Page 54 of Guy's Girl
What?
Finch looks around the table, a grin on his face.
“Dude,” says Clay.
For one buzzing moment, Ginny’s brain short-circuits. Shecannot process the ring hovering over the table. She cannot process the half-eaten scraps of food on everyone’s plates. She cannot process the boys’ expressions, the red wine staining their teeth, their hair flapping in the breeze. Her brain simply—
Stops.
“I’m proposing to Hannah.” Finch’s grin widens. “Next week, when I’m home.”
And then it shuts off entirely.
As soon as the words come out of Finch’s mouth, Adrian looks over at Ginny. Her face has gone completely blank. Jaw slack, lips slightly parted, eyes on the ring. She doesn’t look upset; she looks like all the life has drained out of her and pooled on the floor. Adrian has the impulse to check under the table.
All around him, the boys jump up to clap Finch’s back. To laugh about finally making him an honest man. Only Ginny and Adrian remain seated. Her eyes drift down to the table. Her shoulders tremble. Adrian starts to lift one hand—to do what, he’s not sure, maybe touch one of those trembling shoulders—but, quite suddenly, Ginny stands, too. Her face snaps up, chair rocketing back so abruptly it tumbles to the floor.
The boys fall silent. Turn to look at her.
Ginny’s chest heaves in and out. She smiles, a jagged thing that seems to splinter open her entire head, revealing the skeleton beneath. “Congratulations, Finch.” She bends, scoops up her plate, and hurries through the French doors into the kitchen.
When Adrian turns to look back at the table, Tristan is rubbing the back of his neck. Clay looks physically pained. And Finch—he stares after Ginny, mouth turned down, like a father whose child is misbehaving again.
***
After dinner, they open a bottle of champagne and climb the outdoor steps up to the second-floor wraparound patio. Everyone except Ginny, who claims she can’t stand to leave a kitchen dirty.
Adrian hangs back. “I’ll help,” he says.
Ginny waves him off. “Go celebrate,” she says. “I want to do this alone.”
“Okay.”
Adrian exits the French doors and starts toward the terra cotta staircase. Just before ascending, he turns back to look through the windows at Ginny. Her head is down, arms scrubbing thoroughly, violently. As he watches, she leans to the side and spits into the left-hand sink. Though it’s hard to make out through the glass, the spit doesn’t appear thin and white; it’s a chunky green-brown, like dog food. Adrian hesitates. Blinks. Did he see that correctly? He watches a beat longer, but Ginny simply scrubs and scrubs, as if nothing happened.
Adrian shakes his head and climbs the stairs.
You can say it.”
Ginny and Clay are the last two awake. Adrian begged off to bed early, and Tristan and Finch tapped out after drinking too much champagne and getting into a fight over Bitcoin versus Ethereum. Now Ginny and Clay sit at the outdoor table where they ate dinner, looking out over the lights sprinkling the valley.
“Say what?” Clay pours another thimble of whiskey into his tumbler.
“ ‘I told you so.’ ”
Clay sighs. “I’m not going to do that, Gin.”
“Well, you should.”
“Well, I’m not going to, okay? You’re my best friend. I’m never going to gloat over something that’s hurting you.”
“Nothing is hurting me. I did this to myself.” She keeps her eyes away, pinned to the lights in the valley. “I lied to myself. I got in too deep. I let myself fall, even when I knew I shouldn’t. It’s freshman year all over again.”
“Come on. Finch is as much a party to all that as you were. He knew exactly what he was doing.” Clay taps the side of his glass. It pings twice. “I mean, God—I love the kid to death, but I rarely understand his decisions.”
Ginny is silent. Then, quietly: “I love him, too.”
“Oh, Gin.” Clay reaches across the table and takes one of her hands. “And he loves you.”
