Page 12 of The Other Side of Paradise
Maybe I just didn’t want the last girl I’d kissed to be Ellie. Just wished I could wash my hands of that whole deal.
So I guess that was what compelled me to stick around after Ryan had left—off to confront her family, apparently. I didn’tenvy her. Except thatshewas absolutely going to get it on soon with, seemingly, the girl of her dreams.
I leaned back against the front door after Ryan had left, giving Brooklyn a loaded smile, and I said, “So, she’s cool, huh?”
Brooklyn sighed, perching on the corner of the table, giving me a weary smile that said she knew full well what I was getting at. “Yes, she is cool,” she said. “And yes, I do find her attractive. That doesn’t mean anything. You know the situation.”
Please. I couldn’t believe evenBrooklyn Sterlingwas going the route ofoh, she’s just being friendly, it doesn’t mean anything.I huffed. “She’s interested in you, you know,” I said, deciding to put subtlety well and truly in the ground, and she arched her eyebrows.
“Oh, you’ve decided that, have you?”
I gestured in the direction Ryan had left. “It’s not like she’s hung up on that dickwad. I think she’s more than happy to move on and forget about him entirely.”
She hung her head with a wry laugh. “And… I should be the one to help herforget, I assume is what you’re getting at.”
I put my hands up. “What? Did you see the little looks she kept giving you out of the corner of her eye?”
She quivered an eyebrow at me, a curious little look in her eye that said she hadn’t had a clue. Guess even she missed stuff sometimes when she was seriously thirsting. After a second, she sighed, looking away. “Look, if she makes a move, I’m not turning her down. But I’m not making the first move on her.”
I slumped back against the door, relaxing into the wood. If she at least put the pieces together that Ryan was waiting for an opportunity to jump her bones, I guess that wasn’t too bad. “Okay, okay,” I said. “I guess I wouldn’t, either, in your situation. It probably feels a little weird. But just… let her know that you’re available. I bet it’d help her anyway.”
She gave me a weird laugh, looking at me like I’d grown a second head. “You, Allison Holt,” she said, “are telling me to have more casual flings. Did the world start turning backwards overnight?”
Oh, god. I felt my face burn, and I froze up for a second, before—well—I guess—ah, fuck it. I stood up taller, puffing out my chest with all the confidence I didn’t have, and I made myself take the plunge and say, “I’m gonna try it.”
She blinked once. “With Ryan? I think she’s already said she’s not interested.”
Ugh—not what I needed while I was trying to bare my heart. “Not with Ryan,” I said. “Oh my god. Just… while I’m here this summer. I want to try doing something casual with someone.”
She studied me for a minute before, a smile suddenly spilling out over her features, she said, “Yeah? Decided to be just like your role model Brooklyn Sterling?”
“Not in a million years,” I muttered, looking away. “I don’t think I’d do it as a regular thing. But I want to do it at least… at least once,” I mumbled, still feeling my face prickling. “Just to know. Plus, like you said, it’s just… putting so much pressure on myself to get everything perfect… it’s, like, suffocating.”
She smiled. “Proud of you.”
“Ew.”
“I know you hate me saying so,” she laughed, “but,it probably isn’t for me, but I want to go in with an open mind and see what it can show me about myself, that’s a pretty mature mindset.”
I rolled my eyes, looking away, trying to pout over the smile that tugged on my features. “Yeah, yeah. I think I also just want to see if I… can,” I said, voice falling off to a mumble.
She raised her eyebrows. “Like, if you can handle doing casual without getting serious about it?”
“No, just… just, like…” Ugh. I shouldn’t have even started this conversation. I shouldn’t have made this resolution. I shouldn’t have come to the island. I should have lived every second of my life differently so I didn’t have to face this particular subject right now. I mumbled awkwardly. “I dunno,” I said. “I just feel like I’m, like, fat and ugly and I have a whiny, annoying personality. Casual dating feels like something you can pull when you’re hot.”
She nodded once. “So, all the times you’re talking about me sleeping all around the place, secretly you’re just telling me I’m devastatingly hot.”
“That isn’t what I said.”
She laughed, eyes bright. “Plenty of girls would love to have you,” she said. “I mean, c’mon. Look at your little dimples. Girls will go wild. We’ll get you a hot date before the week is out.”
I almost had a heart attack. “Theweek?” I said, fumbling over my words. “I said before thesummerends.”
She shrugged, like this was all so easy. God, it probably was for her. I was going to be sick. “Shoot for the moon, and all that.”
I bristled. “How many gay girls do you even think are out here right now, anyway?”
She gave me aknowinglaugh, dropping into a seat at the table, grinning ear to ear. “Oh,Allison,” she said. “The things I could tell you. During tourist season? A whole hell of a lot. Not all of them are open about it.”
