23
RUBY
I wake up the next day in Tyler’s bed, my head pounding, my clothes from last night sticking to me in uncomfortable ways. Shit. I scan the room with sluggish eyes and run the math on whether I can escape out the window without him noticing, which is when I realize he’s not even here.
And then it all comes rushing back, the dancing, Morgan, the look on her face when she saw Tyler and me. Shit, shit, double shit.
Footsteps at the door have me scrunching my eyes shut and feigning sleep, but I open one at the sound of a cup being set down on the nightstand and the scent of coffee wafting into my nose.
“I know you’re awake,” Tyler says, crouching down near the bed and pushing my hair out of my face with a level of affection we don’t typically share.
“Morning,” I say with a little wince.
“You stayed the night.” He hands me the mug. “This must be some kind of a record. Should we alert the media?”
I sip my coffee, eyeing him. “Yeah, sorry about that. Didn’t mean to break protocol.”
“No, it was nice for once,” he says, standing up to grab a bottle of Advil off his desk and toss it onto the bed beside me. “Or it would have been nice if you weren’t crying half the night.”
“Um,” I say, my stomach sinking, because I don’t remember that part. “I had way too much to drink last night.”
“I noticed.”
I shift uncomfortably, wrapping the blanket a little tighter around myself. “Did we, you know?”
He looks absolutely horrified. “Jesus, Ruby. Do you really think I’d try to hook up with you when you were that drunk?”
I look away, because the truth is, I don’t really know him all that well. We don’t talk much outside of the whole quick-release thing we’ve had going for the last year or the occasional text or high five in homeroom.
“Wow.” Tyler pulls some shorts on over his boxer briefs. “On that note, I’m going to the gym. Why don’t you slink out like normal before I get back? We’ll pretend last night never happened.” He looks actually wounded right now, and I hate this. I hate that I’m hurting everyone who seems to have even a modicum of concern for me.
I’m the fucking worst.
“I’m sorry,” I say, “but I had to ask. Not everyone is—”
“I would never do anything without your consent.” He looks serious. “And last night, you were in no shape to give it.”
I look down again.
“You don’t remember anything, do you?” he asks. “Christ, how much did you drink?”
“A lot,” I say. Enough to drown every conflicting thought I had in my head, or at least try to. “Fill me in? Please?”
He sighs, staring at me for a second before sitting on the bed. “Well, you basically dry-humped that girl Morgan in the middle of my living room.”
“I remember that part,” I say, because that’s not something I will ever, ever forget.
“And then we started dancing, which pissed off Allie and confused the shit out of me.”
“Allie Marcetti? She was here?”
“Yeah, I didn’t even know. We’ve been kind of hooking up since you dropped me. I like her and all, but she’s not you. When you danced with me last night, I thought we were back in the game or whatever. Until I realized how drunk you were when you started bawling on the dance floor after I kissed you.”
I wince. “Sorry about that.”
“Yeah, that was not great for my ego or my reputation,” he says, but with enough teasing in his voice that I know he’s not mad. At least not about that part.
“I brought you up here and tried to put you to bed, but you were really upset. I ended up staying with you until you finally fell asleep, but by then everyone else was really drunk, and I got worried someone might come in here while you were passed out, so . . .” He gestures to a sleeping bag and pillow on the floor. “I decided to hang close.”
I look away. Showing weakness to Tyler and him actually being cool about it somehow makes me feel even more vulnerable, like maybe I lost a little skin when he was peeling back the layers.
“Listen, Ruby, we definitely don’t have to be fuck buddies or whatever you want to call it anymore, but you don’t have to shut me out either. I don’t mind being your friend. I’d actually like that.”
My startled eyes meet his, sure this is just a plot to keep me close, but I find only sincerity in them. “Really?”
“Really. It sucks a little, because you’re really hot and we’ve had a lot of fun together, but last night . . . Look, I don’t think I’m the one you want, and being friends wouldn’t be the worst. That’s all I’m saying. If you ever want to talk about what had you crying your brains out last night, I’m here.”
