Charmed Thirds_ A Jessica Darling Novel - Megan McCafferty [57]
Marcus held up his hands in capitulation. “Enough.”
“But you should know everything . . . ,” I said.
“I know everything I need to know.” His voice was flat.
“Oh god, I'm so sorry,” I said, searching his face for a sign, any sign as to what he was really thinking. “I should have told you sooner.”
“You told me when you were ready to tell me.”
He didn't seem traumatized by my revelation. He seemed almost totally unaffected, as if I had confessed to breathing: I did it, Marcus! I inhaled and I exhaled!
“Do you hate me?”
He took my hand. “I don't hate you.”
“Really?”
“I could never hate you. There's no good in hating you.”
He stroked the middle-finger ring gently before letting go and walking back toward my house, the park of our past receding into the background. I followed. And for about a minute, I reveled in my relief. Marcus doesn't hate me! I'm so lucky to have such an understanding boyfriend. He knows that everyone makes mistakes and that I'm no exception. He's a better person than I am, because if he ever told me that he had kissed Butterfly, I would totally lose it because I can't deal with the idea of him being attracted to anyone who isn't me, even for one regrettable moment . . .
How can he be so okay with this?
I started to get mad that he wasn't mad.
“Uh, Marcus?”
“Yes?”
“You don't hate me?”
“No.”
Pause.
“You're really not mad?”
He sighed. “I didn't say that.”
“Okay. Then what are you?”
He didn't say anything. Instead, he stopped and sat down on a curb only a few blocks away from my house. He was hunched over, hugging his legs, and he seemed so much smaller than I know he is. I sat down next to him and hesitantly took him in. He smelled like the dying embers of a bonfire. I waited for him to say something.
He didn't.
And he didn't.
And he still didn't.
Finally, after what seemed like a silence as endless as the universe itself, I couldn't take it anymore.
“Marcus? Why aren't you saying anything?”
He shifted in my direction, and I heard every inch of his body rubbing against the concrete.
“I was trying to find the right words. And I can't. So I'd rather say nothing right now.”
“Nothing? I do what I did and you have nothing to say? You don't care enough about our relationship to say anything at all?”
He got up and walked to the Caddie parked in the driveway. All without a word.
“I can't believe you have nothing to say,” I mumbled as he put the key in the door and slid into the driver's seat. He fastened his seat belt, put the key into the ignition, turned it on.
The door was still open.
“You're not listening,” he said, finally.
I looked into his eyes and saw that they were shiny with tears.
“Most people talk when they have nothing to say,” he said. “I'm not talking because I have too much to say. None of which I'd want you to hear.”
Then he shut the door, backed the car out, and drove far away from me.
* * *
December 31st
Dear Hope,
Four years ago on this date, you moved to Tennessee.
Three years ago on this date, Marcus confessed that he only befriended me so he could have sex with me, and I told him to go fuck himself.
Two years ago on this date, I did ecstasy with Scotty, almost lost my virginity to Len, and wished out loud that Marcus was the one I was (almost) having sex with.
One year ago on this date, Marcus visited me in New York for the sole purpose of leaving a party early so we could have sex in my skinny college bed.
I can't help but wonder if any of this would have happened if you had stayed. I used to tell myself not to think about it, and just accept my past as it was because there was nothing I could do to change it now. I told myself, and others, that I was happy with how I'd ended up and that's all that mattered. But that was just naïveté talking. It's really easy to convince yourself that you're just so goddamn evolved when you don't have a clue. Because the truth is, I'm not all that happy with who I've been these past few months, and I'm not quite sure where I went