Twenty-Four

Kinsey and Nova divided forces after it became clear that searching Sasha’s room wasn’t going to turn up any useful information. Nova recruited one or two of her teammates to check anywhere Sasha might have gone nearby while Kinsey, her stomach in a knot of dread the whole way, went to check on Sasha’s van.

It wasn’t a surprise to find it missing from the garage where Sasha rented a space during the school year, but it brought Kinsey up short. Until she laid eyes on the empty space, she’d been able to keep some kind of lid on the swarm of anger, hurt, and frenetic, anxious energy buzzing inside her head. Not a very good lid, maybe—but the possibility that Sasha had simply gone to crash with one of her soccer friends for a few days had been enough to keep Kinsey from flat-out panicking.

With that lid all but gone, Kinsey turned on her heel and marched back to her own car without checking in with Nova. She couldn’t keep wandering around New York pretending there was still a chance they’d find Sasha sitting on a bench in Washington Square Park, or holed up on one of the couches in the study area in the dorm’s basement. Clinging to one final hope that Sasha had just gone upstate to talk to Beatrice, Kinsey drove north, keeping an eye out for broken-down vans on the side of the road.

Traffic was light going out of the city so early, and no one was broken down on the stretch of highway going north to Beatrice’s house at all. Sasha’s van wasn’t parked outside Beatrice’s apartment block, either—Kinsey circled the block twice just to be sure. Sasha was just . . . gone.

Anger wasn’t keeping Kinsey’s anxiety at bay anymore, and even if she thought she could calm herself enough to drive back to the city, she didn’t know where else to look that Nova and the other girls weren’t already checking.

Sasha wouldn’t want Kinsey to find her anyway. So it didn’t matter.

Kinsey slammed out of her car and climbed the steps to Beatrice’s apartment with her keys grasped so tight they dug grooves into her fingers. She didn’t know what else to do except ask Beatrice for help. Beatrice was the master of organization. She’d have Kinsey’s messy, contradictory feelings plotted on a graph or in some kind of itemized list in no time.

Gritting her teeth, Kinsey rapped on the door. The faint sound of ’70s music inside stopped. A few seconds later, Beatrice swung the door open, her eyes wide and worried. “Hey, Kins. What are you doing here?”

Kinsey’s fingers ached from gripping her keys, but she didn’t relax. She couldn’t or she’d burst into tears. “I needed to talk to you. Is that okay?”

“Of course,” Beatrice said, standing back to let Kinsey pass. “It’s just Julian and me at the moment. Everyone else is at work. Did you hear from Sasha yet?”

“No.” Kinsey stepped inside the apartment where Beatrice lived with her parents and brother, barely taking in the familiarity of the space. Beatrice’s fluffy gray cat was dozing on one of the two couches crammed around the coffee table in the living room. The kitchen table taking up most of the small eating area was scattered with pens and highlighters, papers that appeared to be mostly junk mail, and Beatrice’s laptop, which was currently being scowled at by her boyfriend.

Julian looked up as Kinsey walked in, half-closing the computer. His sleeves were pushed up to his elbows, showing a smudge of blue ink above the twisting black lines of the smoky tattoo that wound up his left arm. “Hi, Kinsey,” he said, glancing at Beatrice, who shrugged.

“Sorry,” Kinsey said, her gaze flicking between them. “Hi. I should’ve called. I’m interrupting your . . . whatever you’re doing.”

“Nothing exciting.” Julian shut the laptop and pushed it a few inches away. “Trust me, interruptions are welcome.”

“We were due for a break anyway. And you don’t have to call to come over, Kins.” Beatrice perched on the chair next to Julian’s and patted the empty one beside her. “Have a seat.”

“Do you want something to drink?” Julian offered, standing up. “Tea? Coffee?”

“Got anything stronger?” Kinsey asked, sliding into the offered chair.

Beatrice wrinkled her nose apologetically. “Just cooking sherry. My mom’s a little funny about keeping alcohol in the house.”

“Never mind.” Kinsey slumped over the table. Adding more alcohol to this mess was a bad idea anyway. “Coffee is fine.”

“Coming up,” Julian said. He squeezed Beatrice’s shoulder as he made for the kitchen, and she smiled up at him. “Thanks, babe.”

Kinsey clenched her teeth, willing herself not to break down. She’d been holding her anger close, hoping it would override the hurt, but that small little gesture, the easy intimacy between Beatrice and Julian, just reminded her of everything she’d thrown away.

It wasn’t like she hadn’t seen them like this before. It had just never bothered her when they were all at lunch or getting coffee or hanging out or whatever.