I scratch the back of my neck. “Thanks, I’ll think about it,” I say, because I have a really good idea what I was crying about last night, but I’m not ready to share that with anyone yet.
Except maybe her.
My hair is still wet when I get to her apartment and ring the buzzer. I tried pulling it into a messy bun, but that just left the back of my T-shirt—a borrowed one of Tyler’s that I’ve knotted up above my hip after my shower—soaked for no reason.
Everly has texted me about a dozen times this morning, and I’m supposed to meet up with her in an hour and a half to help her pick through some photos for her senior project. But I can’t shake this sense of doom in my chest every time I think of Morgan, like I ruined it all before I figured out what it even was. And it’s that feeling that has me standing on her porch right now.
I hit her buzzer a second time, and finally there are footsteps on the other side of the door. I wave at the peephole, figuring someone’s staring at me. I don’t know if it’s her or Dylan, but judging by the amount of time that passes with the door not opening, I’m guessing it’s her.
“Hey,” I say to the still-shut door. “Can we talk?”
A lock clicks, and the door cracks open. She doesn’t undo the chain.
“Hey, Ruby,” she says slowly, eyeing me warily. “What are you doing here?”
“Can I come in?”
“Why? The group project’s over,” she says, repeating my words from yesterday.
“I thought maybe we could study,” I say, echoing hers right back with a hopeful smile. She just stares. “Or not?”
“What do you want, Ruby?” Her voice is hard.
I bite my lip. “I just want to talk.”
She closes the door just enough to slide the chain off, and shame creeps up my spine—not for liking her, this time, but for letting her down. Again. “What’s there to say?”
“Nothing happened between me and Tyler last night, I promise.”
She swings the door open wider but still doesn’t let me in. “Why would I care what happens between you and Tyler?”
“You know why.”
She narrows her eyes. “Do I?”
“I can go, if you want,” I say, turning to leave, caught between the sudden panic that I read everything wrong and the sudden panic that I didn’t.
Either way, this isn’t working.
“I guess you can come in, since you drove all this way,” she says, like her apartment isn’t smack in the middle of town.
I’m four steps from the safety of my car, four steps from maintaining the status quo, four steps from lying low and getting through . . . but I’ve never spun around so fast in my life.
Morgan holds the door open for half a second, giving it a good shove so I have time to catch it after she disappears inside. I find her sitting in the living room, the TV on mute. She’s got a perfect view of the parking lot through her curtains, which means she definitely saw me pull in. Is that better or worse? Like, she hesitated, but also, she ultimately unlocked the door.
Morgan stares at me expectantly, and I don’t know what to say. I don’t know why I’m here, beyond the fact that I feel totally guilty about last night, even though I technically have no reason to. But also, I have a lot of reasons to. My heart jumps into my throat.
“I take it no pageant today?” she asks, flicking through channels on the still-muted TV.
“No, not today.” I can hardly believe she’s even talking to me. “I have to meet Everly in a little while, though.”
“Oh,” she says noncommittally, not taking her eyes off the TV. “I guess that doesn’t leave much time for studying, then. We should get started.”
“I didn’t really come here to study.” I move to the coffee table, blocking her view of the TV. “But you know that.” I need her to look at me, I need her to see how sorry I am for last night. I need her to feel what I can’t say.
Morgan just sighs and looks away. “What do you want, Ruby?”
“I don’t know,” I say, answering honestly. What do other people say in moments like this? I don’t get crushes. I don’t do relationships. Especially not with girls. This is uncharted territory for more reasons than one.
Morgan stands up. “Cool, well, thanks for stopping by, then.”
I scoot forward on the table, reaching for her hand and trapping her legs between mine. Morgan hesitates, searching my eyes, and then sighs. “I can’t play these games with you anymore. Not after last night.”
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I’m so sorry. I should never have—”
“I felt gross.”
