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“You’re just bummed you didn’t see it happen.”
“Absolutely. He deserved it.”
“Hell yes.” Vindication felt good. “So why is Mel so pissed?”
“Mel doesn’t think you need to prove anything to Kevin.”
Nick studied the dim outlines of Rosie’s chalk artwork on the driveway. “I really wanted him to know,” he said. “He needed to know that Hayley wanted me. He insulted her, he treated me like less than a person, and all Hayley’s upset about is whatIdid?”
“Maybe she didn’t understand.”
“What’s not to understand?”
“Well, sex isn’t really the important part, is it?” Gavin asked. “It didn’t matter if he thought you’d actually slept with her. It was just insulting that he thought she’d never give you a second look.”
Nick nodded. “Yeah,” he said, after a moment. “Usually the sex isallthat matters, you know? But … it’s weird, but it felt like she’d already given me more than that. I just wanted things to go well, and then this dickhead shows up and says I’m not worthy of her. He decides to break her heart and walk away, but I’m not worthy of her because my legs don’t work.”
“So would it be safe to assume,” Gavin said, “that Hayley, having just been accused of cheating immediately after hearing you declare that she belongs to you, might not have been in the best place to truly understand what it’s like for you to be told you’re not a man?”
Nick started laughing. “That was your teacher voice,” he said. “If this is how you lead class discussions, I should come by more often.”
Gavin smiled. “I just call it as I see it.”
Maybe he could call her, explain things. He could apologize for what he’d said to Kevin. But could he apologize for what he’d said to her? He’d been mean, but he wasn’t sure he’d been wrong.He wasn’t sure Hayley and Kevin hadn’t been using him, consciously or not, and he wasn’t going to be used again.
“Using a cripple was never going to fix you.”
“Fucking me was never going to make you less of a cripple.”
Nick said, “What’s so great about knowing you can’t leave?”
Gavin neatly flicked his bottle cap upward, then snatched it out of the air with the same hand. “Getting through the hard stuff makes you stronger,” he said. “Not just individually. If you do it right, it fuses you together.”
What was it Hayley had said?
“All the bad stuff makes the good stuff sweeter.”
42
Hayley was lying on the couch when her phone started vibrating. It had been a bad idea to keep the stupid thing on at all; there was no reason to interrupt a perfectly good evening of staring at the ceiling after yesterday’s disaster in the parking lot. But she knew too many people who might eventually show up in person if their calls went unanswered, so she dug the phone out of the couch cushions. She groaned when she saw who was calling.
“Hello,” she mumbled.
“Hayley.” Her mother always sounded so commanding on the phone, as if she’d just finished teaching a motivational seminar. “Did I wake you?”
“No.”
“Good. We were hoping we could come see the show again next weekend. Your father says we need to invite Nick.”
She could say Nick was sick. No, that wouldn’t work—he could get better by next weekend. Nick was out of town next weekend, andKevinwas sick, so it’d be better if they stayed awayfrom Columbus for the next decade, maybe. Until she felt like getting off this couch.
But maintaining lies took energy, and at the moment she really didn’t give a shit. “They’re gone, Mom. There’s no point.”
“What? Who’s gone?’
“Kevin and Nick. So you really can’t invite one to a show that the other’s not in, because I fucked everything up.”
“Hayley Michelle.”
