For One Last Night

2:15 AM

I couldn't stop thinking about his face, contorted in anger, as I sat down on the curb. I hated that he was capable of this. I hated that I'd tried so hard to get a reaction from him and the one I'd gone was so ugly. I hated that it was turning everything sour. I wished I could go back in time to yesterday, when everything he said felt like a promise and every text message made me smile.

Even though he'd said it in the worst possible way, there was some truth to the things he'd said, which almost made it worse. He was right. I didn't want to be with someone who knew me. Not yet. And right now, after seeing that side of him, I didn't think there was anything wrong with it. I was still just learning how to live with myself, with the things that had happened to me. I wasn't ready to learn someone else. To have to live with someone else's criticisms. Someone else's flaws. Especially when those flaws were so angry. So wrong.

It was so crazy to me how quickly your feelings for someone can change after one conversation. How, after a year of endless admiration, they can say one thing and make everything seem untrue.

I didn't know if it was minutes or hours later when I heard a door close nearby. I looked up, expecting Josie, Gus, or maybe even Ziggy. The last person I expected to see was Oliver, sauntering over with a smile plastered on his face. I wiped my eyes, smiling back.

"Hi," I said because I had to say something.

He looked around awkwardly. "I didn't know you were out here. I can leave. If you want." He seemed more sober now.

I shook my head. I didn't actually mind the company, as long we were out here, in the cool air. Being alone would be worse. I would just keep replaying Gus's words in my head.

"No, it's okay. Stay. Sit." I patted the curb.

He lowered himself down, stretching his long legs out on the street in front of us. A blanket of silence enveloped us as he pulled a pack of cigarettes from his jean pocket, surprising me. I even didn't know he smoked. He pulled one out and stuck it in his mouth before holding out the package, offering me one. I shook my head.

He lit the cigarette. "Gus looks miserable in there."

I didn't know what to say to that. I couldn't say that he had finally realized that I wasn't the girl he thought I was and that I'd realized something horrible, too. He wasn't the boy I thought he was. He wasn't going to save me, to see past all the bullshit, to stand on a soapbox when all the other boys said a;; the wrong things.

So I shrugged and said, "We fought."

"I got that. Do you want to talk about it?" His voice sounded a little shaky and I raised my eyebrows at him. Oliver and I had never, not once, talked about our feelings. We weren't really friends in that way.

I shook my head. It would be way too awkward to explain these things to Oliver. "Um, I don't think so. If I talk about it right now, I might say something I regret." I didn't feel like I could trust my own thoughts right now. I didn't want them to exist out loud yet.

"Yeah, I know what you mean. You heard what Josie said to me outside of Joel's, right?"

That made me laugh.

"I think the entire neighborhood heard what Josie said to you," I said.

Oliver took another drag of his cigarette, frowning. "Fair enough."

"Do you think she's right?" I asked, surprising myself with the question.

"Some of it," he answered, looking away. I couldn't believe we were talking about this. I never got to hear Oliver's side of the story. I only ever got Josie's.