“Well, I know how to clear a room,” I said, drinking again for something else to do with my mouth, other than putting my foot in it.
“Dude, I’m sorry I brought it up,” Hannah said.
“No, it’s not your fault,” I said.
Dusty still hadn’t said a word, but he’d been watching me. I knew he was watching me like I knew exactly how he was sitting without having to look at him. Like how I knew when he was behind me, even though he was so quiet. He was always in my mind, even when he wasn’t here. He was always with me, and that scared me like hell.
“You’re probably about my size,” Renee said to Hannah. “You can borrow some pj’s of mine.”
“Great, thanks,” Hannah said, setting her beer bottle down on a coaster and following Paul upstairs.
“Jos?” Renee got up and sat next to me.
“Yeah?” I looked up from the bottle to see that worried look on her face that I’d seen on so many faces, so many times before.
“Are you happy here?” Dusty shifted in my peripheral vision.
“Maybe I should go...be somewhere else,” he said quietly.
“No, it’s okay,” I found myself saying. I didn’t mind having him here.
“Are you sure, Jos?” He said my name so soft, like a caress, as if he was afraid to break it. I closed my eyes and tried to block out the image that had risen to the front of my mind of how close we’d been to kissing earlier.
“Yeah. You can stay.” I meant for now, but somehow it sounded like I was talking about a longer period of time.
I set the bottle down on a coaster.
“You just seem so...lost,” Renee said. “You were so happy before.” I wasn’t. I was just really good at pretending.
I shook my head.
“That girl...that girl that I was, she wasn’t happy, Renee. She was just really good at pretending. I even believed myself sometimes. Just because I looked happy and together, it didn’t mean that I was.”
“I don’t understand,” she said, shaking her head. I wasn’t sure if I could ever really explain it.
“You never met that girl,” I said, turning to Dusty. “You would have hated her, I bet. She was stuck-up and uptight, and she dressed like Hillary Clinton.”
That comment earned me a little smile. “I could never hate you, Red. Not even if you wore an ugly pantsuit.”
For some reason talking about pantsuits made me start to laugh, and then I started to cry.
“She would have avoided you like you were going to get mud on her pumps, buddy.” This only made me laugh and cry harder, and once I started, I couldn’t stop. Renee looked lost, like she had no idea what to make of me.
“I think I need to see evidence of these pumps. You wouldn’t by any chance have some still, would you?” Was he flirting with me? In front of my sister? He seemed to realize what he’d said a second later and coughed.
“No, they’re all boxed up with the rest of my former life at my mom’s house. That girl is gone, and she’s not coming back. This is who I am now.” I shrugged.
My laughter stopped, and I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand.
Dusty got up, dashed out of the room and was back in a flash, handing me a paper towel.
“Thanks,” I said, wiping my face and my nose. The towel came away with smears of makeup. I realized too late that I was wearing it. I never would have forgotten before.
“What happened, Jos? Sometimes...” Renee ran her hands through her hair. “Sometimes I just want to pin you down and get you to tell me, like when we were kids and you used to try and keep secrets from me.” She always got it out of me back then. Renee was always good at finding out about what she wanted to know.
“I’m not a kid anymore, Ne,” I said, balling up the paper towel and putting it next to my beer.
“I know. That’s what makes this so frustrating. I just want you to talk to me.”
I was about to answer when Hannah and Paul came down the stairs. Hannah had a tank top and shorts that I recognized as Renee’s. They must have been lurking up there, worrying about interrupting. Darah and Mase had also been pretty quiet in the kitchen. I also hadn’t heard a peep from downstairs.
“I feel like we should all get to bed. This has been a very exciting night,” I said. “Plus, I forgot how hard it is to breathe in a dress. So I’m going to go change.” I got up and went downstairs, finding Taylor and Hunter watching something on the giant television.
“What are you watching?” They both looked up as if they were shocked to see me. I no doubt looked like a mess anyway.
“Are you crying?” Taylor said, getting up.
“I’m fine.” Hannah opened the door and came down the stairs behind me. “I’m just really ready to go to bed.”
Exhaustion hit me like a sledgehammer, and I realized how long of a day it had been and how much I wanted it to be over.
“Yeah, sure,” Taylor said, taking Hunter’s hand and leading him up the stairs. “Night!”
“Have a good night, ladies. Take care of that hand, Killer,” Hunter said, giving Hannah a wink.
“I’m going to change and wash my face,” I said, going to my room. I stripped off the dress and let my skin breathe for a minute. I found some loose pajamas and put them on before I went and washed my face and avoided the mirror so I wouldn’t see how blotched my face was.
If I was one of the girls from the movies, I would have been able to cry and look gorgeous doing it. But this was real life, where my eyes puffed up and my face blotched and my nose ran all over the place. I took my hair out and gave it a quick brush.
When I came out to the living room, I found Dusty talking to Hannah.
“Hey,” I said. “I thought you would have gone home.”
“I was just saying good-night.” He got up and walked toward me, his eyes sweeping from my just-brushed hair that fell loose on my shoulders to my baggy Coldplay T-shirt to the shorts that had definitely seen better days, and hung from my hips because the elastic was worn out.
I hadn’t planned on wearing this outfit in front of anyone but members of the house and Hannah. I didn’t care about them seeing me dressed this way. But Dusty was another story entirely.... It didn’t matter that he’d seen more of my skin earlier when I’d been wearing the dress. I felt completely and utterly exposed.
And yes, I wasn’t wearing a bra, either.