“Where are Mom and Marvin?”
“Hospital.”
“What do you mean hospital. Why aren’t they here?”
“They don’t know what’s wrong with Dad.”
Tilly pauses for a beat. She’s mad, but this supersedes that, and I know she doesn’t want to be impolite.
“Fuck, is he ok?”
“They don’t know. We took him to some weird place in the middle of nowhere that didn’t even have vending machines in the corridor. I mean, what kind of hospital doesn’t have vending machines in the corridor? Anyway, they didn’t know what was wrong with him. They wanted to do tests, but they didn’t know what they were looking for, so I got a private ambulance to take him to New York.”
“New York?”
“You should have seen them in this place, Tilly. They didn’t even know what they were supposed to be doing with him.”
“So where’s Mom?”
I think Tilly already knows the answer to that question, but she’s being coy.
“Rachel refused to leave his side, so she’s gone with him.”
“Mom’s gone to New York?”
I nod.
“Is your dad ok?”
“He’s fine. It’s probably just heat stroke or dehydration or food poisoning or something that’s going to make him feel stupid for being weak.”
“Right.” There is a slight hesitation before she continues, perhaps as the reality of the situation begins to drip into her. “So what are we supposed to do?”
There are several ways I can think of answering that question, none of which would be immediately appropriate.
“Wait here for news.”
“Alone?”
“Together.”
“Without them though?”
“Yes.”
“Until when?”
“Until we hear.”
“You and me.”
“In the middle of nowhere.”
“In the middle of nowhere.”
I nod.
“Fuck.”
I can’t tell you how much I wish that was a question, nor how much Tilly probably does either.
Tilly
We can’t stay here. Not alone or together or whatever it is, we just can’t. It’s not that I don’t trust him either, it’s that I don’t trust myself. We are literally in the middle of nowhere and we are alone. Nobody can see us. Nobody can hear us. There’s probably not even a single thing alive in a half mile radius. The dead bird at the bottom of the garden is about as close as we’ll get. It’s a recipe for disaster, the perfect setting for something to happen. Something that I am bound to regret.
This is Landon fucking Maddox. This is the man that has been filling my scrapbooks and my teenage fantasies for as long as I realized they were even a thing. This is the number one prize douchebag that is on every other billboard poster across the country. This is The Donkey, my fucking stepbrother now too, and here I am alone with him. If I don’t do something about it, I’ll end up doing something I shouldn’t. The last thing I need is my own stepbrother to fuck me and then fuck me over. Way to fuck up the new family, Tilly.
No, I’m not going to let that happen. Even if he finally shows his cards, I’m not going to show mine. I’m not going to be that relief fuck that gets dumped all over when reality sets back in, when Shoreville are back on a winning streak and the coach gives Landon free reign, or when he just heads back to the city after this little vacation break is over and puts himself back into a situation where he’s surrounded by it.
I’m not going to devalue myself like that, or stress myself out by competing with what he’s used to getting, and part of me just doesn’t want to anyway so Landon doesn’t get his way. No matter how good he says he is, or they say he is, or I expect he is, I’m just not going to do it. Perfect ass, incredible arms, huge cock or not. Definitely not. Uhuh. Not this girl. Not for a minute. It’s not going to work with me.
“We have to go home.”
“What do you mean we have to go home?”
“Home, New York, you to yours me to mine. Home.”
“I don’t think we need to do that. Your Mom said we should stay here. Besides which, we have to wait for news. We can’t just go back to New York because you can’t stand to be in the same room as me. Dad might be fine later on, and if he is, he’s going to want to come back.”
“So we just stay here?”
Landon can’t hide his delight that the possibility of that happening is making me agitated. He’s enjoying watching me squirm.
“We just stay here, or we go to that bar, or we go for a walk, or we sit naked in the jacuzzi, or whatever, we stay here. Haven’t you always wanted to be alone with a superstar?”
Yes, since, like, whenever, and no, absolutely one hundred percent not, because I know what you are like. I know just what Landon Maddox is like, and I bet he’s loving this situation even more than he’s letting on.
“You tell me when that happens and I’ll show you how excited I get.”
“You know there are a thousand women-.”
“Yeah, you already told me that.”
“Why do you hate me so much, Tilly?”
Um, let me think. Is it the natural talent that oozes out of you or your almost God like perfection that annoys me the most? Is it because you demand to be the centre of attention, the arrogance that masks deep seated abandonment issues, or the fact that you think you’re just better than everyone else, period? Or is it really the fact that I hate you because you make me not want to, and I really, really should, for everyone’s benefit?
“I don’t hate you, Landon. I-. It doesn’t matter.”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
There is a gap of space between us that I wish I knew how to close.
“It doesn’t matter, you know. What you think matters, it doesn’t.”
There goes that subtext again.
“And what is it that you think I think matters?”
“The way you feel, what you do about it, the way I do.”
“I thought you didn’t feel, I thought you just did.”
“Don’t believe everything you read in the papers.”
“And it does matter, I thought you would have learned that by now, based on the situation you’ve found yourself in.”
“Yeah, that. Well I suppose without it, I wouldn’t be here, so maybe it’s fate after all.”
“Is that what you think this is? The same fate that made you my stepbrother.”
“I guess you have to take the good with the bad.”
“And what about the impossible?”
“That’s not for us to decide.”
I’m not even sure if we are having it, but if we are, this is already way too serious a conversation to be indulging in right now.
“What are you scared of?”
Mice, heights and having my heart broken. Making a fool of myself. Selling myself too cheaply, to Landon fucking Maddox. What people think. Being thrown away when I’ve been played with enough. Being The Donkey’s last fuck. I’m scared of being wrong about you.
I realize I’m not saying anything. I think I’m trying, but nothing’s coming out.
“I’m not some big bad wolf, Tilly. I’m not the person you think I am.”
“What do you want, Landon?”
“I don’t know.”
Why is he so damn confident and blase about this? Why are we even having this conversation?
“I like you.”
“You seem to like every girl that crosses your path. Isn’t a skirt and a pulse the only criteria Landon Maddox needs? After that it’s win win for you, right? And you don’t like me, you just think you do.”
“That’s funny.”