Page 53 of The Worst Kind of Promise
I’ve stopped feeling guilty, I’ve stopped pitying myself, I’ve stopped feeling angry. I don’t have the energy to let him take over my life. And all of these secrets. Ugh, these fucking secrets! I don’t want them anymore. I do—
“Faye?”
I blink as the view of our waiter crispens, and everyone around the table stares at me, the young, probably fresh-out-of-high-school server waiting impatiently for me to order.
My gaze immediately locates the pasta subsection of the menu, because if I’m going to get through this lunch without biting someone’s head off, I’m going to need sweet, sweet carbs. “Sorry, I’ll have the tortellini,” I say, folding my menu and placing it in his outstretched hand.
He takes it from me with a blank expression. Then, like a light has been switched on, he plasters on the fakest smile I’ve ever seen. “We’re so pasta-tively thrilled that you chose to dine with us this afternoon!” he exclaims cheerfully, then scurries off to the kitchen window.
“That was…weird,” Lila comments, taking a sip from her water glass.
Aeris glances around the hole-in-the-wall restaurant, everywhere from the enlarged cartoon penne in a bikini to the random framed facts about pasta dating back to the thirteenth century. “Yeah, the website made it look a lot more normal online.”
The restaurant has started to fill up—a surprise there—and judging by the volume of people filtering in, our meals will likely be cold by the time they make it to our table. I hadn’t realized how hungry I’d actually gotten in the thirty minutes we’ve been here.
Aeris folds and refolds her cloth napkin. Lila purses her lips as she takes in the outfits of the customers around us.
I sigh. “Don’t you two want to ask me what you’ve been dying to ask me since we sat down?”
“What? No, of course not. We-we have no idea what you’re talking about,” Aeris insists, nodding to Lila, who nods back just as vigorously.
I know when Aeris is lying. Everyone does. She’s a terrible liar.
Lila slips her manicured fingers between the gaps in her plaited braid, puffing up each individual section. “Yeah, we’re just glad you didn’t do cocaine. That’s the real hard shit.”
Aeris nudges her friend’s arm. “Lila!”
“What? I’m just being honest. And warning her. I did cocaine one time at a sorority exchange and was convinced I was going to die. I couldn’t tell the head sister either because I would’ve been dropped, so I locked myself in the bathroom for the rest of the night.”
I shift the weight on my hip bones, trying to ignore the shallow pool of sweat my back’s gathered on the hardwood seat. “See! Molly isn’t that bad. I don’t get why everyone’s treating me like a kid.”
“They’re just worried about you,” Aeris coos, her lips cracking into a sympathetic grimace.
She means well. The whole house does. But…I have a right to feel indignant, don’t I? I’m twenty-two. I don’t need to be looked after all the time. And I know it’s immature to blame my own actions on someone else, but none of this would’ve happened if it wasn’t for Kit.
I run my nail through the condensation on my glass, eyes glued to the ring of water soaking into the varnished table. “Can we just talk about something else please?”
Lila catches on immediately, throwing herself into the ring with a wicked little grin. “I’m officially done with boys,” she announces.
Mid-drink, Aeris chokes on her water. “You’re turning lesbian?”
“No, but maybe down the road. I meant I’m done withBristol, specifically.”
My eyebrows lift with curiosity. “Hold on. You and Bristol?”
She rolls her mascara-primed eyes, twirling her straw around. “Yeah, ever since Hayes’ birthday party, but that clearly hasn’t gone anywhere. He’s so unsure of what he wants, but he’s sure enough that he doesn’t want me,” she mutters, her tone shrouded in annoyance. “He needs to make up his mind. I’m not going to let him drag me along, you know? If he doesn’t want the real thing—and thatincludeslabels—then I’m not going to give him the time.”
“Men suck,” I agree.
“I’ll drink to that.” Lila throws her water back and finishes it in a few gulps like it’s a shot of tequila.
We both turn to Aeris, who’s upgraded from folding her napkin to styling it into an unidentifiable animal shape.
“Oh, yeah. Men suck balls. Death to the patriarchy!” she yells a little too loudly, attracting a side-eye from a granny a few tables away from us.
And the resentment that had momentarily left me is back, engulfing my heart in tendrils, a bunch of black conduits for the hateful poison seething in my bloodstream. Fuck Kit Langley. My life was better when he wasn’t in it. And if I see his dumb face, I’m going to punch him. In fact, maybe I’ll book a flight back to Pennsylvania to really show him.
Great. Now aside from being hot and hungry, I’m pissed. Just when I said I wasn’t going to give him any more power, here I am, handing it over to him. My temples throb, and dizziness wallops my nutrient-deprived brain. I somehow also feel dry and wet at the same time. The bare parts of my body are all crackly, but the clothed parts of my body are damper than they should be.
