Page 77 of Going the Distance
He tried to sound casual but totally failed. I knew him too well for him to play something serious off like it was nothing. He’d gone over to my house to look for me, wanting to tell me something. Panic seeped through me.
“Is it Rachel? Did you guys have a fight or something?”
“Oh, no, it’s…it isn’t about me and Rachel. Seriously, don’t worry. It’s…No…I’ll just tell you when you get back.”
“Lee,”I snapped. The way he was avoiding whatever it was—and the fact that it was so important that he wanted to tell me in person—terrified me. “What’s going on? Please.”
He sighed. “Okay, well, my mom just got off the phone with Noah. About how he’s coming home for Thanksgiving…” Lee paused, waiting for my reaction.
Even though I was dreading seeing Noah at Thanksgiving dinner, I couldn’t avoid it, and I knew that. I just had to suck it up for that one day and be polite to him. Just like I sucked it up now and tried to sound like I didn’t care. “Yeah, well, I figured he would be. What about it?”
Lee drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. It whistled, crackling, down the line. My palms began to sweat. “He’s bringing a friend back home for Thanksgiving, too, is all, and I thought you should hear it from me first.”
“A friend?”
But who was Noah that close with that he’d—
No.
No, he wouldn’t do that. Hewouldn’t.Not after everything that had happened. He wouldn’t dare. But maybe I was jumping to conclusions…God, I hoped I was jumping to conclusions.
“You mean, like, Steve?” I could hear the desperation in my own voice, and I hated it, hated the way I clutched at my phone with both of my clammy hands. “His roommate? Or Whatshisname that he hangs out with from football. David? Dave?”
“Yeah. I mean, no. I mean…that’s not who he’s bringing home for Thanksgiving.”
“Lee…”
“Shelly, he’s bringing Amanda.”
Even though I was expecting him to say that, the air rushed out of my lungs and I put a hand against the nearest wall—the glass of the tank—for support, feeling dizzy. I was pretty sure that my heart had shattered before, when I broke up with Noah, but that wasnothingcompared to how I felt now. The floor seemed to swim beneath me. There was a ringing in my ears. The tang at the back of my throat made me wonder if I was going to puke.
“Shelly?” Lee was saying. “You still there? Rochelle? Elle?”
“Yeah,” I said. My voice sounded strangled. I took a few deep breaths, suppressing the feeling of nausea. Something else filled the void pretty quickly, though, as I got hold of myself: anger.
“You okay?”
“Okay?” I hissed, dropping my voice to a whisper. I noticed a couple of people looking at me, and I staggered a few feet farther away. “Of course I’m not fucking okay, Lee! You saw that photo of them on Facebook. I told you about that conversation I overheard between them the day we broke up. And now he’s bringing her home for Thanksgiving dinner, when he knows I’ll be there? To rub it in my face? I’m pretty fucking far fromokay.”
“Whoa, whoa, Shelly, okay, I get it. Chill out,” Lee said, sounding frantic. I didn’t often use the F-word, same as Lee. But if there was any time for it, it was now. “I just figured you should know now. Rather than be surprised on Thanksgiving Day.”
“Thanks for telling me,” I said through clenched teeth. But it wasn’t Lee I was mad at, and we both knew that. “I just…I can’t believe he’d do that to me. I know we’re broken up, so now he’s totally entitled to sleep with her and date her and whatever, but to bring her home with him like that, this soon after, it’s just— God, I can’t believe he’d do that! What kind ofasshole—”
“Elle?”
It was Levi now, saying my name. He was standing in front of me, touching my shoulder with a frown on his face.
I held up a finger to signal “one minute” to him and focused on what Lee was saying: “I know you’re not over him, Shelly, and that you’re heartbroken over the whole breakup, but if it’s any consolation, he told my mom she’s just a friend.”
“She’s not just a friend, Lee! She’s not, and we both know that!”
“Well,” he said cautiously, “we don’t knowfor surethey’re hooking up.”
“Oh, so now I’m just making stuff up?”
“No, I didn’t say that. You know I didn’t.”
I let out a deep breath. “I’m sorry. You know it’s not you I’m mad at.”
