Page 62 of Best Offer Wins
“The party was, like, crazy packed. Just, like, wall-to-wall bodies. But somehow I found one of the guys in the basement pretty much right away—or maybe he found me, I’m not totally sure. He handed me some kind of punch, gave me a big hug and all that, but I don’t think he ever even told me his name.”
My stomach turns, as it becomes impossible to deny where this story is headed.
Dottie takes a deep breath, another sip of her wine.
“You don’t have to tell me anything else.” I whisper it, even though I want to scream.
Her eyes well as they meet mine. “I don’t really remember anything else anyway,” she says. “Just a strobe light, and the way my shoes kept sticking to the dance floor. And then it was just—the next day. And I was squeezed in next to him in a bottom bunk.” Her voice catches. “I was sore,” she says, composing herself, “and I tasted blood. I don’t know if I fell, or if it was something he did to me, but my lip was busted.”
“Dottie, I’m so sorry.”
“I found my clothes on his floor,” she continues, “and snuck out before he could wake up.”
“Do you think he drugged you?”
“Definitely. But I was also wasted, so who would’ve believed me? And now I had two men on campus who I couldn’t bear to look at, you know? I felt like that place was eating me alive.”
Acid crawls up my throat.
“I made it about a week longer,” she says, “before the anxiety was too crushing. All I wanted was to leave, just for a little while. I chose this place because it was literally called Hidden City.It sounded like paradise.”
She pauses for more wine, wipes the corner of her mouth with the side of her thumb, the silver ring catching the light. “I didn’t think I’d still be here. I always planned to go back and graduate, maybe finish up my credits over the summer when most people weren’t around. But I just kind of fell into a rhythm out here. I didn’t realize before how burned out I was, you know? I’d been working since I was fourteen, saving up for college. I waited tables the entire time I was at Georgetown and I still had a three-point-eight. It was fucking exhausting.” She takes another drink. The fire crackles. “But being here is easy. Linda, that’s who you met at the shop yesterday, rents me her guest cottage for next to nothing. I could make that fifty thousand last forever.”
“But you had a whole future planned,” I say, voice calm even though I want to throw open the doors of that wood stove and let the whole world burn to the ground. “Don’t you ever wonder about it?”
Dottie shrugs. “Sometimes.”
“But aren’t you angry that Curt”—I correct myself—“that Professor Bradshaw got to change the direction of your whole life?”
She shrugs again, then laughs. “Sometimes.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“I’m serious,” she insists. “Maybe I’ll still have that life one day, but it also might make me miserable. This life is simple. It’s a little boring, but it’s peaceful. I mean, look at you, doing all this crazy shit to get ahead. Can you honestly say you’re happy?”
Whoa. What the fuck?Crazy?Is that what she thinks of me? What does a twenty-five-year-old know about happiness anyway?
I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from saying something regrettable, then steal a glance at my phone for the first time in… more than two hours. It’s after seven. I have three texts from Ian.
“Sorry, Dottie, I need to check this.”
Hey babe, hope you’re having a good day. Just letting you know I’m going upstairs to get Fritter like you asked.
The next two messages are selfies of them together. Both of them look adorable, even though Fritter clearly needs a bath (if only you could call Child Protective Services on a dog mom). It’s true what they say about distance, though. I miss Ian. Maybe when we have a house with multiple floors, I’ll be able to miss him every day. Something flutters inside me, a reminder that it’s time to get back to business. I didn’t come here so Dottie and I could braid each other’s hair.
Love you guys, I write. See you two tomorrow.
I look back up at Dottie. “Do you want to stay for dinner? I didn’t realize how late it was. I have all the ingredients for pasta puttanesca.”
She hesitates for a second. “If you’re sure it’s not too much trouble,” she says. “I probably shouldn’t drive for a little while.”
“No trouble at all.”
Especially since I have more work to do.
I dig a pot out of one of the cupboards and fill it with water. Once it’s on the stove, I ask the question that’s been flashing in my head: “So, do you still have it?”
Dottie looks confused. “Have what?”