Maybe because Sasha had always been there too. To chat with on the way there, to distract Kinsey from any fleeting sense of loss on the way back. Without Sasha to fill in the gaps, Kinsey found she wasn’t sure where she was supposed to fit in Beatrice’s life anymore. The tight bond they’d shared—when Beatrice still came to lunch every day, before she had someone better to shake her out of her list-oriented tunnel vision—felt like it was coming apart at the edges. Like it had been disintegrating for weeks and Kinsey had just been too selfish to notice or do anything to patch it.

She could feel tears pricking her eyes and tried to blink them away before Beatrice could see.

But very little ever got past Beatrice. She squeezed Kinsey’s forearm reassuringly. “Don’t worry. She’ll turn up, Kins. I know she will.”

Kinsey shook her head, making herself focus on just getting the logistics out. The only thing she needed to deal with right now was what to do about Sasha. She couldn’t let herself get wrapped up in this insecurity thing with Beatrice or she’d end up losing her, too.

“Her van’s gone,” Kinsey forced out. “And she took most of her things with her. If she isn’t here, then . . . then . . .” The truth settled over her with grim finality. She’d been so caught up trying to stave off her anxiety at the idea of never seeing Sasha again, she hadn’t ever considered the most obvious conclusion.

She sagged in her chair, the fight going out of her in a whoosh of air. “She’s going home,” she said with dull conviction.

“To Wyoming?” Julian asked from the kitchen.

“California,” Kinsey said in the same lifeless tone. “Her favorite cousin lives in San Francisco.”

“But that’s—” Beatrice shook her head, brow pinched. “Hang on. That doesn’t make sense. You two just got together. Why would she take off for California without telling you?”

Kinsey tugged absently at one of the open booklets on the table, still not sure she wanted to get into explaining the fight. She didn’t want to think about it anymore. She didn’t want Beatrice to confirm what Kinsey was so scared of turning up if she examined last night’s argument too closely. That everything Sasha had said about her was true: Kinsey was too demanding, too judgmental, too impatient, too damn angry to ever make things work—

A streak of highlighted text on the paper in front of her registered through her blind stare. Kinsey frowned at the booklet, giving it a closer look. It wasn’t junk mail like she’d thought. It was a course catalog. Marked up in Beatrice’s handwriting. Two courses were highlighted on the open spread, and there were little sticky flags marking other pages. Kinsey flipped to the cover, her stomach clenching. “You’re transferring to Syracuse?” Her voice sounded strange in her ears, rough and forceful.

“Oh. Um.” Beatrice took the catalog and shoved it under a notebook. “Maybe? I mean, we’ve been talking about it. Julian just got into the art program there, and it’s the place he wanted, and I was going to have to start over anyway, since I’m not doing the marketing thing anymore, and you and Sasha are going to graduate soon, which means I’d have another year or two of doing the commute thing by myself if I stayed at NYU, and . . . I don’t know, I thought it was worth looking into.”

Kinsey clenched her teeth as she fought back tears. She’d guessed Beatrice was going to transfer out of NYU—she’d known this was a possibility—but she’d always imagined it would be to somewhere nearby. Within a two or three hour drive from the city. Syracuse was almost five hours away from Greenwich Village. How were they supposed to keep up the already-difficult-to-sustain twice monthly lunches at that distance? Or was this just Beatrice’s gentle way of getting Kinsey out of her life without needing to actually argue about it?

“Nothing’s set in stone,” Beatrice said, wrapping her arms around her middle, the way she did when she found herself in direct conflict with someone else. She hadn’t ever done that with Kinsey before. Kinsey only knew what it meant because it had always been the first sign that Beatrice might need backup.

If there was one relationship in her life she thought was relatively stable, it was her friendship with Beatrice. The only thing they ever butted heads about was whether Beatrice was paying attention to her own emotional wellbeing. It was impossible to get upset with her about anything else, and she saw too much good in people to be bothered if Kinsey was occasionally extra cranky. But now she was just . . . leaving. Without any warning. And Kinsey didn’t even understand what she’d done wrong.

“It’s fine.” Kinsey stood, snatching her purse from the table with cold fingers as she made for the door. An indefinable buzzing filled her head and chest, swarming through her until she was shaking all over. She shouldn’t have come here. Not when she was feeling like this. “Do what you need to do. Have a nice life.”

Chair legs scraped the linoleum as Beatrice got to her feet. “Kins—”

“It’s fine,” Kinsey snapped, pivoting to face Beatrice. “You think it’s news to me that no one wants to be around me for longer than it takes to find someone better? I know I’m abrasive and mean. I know I suck at convincing anybody I like them. It’s not exactly a big shock that you’d rather be with your fucking boyfriend than keep putting up with my bullshit. My own parents would probably swap me for a nicer daughter if they could. I don’t even blame you for having enough. I couldn’t even stop myself from—from screwing everything up with Sasha.” Her voice, which had already been rough, cracked apart on Sasha’s name, letting through a rush of wrenching, angry, awful tears.

