thought to myself. I hugged myself tighter. “So what else?” I said, my voice coming out harder than I planned it to.
“What do you mean?”
“There’s something you’re not telling me. Just tell me what it is. Did you meet another girl when you were out at the bar? Is that it?”
He actually looked shocked, which was almost funny. “What? No. I didn’t meet anyone at the bar.”
“Then tell me what it is, because I can’t have been this heartbroken for this long just because you got drunk. I can’t, Holden. There has to be more.”
“There isn’t.” He took a step toward me. “I’m sorry, Mina. I was just a dumb kid who made a big mistake, then never owned up to it. That’s all. I’m not a hero. I never was.”
Fourteen
Holden
After that painful meeting with Mina in Central Park, I wasn’t sure she would ever talk to me again. She would probably be smart not to. Maybe she would be better off.
Still, I hoped that once she had the chance to process it, she would want to at least text me. Because I didn’t want to let her go for the second time.
You didn’t tell her everything, the doubting voice in my head said. You should have told her everything.
But no, the voice was wrong. Telling Mina the rest of it wouldn’t have made any difference. I’d told her the most important part, at least as far as Mina was concerned. The rest of it was just details.
I worked all day Saturday, and it was a crazy shift. We had two calls for women in premature labor—one of them nearly gave birth in the ambulance. No sooner had we dropped the second woman off than we had a call for an elderly man who was having trouble breathing, and then a kid who had broken his arm on the playground. It went like that for ten hours solid, and by the time I finished my charts and got back to my apartment I was dead tired. I hadn’t heard from Mina, but I knew she had a ticket to Hamilton, so she was probably on her way to the theater. I hoped she had fun.
I had gotten out of the shower and was drying myself off when Eric texted me. We’re at The Palm Tree, he wrote. You on your way?
Right. I’d reluctantly agreed to the guys’ night out that Eric had bugged me to attend. The one that didn’t include Grim for some reason. I’d put it out of my mind all day, but Eric was insistent.
Getting dressed, I wrote. Be there in a bit.
He wrote back: Hurry up bro, we’re waiting.
I frowned to myself. Since when had my presence at a guys’ night been so important? If Grim wasn’t there, who was waiting for me?
I dropped my towel and rummaged through my drawer for some fresh underwear. I glanced up at the mirror, catching sight of the tattoo that covered my right shoulder and bicep. An H and a C intertwined in a cool, artistic line design. I let my eyes rest on the tat for a minute, something I didn’t let myself do too often. I let myself think back to the night I got it, and who I was with, because I remembered everything.
I should probably tell Mina the whole story. The chapters that came after prom night. The story that led me here, to this big, strange city, where all I did all day was try to prevent people from dying.
But I wasn’t the guy Mina had gone to high school with anymore. She’d started to understand that, and I didn’t know if she wanted to know any more than she already knew. Maybe she’d had enough already, and she was out.
I wouldn’t know until she decided.
In the meantime, Eric was waiting, so I grabbed my jeans and started to get dressed.
The Palm Tree was a bar that was supposed to have a pseudo-Florida look: pinks and blues, flamingos painted on the walls, and yes, palm trees. It was hardly a hard-core bro hangout; it had margaritas and other fruity drinks on the menu, though it was packed to the doors every weekend. If I had to put a pin on it, I’d say it was more of a date kind of place. Which was weird, because I was meeting Eric, and as much as I liked my roommate, I sure as hell wasn’t dating him.
I made my way through the crowd of young, hip,