“Fuck you!”
“Already fucked you and it wasn’t that great.”
She swings her open hand at my face, but I open the door in time to block it. Her hand smacks the inside of the door hard enough that it makes me a little nervous.
“Your hand okay?” I say with a chuckle, but I quickly slam the door shut as she reaches back to take another shot.
I laugh as I turn around and Link and his girlfriend, whose name I can’t remember, are coming up the paved stone walkway.
“You bastard,” Link says with a smile as he slaps my keys into the palm of my hand. “I knew you’d hit that.”
“You guys are pigs!” his girlfriend shouts, elbowing Link in the stomach as she makes her way to the front door.
“Do you always have to resort to violence?” he barks at her.
“You might want to give her a few seconds to get dressed,” I say over my shoulder.
Link shakes his head, a smirk materializing beneath his painful grimace. “Happy Thanksgiving, bro.”
“Same to you.”
I slide into the driver’s seat and immediately attempt to call Molly. After four rings, I get her voicemail greeting.
Why are both Molly and Elaine trying to reach me?
I hang up and toss the phone onto the passenger seat as I pull away from the cabin and start off down the long dirt road that leads off the farm and onto the highway. I speed along the highway back to Raleigh, shaving a good ten minutes off the forty-five-minute drive.
When I pull up next to the curb outside Grandma Flo’s, I’m not surprised to see Elaine’s shitty Nissan parked in the driveway. If it weren’t Thanksgiving and if I weren’t so worried, I’d peel the fuck out of here. I rush out of the car, not at all looking forward to seeing Elaine when I’m hungover and wearing last night’s clothes. But I guess it’s better that she thinks I’m a worthless drunk who’s pissing his millions into the toilet. The less she knows about me the better.
I race up the front steps then open the door, preparing my psyche for the inevitable rage that will follow the sight of her emaciated face. The living room is empty, so I quickly move to the only logical place for Grandma to be on Thanksgiving morning: the kitchen. The kitchen is also empty and the turkey is still swimming in the bucket of brine. Grandma usually gets it into the oven by 6 a.m. Something’s wrong.
Chapter Seven
Senia
The gods of Thanksgiving and I have a secret pact: I eat all their tasty offerings and they agree to not let me vomit or gain more than five pounds. Unfortunately, they never seem to hold up their end of the bargain on the weight gain and, when December rolls around, I find myself renewing my pact with the treadmill gods. But I think I may have been a bit overenthusiastic in my commitment to consuming the tasty offerings of the day. I feel sick, which gives me the perfect opportunity to skip out on family karaoke hour so I can handle some covert business.
Once Claire is deeply entrenched in a karaoke battle with my cousin Nico, I sneak out of the family room and race upstairs. It’s a few minutes past one in the afternoon. Tristan texted me about six hours ago. I know I’m going to regret this.
Me: Thanks for the kind message. Now kindly stop texting me. I’m not interested in being one of your concubines.
I actually get a pain in my chest after I hit send. I know I’m supposed to hate Tristan and I’m sure as hell not supposed to talk to him, but I can’t help but feel like I’m misjudging him. Like we’re all misjudging him.
That’s so stupid! That’s exactly what guys like him want girls to think. Oh, poor misjudged Tristan who fucks anything that breathes.
I met Tristan a little more than three years ago after a show they played in Durham. Claire and I had been friends for a total of five weeks, but I already knew, from the moment she shared her love of Vampire Diaries with me, that she and I were destined to be best friends forever. She actually had to drag me to the show. I was pretty shy before college. Most of my friends throughout junior high and high school were math geeks, like me. Unfortunately, none of my high school friends ended up attending UNC Chapel Hill. Starting from scratch is difficult for any eighteen-year-old, but for a kid with moderate social anxiety, it’s torture. Thankfully, Claire supported me through my drink-till-you-don’t-give-a-fuck stage of development. So, of course, the first thing I did when I arrived at the club in Durham to watch Chris, Tristan, and Jake perform was get shit-faced drunk.
Needless to say, my eyes were glued to Tristan all night as crazy thoughts of marriage and babies – and hot sex – raced through my socially inept and highly inebriated brain. Eventually, about halfway through the show, he finally cast his smoky gaze in my direction and smiled – a smile that I would later learn he and Chris refer to as their crowd smile. But, let me tell you, when he directed that smile my way … I’m not ashamed to say that I think I may have peed a little.
I am definitely never going to text him again. Unless it’s to send him a pic of my awesome bunion, as I promised Claire.
Never. Again.
Tristan: Whatever you say.
Great! Now I feel like an asshole.
No. I will not allow him to do this to me. I will not text him again.
I sigh as I lie back on my bed and close my eyes. I try to push the images from that day outside Yogurtland out of my head, but it’s no use. It’s all I’ve been able to think about for the past twelve days. It was so different from all the other times Tristan and I have come close to having sex. It was almost as if seeing me on the phone with someone else spurred some competitive streak inside of him and he needed to outdo Eddie. And, let’s be honest, as amazing as Eddie is in bed, he could never be Tristan.
What the hell am I thinking? Stop it, Senia!
Oh, great. Now I’m yelling at myself inside my head.
It wasn’t just the sex. He wanted to know
who I was talking to on the phone. That’s not just sex, right?
No, it was sex combined with typical male territorial issues. It wasn’t just sex. It was a fucking pissing contest. I am not anyone’s property! Especially not anyone’s property to piss on.
Okay, that settles it. I am not texting him back.
Me: Are you okay?
Tristan: No. I’m at the hospital.
Me: What’s wrong?
Tristan: Can I call you later?
Shit! I’m so stupid. I stare at the text for a few minutes before I begin typing. The bedroom door flies open and Claire walks in. I quickly tuck the phone underneath me before I can finish typing my response.
“What are you doing in here?” she asks, looking winded and flushed from singing.
“Nothing. Just trying to digest the twenty pounds of food I’ve eaten. No better way to make sure it goes straight to my ass than lying down and doing absolutely nothing.”
Claire raises an eyebrow. “Why are you acting like I just caught you masturbating?”
I laugh as I sit up and discreetly push my phone underneath my pillow. “Please. You’ve caught me masturbating plenty of times.”
“Oh God, please. I don’t want to talk about you touching yourself.”
“Whatever. Let’s go downstairs. I think I’m ready for some more pumpkin pie.”
I glance over my shoulder at the pillow and shake my head as I close my bedroom door.
Chapter Eight
The emergency-room doors open and I race through, clutching the note Molly left on the refrigerator: Went with Grandma to hospital. She wasn’t breathing. Get here quick. Don’t call me. I dropped my phone in the toilet.
The entrance to the emergency waiting room is right before me. I storm in and find Molly sitting in a chair in the far corner with Elaine two chairs away from her. Molly’s eyes are closed as she leans her head back against the wall. Her light-brown hair is pulled up into a messy bun at the top of her head – the way she always does it before she goes to bed. Elaine looks at me and I quickly look away as I head for Molly. I shake her knee and she jumps a little as she opens her eyes.
“Shit!” she cries as she’s startled awake.
I’ve told Molly that she needs to stop cursing so much, but that’s like trying to tell a fish to stop breathing water. She grew up with me as her role