Page 40 of Getting It Twisted

I’m not sure how to say this. I’m not surewhyI say it, but I do. Must be the weed.

“Hey, so . . . George told me about . . . About how bad you were doing. A few years back.” His shoulders stiffen, and I look down at the table, suddenly finding it hard to meet his eyes. “If I knew you’d go off the rails so badly, I wouldn’t have acted the way I did.”

“Okay.”

“But we were kinda falling off at that point if you remember.”

“Yeah,” he mutters, “’cause you’d rather hang out with Joshua Tennyson and his idiot drug dealers than me.”

A dark, heavy weight descends on my shoulders. “Right . . . So, anyway, I didn’t know it would mess you up that badly. If I’d known, I wouldn’t have—”

“Skipped town without a word?” he asks, spearing me with a glare. “It’s not even about what happened at the grad party, you know, at least not for me. We could’ve kept being friends. But no—you had to turn your back on me and hurt me in the worst way possible and cut me off like you never knew me.”

“I’m sorry, okay? I was fucked up, and I freaked out. But you gotta know I cared about you.”

“You had a shitty way of showing it.”

“Hey, how many times do you need me to say I’m sorry?”

“I don’t know. A thousand maybe?”

“Sheesh. Well, we’re gonna be here all night, then. You ready?”

He yawns and stretches his arms over his head. “No, I’m too tired for that. Maybe tomorrow.”

At least he wants to see me tomorrow. That’s something.

“You could sleep here, you know.”Please say yes. Please don’t leave me alone out here.

“I don’t know. This place freaks me out enough in the daytime.”

“You can have my mom’s room. I sleep in the other one anyway.”

“You sleep in your old bedroom? That bed’s tiny.”

“It’s not so bad.” And I won’t set foot in my mom’s room if I can help it.

His gaze roams the ceiling and the corners of the walls. “You sure it’s not haunted?”

“Don’t worry, babe,” I say with a smirk. “If it is, I’ll protect you.”

We brush our teeth and say our good nights. It feels oddly domestic and reminiscent of the many sleepovers in our past.

There’s a distinct difference though: Whenever we slept under the same roof back then, it was always in the same bedroom. His bedroom. Sometimes in his bed, if we were exhausted enough. Or he’d sneak into the hallway and fetch a spare mattress from the closet.

One time, I showed up at his window with my face soaked in blood after my blackout-drunk mother threw a bottle at me and nearly took my eye out. Daniel took me in and patched me up with his parents’ first aid kit. Afterward, he put me to bed and held me until I fell asleep.

But tonight we’re sleeping in separate bedrooms. I hear him tossing and turning on the other side of the wall. Seems like I’m not the only one who can’t sleep.

I take a deep breath and get up. My feet pad over the rough wooden floor.

He flinches when he sees me in the doorway, but then he lifts the cover and pats the bed. “Fine. Come here.”

I climb in next to him and lie on my side. We stay like that for a while, breathing the same air, feeling the same darkness.

How come tonight feels different from the nights I’ve spent here alone? How come my throat is all choked up and thick, as if I’m about to start crying?

Daniel brings it out of me. He always has. I don’t know if I should resent him for it or accept it as one of the many things he makes me feel.

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