Page 25 of The Red Zone
Maybe it was the alcohol talking, but what if there was some alternate universe out there where we didn’t act like we despised each other? Where we had gotten along from the start. What would our lives look like now if that had been our reality instead?
“Then why don’t you just tell me what I did so we can move past it.” I followed behind her as she took a seat on one of the white couches at the opposite end of the deck. “I did something, didn’t I? All this time I thought I didn’t… but something inside me is telling me I’m wrong.”
Mae’s posture stiffened as she sat, looking up at me with her mouth open like she was going to speak, but the words she wanted to say wouldn’t come out.
“Tell me I’m right.”
A moment passed before she sighed, slumping back against the cushions with crossed arms. “You’re right.”
“I knew it.” I took a step back, running my free hand through my hair. “I fucking knew it. What was it?”
“Nothing. Let’s stop talking about it.”
“Tell. Me.” I argued, flinging my arm holding the empty whiskey bottle recklessly at my side.
“I can’t.”
“Why?”
She hesitated, dropping her gaze to her hands as she twiddled her thumbs. A knot formed in my chest as I waited for her words to come. “Because I’ll cry.” Her lower lip trembled at the last word.
Fucking shit.
That knot? Yeah, it had dropped to the pit of my stomach.
Any ounce of alcohol that had been in my system felt like it had completely evaporated from my body. All that was left was to face the hollow, sobering reality I’d commanded her to give me.
“I hurt you that badly?” My voice broke and everything in me fought not to drop to my knees and cup my hands around her face. Any traces of anger and resentment from earlier had dissolved with the alcohol. What the fuck had I done? “Mae, please. I need to know.”
She nodded up and down with closed eyes before gulping. “Do you remember the time our classes got paired up to trade Valentine’s in elementary school? And we both got each other?”
“Yeah, I made you a giant Dum-Dum bouquet.” I reminisced on the memory I’d long since forgotten. “My mom and I spent the entire night before the party sorting through the jumbo-sized bag to pick out your favorite flavors.”
“What are you talking about?” Her tone was uncertain as she pursed her lips together.
“What areyoutalking about? Didn’t you notice there were only sour apple and cotton candy flavors?”
Mae ignored the question. “Wait, so, you’re telling me you spent an entire night sorting through suckers to pick out my favorite flavors…”
“That’s what I just said, right?”
“But…”
“But what?”
She sucked in a long, steadying breath and expelled it from her lungs. “I’m just confused… because right after the Valentine’s party, we all went outside to play because it was like seventy-five degrees or something, remember?”
I nodded, recalling the vague memory. “I was pissed because Oscar had a cast on his leg and couldn’t go out, so he and Chester stayed inside. Mrs. Lowry wouldn’t let me stay with them.”
“Exactly.” She threw her hands in the air. “And while they were inside, one of them had accidentally pressed their elbow to the button for the outdoor intercom or something…”
I racked my brain trying to remember what was said between the two of them, but nothing came to mind. All I remembered was doing backflips on the monkey bars because I was an eight-year-old little shit head, and there weren’t any teachers monitoring the back of the playground to stop me.
“Everyone outside on the playground listened as Oscar said something about you giving me a ‘pity valentine’,” she raised her hands into air quotes. “Because, ‘Mae Garten is the meanest, ugliest girl in second-grade, and the only reason October got stuck with her was because he was the last person who got to choose’.”Her face remained impassive. “Then, Chester followed up with some remark about how he’d wished you’d gotten Molly Goldberg instead since she was your crush.”
“Everyone on the playground heard him say that?” I raised a brow. If so, why hadn’t I remembered it?
The blank stare Mae gave me in response was answer enough.
