My mouth sags. “Wait, she knew you were sober?” I ask him.
He pauses. “I might have mentioned it to her...”
“Before or after you mentioned it to me?”
He doesn’t answer.
Okay.
Now I’m pissed off.
“No, no!” Mom slaps my shoulder. “Put that tone away. It’s Christmas!”
I grimace. “I don’t have a—”
“Christmas!”
She throws up her hands and bolts toward the front foyer to greet a group of guests, abandoning the carnage she created. But that’s Francie Rose for you.
Robbie steps forward. “Mel...”
I turn away. “Excuse me.”
“Wait—”
“Hey, Robbie! Buddy!” Trix hooks his arm, stopping him from following me. “Come check this out!”
Thank you, Ms. Argento.
Twenty
Melanie
I continue out of the room into the foyer, keeping my head down in case someone tries to start up a conversation with me. Voices fade off as I quickly skip up the grand staircase and take a hard left down the hall toward my bedroom. Strange. I guess the habit to hide during one of my parents’ parties will never truly die, no matter how old I get.
I push open the door and close it behind me, relishing in the sweet silence. I place my back against the door and take a deep breath. I hold it until I can’t anymore and let it out before flicking the light switch.
The bedside lamp turns on, illuminating the corner and little else, but that’s how I’ve always liked it up here. I scan the darkened room, full of my old things that feel like they belonged to someone else in another life, someone with optimistic dreams of their future.
I plop down onto my old bed.
“Ha. Ha. Ha. That tickles!”
I smile as I shift to the side and pluck the Wumbo Tickle doll out from under me. “Sorry, Wumbo,” I say as I straighten his shirt and set him down next to my pillow.
There’s a knock on the balcony window. I jolt in surprise at the ominous shadow lingering behind the glass.
I inhale to scream.
“Mel, let me in! It’s fucking freezing.”
I hold my breath, pausing as I see Robbie’s face through the glass.
“Robbie,” I scold as I rush to unlock the doors. He stomps the snow off his shoes before stepping inside. “What are you doing?”
“I figured you’d be up here,” he says.
“Why?”
“Because you always escape up here during your parents’ parties.”
I roll my eyes. “Okay, yeah, but why did you sneak in through the balcony. And also, how?”
“Well, I snuck out the window of the first floor bathroom and then I climbed the tree to get to your balcony.”
“That tree is climbable?”
“Not easily.”
I nod, genuinely impressed.
“As for the former question,” he continues, straightening his blazer, “any idea why Trix is being extra clingy tonight? Because I practically had to pry her off me to get her to let me take a piss by myself.”
“Ah, well...” I close the balcony doors behind him with a sigh. “Nora and Trix are on a mission tonight.”
“What kind of mission?”
“To… keep you away from me.”
Robbie cants his head, amused. “Why exactly are they doing that?”
I walk past him to sit down on the bed again. “Apparently, Itold them to physically restrain me if I ever showed an interest in you again.” I shrug a shoulder. “They’re just doing their part to keep me honest.”
“Ahh...” He smiles. “Does that mean you didn’t tell them how you spent your snow days?”
“That is correct.”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t want to.”
“Should I take that personally?”
I shake my head once. “No.”
“You don’t want them to know because they’ll gloat,” he says.
“Something like that, yeah.”
“You’re probably right.” He nods, satisfied. “It’ll be our little secret.”
“Thank you.”
We linger here for a moment, falling into a quiet, comfortable silence we’re suddenly so used to again.
“Before,” Robbie says, breaking it.
I look up at him. “Before what?” I ask.
He takes a deep breath. “I told your parents about my treatment before I told you. I’m sorry I didn’t mention that.”
“It’s okay,” I say. “I understand why you didn’t.”
“It’s just that they helped me out a lot in the beginning,” he says. “After you kicked me out, I mean.”
“They did?”
“They… helped pay my rent the first few months, actually.”
“Oh,” I say, letting that sink in. “Boy, Mom really can keep a secret…”
“I’m sorry,” he says again. “I didn’t think it’d make you mad.”
“I’m not mad. Don’t even know why I got upset, it just...”
Robbie sits down beside me. “What?”
I exhale softly. “It seems like, somehow, in the midst of everything that happened between us, I came out the bad guy.”
“That’s not true.”
“Nora certainly thinks so. My parents had your back behind mine this whole time. You hawked your wedding band to pay for a secret bar tab, but they still like you more. You’re still the cool guy.”
“Well, have you tried wearing a leather jacket?” he jokes. “Because that’s Cool Guy 101.”
“No, never tried that.”
“A few tattoos wouldn’t hurt, either.”
“Stop it,” I say, smiling.
“I don’t know how to break this to you, Mel, but you’ve never had what one would call a charming personality.”
“Oh, really?”
“Shocking, I know.”
“And all those times you called me a bitch, you were just praising me for being so likable?” I ask, amused.
“Me stooping low enough to do that says more about me than it does about you.”
I look down at my hands in my lap. “Maybe.”
He clears his throat. “You know what I have to say about this?” he asks.
“What?”
“Fuck ‘em.”
“Fuck ‘em?”
“Yeah, fuck ‘em,” he repeats. I laugh. “What do they know? I love you. I don’t care what anyone else thinks.”
“More lessons from Cool Guy 101, huh?” I ask.
“No, that’s more of a 102 thing.”
“Ah. Right.”
“Gotta master the look first, then the attitude.”
“My mistake.”
He smiles. “And, in case you missed it, I just said I loved you.”
“I know,” I say.
“You didn’t even flinch.”
“I’ve heard that a lot, I guess.”
“Melanie, I said a lot of things when we were together, called you a lot of names I didn’t mean, but I always meant it when I said I loved you.”
I
