Still not into you - Charlotte Byrd Page 0,2
any consolation, I lost twenty grand. Just about.” He shrugs.
“Yeah, but he doesn’t have a rich dad to bail him out,” I say. “You can still afford to go party all night. He can’t.”
Dylan shrugs. He doesn’t look like he cares much.
“How could you let this happen?” I try again.
I have to make him understand. I know I shouldn’t be doing this at three in the morning, after I didn’t get much sleep and he has been out all night, but I can’t stop myself.
“Hey, listen, it was an investment. He knew what he was getting into.”
“But it was your guy!”
“So what? That guy made him $10,000! Would you be here yelling at me if he had pulled out?”
“No, but he didn’t, did he? He lost all his money!”
“I don’t want to hear this shit, Alice,” Dylan says. “I lost a lot of money, too. Hudson’s a big boy.”
“He’s right,” Hudson says, coming out of his room. “He’s right, Alice. I knew about the risks.”
“But don’t you think Dylan should’ve warned you—“
“No,” Hudson cuts me off. “It’s fine, really. It’s not Dylan’s fault.”
“It just sucks,” I say. “You lost so much money. I just wish I could help.”
“I know, but you can’t. No one can. It’s fine,” he says.
“No, it’s not.” I shake my head and open the door to my room.
I leave Hudson and Dylan alone. If he’s not mad at him, why should I be? I rub my eyes. Juliet turns around in bed. She’s engulfed in her comforter and I can barely see her face. Only her eyes.
“Sorry to wake you,” I whisper and close the door behind myself to block the light from the kitchen.
“It’s okay,” she says. Her voice is raspy and uneven. “Dylan and I broke up.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” I say, changing into my pjs.
“It’s okay,” she sighs. “He’s back with Peyton. Again. He’s obsessed with Peyton.”
Though I can’t see very well, I can tell that her eyes are puffy. She has been crying.
“Hey, weren’t you supposed to be away for the weekend?” she asks.
I fill her in on the details. Simon. Hudson. Hudson and I making out. Hudson losing his money. Wow, this has been a ridiculously long day. Just going over it in a few sentences tires me out.
She listens quietly, taking it all in. Doesn’t comment. I’m grateful for that. I couldn’t deal with a snarky remark right now without getting too emotional about it.
“So, how are you?” I ask. She doesn’t respond right away.
“Eh, fine. You live and learn, I guess,” she says.
I’ve always wondered what that expression meant. It’s as if it’s a way to just write off a huge part of life and not deal with it. It seems enlightening and worldly, but it sounds like an excuse. Like a statement that someone makes when they don’t want to make a statement at all.
“So, what did you learn?” I ask.
She’s just trying to cope with this. I shouldn’t be putting her on the spot like that. I know that and I hate myself for doing it anyway.
“What did I learn?” Juliet asks like she’s trying to buy time. “That I shouldn’t go out with assholes.”
We both laugh.
“That’s going to be a tough thing in this city,” I joke.
I don’t see Hudson until that afternoon. In the morning, he goes for a run and then I go out for brunch with Juliet. She’s still distraught over Dylan, but trying to put on as brave of a face as possible. That afternoon, she goes out to a matinée show of A Streetcar Named Desire with some of her acting friends. I’m invited, too, but opt to stay home. The drizzle that started that morning has morphed into a full-blown rainstorm and I have a hard time braving the streets of New York in this kind of weather.
The good thing about not going to the cabin for the weekend, one of many, is that I actually have time to edit my paper due on Monday. I was in a rush to finish it before the trip and now, for the first time this semester, I’m actually done two days before it’s due. The feeling is quite exhilarating, I can’t lie. There’s this heavy feeling of dread that lifts off me. I don’t have a dark cloud hanging around my head about a paper that I should be writing but I’m not. It feels so good, actually, that I decide to try to finish other papers early as well. It might