“Oh, Kins.” Beatrice darted over and wrapped Kinsey in a tight hug, as though Kinsey hadn’t just been screaming at her. Julian hovered in the kitchen doorway, seemingly unsure of how or whether to intervene. “I didn’t mean to make you feel like I was trying to ditch you. That’s not what I want at all.”

Guilt hit Kinsey square in the chest. Beatrice was the last person in the world who deserved to be snapped at for trying to point her life in a better direction. “I’m sorry,” Kinsey blubbered into her shoulder, selfishly leaning into the embrace. “I’m sorry, Bee. I’m just—I’m—I’m—”

“It’s okay. You’re upset. You get prickly when you’re upset. I know that.”

“I just exploded at you and swore at your very nice boyfriend,” Kinsey said hysterically. “That’s not prickly, that’s grounds for never talking to me again.”

Julian lifted a shoulder. “I’ve been called worse.”

“That doesn’t make it okay,” Kinsey said, pulling back a little to wipe tears from her face. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

“Okay, stop,” Beatrice said gently, a stubborn glint in her eyes. “Nothing’s wrong with you. You’ve been crazy supportive while I figured myself out these past few months. I’ve lost count of how many times you saved me from getting too overwhelmed or helped me course-correct when I got stuck following the plan instead of going in the right direction. You think one little outburst is going to make me want to stop talking to you forever? Yeah, I don’t think so.”

“I still shouldn’t have yelled at you,” Kinsey hiccuped. “I’m sorry.”

“Apology accepted.” Beatrice ushered Kinsey briskly onto the nearest couch. “Just take a deep breath and let’s figure this out. What’s going on?”

“I don’t know.” Kinsey sniffed, trying without much success to pull herself together. “I just—I wanted to help and it all just spun out of control so fast—”

Beatrice grabbed a box of tissues from the cluttered coffee table and pressed it into Kinsey’s hands. “You and Sasha had a fight?”

“We didn’t just fight, we broke up.” Kinsey dug out a couple of tissues and pressed them to her eyes. “I don’t even know why I’m crying about it. I figured this would happen. I mean, we make a terrible couple. She’s . . . Well, she cares about people, for one. I don’t think she’s ever met someone she couldn’t have a friendly conversation with. And I’m just . . . I’m an angry, prickly disaster who hates everyone.”

“That’s not true.”

“Yes it is. Why else would everyone keep leaving me?” Kinsey asked, grabbing another wad of tissues. “You’re taking off for Syracuse—which is fine but . . . and . . . and Sasha . . .” She ground out a frustrated half-scream, furious she couldn’t just spit it out. “I don’t know why I thought I could be good enough for her. I wasn’t even good enough for Evie.”

A thin line appeared in the center of Beatrice’s freckled forehead. “Kinsey, Evie cheating on you didn’t have anything to do with you being good enough. She was a manipulative narcissist who tried to dump the blame on you instead of taking responsibility for her crappy behavior. That’s one hundred percent on her. Not you. And honestly? Screw her for making you feel like that.”

Kinsey stared, shocked into silence by hearing sweet, understanding Beatrice make such a vehement speech about anyone.

“But one bad breakup doesn’t mean you’re . . . I don’t know, destined for perpetual loneliness or something,” Beatrice went on. “Especially when this I’m so awful and uncaring self-assessment is such a load of crap. You might be slow to warm up to people, but once you do, you’re constantly checking in and doing nice things without even being asked. Just because you don’t give yourself credit for that kind of thing doesn’t mean the rest of us don’t notice. Sasha included.” She sighed and rubbed her forehead. “Which is maybe why I’m having trouble wrapping my head around this whole breakup thing. It doesn’t make sense.”

“Yeah, I don’t get it either,” Julian said, reappearing from the kitchen with a pair of steaming mugs. “Sorry,” he added as he passed the first one to Kinsey, who realized belatedly that she was glaring at him. “I know I don’t know either of you that well. But you always seem like you’re on the same wavelength. What would you have to fight about?”

“Exactly,” Beatrice said as she accepted the second coffee. “The worst arguments I’ve ever witnessed between you two are when Sasha goes a little too self-deprecating with the humor and you take her to task about it. Which barely counts. So your personalities aren’t identical. So what? You’re the good kind of opposites.”

“Complimentary,” Julian agreed, perching on a cleared edge of the coffee table.

“Right,” Beatrice said, nodding. “Sasha keeps you from getting too sullen, and you—”

“Keep Sasha from being too happy?” Kinsey asked miserably.

Beatrice blinked. “No, Kins. You stop her from being too down on herself.” She set her coffee down next to Julian and touched Kinsey’s arm again. “What happened, exactly? Everything seemed fine yesterday.”

