Something Borrowed - Emily Giffin [128]
And then she asks, "Why is Dexter's watch on your nightstand?"
I follow her eyes again. Sure enough, his watch is most definitely on my nightstand. Dexter's watch. My nightstand. There is no way out. At least not one that I can think of.
I shrug and stammer that I don't know. If there were any doubt before this moment as to my ability to think on my feet, that is cleared up now. I mumble, "Oh, it's not his watch. I have one like it… I bought it in England." My voice is shaking. I am a complete mess, a dying calf in a hailstorm.
Darcy leaps from my bed and grabs the watch from my nightstand, flipping it over and reading the inscription. '"All my love. Darcy,'" she says. Then she looks at me with pure hatred, demonstrating how I should have reacted to her Marcus news.
"What the fuck?" she asks. It is a cold, hard question. Her eyes narrow. "What the fuck!" she screams again, but this time it is a statement. Which means that I don't have to answer.
I stand as she pushes roughly past me into the bathroom. I follow her as she whips the shower curtain violently to the side. Only two tan Aveda bottles, a pink plastic razor, and a dwindling bar of soap.
I begin formulating a story: Dex came over to tell me about the breakup. He took his watch off, to woefully read the engraving. He was beside himself with grief. I comforted him briefly, at which point he left to wander in the park, alone.
But it is too late for explanations. The thirty-second window for explaining is over. Darcy's long, skinny fingers are gripping my closet doorknob.
"Darcy, don't," I say, clearly indicating that her ex-fiancé is behind door number two. I stand in the way, my back against the door.
"Move!" she bellows. "I know he's in there!"
I move, because what else am I supposed to do? She is right. We all know that he is in there. But as she opens the door, part of me actually thinks that Dex will have found a way to fold himself more neatly and tightly into a back corner of my closet. Or maybe he got out, somehow fled during the four seconds that Darcy and I stood gridlocked in my bathroom. Or maybe he miraculously found a secret opening in the back as in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.
But no, he is there, crouched right where I last saw him, holding his jeans and his shirt, wearing striped navy boxers, staring up at us. He unfolds himself and stands upright.
"You liar!" Darcy screams, thrusting her finger into his chest.
He ignores her and dresses calmly, putting one foot into his jeans and then the other. The sound of his zipper is loud in the room.
"You lied to me!"
"You have got to be kidding me," Dex says, finding the armholes in his T-shirt. His voice is low and restrained. "Fuck you, Darcy."
Darcy's face grows red and she is spitting as she yells, "You said there was nobody else in the picture! And you're fucking my best friend!"
I whimper her name like a broken record. "Darcy. Darcy. Darcy."
She ignores me, staring at Dex. I wait for him to defend us, cast a spin on the facts, tell her that there has been no fucking. Nothing at all until today, when he came over to seek comfort. But Dex says calmly, "Isn't that a bit of the pot calling the kettle black, Darce? You and Marcus, huh? Having a baby? I guess congratulations are in order."
I expect her to make a statement about loyalty and love and friendship. I expect her to accuse us of doing it first. But she only looks at me and then Dex and then says that she knew it all along, and that she hates us both very much. And that she always will. She walks over to the door.
"Oh, Darcy?" Dex says.
"What?" She shouts the word, but the look in her eyes is needy, expectant.
"May I have my watch back, please?"
She hurls the evidence overhand at him. Clearly it is meant to strike and hurt him. But her aim is bad and it ricochets off my wall, skating across the parquet back to her feet, inscription up. She looks at it and then at me.