Page 24 of Chasing Chase London: Part 8-Valentines Day
Did I like it? Did I want it? If I did, what does that say about me? If I didn’t, what does that say? And why does it matter, at this point? None of it changes anything.
“So you did it,” she says, staring at me in disbelief. “You admit it.”
My silence is an admission of guilt in both our eyes. I’ve carried the weight of this guilt for a long time. Maybe it’s for the best that she knows. I don’t blame her for being angry. I always knew she’d react this way if she found out.
That’s not why I didn’t tell her. I didn’t tell her because I knew she’d want an explanation, and I couldn’t give her one.
“You bastard,” she screams, hurling my phone. I duck by instinct, and the phone smashes into the wall behind me. “You cheating, piece of shit, lying, scumbag!”
Her palm blazes across my cheek, and damn, I didn’t know she had the strength. My eyes water from the sting, and my skin throbs like a thousand needles pierced it.
She raises her hand to strike the other cheek, but I grab her wrist out of the air and spin her around, holding it behind her back. “Do not hit me again.”
“Let go of me, you pig,” she shrieks, twisting until I release her. She stumbles back, her eyes full of tears, rubbing her wrist. “I’ll tell my daddy you hurt me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Sorry I found out?” she demands. “If you were sorry for hurting me, you wouldn’t have done it. If you made a mistake, and you were really sorry for doing it, you would have admitted it and asked forgiveness from the start.”
She’s probably right. But to admit something, you need answers, and I’ve never had those. There are no answers to the questions about that night, so I put it behind me and moved on. I would have never told her, and that has to mean something. That’s what implicates me, the cold hard proof of my guilt.
“It’s over,” Lindsay snarls. “We’re done. I can’t be with someone who would cheat on me with my best friend. How can I ever trust you again? For all I know, you’ve been sneaking around with her the whole time. Is that who you bought that present for on Valentines?”
I want to defend myself, but I don’t. Not when I can close my eyes and picture her friend the way I have a thousand times—those long legs, her curls, the blush in her cheeks. She’s not Elaine, but my desire for her is just as damning.
“You can’t even answer that?” she demands. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. Like my daddy always says, cheating shows a weakness of character. If you’re weak enough to do it once, you’ll do it again. And you always were a pathetic little mama’s boy.”
I grit my teeth. “Are you done?”
“Yes,” she says, drawing herself up. “I hope you’ll be happy with your skank. By the time you realize what you lost, I’ll have found a real man, and I won’t take you back.”
“Probably for the best.”
She huffs and spins on her heel, stomping to the door. When she reaches it, she turns back and gives me a haughty look. “Good thing your mother’s not here to find out about this,” she says. “She’d be ashamed of you.”
I listen to her footsteps retreating, down the hall, down the stairs, echoing across the empty foyer where sometimes I still start to turn, for half a second expecting Mom to step through and tell me to pick up my shoes or put my phone away and come sit down for dinner.
The front door slams behind Lindsey. I sit on my bed, waiting to feel something. I should be pissed or upset or even relieved, but I’m not.
I’m not anything. There’s just a big blank inside me, like there has been since Mom died. Taking hits on the field was the only thing that reminded me I’m still alive even if she isn’t. Sky is the only person that reminds me there’s a reason to be alive. Ever since that day on the shore of Firefly Lake, when she didn’t know who I was or what I did, and I could just be a regular guy, she’s been the only person who sees me that way.
And she’s the one person I can never have.
Unless…
eight
Now Playing:
“Sworn & Broken”–The Screaming Trees
Lindsey is absent from school the next day. Instead of bouncing around and laughing like usual, Daria trudges down the hall with her head down. Instead of her signature red, or a color that matches the other girls, she wears black from head to toe, as if she’s in mourning.
“I can’t believe she’s freezing me out,” she says as she picks at her sandwich. We’re eating in the gym again, since she couldn’t face sitting with Elaine and Colin. “After everything. I’ve been there for her through it all, for years, and the first time I let something slip, she’s done with me. God, I’m so stupid!”
“You’re not stupid,” I assure her. “Lindsey’s hurt. I’m sure she’ll come around.”
She snorts. “Yeah, right. She’s probably not even mad at Elaine. She’ll probably make some excuse for her like she always does.”
