What She Didn't Know (What She 1)

“I’m fine, Mason,” she said.

“Then what’s wrong?”

She shook her head, a sad smile on her face. “I’m just worried that everything will change,” she said quietly. I could barely hear her over the band.

“What do you mean?”

She shook her head again. “Never mind. I’m just being morose.”

“Talk to me,” I’d pleaded. Something had been wrong for a few days. I just didn’t know what it was.

“Later,” she’d said. We’d danced some more and then we’d gone home, and we’d made love during the night. There was a quiet desperation in her actions that night. I just wished I’d realized it at the time. The next morning I’d woken up and she was gone.

The jostle of the table jerked me out of my memory. “Hey man, sorry I’m late,” Malcolm said. He sat down and motioned for the waitress to bring him the same thing I was having.

Malcolm and I had gone to school together. Our mothers claimed that we used to run around naked together on hot summer days. Only Malcolm always had a nanny trying to wrestle him into clothes, while I had my mom. His mother told the story like she’d been there, but she never had.

In a lot of ways, I had the best of everything. In other ways, my awesome parents had set me up for failure. Most days I felt like it was the former. But now…now I wasn’t so sure.

“Dude,” Malcolm said. He knocked his knuckles on the table to get my attention.

I looked up. “Sorry, man. I’m poor company,” I said. I shook my head, trying to shake the cobwebs and lies from my brain. “Maybe we should do this another time.”

“No,” he said slowly. “Tell me what’s up.”

“I’m the shrink, dumbass,” I said. “So stop trying to get in my head.”

He held up his hands. “I wouldn’t dare. I think you have too many people in your head already.”

Malcolm knew about them. He knew everything. He’d always known. I’d had to tell him the time that Shelly showed up at his nineteenth birthday party.

22

“I didn’t know you’d invited girls here,” I said to Malcolm when the gaggle of females came in through the front door.

Malcolm glanced at me askance. “Of course I invited girls. It’s my birthday. What kind of birthday would it be without pussy?”

I rolled my eyes. The door opened again and Aubrey, my ex-girlfriend, walked in. Her eyes immediately found mine and then they darted away. I groaned. “Why did you invite her?” I hissed.

“Because she’s hot,” he murmured back.

We ate a dinner that Malcolm’s housekeeper’s husband cooked on the grill. Malcolm’s parents were out of town again, but the party went on nevertheless. Then we all retired to

the pool for high school pranks. Who could get the girls out of their clothes the fastest? Who could make the biggest belly flop? Who could be the first to throw up in the bushes? Apparently, it would be Malcolm on all three counts.

I spent the next couple of hours taking care of Malcolm while avoiding Aubrey.

Malcolm finally took one of the girls into the pool house and Aubrey sidled up next to me. “Hey, Mason,” she said quietly. She had a red party cup in her hand and her eyes were a little glassy.

“Aubrey,” I said.

“How are you?” Her eyes searched the crowd and then came back to me.

“Fine. You?”

She blew out a breath. “Are you ever going to speak to me again?”

I turned to fully face her. “What do you want to talk about?”