Because I brought an overnight bag. Now I just have to call Leo and tell him I’m keeping his car. Dave will have to pick him up to go hiking. Oops!”
“Oops!” I laugh, feeling so grateful to her for showing up. “I’ve missed you terribly.” Violet graduated from Harkness in May, and got a job in New York. It won’t be easy to keep in touch from here on out.
“I miss you, too, babe!” Violet’s eyes practically glow with happiness. “And how unlike you to say so out loud. So it must be true.”
“Well, get used to it. I miss you so much that I'm not going back to Harkness because you’re not there anymore."
The smile falls off Violet's face. “You're not allowed to make that joke until you tell me the real reason you’re transferring.”
“I can’t,” I whisper. “It's complicated.”
“It’s Reardon's fault, right?” she growls. “I know it is.”
“But also mine,” I say firmly. “And I don't want anyone to know how stupid I was.”
“Come on. Like we haven’t all been there. I've got my share of stupid. My family would crap their collective pants if I told them all the scrapes I got into before graduation.”
That might even be true. But Violet never managed to upend her entire life like I have. And I won’t burden her with my ugly story. It would put her in a strange ethical position.
"I'll tell you what," she says. "I'll stop asking you about Reardon if you tell me something dishy about this tattooed hottie living in your house."
"Fine,” I say quickly. “He's a really good kisser."
“Omigod!” Violet's shriek echoes off the sides of the tractor shed. “When did this happen? Tell me everything."
I hesitate. That would honestly take weeks. Somehow the story of Rickie and me has become a twisty epic journey punctuated by strange encounters and intimate conversations.
“Oh wow,” she says, drawing her own conclusions about my silence. “You did the nasty with the bad boy hottie. Where? In a hay loft? Actually that sounds sneezy. On the bed of a pickup truck?”
There must be something wrong with me because both of those options sound dreamy. "Not quite," I say slowly. But we were getting there.”
“What stopped you?”
I think back to the slammed door and Rickie's reaction. Bad timing is a theme with us. "Actually, you’re the culprit," I tell Violet. "He and I were fooling around when you drove up the driveway."
Her jaw drops comically. “You’re. Joking.”
“I’m not.” I try to hold a serious expression, but my lips twitch, because Violet is so funny when she’s freaking out.
“Oh my God! Oh. My. God.” She covers her face with her hands. "I'm sorry. I thought it would be fun to surprise you.”
“It is fun.” I give her toe a gentle kick. “Stop with the dramatics. It’s fine. I'm sure we'll pick things up again another time.”
“You have to,” she says. “I can't be responsible for getting in between you and a great guy’s generously sized dick.”
“How do you know he's a great guy?”
She hoots. “So he is generously sized? You didn’t argue that part. And I already know he’s a great guy.”
“He’s definitely not Reardon,” I point out.
“That’s a good start. But honey, we learn from our mistakes. You wouldn’t be so caught up in Rickie if he was anything like Rear-end Halsey.”
“Wouldn't I?” This is my biggest problem of all. “I don’t know anything anymore. I don’t trust myself at all.”
“You should,” she says, swinging a leg over and hopping off the tractor. It’s still pouring outside, and the rain smells like fresh ideas and the color green. “Honestly, you made one mistake. Just one. And there’s something broken about that asshole, Daph. He’s not normal. I’ll bet he doesn’t even know anymore where the lines are, or when he’s crossed them.”
She isn’t wrong. But I fell for it anyway. I’d like to think it wouldn’t happen again.
But I’m still scared.
Twenty-Four
Rickie
I raise my head off the quilt. I hardly know what day it is, let alone the time. But I hear voices outdoors. They’re drifting in through the window, which is only opened a crack.
Waking up isn’t easy, especially when the afternoon’s disasters come back into sharp relief. After Daphne left my bedroom in a hurry, I’d locked the door and then sat down on the bed, burning up with humiliation. I discarded the condom I hadn’t needed. And when it began to rain, I closed the window most of the way and then fell into a dead sleep.