Neither of us had a job, but school kept us rocking around the clock. When I wasn’t in my room or at class, I was in the library. When Tate wasn’t in our room or the library, she was at Jared’s apartment in the city.
At first she tried only staying there on the weekends—respecting her father’s wishes and all—but now it had become more frequent. They couldn’t stay away from each other. Most weekends they traveled back to Shelburne Falls to visit her dad and for them both to race at the Loop—whatever that was. I never went, though. No way.
While it was lonely around the dorm when she went home—I still hadn’t really made any friends—I couldn’t begrudge them the time they spent together. They were in love. Plus, over the past couple of months, I’d grown to like Jared a lot. He put on a macho act, but that was all it was. An act.
Tate and I studied together and went out once in a while. Since Jared attended the University of Chicago, he didn’t hang around our campus much. They often invited me along on their dates, but I had no interest in being a third wheel.
The heavy wooden dorm room door clicked open.
“Fallon, are you awake?” I heard Tate call.
I sat up, leaning back on my elbows. “Yes?” I replied as more of a question, blinking against the morning light. “What time is it?”
Reaching over, I turned my alarm clock to see it was only six in the morning. Tate threw her backpack on her bed and started yanking stuff out of drawers. She was still in the same clothes from last night. Usually when she spent the night at Jared’s, she came home freshly showered and dressed, ready for class. Right now, she looked rushed.
“What classes do you have today?” she asked, not looking at me as she darted around our room.
I swallowed the dryness from my mouth. “Um . . . Calc III and Sex and Scandal in Early Modern England.”
“Nice,” she teased in a deep voice.
“The last one is a gen. ed.,” I explained, embarrassed. “Why? What’s up?”
“Do you feel like skipping?” She stuffed clothes into her backpack and then turned to look at me. “Jax showed up at Jared’s dorm this morning. No one’s heard from Madoc. He’s not returning calls, texts, IMs . . .” She trailed off, hands on her hips.
“You haven’t talked to him at all lately?” I looked away, not wanting her to see the worry I was sure was on my face.
“Yeah, Jared and I let it go at first, because we thought Madoc needed his space, and we’ve all been so busy. But if Jax is worried, then it’s definitely past time to check it out.” She stopped, finally taking a breath.
She came over, tapping my leg and smiling. “So let’s go on a road trip!” she said before darting over to our sink area to retrieve her toiletries.
Go to Notre Dame? My heart started talking a mile a minute with its thud-thud-pound-crash rhythm.
I shook my head and lay back down, my voice quiet. “Nah, I don’t think so, Tate. You guys have fun.”
“What? What are you going to do all weekend?” She popped her head around the corner. “You should come with us, Fallon. You’re his family.”
She talked to me like a mom, pointing out that I should care about Madoc when she thought I didn’t. The truth was I did care about him even though I shouldn’t.
And I did not need the reminder that our parents were still married to each other. My mother had been fighting the divorce, and to make matters worse, she was trying to take Madoc’s house. Caruthers’s affair came out in the media, and during a moment of weakness, I actually felt bad for the guy. I e-mailed him the photos, hotel receipts, and contact information that would give him the proof he needed that my mother had not been a loyal wife, either. Strangely, he didn’t use any of it.
Maybe he didn’t want my help, or maybe the proof of my mother’s infidelity would only bring more attention he didn’t want. I couldn’t help but have a tiny bit more respect for him for not dragging her name through the dirt.
“I’m not really his family, Tate. It was never like that with us.” I ran the tongue ring I’d put back in between my teeth, thinking. “And he’s fine, you know? If he were dead, the credit card transactions would’ve stopped. In which case his father would be on top of it. He’s fine.”
She walked back around the corner, her eyebrows narrowed in resolve, and tossed her toiletries on her bed.
Heading over to me, she hovered. “He could be drunk twenty-four/seven or on drugs.” Her tone was calm but threatening. “He could be depressed or suicidal. Now get your ass packed. I don’t want to talk about this again. We leave in one hour.”
• • •
Tate and I drove in her G8, while Jax and Jared led the way in the Boss to Indiana on I-90. The drive was short—only about an hour and a half—but with the way these people drove it only took a little over an hour. With barely any time on the road, I didn’t have nearly enough highway to get my hands to stop shaking or my mouth to stop going dry.
What the hell am I doing? I almost buried my face in my hands.
Madoc wouldn’t want me there. Knowing him, he was probably knee-deep in sorority princesses and keg parties. He was going to insult me, create a scene, or worse—I’d see him broken and losing control. Did I really have that kind of power over him, though?
Of course not.
I blew out a breath and pulled the tip of my cap over my eyes, leaning back in the seat.
It was foolish to even think Madoc would be upset about me leaving him without a good-bye. It’s not like we had a relationship. No, if he was off the reservation, it was because his plans for the summer had been ruined. And yes—he was going to blame me for that. As he should.
I threw my baseball cap into the backseat and fluffed my hair.
To hell with it.
I shouldn’t be in this car, but it was too late now. I could act like I was hiding and embarrassed or look like I belonged there. He got bamboozled. Well, so did I.
Taking out my brush, I teased my hair to make it messier and touched up my makeup in the mirror. My black eye shadow still looked good, but I needed more mascara and some clear lip gloss.
Addie once gave me great advice about makeup. It’s not supposed to make you pretty. It’s supposed to make you prettier. Translation: less is more. I added to my eyes to make them pop, because they were my best feature. But I usually left the rest alone.
My blue nail polish was chipped, and my jeans were holey. But from the waist up in my short-sleeved black T-shirt, I looked okay.