“You followed me!” she heard him exclaim. “You don’t even like to drive to the grocery, and you followed me all the way to Malibu?”
“Let me in.”
“No way,” he said. “Go home.”
“I’m not going anywhere till I talk to her.”
“You’ll have to get past me first.”
“Oh, puh-leeze, like you can stop me.” Chaz stormed past him and soon found the spare bedroom where Georgie had set up her equipment. She was dressed in avenger black right down to her flip-flops. “You know what your problem is?” she declared, advancing on Georgie without preamble. “You don’t care about people.”
Georgie had barely slept, and she was too drained to deal with this.
“Bram hasn’t come home from the studio for the past two nights.” Chaz continued her attack. “He’s miserable, and it’s all because of you. I wouldn’t be surprised if he started doing drugs again.” When Georgie didn’t respond, some of Chaz’s fire gave way to uncertainty. “I know you’re in love with him. Isn’t she, Aaron? Why don’t you just go back to him? Then everything will be fine.”
“Chaz, stop badgering her,” Aaron said quietly as he came up behind her.
Georgie had never imagined Aaron would turn into such a determined watchdog. His weight loss seemed to have given him a new confidence. One Tuesday, when Mel Duffy’s story about Georgie’s phone call had surfaced, Aaron had gone on the attack and issued a vigorous public denial without even consulting her. She’d told him that Mel’s account was true and she didn’t care anymore, but he refused to listen.
It was easier to attack Chaz’s weaknesses than think about her own. “Here’s the thing about people who are always sticking their noses into other people’s lives. It’s generally because they don’t want to deal with their own screwups.”
Chaz immediately went on the defensive. “Everything’s just fine in my life!”
“Then why aren’t you in culinary school right now? As far as I know, you haven’t even glanced at those GED workbooks.”
“Chaz is too busy to study,” Aaron said. “Just ask her.”
“I think you’re afraid if you step outside the security of what you have now, you’ll somehow end up back on the streets.” The words were no sooner out of Georgie’s mouth than she realized she’d betrayed Chaz’s confidence. She felt sick. “I’m sorry, I-”
Chaz scowled. “Oh, stop looking like that. Aaron knows.”
He did? Georgie hadn’t expected that.
“If Chaz doesn’t study,” Aaron said, “she won’t have to worry about flunking. She’s afraid.”
“That’s bull.”
Georgie gave up. “I’m too tired to deal with this now. Go away.”
Naturally, Chaz didn’t move. Instead, she regarded Georgie with displeasure. “You look like you’re losing weight again.”
“Nothing tastes good right now.”
“We’ll see about that.” Chaz stormed into the kitchen where she stomped around for a while, banging cupboard doors, opening and closing the refrigerator. Before long, she’d produced a crisp salad and a bowl of gooey mac and cheese. It was comfort food, but not as comforting as having Chaz fuss over her.
Georgie made this big fricking deal out of Chaz borrowing one of her swimsuits and going down to the beach. “Unless you’re afraid of the water.” Georgie had said it with a kind of sneer, like she was daring Chaz to put on a suit. She knew Chaz hated showing off her body, and she must have decided this was some kind of therapy. But since she’d basically dared her, Chaz had put on the suit, then rummaged around in Georgie’s crap until she found a terry cloth cover-up to wear over it.
Aaron lay on a beach towel, reading some kind of lame video game magazine. When she’d first known him, he wouldn’t get anywhere near the water. Now he wore new white swim trunks with navy trim. He still needed to lose a few more pounds, so he shouldn’t have looked so semihot, but he’d started working out with weights, and it showed. He was also spending money for decent haircuts, plus his contact lenses.
She sat on the end of the towel, her back to him. The cover-up didn’t even reach the middle of her thighs, and she kind of tucked her legs under her.
He put his magazine aside. “It’s hot. Let’s go for a swim.”
“I don’t feel like it.”
“Why not? You told me you used to swim all the time.”
“I just don’t want to right now, that’s all.”
He sat up next to her. “I’m not going to jump you just because you’re wearing a bathing suit.”
“I know that.”
“Chaz, you’ve got to get over what happened.”
She poked at the sand with a stick. “Maybe I don’t want to get over it. Maybe I need to make sure I never forget so I don’t get caught up in anything like that again.”
“You won’t.”
“How do you know?”
“Simple logic. Let’s say you broke your arm again, or even your leg. Do you really think Bram would throw you out? Or that Georgie wouldn’t step in, or that I wouldn’t let you stay at my place? You’ve got friends now, although you’d never know it from the way you treat them.”
“I made Georgie eat, didn’t I? And you shouldn’t have said that to her about how I was afraid of flunking.”
“You’re smart, Chaz. Everybody knows it but you.”
She picked up a broken shell and ran the sharp point over her thumb. “I could have been smart, but I missed too much school.”
“So what? That’s what a GED is for. I told you I’d help you study.”
“I don’t need help.” If he helped her, he’d figure out exactly how much she didn’t know, and he’d stop respecting her.
But he seemed to understand what she was thinking. “If you hadn’t helped me, I’d still be fat. People are good at different things. I was always good in school, and it’s my turn to do you a favor. Trust me. I won’t be nearly as mean about it as you were with me.”
She had been mean to him. Georgie, too. She stretched out her legs. Her skin was pale as a vampire’s, and she saw this one little place she’d missed when she’d shaved. “Sorry.”
She must not have sounded like she meant it because he wouldn’t let it go. “You’ve got to stop being so rude to people. You think it makes you look tough, but it only makes you seem sort of pitiful.”
She launched herself off the towel. “Don’t say that!”
He looked up at her. She glared back, her arms rigid at her sides and her hands fisted.
“Stop the bullshit, Chaz.” He sounded tired, as if he’d gotten bored with her. “It’s time for you to grow up and start acting like a decent human being.” He rose slowly to his feet. “You and I are best friends, but half the time I’m ashamed of you. Like that bullshit with Georgie. Anybody with eyes can see how bad she’s feeling. You didn’t have to make it worse.”
“Bram’s feeling just as bad,” she retorted.
“That doesn’t justify the way you talked to her.”
He looked like he was ready to give up on her. She wanted to cry, but she’d kill herself first, so she tore open the cover-up and threw it down in the sand. She felt naked, but Aaron only looked at her face. When she’d been on the streets, the men had hardly ever looked at her face. “Are you satisfied?” she cried.
“Are you?” he asked.
She wasn’t satisfied with much of anything about herself, and she was sick of being afraid. Leaving the house made her nervous. She was scared to take her GED. Scared of so much. “If I’m nice to people, they’ll start to take advantage of me,” she cried.
“If they start taking advantage of you,” he said quietly, “stop being nice to them.”
Her skin prickled. Did it really have to be all or nothing? She thought of what he’d said earlier, that she had friends who’d watch out for her. She hated depending on other people, but maybe that was because she’d never been able to. Aaron was right. She did have friends now, but she still acted like she was alone in her fight against the world. She didn’t like knowing he thought of her as a mean person. Being mean wouldn’t save her from
