Page 22 of Fake Skating
“Wow,” he said, his lips turning up in a mean smile as he gave his head a slow shake. “Some things never change.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” I asked, because I’d always been Team Alec until I couldn’t be anymore because he’d disappeared.
“Just that I thought maybe this one time you could think of someone other than yourself, maybe like a cool new thing for you to try out, but obviously I was wrong.”
“You cannot be serious.” Was the guy who’d ghosted me after a lifetime of friendship actually calling me an asshole? “You’re saying I don’t think of anyone but myself?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” he said, his voice rising. “I guess I expected—”
“Yes, you expected me to drop to my knees and do whatever you asked because now you’re Zeus the Hockey God,” I said, standing up.
“It’s late and I need to study, so maybe you should go find someone else to pretend to be your girlfriend.
I mean, it seems like the ladies line up to be on Zeus’s radar, so it shouldn’t be hard—”
“You don’t have to be an asshole,” he said, rising to his feet.
“I don’t? Because it seems to me that you’ve been an asshole since the second I got to Southview for no good reason.
If the big hockey star doesn’t want to be friends with his old nerdy buddy, that’s totally fine—I don’t want to be friends with you, either—but don’t act like I’m a jerk when you’re the jerk. ”
Just then, there was yet another knock.
“Are you freaking kidding me?” I muttered under my breath, because who else could possibly be dropping by this late on a weeknight? I walked over to the door and was shocked when I pulled it open and there was Benji.
“Hey…?” I said, surprised to see him because I hadn’t seen him since the day we moved in and also why the heck would he stop by when we weren’t even friends and Grandpa Mick hated him? Also, it’s ten o’clock at night! “What’s up, Benji?”
“I saw the lights on and I’m about to go on a food run, so I wondered—oh, hey, Zeus,” he said, looking around me with a big smile. “I didn’t know you were here.”
“You didn’t see my car?” Alec said, and his voice was so tense it made me turn around. “Really?”
And he was glaring at Benji. Not with the mild distaste he used to have for my grandpa’s annoying little next-door neighbor, but glaring like he wanted to annihilate him.
“Now that you mention it,” Benji said with a creepily huge grin, “I guess I did see a rust bucket in the drive.”
“Listen, um, Benji,” I said, having no idea what this tension was but not in the mood for it. “I really appreciate—”
“Bye, Ben,” Alec said, suddenly standing beside me.
“Alec,” I said, looking up at him in disbelief.
“Well…? Are you hungry, Collins?” he asked abruptly, angrily.
“Um, no…?” I answered, looking back and forth between the two of them.
“She’s not hungry, you fuck, so get the hell out of here,” Alec said to Benji, reaching for the door, looking like he was going to take it off its hinges with a slam.
“Alec,” I said in disbelief. “What are you—”
“Is he bothering you, Dani?” Benji asked me with a face full of fake concern. “Because if he is, I can—”
“You’re both bothering me,” I interrupted, having no idea what was going on with this angry machismo. “Thanks but no thank you on the food, Benji, and I think we’re done here, Alec.”
I took a step back so Alec could join Benji on the porch.
“Oh, hey—did you get my text the other day?” Benji asked, smiling at me as if we texted all the time.
“Um, yeah,” I said, crossing my arms as the cold air poured in. “I—”
“Fucking go , Worthington,” Alec said, stepping out onto the porch and into Benji’s face, giving his chest a push. “She already said you’re bothering her.”
“I think that was for you,” Benji replied, smiling like he was absolutely unfazed by angry Alec in his personal space. “By the way, love the oversized bong, Zeus. Very classy.”
He turned and went down the steps, and I shook my head, because nothing made sense to me anymore. I looked at Alec and slammed the door, just needing to be done with the day.
But then he knocked.
I sighed and pulled it open. “Did you forget someth—”
“You already reconnected with fucking Benji, are you kidding me?” His voice was low and gravelly, his eyes narrowed as he said it like… like it mattered, like I’d done something terrible to him by talking to the neighbor.
“He… lives next door,” I said slowly, unsure what he could possibly mean by “reconnected.”
Alec’s face was hard, and even though he looked nothing like my old friend anymore, something about the moment was straight from our past, grabbing at my chest with a hard squeeze.
“But we hate that guy, Dani,” he said with a scowl, giving his head a shake of disbelief.
“I don’t even know him anymore,” I said, so confused by his reaction and the way he said my name like we were still friends. “Do you?”
“Oh yeah,” he said. “I sure as hell do.”
“Then I guess I’ll have to take your word for it, because I don’t know either of you now,” I said. “Good night, Alec.”
“Good night,” he said, sounding like he definitely didn’t wish me good night as I slammed the front door again.
But I couldn’t sleep when I climbed into bed, not when his words kept playing in my head, over and over again.
I thought maybe this one time you could think of someone other than yourself, maybe like a cool new thing for you to try out, but obviously I was wrong.
We’d exchanged weekly postcards for years , our own little coded system of keeping in touch, and then one day he’d just stopped responding.
I never heard from him again.
NEVER.
So if anybody was guilty of not helping somebody else out, it was him.