Page 61 of Come As You Are

“Yeah. And I don’t even know how much she’s actually using or anything, but apparently, she was dealing, and this was part of the arrangement they made, along with her license getting suspended.” I fix him with a dark look. “Please tell me you were never that stupid.”

“No way, that would’ve been way too much work. My dealer was just one of the guys in my band back home.”

“You were in a band? God, I really did call it from the beginning. I can’t believe you lied about playing guitar. Who lies about that?”

“I didn’t lie about playing guitar; I said I wasn’t going tobe giving an emo acoustic performance, and that my guitar’s name wasn’t Betty.”

“Okay, so what’s her name?”

He sniffs. “Janis.”

I burst into laughter, and Salem dives forward to cover my mouth with his hand. “Okay, I hadn’t considered that your laugh islouderthan the zombie apocalypse,” he growls.

“Hmph.” I press my lips together to stop myself, but now I’m hyperaware that Salem and I are in his bed, touching, so close I can feel his body heat through my thin tank top.

I am not thrilled about noticing this, either.

Or that my next thought is that I could swipe my tongue out and lick his palm.

I don’t know if similar thoughts are running through his head—probably not, because unlike me, he is neither single nor deranged—but he releases me and backs away with a quickness, leaving me nothing to do but pretend to be offended by the entire exchange before we finally steer ourselves back to the conversation at hand.

“Youdidgive an emo acoustic performance,” I point out, though I omit the fact that it was one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever heard in my life, because I don’t know how to begin to process that.

“I did,” he concedes with a sheepish smile, “but I honestly didn’t plan to at the time.” Now it’s his turn to furrow his brow at me. “Did any of this stuff with your sister have to do with why you ran out after it?”

God, it would be so easy to say yes, and even easier if it were the truth. Right now there are so many question marksin my brain and I really do not like where it leads when I try to come up with the answers.

Especially with this added shirtlessness component that’s making it a lot harder to ignore the creeping, inconvenient truth of my feelings.

But when school was just beginning, I talked myself into a stupid mistake with the wrong boy, and now Salem’s with the wrong girl, andthisis why I cannot be trusted with my own heart, my own body, and God, are those tears,again? How am I not completely dehydrated already?

“Evie?” Salem reaches out to place a hand on my knee, and while words and my brain can lie to me, the lightning that travels through my entire body at that contact can’t. “Hold on, let me get you some water.” I watch him grab a bottle from their little dorm fridge, and when he heads back toward me, my savior with drink in hand, it hits me like a cannonball to the gut.

The Knight of fucking Cups.

I am so stupid.

I am so, so stupid.

I have to get out of here.

“Thanks for the talk,” I babble, leaping off the bed, “but I’m good now. I’m gonna go to sleep. I’m sure I’ll be just fine. I—”

“Evie.” Salem looks down at the hand that was just on my knee, and back up at me in horror. “I wasn’t trying to—”

“No!” I blurt. “I mean, I know. Of course I know. You’re… I mean. I didnotthink that. Jenna! I mean, hi, I know aboutJenna. You guys are great. So cute. Well, not cute, because she’s kind of a she-devil, but—”

“Evie.” Salem stands and slowly approaches like he’s trying to soothe a wild animal, and that’s how I feel, caged by this room and the sight of that bed and the fact that I want to pull him down into it and kiss his stupid emo face. He’s standing between me and the door, and I can’t bring myself to go any nearer, to get a closer glimpse of that concern, of those shoulders, of the way his pants are hanging way too low…

The rope ladder!How could I forget? This is the one room at Rumson that comes with its own alternate exit. I run to the window and grab it, trying to toss it over, but it’s heavier than it looks and not nearly as seamless a motion as when I’ve seen Matt do it. Stupid basketball biceps.

“Evie!” he whispers fiercely. “What are you doing? This is crazy.”

This is crazy.Where have I heard that before? Oh, yeah, when I went down to Craig’s basement to find him rolling around with my sister. Apparently, it was “crazy” to lose my temper at that, and “crazy” to throw his stupid video game controller at him. Crazy Evie, always overreacting.

And maybe this time I am, but I am just sotiredof screwing things up. The way I hated Craig and Sierra in that moment is the way I hate myself now, for trying so hard to become someone else, and for what? To prove I could be as fun and spontaneous as my sister? To make myself desirable so I can keep falling for the wrong guys?

There will always be girls who are better people than Iam, like Heather. And there will always be girls who can beat me, who can have everything they want—everythingIwant—like Jenna. And there will always be girls like Sierra, who’ll do anything to get their way, and mostly succeed.

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