He kissed me again. “Sweet dreams.”
“Might be the first time in a long time that I’ve had any,” I said.
“Me, too.”
He started for his car. I watched him for a moment and then entered the dorm. I had no doubt that if Haylee had heard his story or knew I had heard it, she would say Troy and I didn’t like each other as much as we pitied each other. Pathetic, she would add.
But maybe that was the old Haylee. Maybe all she had gone through—the drugs, the shock therapy, and the months of counseling—had changed her. Couldn’t I hope for that?
Next, you’ll hope there really is a Santa Claus, I told that part of myself that wanted sunshine and stars, smiles and laughter, and nights without nightmares.
Thanks to Terri Stone, who had come out of the cafeteria just as I walked away with Troy, everyone knew I had gone off with him. Marcy and Claudia were ready to pounce the moment I entered the room. I saw they were attempting to do homework but obviously waiting anxiously for my return.
Marcy practically leaped off the bed. “Where have you been? Where did you go?”
“For a ride,” I said casually, and took off my jacket. I picked up my books and started to thumb through the history text.
“Oh, no, you don’t,” she said. “Don’t think you’re going to leave us hanging.”
“Excuse me?”
“We both decided that since we saved you from being expelled, we deserved to know what happened and why you went for a ride with him now after having had a miserable enough time to want to take our drugs and then ignoring him as if he was Jack the Ripper. It’s only fair,” she whined.
In the time it took for me to walk from the entryway to Claudia’s and my room, I had begun to work on explanations. Telling them it was none of their business was out of the question. I’d lose their friendship very quickly, and I did like them. No one was perfect, least of all me, but I was far from ready to share the truth with anyone else. Weaving an answer they’d accept from half-truths was all I could manage right now. I’d been schooled by an expert in doing that: my sister.
“Despite how everyone sees him, I like Troy,” I began, and sat on my bed facing them. “Yes, he’s movie-star handsome, but when you get to know him, he’s very interesting and very funny, too.”
“When you get to know him,” Marcy said, raising her eyes to the ceiling. “So?”
“So what?”
“If that’s all true, why did you stop seeing him, and why did that drive you to take Ecstasy and avoid even looking at him the next day?”
“It’s embarrassing.”
“Oh, and taking too much Ecstasy before you go to sleep is not embarrassing?” Marcy said.
I looked at Claudia, who seemed even more interested now.
“I’m still a virgin,” I said.
Marcy flopped back onto Claudia’s bed as if I had just confessed to murder.
“I know I give the impression I’m not. Right, Claudia?”
Marcy looked at her. Claudia nodded.
“What information did you two share?” Marcy asked her.
Claudia shrugged. “That I didn’t enjoy it,” she said.
“Holy baked beans. You’re not a virgin? You never told me that. I feel like I’m just meeting you two. Anyway, what’s this have to do with Troy Matzner?”
“He had the same impression of me. I just wasn’t ready, and then I thought I was too hung up on it, too uptight, and even a little afraid of sex. I wasn’t any different in public school, and the more I thought about it, thought about how my friends back then thought about me, I was depressed about myself. I thought I would always have disappointing dates, and the word about me would spread here quickly, too. No one would ask me out.”
“Probably not,” Marcy said. “So? What happened tonight? Are you over your lily-white self-image?”
“We’ll see.”