Page 83 of Hockey Halloween
She is so full of shit. Fine, let’s do this. “Right. You liked me so much that you slept with Percy.”
For once Maya is stunned into silence. It feels good to call her out.
“I never slept with Percy,” she says softly.
“For fuck’s sake, I was right there,” I reply.
She frowns as she puzzles this out. How can she not remember having sex with someone? My initial insult felt way too harsh, but maybe I was right.
“Are we talking about the night of the cast party?” she asks.
I give a quick nod. It still hurts to remember this—how something good turned bad so fast.
“This is turning into some Rashomon shit,” she says.
“What’s that mean?”
“It’s a Japanese film by Kurosawa. You get to see a murder from different points of view, and the story changes every time. The truth shifts depending on what you see and who you are.” She stares intently at me. “Tell me what happened that night.”
“Tell you? You were there.” Is this more of her bullshit?
“It’s pretty clear that we both have different versions of that party. And it’s no exaggeration to say that one night completely changed how we felt about each other. ”
Well, it’s not like we have anything better to do. I close my eyes and think back. It’s a night I tried to forget as soon as it happened.
I open my eyes. “Total honesty?”
Maya’s gaze is still on me. “For sure. As you say, we’re never going to see each other again.”
I nod. “Fine. While we were doing the play, I liked you, but you were dating someone so I respected that. But I found out before our last performance that you guys had broken up. So, that night at the closing party, I’d figured I’d see…how things went.”
I’d liked Maya, and having to rehearse our romantic scenes made me like her even more.
When she declared her devotion to me—in character, of course—she was so believable.
She played the overly emotional, dreamy sister while Athena played Austen’s true heroine, the sensible, repressed Elinor.
Yet Maya was the swirling heart of the play, the real star who you couldn’t stop watching.
Even my mother, who attended two performances to support my artistic efforts, peppered me with questions about “that luminous brunette.”
The night of the party felt full of possibility.
Everyone was celebrating—we’d all worked hard and we deserved to enjoy ourselves.
More than a few couples disappeared, hooking up or leaving altogether.
Maya and I had always gotten along, but now that she was single, the sexual tension between us was palpable.
I remember her teasing smile, the tilt of her head, her soft touch on my arm and chest. She was always beautiful, but now… attainable.
Maya nods without adding anything. Good, because this is the moment when everything goes to shit.
“We were talking, then Athena comes over and whispers something to you. You excuse yourself and go. And you don’t come back for ages. People start whispering that you and Percy are upstairs in a bedroom fucking. I don’t believe it, but then the two of you come downstairs together.”
She frowns in puzzlement. “Why would you believe we were having sex? Why couldn’t we have been talking? Eating pizza? Something normal.”
“Are you serious? You were gone almost an hour. Everyone thought so. Athena said you guys had been vibing for ages. Afterwards, guys were backslapping Percy, and he never denied it.” She still looks dubious, so I add, “Also, it was your face. You looked…guilty.”
She squeezes her arms around her knees, holding herself in. “All we did was talk.”
“This doesn’t sound like the total honesty I was promised.” Who talks for an hour in private during a party unless there’s something else going on?
She exhales loudly. “Athena told me I needed to go upstairs and talk to Percy. Turned out that he was really upset because he’d had a crush on me, and when I broke up with Derek, Percy thought it would be his chance.
But then he saw us together and realized I was into you.
” She shuts her eyes tightly. “It was so awful. We were really good friends, but I never realized that he liked me that way.”
Her tone softens. “He started crying. I’d never seen Percy cry before, and I felt terrible. I already felt guilty because Derek was so upset when we broke up. I never meant to hurt anyone.”
Her eyes shine even in the dim light. Is she crying? Or acting again?
“Sometimes you try to do the right thing and it backfires. I stayed in that bedroom with Percy so he could pull it together and not look like ‘a fucking crybaby’—his words—when we went back to the party. But now it turns out everyone else thought we were having sex up there. Especially you.”
I scowl. There’s no way that something I’ve believed for so long never happened. “If that’s true, why did you ignore me the rest of the night? If you liked me, you could have made more of an effort.” My words sound petty, but why shouldn’t she know that she hurt me too?
Her lower lip trembles. “What about Juliet Sutherland?” she asks.
“Who?”
“The girl you were making out with that night.”
Oh, shit . In a fit of offended pride or jealousy, I’d taken one look at Maya’s guilty face and turned away.
Focused on some sophomore who’d been trying to attract my attention all evening.
We’d messed around a little, but once I drove her home, I never called her.
High school was over, and I cut my ties with the drama crowd.
As far as I knew, Maya and Percy lived happily ever after, and I was a crap judge of character.
“Beyond what you saw, nothing ever happened between me and Juliet. I didn’t even remember her name until you said it.
” I still can’t comprehend that everything I believed was wrong.
It feels like such a waste—an honest conversation would have made such a difference.
And I’ve been distrustful of women ever since for no good reason.
“I guess that’s our story: misunderstandings on top of misunderstandings. ”
“It’s Shakespeare-worthy,” she says.
I stretch to ease the tension in my shoulders. Of all the things to happen at this party, I could never have predicted a conversation like this with Maya.
She sits up straight and fixes me with her dark eyes. “So, do you still hate me?”