“I can tell you know I’m not. I know that you—”
“You don’t know anything about me, Chad. You don’t know what it was like to waste away half your life wondering when the next blow was going to come and how hard it was going to put you down. You’re good-looking and popular and built, so you’ll never understand what it’s like to have someone take videos of you and pictures and send them to people with email addresses like [email protected]. That just isn’t your reality. So at least have the decency to not pretend you have insight into me and who I am.”
“You’re right. I don’t,” he said, and she knew, she just knew something else was coming. A screenwriter couldn’t have scripted a more pregnant pause if she tried. He even let his voice dip at the end of the don’t, as if he knew just how to get her.
Turned out, he did.
“But I do know that email address belongs to him.”
It hit her like that truck once had, though she tried to pretend otherwise. To herself, mostly, but to him, too. She didn’t allow herself to turn completely—she only looked over her shoulder. And when she spoke, she jammed every bit of derision she could into her stupidly wavering voice.
“Oh, come the fuck on.”
“I’m serious. Check it out if you don’t believe me. I bet you know his password, right? He uses the same probably shitty one for everything—I fucking know he does. I once saw him write his goddamn PIN on the back of his hand, so I’m willing to bet that address pops open for whatever garbage he’s using now. Just try it, Letty. You’ll see,” he said.
But she was already disappearing through the door.
“Goodbye, Chad.”
Chapter 24
She came very close to not asking. It seemed ridiculous to, for all kinds of reasons. And besides, Lydia was busy right at the moment she most wanted to do it. She was gathering up her shit, ready to leave for her babysitting job. Her jacket was almost on. She was checking her hair in the bathroom. It would have been so easy to just let it go, no matter how much it was nagging her.
Oh god, was it ever nagging her. Ever since the run-in with Chad, it had built and built until finally here she was, blurting it out just as her friend went for the door.
“Why didn’t he laugh?”
Lydia turned the second Letty spoke. Expression carefully neutral, but obviously just for show. She knew what Letty was talking about. It was obvious, despite the question she went with.
“Why didn’t who laugh?”
“You know who. You know what I mean.”
“Yeah, I do but I’m pretending otherwise in the hopes you’ll come to your senses.”
“I just…if it was all just a game, why didn’t he laugh once it was all over? Why didn’t he toss away the mask and turn into a total dick? Mock me about my sex noises and jeer at me for believing him? He had to know that he couldn’t spin it out beyond that point. He had to get that I would never trust him again.”
“Maybe you shocked him. Maybe he had an attack of conscience.”
“That sounds right. That sounds plausible. I can believe that,” she said, but heard how the words sounded. Mechanical, like a robot version of her trying desperately to make things fit.
“And people can be two things at once. They can grow fond of you and think of you as a sweet person and still want to keep treating you like shit. In fact, most of the world revolves around that very premise. People treat the people they care about like garbage, shocker.”
“God that sounds even better. You’re really good at this, keep going.”
“So you’re not looking for some hope from me that he’s essentially not a piece of shit.”
“Christ no. The opposite. Tell me how bad he is. Tell me he’s the worst.”
She expected the answer to follow immediately after those words.
But none came. Instead, there was just a long silence.
There were just Lydia’s pitch-black eyes, regarding her with a gravity she suddenly couldn’t stand. She had to glance away, only when she did all she could see was Chad’s face. The way he had looked when he told her about the fuck fuck fuck and the email address and oh god.
“I talked to his buddy today. Only his buddy claims Tate hates him.”
“You mean Chad Kilpatrick? The guy with the dark hair and the monobrow?”
“Yeah, that’s the one. That’s him.”
“Tate does hate him. Or at least, they don’t hang out anymore.”
“They don’t? You know that for sure?”