Doug didn't skip a beat, like he'd known this about me all along. His tirade continued. "And that's exactly why you need to break up with Brandon. Y ou want to handle your problems yourself. Y think you are handling them, but you're not. Y
ou ou're leaning on Brandon. He is a poor choice to lean on. Y ou need a stable guy who won't screw you over. Or you need to go to the psychologist, like my brother said--"
"My dad won't let me."
"--or, Jesus, Zoey, talk to somebody at school or the YMCA, something. Every other girl in the universe has a best girlfriend they can talk to about this, but one normal girlfriend has more sense than Keke and Lila put together."
"So it's imperative to you that I find a stable person to lean on in this time of strife," I mused. "Y the person you steer me toward through various
et sneaky and downright illegal means is you, who went to juvie!"
He pointed at me. "That was three years ago. And those records are sealed. No one is ever supposed to find out about that, except of course everyone who's ever known me."
I put my hand on his good knee to bring him back to me, to ground him. To make that connection with him I thought I'd missed when I put my hand on his forearm at the football game last Friday night. "How far did we go?"
He picked up my other hand. Held it loosely. Pressed it to his lips, watching me.
That didn't bode well. "How far?" My voice broke. "Doug, what did we do? Did we go to third?"
He moved my hand away from his mouth long enough to ask, "What's third?" and then put it to his mouth again.
I jerked my hand back. "Going down my pants. This matters to me, Doug. Does it matter to you?"
"Y he whispered.
es,"
Suddenly I understood everything. "Oh my God, we went all the way. It's like you slipped me a roofie!"
His eyes filled with tears, exactly as if I'd slapped him. "It is not like that," he yelled back, "and don't you dare accuse me ever again of pressuring you into doing something you didn't want to do. Y wanted it. Y said you wanted it. Y asked for it. Don't you dare accuse me of that." He panted a few
ou ou ou times. "I don't belong in jail, Zoey. I've been there and I know I don't. This never would have occurred to you if you remembered Friday night. It never would have occurred to me either. Do you understand?" His hands shook on his knee.
I sat back and took in all of him, broken leg extended out, the rest of him curled into a ball, upset. He was telling the truth, now "Then why didn't you tell
. me before?" I insisted.
"I didn't know you didn't know! Y pretended to remember everything except the wreck."
"But you figured it out on Tuesday, when you found my earrings in the Bug," I said. "One of them must have caught on something Friday night, and you watched me take them out and put them in the ashtray for safekeeping."
"It caught on the zipper of my jeans."
I gaped at him, picturing what we'd done.
He sniffled and looked away. "I'm sorry. That was very crude of me."
"Y found out forty-eight hours ago, Doug," I said quietly. "When were you going to tell me?"
He turned back to me, looking haggard and awful. "When I could think straight. When I got off Percocet."
I shook my head. "Poor excuse. Try again."
He swallowed. "Considering how you pushed me away when you thought we'd only felt each other up in the emergency room, I wasn't optimistic about how you'd act if I told you we did it in your Bug at the beach."
I couldn't raise one eyebrow like he did, but I approximated that facial expression as well as I could. The meaning was Bullshit.
He winced like I'd punched him in the stomach. "Oh, God, Zoey. I was scared of what you might do, okay? Y said losing your memory was like what
ou happened to your mom. I wasn't sure what you meant by that." He stared down at his cast.
I watched him for a few moments, this half-Asian intellectual raised by a pirate. I looked around the room at the posters championing sex and violence in another world. My gaze came to rest on the books on his bedside table, both by E. M. Forster. Right now we were reading A Passage to India for English, but Doug was reading two that Ms. Northam hadn't assigned: Howards End and A Room with a View .
"I want a way out of this," I sighed, "but there's no way out. Y lied to me."
He glared at me over his raised knee. "And you've told me some choice ones too. Such as, `I remember what happened Friday night.' And, `No, I have not passed out on the floor of the bathroom at the pool.'"
"Y went way beyond that, Doug. When you found out I didn't remember, you told Mike and your brother. Y asked them not to tell me anything!"
ou ou
"Y ou'd already made me ask them not to tell anyone that you and I had been together, so Brandon wouldn't find out," Doug said. "Y don't mind lies.
ou Y just want to be the one to control them."
He had me there.
"And you told me the biggest lie of all. Y told me you loved me."
It was my turn to wince like he'd slapped me. "I don't remember saying that."
"Y would if it had been true. Y would feel something."
ou ou
"I do feel something," I protested.
"Y just don't care."
"I do care," I insisted. "Doug, you don't understand how badly I want to care about you. But for the past few days, you've controlled every move I've made."
"Of course I haven't," he said. "I know how you are. That's the worst thing anyone could do to you."
I watched him, waiting for him to understand the depth of what he'd done to me. Doug was one of the smartest people I knew. Even through the alcohol, he would get it. It took about ten seconds, and then his lips parted. Now he would say something remorseful, but I wouldn't be able to accept his apology. Ever.
He said, "I love you."
I stood. "Guys only say that when they want to get laid."
"Zoey!" he shouted after me, but I was already out the door.
I galloped up the stairs, out of the house, and crossed the shadowy yard to my car. Officer Fox's police car was gone. I worried briefly. But the men cackled around the fire with nary a wolf whistle in my direction as I skipped to my dad's Benz and settled into the cold leather.
I executed a very careful three-point turn that would not draw the derision of the salty dogs, and cruised up the driveway crackling with shells. Just before the live oaks closed in around the house behind me, I glanced in the rearview mirror, half expecting to see Doug crutching after me through the dark. But he didn't appear.