Live Through This (12 page)

I nod. “She was conked out on the couch when we left.”

“Sucks,” Bryan says. “She’s going to hate it. I spent half of my senior year on crutches. Got so sick of those things.”

A server comes over to drop off our drinks and try to convince us to get an appetizer. After he walks away, I say to Bryan, “Sorry about today. How was it hanging out with Tony?”

“We split up after a couple of hours because he couldn’t keep my pace.” Bryan pours himself another glass of beer.
“What about you guys?” He looks back and forth between us. “Seemed from your text like you were having big problems.”

“Just at first,” I say quickly, wishing he hadn’t mentioned that; I don’t want Reece to be embarrassed. “It got better.”

“A
little
better,” Reece says, correcting me with a smile. “I was definitely holding her back, though.”

Bryan takes a long swallow. “How is it that we never ran into you all day? Were you even on Blackcomb?”

“Yes,” I say. “But we were taking it easy on Crystal Road and Green Line. We also went to the tube park, which was really fun, but then Tony called and said I had babysitter duty, so that was the end of that.”

“I can’t believe you wasted your last day on bunny hills and inner tubes,” Bryan says, frowning. “You could have gone on some insane trails with me.”

As if I was supposed to just leave Reece alone and go off with Bryan? That isn’t what he would have done to Heather if she were here; it isn’t what
anyone
would do. “I already went on all the trails that I wanted to. I don’t need nonstop excitement, you know.”

“Clearly,” Bryan says, looking straight at Reece.

I don’t know what to say when he gets like this. He’s looking for an argument and I’m not going to give it to him.

While I’m trying to think of something else to talk about,
Reece asks Bryan, “So how did your ankle heal up, anyway? Are you playing basketball in college?”

Confusion flickers across Bryan’s face, and I realize for the first time that Reece must know Bryan, since I’ve never told him about Bryan being on the team.

“I played on JV for one year. Which was when you were a senior,” Reece says, answering the unasked question. “We practiced in the same gym. Well, until you got hurt.”

“Holy shit.” Bryan sets his half-empty glass down hard and leans in to study Reece. “I thought you looked kind of familiar. You were that freshman who was going out with D.T. Johnson, right?”

“Her name is
Violet
Johnson,” Reece says. “But yeah, that was me.”

“What’s ‘D.T.’ mean?” I ask.

“Deep Throat,” Bryan says with a snicker.

“Oh,” I say.

I shouldn’t have asked. I really didn’t need to know. More importantly, I can tell by the way Reece is staring at his hands folded on the black tablecloth and clenching his jaw that this is a bad subject for him, too.

I glare at Bryan, but he doesn’t seem to notice or care. “That chick,” he says. “Whoa. She hooked up with, like, five of my friends. Not all at the same, though. I don’t think so,
anyway.” He leans back again. “God, I haven’t thought about Violet in forever. How’s she doing these days? Or should I say,
who’s
she doing?”

“She’s fine,” Reece says, looking him in the eye. “She graduated last year and she’s going to school in California.”

“Next time you see her, tell her ‘hi’ from me.” Bryan sets his napkin by his plate and stands. “I’m going to take a piss now.”

I watch him amble away and then turn to Reece. “I’m so sorry.”

He shrugs. “You don’t have anything to apologize for.”

I wave my hand in the direction Bryan headed. “I’m the one who brought you here and my brother happens to be in a really bad mood. So there’s that.”

“It isn’t your fault. Guys have been giving me crap about Violet since I was fourteen, so I’m kind of used to it.”

“That’s a long time,” I say lightly.

“It definitely is. Not even half as long as she had to deal with it, though.”

My brother dredged all this up and then walked away. I wish I could too, but I can tell by Reece’s face that he wants to discuss it further.

How do I do this, when all I want is to forget that Violet was important to Reece long before I was?

“Have you . . . heard from her lately?” I ask.

“Not really,” he says, shaking his head. “We’ve sent a few e-mails, but it’s been a while.”

I nod and draw squiggly lines in the condensation on my water glass using my fingertip.

“Is this too weird?” Reece asks. “Talking about my ex-girlfriend?”

“No,” I lie. “It’s fine.”

