on the last syllable; she didn’t cry, though it looked like possibly she was thinking about it. For a second, Colby almost took a step closer, but that was stupid. She’d said it herself, hadn’t she? This had been a bad idea. “Yeah,” he agreed, jamming his hands into his pockets to keep from doing something idiotic like reaching for her. Never only just one feeling at a time. “Maybe you should go, then.”

Just for a moment, Meg looked at him like he was the most disappointing person she’d ever encountered in her eighteen years on this planet. Then she shrugged. “Yup,” she said. “Maybe I should.”

Eighteen

Meg

It was too late to start the drive home at this point, so Meg pulled up a map on her phone and drove to the closest hotel that was part of a chain she recognized. The parking lot was the quietest place she’d ever been in her life. “Hi,” she said to the clerk inside the empty lobby, clearing her throat and trying to sound as adult as humanly possible. “I’d like a room for tonight?” She hesitated. “Um. And can I pay with cash?”

The clerk gave her a weird look, but in the end all she did was ask for Meg’s ID, then hand her a key and direct her to a room on the third floor. Meg glanced over her shoulder as she speed-walked down the hallway, her backpack slung over both shoulders like she was about to hike the PCT.

God, why hadn’t she told anyone where she was?

Well, she knew why, but—

Ugh.

She couldn’t call her mother. She didn’t want to talk to Emily. The person she really wanted to talk to, infuriatingly, was Colby himself—but her Colby, not the sharp-jawed stranger from tonight, with his hard, hopeless-sounding laugh. It occurred to Meg that even after meeting him in real life—especially after meeting him in real life—she had no idea which one of them was actually real.

It didn’t matter, she told herself, methodically flicking on every single light in the hotel room. It was done now. He was the kind of person who’d be fine tomorrow, who would probably never think about her again.

So. That was that, she guessed.

The room was small and smelled vaguely of cigarettes, though she was pretty sure smoking wasn’t allowed in here. Meg bounced idly on the side of the bed. She was actually proud of the way she’d handled herself with stupid Micah, even if it had pissed Colby off: she’d said exactly what she’d wanted to say in the moment she wanted to say it, and she hadn’t gotten flustered or clammed up because she was afraid to cause a scene. Honestly, she wished she could be that direct with Emily or her mom.

That’s because I’m not impressive enough for you to actually care what I think, she heard Colby say, his voice in her head low and just a little bit hurt.

No, she told herself firmly, ignoring the uneasy part of her that worried maybe he had a point. It was just that some things were too important to let go.

She thought about taking a shower, but there was a hair that definitely did not belong to her stuck to the tile in the bathtub, so in the end she decided against it. Instead, she kicked the duvet cover onto the floor—she thought she remembered something about hotel duvets not getting washed that often—and curled up on the top sheet fully dressed.

Are you okay?

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