Page 94 of No One But Us

There’s a knock on the door. I choose to ignore it. First, because I’m still in the boxers and tank I woke up in. Second, because there’s no one out there I want to talk to. It’s either someone who isn’t here for me, or it’s a reporter, and that’s even worse.

The knocking persists. And persists. I relax when it stops, then nearly jump out of my skin when it comes from behind me, on my parents’ French glass doors. Ginny stands there with bleeding legs and a solemn expression on her face. I guess it’d be hard to pretend I’m not home at this point.

I open the door.

“It’s about fucking time,” she says, walking in.

“Why are your legs bleeding?”

Because I fell climbing your parents’ mile-high security fence,” she says. “And I cut my stomach on one of the spikes at the top. She lifts her shirt to show me a jagged, two-inch cut. “Do you have Neosporin?”

Once I’ve located the first aid kit and slid it over to her, I ask why she’s here.

“Because I was kind of an asshole,” she replies.

“Kind of?”

She shrugs. “You’ll forgive me.”

“What makes you think that?”

“Because your parents are way worse than me, and you always forgive them,” she says. “But I’m sorry.”

“For which of the many things you did?”

She sighs and snaps the first aid kit shut. “All of them. But seriously, Elle. I never meant any harm when I told Allison about the flowers. I was just letting off some steam, and Allison... It’s like she’s a master at helping you find every poisonous thought in your head, but instead of sorting them out, she makes them grow.”

“Letting off steam about what, Ginny? What exactly did I do?”

“You didn’t do anything. It was just... When Allison found out you were coming down, she starting putting these ideas in my head—about how you were the kind of girl who had to have all the attention, had to win over every guy.”

“She didn’t even know me…” I argue.

“I know that’s not you, and I told her that, and then she says, ‘So you never liked someone who liked her instead?’ and of course that did happen. It happened all the time when we were in middle school. Every guy I ever liked wanted you instead and—”

“That’s not true,” I counter. “Tons of boys liked you.”

“But they always liked you first, Elle,” she says quietly. “And the thing is, I kind of had a crush on someone at the beach, and two seconds after you got to the beach you were spending all this time with him, and I started to believe her theory. Especially after she caught you guys together—”

“Wait,” I say, cutting her off. “There is so much to clarify in that statement. ‘Him’? Who’s ‘him’? The only guy I hung with aside from James is Max.”

She lets out a heavy exhale.

“Max?” I screech. “He’s your crush? You spend all your free time maligning him and lecturing him. You like him? Like that?”

“Yes,” she says reluctantly. “I like him. Like that. But he was always hitting on you. You know, all ‘Ooh, Elle looks just like her mom’ and shit like that.”

“He hits on everyone,” I say.

“Yeah, I know. But Allison had me convinced the two of you were together, and then she caught you in bed with him, and—”

“What?” I gasp. “She didn’t ‘catch’ us. I showered in his bathroom because you locked me out, and he was in there with another girl when I got out. We were in the same room for all of five seconds, and Allison knew it.”

Ginny nods, her fair skin getting a little paler, and she studies her clasped hands. “I’m sorry. She thought you were sleeping with Max and trying to sleep with James and I… Until I saw all those lies she fed the tabloids, I sort of thought she might be right.”

“Let’s get something straight,” I say. “Allison never for one moment thought I was with Max. She just played you like a fiddle, and you allowed the fact that she made law review to trump 16 years of friendship. And the fact that you’d be so horrified by the idea of me with James, but want him with someone like her just blows my mind.”

She hangs her head. “I’m not horrified by the idea of you with James. At all. I think you’re probably perfect for him. But my mom isn’t doing well. Things have been bad this summer, and I knew it would set her off, you guys together. And Allison... She and my mom were tight. Like, my mom really leaned on her when my grandfather died. I never thought in a million years she could turn out to be the person she is.”