Kody Keplinger - A Midsummer’s Nightmare

“Yeah, and look where it got you.”

I froze for a second, stunned.

It took a minute for the words to sink in. I stared up at Nathan, anger burning away the amusement I’d felt before. Scorching the insides of my stomach and chest.

“Hypocrite,” I spat. “I didn’t hear you complaining last time we were at a party. You got wasted, too. It’s not like I took advantage of you. You made the choice to sleep with me.”

“I know,” he said through clenched teeth. “And you were the biggest mistake I have ever made.”

I drew back, my hand flying to my chest, my fingers curling into my palm. His words hit me like a punch in the gut. I opened my mouth to say something. To yell at him. To deliver a good comeback that would sting him in the same way. But nothing came to me. My throat was closing in on itself.

Biggest mistake. I was his biggest mistake.

He wasn’t mine.

He didn’t even make the top ten. Maybe not my top one hundred. Because, despite all of the shit going on, that night with him had actually been nice. Great, even.

Nathan’s eyes softened, and he reached for me with his free hand. “Whit, I—”

“Don’t touch me!” I screeched, slapping at his hand. “Get the hell away from me, Nathan.”

“I shouldn’t have said that. I’m sorry.”

But I was already walking away from him.

“Whit, where are you going? Whitley?”

“I’m walking back.”

“What? You’re wasted. There is no way you can make it home on your own.”

“Watch me.”

And, as if to punctuate this statement, the back of my shoe slipped out from under me, sending me stumbling forward on the pavement. I caught myself by grabbing hold of a lamppost, but it took a second for me to regain my balance. By then, Nathan was standing beside me again.

“Come on, Whit.”

“Don’t touch me,” I murmured. Tears were sticking to my eyelashes, and I was disgusted with myself. It wasn’t just about Nathan; I knew that. I hadn’t cried since arriving in Hamilton. I’d held back all the anger, all the hurt, everything I’d felt toward Mom and Dad and Sylvia. But being rejected by Wesley and kissing another boy I barely knew and wasn’t even attracted to and the way the bitchy girls had looked at me and what Nathan had just said… It all piled on top of the hell I’d been through that week, and I couldn’t keep it in any longer. But I hated myself for crying, especially in front of him.

Nothing was funny anymore.

“Come on,” Nathan repeated. He didn’t reach for me again, but his eyes never wavered from my face. “Let’s go home, okay?”

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, blinking back the tears. Then I knelt down and slipped off my sandals. When I stood back up, I held them in my left hand, letting them dangle at my side. The concrete sidewalk was dirty, but it felt cool and solid beneath my feet.

“Okay,” I said, already walking toward the car. “Let’s go.”

Not home. It wasn’t my home. But it would have to do for a while.

We didn’t speak. Not a word. Nathan didn’t even turn on the radio or sing or anything. In fact, the only sound in the car was Bailey’s gentle breathing. She was asleep in the backseat of the Honda, letting out slow puffs of air through her nose.

My buzz was wearing off. I hadn’t had quite enough to pass out—I had a high tolerance after so many years of this shit—but the headache was already coming on. You’d think the silence would have been a relief, but it made my head pound worse. I wanted Nathan to say something. Anything. Even if he was going to yell again, at least I’d know he wasn’t ignoring me.

Anger was less painful than abandonment.

Anger, I could deal with.

I was so tied up in my own thoughts, trying to find a way to break the silence, that I didn’t even realize we were pulling into a parking lot until the car came to a complete stop. I stared out the windshield at the darkened building. The sign on the door read FIFTH STREET FILMS—a movie rental shop. But it was closed for the night.

“What are we doing here?” I asked without thinking. Well, at least it wasn’t silent anymore.

“They aren’t asleep yet,” Nathan mumbled.

“What?”

“Mom and Greg aren’t asleep yet.” He cut the engine, letting the headlights fade away. A single lamppost, twenty yards away, was the only light in the area, and it bathed us in a dim orangey glow. “It’s only eleven. Mom is still up watching the news. It’s not safe to sneak in until at least midnight. She thinks we’re bowling, and the lanes close at twelve. So if we wait an hour, the coast should be clear.”

“How do you—?”

“I’ve done this before,” he said. “Remember?”

“Oh, right. I guess I just don’t think about it. My mom would never notice if I came in drunk or something.” I snorted. “And even if she did, she’d say it was Dad’s fault, so I’d be in the clear.”

