Kennedy
“Not my idea of where I want to be on a Saturday night,” Rylie says, cringing at the posh decor that makes up Bella’s.
Natalie gives a finger to a girl that side-eyes her bracelets-and-running-leggings getup. All three of us, in the casual clothes we’d been wearing for girls night, are out of place in this clash of tight dresses and dense, perfumed ambiance. “I’m with Rylie. If you want to drink, there are better bars. We don’t even have to go to Kellermann’s, since, you know…”
Since that’s where Spencer is. Where he usually would be on a Saturday night, before he started spending less time at parties and more time with me.
I shush them, the gesture silly because the club pounds with bassy, hip music. I strain my neck but can’t see over the crowd of people. Though finals are still weeks away, you’d think it was the end of the school year. The college crowd is in full swing tonight. With an aggravated huff, I find an empty chair by a table with leftover drinks and stand on its rungs to scan the crowd.
“There!” I point, almost knocking myself off the chair before my friends steady me. I hobble down, then jerk my head in the direction I’d pointed. The three of us push through the crowd.
We emerge on the other side, Natalie first, and she bumps into another girl with long, dark hair.
“Sorry—” Natalie straightens the other girl, then drops her hand to coldly state, “Meegan.”
Meegan glares at the spot of green liquid that had splashed from her cup onto her white miniskirt. “What the hell, Natalie?”
I push Natalie back when her nose wrinkles in anger. When Meegan sees me, she makes a similar face.
“Didn’t learn anything from last time, skank? No balloons to stop me this time. Let’s see what Spencer thinks of that fake-ass hair after I rip it out—”
She shuts up. Because I hold my phone to her face, the video already playing.
“Great acting skills, Meegan,” I say. “Though I have to say, your co-star? Not exactly a silver fox, is he? Actually, he reminds me of a professor I had last year. For an ethics class. I remember that desk from office hours. How about that?”
She tries to snatch my phone. Rylie slaps her hand away. I’d let both my roommates watch the video in the car ride over. Glaring at Rylie before turning to me, she says, “What do you want?”
I turn off my phone when the growing moans draw the attention of nearby frat guys. “Leave Spencer alone. No more calling him. No more antagonizing him. You were done with him the moment you decided to cheat on him. And from here on out, if you do anything to disrupt his happiness, this video’s going live. I won’t even wait to run an article in The Weekly, even though I should because this—” I point at the black screen. “—Is surely a violation of ethics.”
Natalie makes a sound of disgust behind me. Rylie claps. I take a step closer to Spencer’s ex. Show her I won’t back down with my best, my most intense, resting bitch face. My Kennedy Fucking Walsh scowl.
“And you’re going to leave me alone, too. Spencer, me, our friends, we never want to deal with you again. Understand?”
Meegan’s mouth twitches with a rebuttal. She glances back at my phone, then clips, “Fine.”
“Good,” I slip my phone in my pocket. “Now, one more thing. Who told you about me and Spencer?”
* * *
I rush out of the bar, Natalie and Rylie calling after me. When I see my car, I unlock it and duck into the back seat where I’d tucked my computer. In our haste to leave, I’d brought it with me, forgetting that the video had already synced to my phone. Now, I pull up my trash folder. Find the first file I don’t recognize, that I never deleted. That never should have been there.
The photo loads. And then I bite back a sob. Because it’s not the photo I expected. It’s another one. A selfie. Though I hadn’t taken it. In the picture, I’m fast asleep on Spencer’s shoulder. It’s a terrible picture. Blurry and out of focus, and a portion of Spencer’s finger dominates one corner. But in it, he kisses me with a soft smile, and then I sob aloud because it’s—
It’s as good as it can be. Perfectly imperfect. Unexpected and hard-hitting. Like Spencer in all the best ways.
When did he take it? I wonder. Spring break? During one of our secret rendez-vous? The night of the wedding?
But no, it’s from before that, I see when I check the date. A week before. When I’d passed out drunk from my late birthday outing with my friends.
Natalie and Rylie get in the car with me now, squeezing on either side of me in the backseat. Rylie grabs me a tissue, and I notice I’m crying again.
“It’ll be okay,” she says. “You’ll be okay.”
“Yeah,” Natalie whispers, patting my hand. “You know I love Spencer in a brotherly way, but he just… doesn’t do relationships.”
They share commiserating frowns. I shake my head. Because they’re wrong.
I know Spencer. There’s a world of depth behind his punches and swear words and scowls. He feels. He feels and he hides it, because he feels so intensely. So fucking powerfully. If anyone has the capacity for love, for caring for someone beside himself, it’s Spencer. He cares for his teammates, those who encourage him to do better and be better. For his friends, those people who act as his family when his own pass him over.
He cares for me.
He never said it, but he does. He wouldn’t have taken that picture if he hadn’t. Wouldn’t have tried hiding all evidence of it, not realizing it had found its way to my files, no matter how hard he tried to keep me from seeing it.
I sniff, wiping away my tears as I click on the next photo. The one I