“Oh,” I say. I drop her hand and slide back . . . because “gross” was the opposite of how I felt. I liked dancing with her. More than liked it, even.
“How could you do that to me? You obviously know how I feel about you. You even said it!” She shakes her head and drops back onto the couch with crossed arms. “And then you still used me to get Tyler’s attention? That’s screwed up, Ruby!”
“Wait, what?” Because I didn’t. I didn’t. I may not have known what I was doing, but it definitely wasn’t that.
“This whole time, were you just like, Oh, look at this pathetic girl who has a crush on me. I bet I can use that to my advant—”
I cut her words off with a kiss, trying to show her what I feel, trying to pour everything I can’t say into her lips on mine, so she can finally understand. But I’ve barely started when her hands are on my shoulders, shoving me away.
“What are you doing?” she shouts.
“I thought . . .” I trail off. I don’t know what I thought. I didn’t think, actually. And, oh no, oh no. Her eyes well with tears before she runs down the hall and slams the door.
I sit there for a second, trying to figure out what to do and how I read all of this so wrong, and then I follow her, knocking softly on her door.
“Go away, Ruby,” she says, and I can tell she’s still crying.
Shit.
I reach for the handle but stop myself, remembering my conversation with Tyler earlier about consent. I turn around instead, sliding down the door with my back against it. I stretch my legs out, and I pick at my nail polish. I suck at feelings. I suck even more at talking about them. Why won’t she let me just show her? “Morgan—”
“Why are you still here? Go!”
I tip my head back against the wood. “I will if you want me to. But I really don’t want to.”
“What do you want?” she asks, her voice more frustrated than I’ve ever heard.
I take a deep breath and cut open that little box of feelings inside me. If she needs me to bleed for her, I’ll bleed. “I’ve never . . . Tyler and I used to hook up or whatever, but I don’t . . .” I sigh, already frustrated with myself. “I mean, I don’t worry about him when he’s not around or anything. But you? All the time I want to know what you’re thinking. All the time I want to be around you. Every other thought in my head is about you now! And sometimes I hate it. And other times I like it. Too much. And I don’t know what I want, I don’t, but I do know that I don’t want to be the one to hurt you. I didn’t do what you think I did last night. I wouldn’t. I—”
The door clicks open, and I sprawl backward onto her bedroom floor.
She lets out a huff that could maybe turn into a laugh if I play my cards right. But it’s gone before I’m even up off the floor.
“Explain that last part,” she says, crawling onto her bed and wiping at her eyes.
“I swear I didn’t use you. And I’m sorry for making you feel like that. It wasn’t my intention, I promise. I had way too much to drink, and you were there looking so . . .” I shake my head.
Morgan scrunches her forehead, waiting.
“So good.” I look away, my neck and ears going crimson.
“Then why did you dance with Tyler?”
“I don’t know! Everything got so jumbled up!”
“Why did you kiss me just now?”
“I wanted to show you!” I say. “I can barely even talk right around you. You mess with my head so much.”
“I mess with your head?”
“Not like . . . That came out wrong. Let me show you,” I plead, taking a step closer. Maybe another kiss, a better kiss, will fix this. I take another step, and another, until I’m right in front of her. “Can I kiss you again?” I lean down so our faces are only inches apart.
“Why?” she asks, and I feel the word on my eyelashes as my heart taps I don’t know, but I want to against my ribs.
I tip her face up until our noses touch, smiling at her shaky exhale, and say, “I just want to try something.”
Morgan jerks her head back at my words, her entire body following suit as she scrambles away and climbs off the bed. “You need to go. Now,” she says, her voice cold.
My hazy smile is replaced by a look of confusion. “What? Why? Morgan—”
But she’s already marching out of her room and to the front door, holding it wide open by the time I get there. And this time, this time I can tell she means it.
“Morgan—”
“I’m not something to try. I’m not your little experiment. Stay away from me, Ruby. Okay? This is a mistake.”
I don’t even have a chance to respond before she slams the door in my face.