The Player Next Door

“Sometimes I think you pick them for that reason.” She rolls onto her side to face me. “You know, I used to want to be you.”

I smile through my throbbing head. “What are you talking about?”

“If things with a guy didn’t work out, you were all Ariana Grande ‘Thank you, next.’ No tears, no sadness. It’s something to behold. It’s actually not normal.”

“You made up for the tears.” People who don’t know Justine assume her brash attitude equates to thick skin, but in fact, she’s one of the most emotional people I’ve ever met, a surprise to me.

“Yeah, I was a blubbering mess over Bill and then every guy who wasn’t Bill,” she concedes. “But you? You were unflappable.”

“That’s not a word.”

“Oh, it is a fucking word, trust me. Bill used it during our last Scrabble game and I said it wasn’t a word, and I lost. Do you know what that asshole made me do? He—”

“Don’t!” I hold out a hand in warning. The last time Justine spelled out the kinds of things she and Bill do during their weird strip Scrabble-porn games, I couldn’t look at Bill without a vivid—and unappealing—visual for a week after.

“Anyway, you’ve never been serious about anyone since I’ve known you.” Her brow furrows. “But I’m starting to think it’s because you got serious about Shane, and it sounds like he really hurt you.”

“I was in love with him,” I confess. “Or as much as any seventeen-year-old girl can be in love with a boy after a summer—”

“No, don’t do that! Don’t become that crotchety, cynical old hag who forgets what it feels like! Of course you could be in love with him at seventeen after a summer. Look at me! I fell in love with Bill the day he bought me an ice-cream cone, when I was twelve. Twelve!”

She’s right. What I felt for Shane was real and it was powerful. It was that all-consuming, can’t-think-about-anything-else, don’t-want-anyone-else kind of love that, despite how badly he hurt me, only stopped plaguing me after I escaped Polson Falls and didn’t have to see him every day.

And now I’m back in Polson Falls and seeing him every day again.

I tuck my sheet into the crook of my neck, attempting to find comfort. “I hate that he’s dating someone else.” Especially after he made me think there was something real between us.

“A date,” Justine corrects.

“That will probably end in him sleeping with her,” I grumble, as I struggle to push out the image of them standing so closely together, and her pawing at his body, and him allowing it. I want to be the one pawing at his body. Why did it take last night’s debacle for me to finally admit that to myself?

Because I’m too stubborn for my own good sometimes. Because I thought I was protecting myself by denying it.

And maybe Shane’s right—that he isn’t doing anything wrong by dating other women, that I don’t have the right to expect him to just sit around, waiting however long, until I come to terms with the fact that I want to give us another shot. I just don’t know how to let myself do that. It would mean making myself vulnerable to him again.

“Last night, Shane told me to grow up.”

“Ooh.” She winces. “Pulling out the immaturity card. Bet that hurt.”

“I probably deserved it.” Why did I have to respond in such a foolish way? Beyond my hurt, my embarrassment is swelling. What if one of my student’s parents—besides Shane—were around to witness that?

“Are you going to apologize?”

“I don’t know yet. I mean, he’s dating other women. Maybe it’s best we stay away from each other.”

“Or maybe you should at least give him a clean slate for a few hours and see what happens.” She shrugs. “Who knows? Maybe you’ll decide that what you used to like about him actually annoys the shit out of you now. Like, you know how Bill has to always have the last word, whenever we’re talking about anything. And he makes up all these stupid ‘what-if’ scenarios that aren’t ever going to happen, with aliens and viral pandemics. I used to think they were funny.” She gives me a flat look. “They’re not funny anymore.”

I’ve witnessed this firsthand and have to agree; Bill can get annoying. “You’re still with him, though.”

She grunts in answer.

“What if Shane doesn’t annoy me?” Speaking of ‘what-if’ scenarios …

What if I fall harder for him than I did when I was seventeen?

What if he’s everything I want for my future?

And what if he gives it to me, only to take it all away again?

Justine grins. “Don’t worry. I’m sure you’ll screw it up somehow. You know, because you’re emotionally stunted.”

I haphazardly swing a loose pillow at her head. “Shut up, you brat.”

“But I do think you need to shit or get off the pot, Scarlet.”