Of Course

Of Course

Have you ever noticed that things always come when you stop looking for them? Always. It is a foolproof circumstance. Which is why, for the few days after Molly walked in on me, in the days when I was sitting around nervously, waiting for something terrible to happen, nothing happened. But it was after almost a week and a half, after one point five more assignations with Kyle, that the very thing I had been dreading came to pass.

We were sitting at dinner. Of course we were sitting at dinner. And I was sitting next to Kyle when Rae remarked, “You know, I just think it’s so sweet that you two are still friends!” I felt my hands, all of a sudden, turn very, very cold. I knew exactly what she was doing here.



Slowly, I raised my head to look at her.

What I Wanted To Say:
Please, please, Rae. Don’t do this. Please do not do this to me. I swear, there is someone better for you out there. I don’t know who he is and I don’t know where he is, but I know he’s there, and he is not my Ian. I’m begging you. Stop right now.

But, of course, I couldn’t say any of that. It would have seemed very suspicious if I had. So I tried to say as much of it as I could with my eyes, with my expression. Of course, none of it worked. And, of course, Ian asked, “What are you talking about?” He looked at me with eyes full of laughter. Oh, he was laughing now.

“Nothing,” I said. Now, I realize that this is always, always what the guilty party says in movies, right before the big revelation that—BAM!—they murdered an entire village. “Nothing,” they say, a little too quickly, right before their partner confesses to everything. And it had always seemed stupid. When you say “nothing” like that, it always means that you’ve done it. But now I understand that it’s the only thing you can say, the only attempt you can make to ward your betrayer off at the pass. It’s the last-ditch attempt you make to have them see just how cruel the betrayal would be.

But what Rae and partners-in-crime had in common was that they were determined to make the admission.

If thing else, the girl was a perfect actress. “After the breakup,” she explained, as if this were the most obvious thing in the world. Jenna, sitting sandwiched between Rae and Pete, turned towards the action with wide eyes. She knew, too, apparently.

Ian only laughed at her, and put his hand on my shoulder. “We’re not broken up,” he explained. He crinkle around his eyes invited me to share in the joke. I smiled, but I could tell that something about the grin looked a little off. “That silly Rae,” his expression said. “Why would she ever think that you and I are broken up?”

I wasn’t sure what made me feel it, but at that moment I just stopped. I simply froze up.

Nothing I said or did or thought or hoped or wished would stop Rae from doing what she was doing. And so while she talked and Ian talked, I kept my eyes solidly down—I especially didn’t look at him. Her, who I was beginning to hate passionately, I could look at.

And she, to her credit, formed a blush and lowered her eyes. For half a second, I felt a flicker of hope. Maybe? Maybe? But then she mumbled, as if she were embarrassed for us, “Open relationship?”

The flicker of hope flickered out. She was horrible, but she was good. She knew what she was doing, here. I hated her. I hated her I hated her I hated her more than anyone I’d ever hated before.

I hated her, and Ian was running out of patience. “No, Rae,” he said coldly.

She blushed deeper. “Oh.”

And then she said nothing. But she wasn’t stupid enough to think that she hadn’t irritated Ian enough to ask, “Why?” He was angry—Ian rarely got angry. I raised my eyes. I had to see what she was going to say now. Pete was watching with an accusing sort of interest. But of course. I was only going to prove right everything he had ever thought about me. Jenna reached across the table and took his hand.

Even as I looked up, she flicked her eyes to me and away, as if she wasn’t sure of whether she should say something. Stupid bitch. Her focus, her attention, wasn’t on me. I wasn’t stupid. I knew. “Um, nothing.”

Now Ian was staring at me. “Why?” he asked again.

Rae flicked her eyes back and forth and back and forth and then, as if her sheer morals wouldn’t allow her to remain silent, she blurted, “That Kyle boy, of course.” And then she shut her lips tightly, looked away, and said no more.

Not that it mattered anymore. Ian knew that I had spent some time with Kyle; he had seen us around, knew I spent time in the trailer with Keeley, practicing. And so he directed the next question at me: “What is she talking about, Sloan?”

That was the time when I should have started denying everything. But somehow, I just couldn’t. I wanted to. I wanted to look up at him and laugh and say, “I have no idea.” And then shrug. I could not, however, make my head move. It was bizarre and impossible and ridiculous, but I couldn’t make my head move, or my mouth. In fact, I could hardly breathe.

Rae probably knew it. She was obviously smart, and understood that I wouldn’t be able to lie to him. Or maybe she just got lucky. Or maybe my head was just so jumbled that I couldn’t make sense of anything anymore.

“Sloan?” Ian said again, voice filled with concern. I looked away, in the opposite direction. And then, in a horrible, horrible fit of circumstance, Kyle and Dave and Keeley walked through the door to the mess. If I had had one moment of being able to transmit my thoughts, I would have chosen that moment, to tell Kyle to leave right now before he ruined absolutely everything.

Knowing Kyle, I couldn’t be sure he would listen.

The second mistake was that I saw him. And Ian saw me watching. And he stood.

That was what unlocked whatever lock Rae’s words had placed on my body. “Don’t,” I said.

That was the third mistake.

He pushed back his chair and started towards Kyle. I followed. Rae stayed, but there was an impossible smirk on her face. My God, but she wanted this more than anything else. Ian stalked and I chased and it was the single most unanticipated moment of my life, but then we were at Kyle and my head hurt and I knew it wouldn’t help if I cried so I held my sniffles in tight and then Ian snarled, “What is going on here?”

The Kyle we had here was not my Kyle—this boy was the sullen and cold. He was what I had met that first day, he had that attitude he never kept up around me, and he was intimidating for it. Skinny Ian didn’t look at all impressive next to burly Kyle, even though my husband was significantly angrier.

“Hey, Sloan,” Kyle greeted amiably, while Keel and Dave slunk away. Smart, those two were. I didn’t answer. That wouldn’t have helped matters. Then he turned to Ian and all the cheer disappeared. “What are you talking about?” he grumbled.

“You and Sloan,” Ian said through gritted teeth. His face was almost as read as his hair. I reached out to put my hand on his arm, but feel short. I wasn’t close enough.

And maybe I had thought that Kyle wasn’t going to say anything, either. But then again, he had nothing to lose by telling Ian the truth. So he just smirked and said, “What did you hear?”

Poor, unsuspecting Ian didn’t even answer. He looked at me. And I looked down.

An Unspoken Communication:
“Did you really?”
“Yes.”

And then Ian punched Kyle in the face. I barely even saw it happen. One moment he was standing next to me, and the next, Kyle was stumbling back a step with his hand over his cheek.
He stepped forward to strike back, but I stepped between them. Defending Ian.

Doing this had a significant chance of ruining both sides of this—it would make Kyle mad and Ian madder, but I had to do it. I couldn’t stand to see both of them hurt. Not both of them. And as soon as I was in the way, Kyle stopped his approach.

But Ian muttered, “Don’t bother,” sounding more disgusted than I’d ever heard in my life. More disgusted than when he found out that Pete had gotten high at a party the night before a performance. More disgusted than when he—ever. It hurt.

And I turned to see where he was going, but then he was gone. Out the door and gone.