“Okay, good. Things are different for her now, but when she was at our school, she put up with a lot of people saying a lot of things for a long time. She had this attitude like she didn’t care. I know she did, though.”

Maybe I can do this. “You two broke up when she left for college?”

“No. It was in May. Before she graduated. By then, she’d been pretty much been done for six months already.”

I stop decorating my glass and look at Reece. “Done with
you
?”

“With me. With everything having to do with Kenburn. She wanted out, you know? And she deserved to get out. I never blamed her for that.”

He’s so calm, unlike Bryan over his breakup. Of course, Reece has also had all of these months to process it.

“It was hard, though, wasn’t it?” I ask. “For you?”

“At first. I’d been with her, literally, since a few weeks after I moved here. The very start of my freshman year. I was a scrawny dork with braces, who never could figure out what she saw in me.” He smiles. “Now, of course, the braces are off so I’m just a scrawny dork.”

“That’s not true.” Smiling back, I poke his bicep through his shirt. “You’ve got guns under those sleeves.”

“BB guns, maybe. And I notice that you didn’t say I’m
not
a dork.”

“Oh, didn’t I?” I pinch my fingers together and motion like I’m zipping my lips closed.

Reece laughs. “Anyway. It all worked out and I’m glad for her. She doesn’t have any jackasses in her life calling her ‘D.T.’, so that’s good stuff.”

The way he’s talking, I can see that Ming was right about Reece being over Violet. The best part, though—the part that makes me like him even more—is that he doesn’t seem fazed by whatever happened before that got her the nickname “D.T.” He wasn’t upset with
her
, only with how other people treated her.

“About the jackasses,” I say. “What Bryan said to you just now. I want you to know that he isn’t usually like that.”

Reece lifts his eyebrows.

“He really isn’t,” I insist. “His girlfriend broke up with him
a couple of weeks ago on his birthday and he’s not dealing very well. As you can see.”

There’s a long pause before Reece says, “That’s rough, but . . .”

He shrugs and looks away without finishing his sentence. I can tell he’s thinking that I’m making excuses and Bryan’s a jerk. It stings, but I understand why he’d feel that way. I don’t get the impression that Reece lashed out at everyone after things ended with him and Violet. With Bryan, it’s as if it doesn’t even occur to him to
not
take it out on the whole world.

“I know that he comes across badly sometimes,” I say. “The truth is, he’s really sensitive and gets super depressed.”

“Oh.” Reece nods. “Yeah. My mom has that. She swears by vitamin D.”

“No, it isn’t a vitamin thing.” I pause, wondering whether I should say more. If Reece can share personal things with me, I can tell him this. I
will
tell him. “It’s because of our real dad.”

“What do you mean?” Reece asks, frowning in confusion.

Now what have I started? I take a deep breath and speak in a rush. “I don’t remember him, actually. I just know that our mom pretty much fled New Zealand with Bryan and me. Bryan remembers what happened and has bad memories and everything.”

“I’m sorry. I had no idea.”

Reece doesn’t look weirded out, but I kind of wish I could take my words back anyway. This is too much.

Before he can ask further questions, our server comes back to take our orders. I’ve never appreciated an interruption as much as I do this one. I ask all about salad dressings, soups of the day, and Italian soda flavors. I even change my order twice so that I can put as much time between our last conversation and our next one.

As soon as the server leaves, Reece turns back to me, looking like he wants to pick up where we left off.

“You know what?” I say. “I should”—I point past him—“be right back.”

“Sure.” He scoots aside so that I can step out of the booth, and I hurry through the dining room to find the bathroom.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

I shouldn’t have told Reece that stuff. I want him to see my family as normal—not scandalous and dramatic—but because of Bryan, I’m failing big-time.

Standing in front of the mirror, I admire my necklace and try to think of a new topic for when I get back to the table. Maybe I won’t need one, though. Maybe Bryan will be there and in a less jerky mood. Maybe conversation will flow without awkwardness. Maybe the worst of the night has already happened.

I can only hope.

Behind me, the door flings open and two college-aged girls stumble in, doubled over with laughter. They’re both wearing little skirts and big jewelry, and are really pretty.

“There’s a sign on my forehead, isn’t there?” the blonde asks. “There
has
to be.”

