I don’t get far into the dark before Joel’s fingers clasp with mine, firm and supportive.
I don’t pull away, but I want to.
On the bus, I climb into the darkness of the upstairs level and kick my shoes and shorts off next to my bunk. Then I climb under the covers and try to disappear.
“Move over,” Joel says. He starts sliding in next to me, leaving me no choice. I scoot toward the wall, too numb to argue.
He said some psycho groupie was all over him but she started saying he was trying to rape her.
“Those guys didn’t know what they were talking about,” Joel says, his hand coming to rest in the curve of my waist. We’re facing each other with worlds of distance between us, and still it feels too close.
“I saw you turn that girl away tonight,” I say. It sounds like an accusation, and it is. When I saw him turn her down, I had felt the glow of pride in my chest. Now, it’s shadowed by something else. Something heavy.
“I didn’t know you were watching.”
“Why’d you do it?”
“I’m here with you.”
He says it so simply. But the Joel from a week ago wasn’t the type of guy to give girls thoughtful gifts, or to go away with them for the weekend. And he definitely wasn’t the kind of guy to turn down a pretty girl regardless of where he was or who he was with. None of this is simple.
“Joel, last Saturday with Cody . . . I was trying to make you jealous.”
“I know that.”
If he really knew, he wouldn’t be denying that I’m a “psycho groupie” just like Cody said. He wouldn’t be lying in bed with me right now. He wouldn’t be trying to make me feel better.
“I asked him to come to the bus with me,” I continue, “because I knew you’d be there soon. He wanted to take me upstairs, but I insisted on staying downstairs. Do you know why?”
Silence.
“Because I knew you’d catch us there. I knew you’d see us making out, and I was hoping it would make you so jealous that you’d realize you wanted me more than anyone else.” As the words leave my mouth, a horrible realization dawns on me, and I let out a humorless chuckle. “And you know what? It worked. You brought me to this festival, and you’ve given me all your attention, and you turned down another girl when you didn’t even know I was watching. This is exactly what I wanted, Joel. Don’t you get that? That’s how fucking crazy I am. Cody got that part right.”
Joel’s hand remains motionless and heavy on my side. When he finally pulls it away, I brace myself for the emptiness I’ll feel when the rest of him is gone.
“Do you know which part of that is the craziest?” he says in a soft voice, and I steel myself for his answer. He tucks my hair behind my ear and says, “That it took all of that for me to realize I always did want you more than anyone else.”
His words sink deep beneath my skin, and I pray that in the dark, he can’t see the tears welling in my eyes. I want to accept what he said, without reservation or argument, but clearly I haven’t said enough. If I had, he wouldn’t still be beside me.
“Do you know why I wanted you to like me?” I continue. “Because everything between us was just a game I wanted to win.”
Sleeping with Aiden. Leaving Joel at the grocery store. Making out with Cody. Every outfit I bought, every fingernail I painted, every perfume I wore. All of it was a game, a stupid game played by a stupid girl who was way out of her league.
“I didn’t actually want you to keep you,” I confess. “I wanted you just to throw you away.”
Joel’s voice is quiet when he says, “Is it still a game?”
His thumb traces the curve of my jaw, and I manage not to shy away. “No.”
“Good,” he says softly, “because I’m done playing.” He rolls onto his back, tucking his arm under me and pulling me against his side. And maybe I am different from the girl I was last week, because instead of resisting him, I rest my cheek against his chest and let him hold me.
We lie like that for long, stretching minutes, until his voice breaks the silence. “My mom is a drunk.”
I keep still, my breathing steady. I don’t know why he’s telling me, but I know there’s a reason, and the girl I’m becoming wants to hear it.
“She always has been. My grandma helped raise me, but she had a stroke when I was in high school and has been in a nursing home ever since.” He trails off, and then shakes himself free of unvoiced thoughts. “Anyway, after that, my mom and I moved, and I started going to school with the guys. I heard they had a band, so I made them listen to me play guitar. One of the guys my mom dated had played, and when he split, he left his guitar behind and I taught myself to play.” Another pause, more silent memories. “Most days, my mom was trashed and belligerent, so I stayed at Adam’s house. Even when he wasn’t home, most nights I slept on his floor just because I never wanted to be at my own house. I drew a lot back then. I got better at playing guitar. And you know what? I was happy. Those were the first years of my life when I felt seriously happy.”
I never wondered about how Joel had grown up, about how he met the guys. I never wondered about him at all. Now, he’s all I can think about, and I want to know everything. I want to know the answers to questions I haven’t even thought of yet.
“Maybe that’s why I don’t have a car or an apartment or anything,” he continues. “I like sleeping on Adam’s couch because that’s what I was doing the first time I ever really felt like I had a family. The guys were my brothers, and their moms bought me clothes and cooked me dinners . . . When I was little, one of my mom’s boyfriends bought me birthday presents one year—he even bought me this awesome Hot Wheels Dragon racetrack I really wanted—but my mom turned around the next week and sold them all for booze money.” Joel sighs, his chest rising and falling beneath me. I rub my hand over his downy-soft T-shirt, and he says, “I guess I just got used to not having anything.”