“I thought everything was fine. But she . . .” Kinsey let out a breath. She was going to have to explain the fight sooner or later. Might as well get it over with. “She’s just been dealing with personal crap all week. She was keeping me out of the loop for most of it, but then she got this . . . call. At like three in the morning last night. And she got so . . . just . . . angry.” She met Beatrice’s gaze, silently pleading for her to understand the magnitude of what had happened. “You know how she is. It’s really hard to ruffle her feathers. Everyone else could be trying to form a mob and she’d be standing there at a maximum of mild irritation. She never snaps at people. Not like that. It freaked me out. And I just wanted her to—to talk to me. And I was scared. And I guess I pushed her too hard because then we started shouting at each other and before I could even process how we got there, she—she walked out.”

She’d been shoving that fight out of her head all day with little success, but now there was nothing she could do to mitigate the press of grief and regret that settled on her shoulders as she heard her past self getting frustrated and defensive, watched Sasha throwing out accusations with her back to the wall, restless and tense. Because you’re the one fucking exception, aren’t you?

“I thought being together was what she wanted,” Kinsey said. “I thought . . . I thought she liked me. But she just left. And I don’t think she’s coming back. And I don’t know how it happened.”

Beatrice gripped Kinsey’s wrist, though she seemed at a loss for what to say.

Kinsey had wanted to be the kind of person Sasha could be with. The kind of person she could trust. Who could make her feel safe. How the hell did she screw up so badly?

“Are you sure she wanted to break up with you?” Julian ventured after a few seconds.

“Exactly what part of her taking off for California to get away from me after a fight says let’s stay together to you?” Kinsey asked.

“Well, okay,” Julian said. “But . . . I mean, I’ve tried the cut-and-run thing once or twice. It’s usually more of a panic move than anything.”

“You did say she’s been struggling with other stuff all week,” Beatrice said. “What exactly did she say when she left? Do you remember?”

Kinsey shifted in her seat, staring determinedly at the still-nearly-full mug in her hands. Of course she remembered. She remembered every last word they’d flung at each other. But suddenly she wasn’t so sure that she’d actually listened.

Sasha had asked her, right before things spun out of control, to give her a little bit of space. Just a minute of quiet. Everything about her posture—the stiffness of her shoulders, the way she prowled to the far side of the room, her fingers pressed into her scalp—should have been more than enough to signal that the last thing she needed was to be yanked into a fresh argument with her insecure girlfriend.

Kinsey had just dragged her into one anyway, too preoccupied with her own worries about the relationship to realize Sasha was just as scared as she was. Maybe more. Kinsey wasn’t the one backed into a literal corner, her whole body tight as a wire, eyes pleading, as she spat out everything she was afraid of.

She remembered Sasha waking up in her arms the morning after they kissed; the guarded wonder in her voice when she said you’re still here. Like she expected Kinsey to ditch her at the first opportunity.

She remembered Sasha saying she didn’t want to talk about her worry over her AWOL mom in case she crumbled. She remembered how she had flipped out when Kinsey crawled into her bed after she had that nightmare. Because she couldn’t seem to process Kinsey being nice to her. Or wanting to be with her.

So when Kinsey stood there and made it sound like she wouldn’t have looked at Sasha twice if she hadn’t been the one to push for the relationship . . . No wonder Sasha hadn’t fought back. Kinsey was just telling her exactly what she’d been expecting to hear from the beginning.

It wasn’t even true. Kinsey had only blurted it out because she was scared that Sasha was pushing her away. And the only way she thought she could handle that possibility was if Kinsey was the one to give the final shove.

Which was exactly what Sasha had learned to expect from people who were supposed to care about her—that they’d feign affection right up until they didn’t see a use for her anymore. And then they’d throw her away and blame her for everything that had gone wrong.

Kinsey stood up in a haze, feeling like she needed to do something. But she was completely blanking on what she could do. All she knew was she couldn’t sit there any longer, pretending she hadn’t just royally screwed things up with the woman she loved. Kinsey would never be a sunny, paintball-loving extrovert, but maybe she didn’t have to be, so long as she could figure out a way to make things right. Though how she was supposed to do that when Sasha was off the grid was beyond her.

“I don’t know how to fix this, Bee,” she said. “Her phone is off or dead. I don’t know where she is or if I could catch up to her. Even if I could, I don’t think she’d want to hear me out. I’ve always been better at breaking things than putting them back together. But I want to try. I have to try.” She huffed out a breath. “I just . . . don’t know how I’m supposed to find her.”

Beatrice got to her feet too, one finger raised absently, her eyes adopting that dreamy look she got when she was thinking. “You know,” she said, “I might actually be able to help with that.”