Because You're Different ✔

80. Out [Part 2]

I held back the tears, hiding my face behind my hair. Don't think, June. Watching the cars go by, the wheels spinning so fast it made me dizzy, I tried to drown out all thoughts, all memories. My body was drained, empty, hands lying unmoving in my lap. I wasn't sleeping, not really, but time behaved like I was. It felt like a minute later when we came to a standstill at the side of the road, two houses away from Hayley's.

And it was then that I realized.

Three disasters. The rejected kiss. The lie about Charlotte. The hand up my leg.

Once again, I'd been fooling myself into thinking I could belong here, and once again, I'd missed all the signs shouting at me to go away.

I unfastened my seatbelt, feeling it slide up my arm with a short, zooming sound. My hands were shaking, with fear, with loss, but mostly with fuming, red-hot anger. I grabbed my legs, squeezed them tight, as if to erase the print Marsden had left there. "There was never a plan to go out and toast to Albert's career, was there?" The confused shake of his head already told me enough, and for some reason, I laughed. All these years growing up in Soundview, listening to abuela's and my mother's warnings about sketchy guys and pretty boys, and nothing ever happened — turned out it were the white men in fancy suits I should've watched out for. "Oh god, I can't believe... I'm such an..." I was laughing, and at the same time, tears gathered in my eyes, no idea for what.

There was worry on his face, clear worry, the kind of worry about me that had always made me feel warm inside. Now, it just made me laugh some more. "Who said there was?"

I looked at him, at how I knew and loved him and had to let him go. Turned out, I was just as good at making up stories as Valentina was, maybe even better, just as gullible as when I wrote that pirate book. That I'd even tried last night — that I'd even thought for one second he might long for me like I did for him. Today, there'd been an asshole of a man who'd known me for thirty minutes and already had tried to get into my pants, and here was a guy who'd known me for five and a half years, and hadn't made a single move since I returned to him, even though he was probably well aware I'd cave in immediately if he would. There was no point in holding it back anymore. It was time to let go of the only thing Charlotte Rutherford had ever taught me.

That some things were better left unsaid. Because what did it even matter anymore?

Nothing. Today was the day I was going to have my heart broken for good.

"Marsden said there was."

"Marsden? Anders Marsden?" The worry grew, I could see it in the way he rubbed his hands on his jeans, like they were sweaty. The muscles in his arms were tight, and somehow, I couldn't stop looking at them.

"Yeah. He invited me to come to this thing. And I went with him, to that bar—"

"You went to that bar with Anders Marsden? Alone?" His eyes were wide open, the rest of him frozen, and I could just see him thinking, foolish, naive Junie, I thought she was smarter than that. Yes, I did too, Nathan. "June, that guy... So many women — he..." He took a deep breath, clenching his fists just like I always did, then swallowed. "Did he do anything to you?"

"He wanted to, I guess."

His knuckles went white. He pushed them against the steering wheel, gritting his teeth. It was a reaction I was used to seeing in Sam, not in him. "But he didn't?" Each syllable was carefully pronounced, reserved, his voice perfectly composed, a stark contrast with his tense arms.

"No. I got away."

A short sigh left him, and he wiped his fist over his mouth. "Fucking asshole!" Him shouting was so unexpected I flinched, fingers prodding into my legs. "Sorry Junie, I just... sorry."