The brunette clomps over to the sink beside me in her high-heeled boots. “I swear there isn’t. Check it.”

The blonde stands next to her and leans in close to the mirror, touching her forehead like she’s truly trying to find something. “You’re right. Is it my aura then? How does this keep happening to me? I mean, I might be an American—”

“There’s no ‘might’ about it,” the brunette says.

“Okay, but my
God
! That doesn’t mean that I’m giving it up to every foreign guy who wants me. It takes more than a cute smile, a nice body, and a hot accent to get into these pants.” The blonde gives her own butt a pat.

“What does it take, then?” her friend asks in a teasing voice.

“How about a cute smile, nice body, hot accent, and
not
being a creepy creep,” the blonde says. “Because, bitch, I have standards.”

They dissolve into giggles again. I can’t help kind of laughing with them for a second, but then I’m hit with an
unexpected pang of loneliness. This used to be Alejandra and me. I mean, we aren’t flashy like these girls, and would never have called each other “bitch”—not even as a joke—but all the silliness and teasing and hiding in the bathroom to talk about weird guys? So us.

The brunette dabs tears of laughter from the corners of her eyes and then turns to me as if she’s noticing me for the first time. “That is
such
a cute purse. Where’d you get it?”

I look down at the pink and black Kate Spade on my arm. “Thanks. It was a Christmas present from my brother.”

“Wow,” she says. “Where can I sign up for a brother like that?”

“Seriously.” The blonde puckers up to smooth on red lipstick. “Mine is useless. He sits in my parents’ basement all day, getting high and playing video games.”

“Oh, no.” I flash a sympathetic smile toward her in the mirror, and fall silent. I don’t know why it even matters—I’ll never see them again—but I like that these girls believe that Bryan is the awesome, purse-buying type of brother and not the pot-smoking-in-the-basement sort.

“So, are we doing this?” the brunette asks her friend, motioning toward the door.

“There aren’t any windows to climb out, so I guess so.” The blonde laughs. “It’ll be fine, though. We can always head to another bar if he doesn’t take the hint.”

They quickly run their hands through their hair, check their cleavage, adjust their skirts, and leave in as big a flourish as they arrived.

It’s as good a time as any for me to do the same.

Maybe after I put on lip gloss.

•    •    •

I finally force myself to leave the bathroom, and take my time wandering back to the table. On the way, I spot Bryan at the bar. He’s smiling, which makes me smile. This is so much better than seeing him mope over Heather.

But my heart sinks when I notice that he’s leaning toward the blonde girl from the bathroom. Everything from her tight mouth to her crossed arms to the way she’s backing away tells me that she isn’t into him. Worse, whatever he’s saying is making her angry.

And that’s when I realize: The “foreign guy” she was talking about with the smile and the body and the accent is my brother.

Her friend and three guys are moving in closer and closer to them. And clearly, Bryan doesn’t like whatever it is that they’re saying to him. He shoves one guy. Another shoves Bryan against the bar.

“Hey!” the bartender yells.

Without even stopping to think, I run over, push through the small group, and grab Bryan’s arm. “Let’s go.” I look into
the eyes of the girl he was trying to chat up. “He’s going to leave you alone now.”

“I’m fine, Coley.” Bryan tries to shrug me off. “Just having a little conversation here.”

“No,” the brunette says. “You’re just being an asshole.”

He rolls his eyes. “Sure.
I’m
an asshole because your friend can’t take a compliment.”

“Dude, walk away,” says one of the guys. “She already said she’s not interested.”

“Please, Bryan,” I say.

He doesn’t make a move, so I grab on tightly and pull him away.

“
We
didn’t need to go anywhere.” Bryan raises his voice as I drag him back toward where we were sitting. “Who the fuck do they think they are anyway?”

I put out my hand when we reach our table. “Give me your wallet.”

He reaches into his pocket and hands it over. I pass a handful of Canadian bills to Reece, who’s looking up at us with his mouth open. So much for the worst of the night having already happened. “Can you take care of the bill?” I ask him. “I need to get Bryan out to the truck.”

“Should I get our food to go or try to cancel the order?” Reece asks.

“Whatever you want,” I say.