There was a long pause, then Nathan said, “Um, you should fix your shirt before we go.”

“What?” I looked down at my tank top. “Oh, right. Inside out.”

“Yeah. Kind of a dead giveaway.”

I reached down and pulled the hem of the shirt over my head. Once it was off, I glanced over at Nathan. He was facing the window, a hand clamped over his eyes. Even in the bad lighting, I could tell he was blushing. Christ. I had on a bra, and it wasn’t like it was something he’d never seen before.

I slipped the shirt on the right way and said, “Okay. You can look now.”

“Do you have any sense of modesty?” he asked, turning to face me. Maybe it was wishful thinking, but I thought I saw a small smile curling on his lips.

“Not after a few shots of tequila.”

He didn’t laugh as much as I hoped he would. It was really just an awkward half chuckle, but, hey, that was better than nothing.

He glanced into the backseat, and I followed his gaze. Bailey was curled into a ball, her knees pulled up beside her and her hair spread across the leather seat. To anyone else, it might have looked like she was sleeping peacefully, but to me it just didn’t seem right.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I should have watched her.”

“Yeah, you should have,” he agreed. After a pause, he added, “I don’t want her going to parties with you anymore, Whitley.”

“Seriously, Nathan, you’re overreacting.”

“No, I’m not. You aren’t the one who found her. You didn’t see…” He took a deep breath, shaking his head slowly.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“No, tell me.”

“Just drop it, Whitley. It’s nothing. But she’s not going to parties with you anymore.” He took a breath and let some of the tension leave his body. “Look, you go to parties to escape—I get it. But if you’re going to be this messed up, that means you can’t look after her, too, so you’re on your own from now on. Okay?”

I sighed, rolling my eyes. I wasn’t that messed up. Not yet. “Yeah. Whatever.” I twisted around to face forward again. According to the clock on the dashboard, it was only 11:21. We still had more than half an hour to sit here, waiting to go back to Dad and Sylvia’s house.

My headache was getting worse again. I leaned my temple against the window, closing my eyes. Since I could remember, I’d always been a night person. My burst of energy came right around the time the sun set. I lived in the darkness. Loved the darkness. My world came alive when the stars came out.

But for the first time in my life, I wanted the night to end.

I woke up the next morning to the sound of Bailey retching in the bathroom next door. That hangover was going to be hell.

I stayed in bed for a while, thinking about the night before. Poor Bailey. The first hangover was always the worst. I felt a little guilty for not giving her a better warning, for not keeping an eye on how much she’d had. At ninety pounds, it probably didn’t take a lot to get the kid smashed. I hadn’t even thought to tell her that.

Probably because no one had warned me about limits the first time I ever drank.

I hadn’t been awake long when Sylvia found Bailey in the bathroom. I listened to their muffled voices, unable to make out the words. I heard them leave the bathroom and walk down the hallway, Sylvia’s heels clacking past my room, the door to Bailey’s room shutting a moment later.

I wondered if Sylvia would be able to tell Bailey had a hangover, or if she’d think the kid was just sick. If she knew it was a hangover, how much trouble would Bailey be in? How did someone like Sylvia punish her kids for drinking?

The truth was that I’d never actually been in trouble before. Not once.

Back when my parents were married, Mom had been the authoritarian. It was hard to imagine now, but she’d been tough on Trace and me as kids. Not that I needed any sort of discipline. Before the divorce, I’d been the good kid. Straight A’s. Middle school student council. Perfect, perfect, perfect.

Obviously, that had changed.

But by the time I became a “bad kid” or whatever, Mom was too busy being angry at Dad or depressed about everything to care what I was doing. So I’d never been punished for the drinking or the parties or staying out too late.

Whatever happened between Sylvia and Bailey, it didn’t involve yelling. The house was nearly silent for almost half an hour. Then I heard Bailey’s door open and shut again, and Sylvia walked back up the hallway. Three light taps on the door across the hall. She’d moved on to Nathan.

I sighed and climbed out of bed, grabbing a pair of shorts and a T-shirt from my duffel. My own hangover was pretty minimal, since I’d stopped drinking around ten thirty. Most of the time, I didn’t hit my stride until midnight or later. So I wasn’t feeling half bad when I reached for the doorknob, intent on grabbing some breakfast downstairs.