Chapter 35

After sleepingin my own bed again, Monday morning I grab myself a cup of cold milk and a pack of Pop-Tarts for breakfast. It’s quite a change from the feast-like breakfasts at Carter’s house. I find myself thinking about the future, the one Carter likes to talk about like we really have one. Will Carter expect his live-in girlfriend to feed him like a king, too? I bet he will. He probably thinks that’s normal. Meanwhile, I think cold Pop-Tarts for breakfast are normal. Chloe is used to the big breakfast spread, too. If she did move in with Carter and I stayed with them for any length of time, I would probably have to step up my breakfast game.
I almost hate thinking about it—not because I have a grudge against breakfast, but because I feel crazy to even consider it a possibility. It’s tempting, not only because I like Carter, but because I like the life I could see us having together. I really do enjoy him as a person. He’s spoiled, devious, and the mirror opposite of me in many ways, but we connect on a lot of levels, too. I would have never envisioned myself feeling genuine friendship with Carter Mahoney, but I genuinely like him, even when I think he’s a pain in the ass. I don’t want to get carried away daydreaming about a future that will never exist, though. A future he’s not at all serious about, despite the things he says that lead me to believe maybe he is.
I don’t know why it feels like things have to move so fast with Carter. Maybe it’s because he is a lot to handle, he is a big gamble, and he moves fast. He blows past normal relationship checkpoints like they’re made for other people, not for him. It’s so easy to get swept up in his lightning speed, to fly as high as he does while he shares his powers, but I’m all too aware of how hard I’ll fall if he suddenly lets go and I go plummeting back to earth.
“Hey, stranger,” my mom says, smiling as she comes into the kitchen.
My cheeks flush faintly at the reminder of my sleepovers. “Good morning.”
Crossing to the counter, not looking back at me, she says, “So, Dr. Lucker’s office left an appointment reminder for you today. Something I should know about?”
Now she turns around to gauge my reaction. I’m frozen in awkwardness, horrified at the idea of the conversation that would undoubtedly follow the truth. I guess I should just tell her, though. She already knows I have spent the night at Carter’s house, and Carter isn’t a girl. She probably knows that wasn’t innocent.
“I made an appointment to get on birth control,” I tell her, looking at my Pop-Tart as I break it in half.
“I see,” she returns evenly. “I guess this means your overnights with Carter…?”
“Yeah,” I offer, but nothing else.
Mom nods again. “Do we need to talk about it?”
“Nope. I’ve got it under control,” I assure her quickly, grabbing my glass of milk and taking a sip.
Rather than accepting it and letting it go that easily, she asks, “Is this—I mean, have you already… taken that step?” she asks, haltingly. “Or are you just getting ready in case it comes up?”
I would rather crawl right out of my skin than have this conversation with my mom. “I’m doing everything I can to be responsible,” I tell her.
“How long have you two been dating?” she asks me. “You never tell me about anything, I have to hear about my own daughter’s love life through gossip. How is it other people know more about you than I know myself?”
Rolling my eyes as I take a sip, I point out, “People generally don’t know, they just talk and talk and talk. Carter and I are dating, he is more accustomed to… a faster type of girl, it’s hard to slow down when you’re with him, and I would rather be safe than pregnant. That’s a pretty detailed summary of my situation right now.”
Her gaze shifts away awkwardly, but then she moves closer to the table to tell me, “Well, you know, sometimes it works better to make him chase you a little bit. You don’t have to speed up to meet his pace. Make him slow down to meet yours. Show him you’re a girl worth waiting for.”
I don’t bother telling her that ship has already sailed, or that Carter doesn’t really switch speeds to accommodate other people. I’m not worried about making her dislike him—given who he is, I know it would take a lot—but it would be pointless. At best, it would make her stop asking questions and awkwardly leave the room. At worst, it would make her worry that I’m not in a safe relationship.
Actually, maybe the “at worst” is that she would tell me to suck it up because I’ve landed a whale, and then I would be annoyed at her for giving me even more bad advice than she already has.
No good can come of it, that’s the point.
“I’ve got it under control,” I say instead, flashing her a brief smile before turning my attention back to my breakfast.

Although there wasnothing normal about my weekend, it finally feels like things are getting back to normal at school. There is no “Zoey the ho” greeting waiting for me today as I head for the school’s entrance doors. A couple of jocks are lingering around the stone wall where Carter sometimes holds court, but he’s not there to command them. Even so, when they notice me, rather than taunts, I get a nod of acknowledgement and a friendly, rhetorical “what’s up?”
My, how the tides have changed. I walk through the halls without being obviously stared at, glared at, or talked about. When I open my locker, there is no vandalism. It’s starting to feel just a little too good.
Then I hear, “Hey, whore.”
My shoulders sag with displeasure at the ruination of this perfect arrival. I finish stuffing the books I don’t need yet into my locker, then I close the metal door and meet the blue-eyed gaze of Erika Martin.
“Hey, friend,” I offer back.
Erika smiles, her eyes twinkling. Why is she so happy? “Did you kick a puppy this morning?” I inquire. “You seem awfully cheerful.”
“A whole litter. Ugly little things.”
I crack a smile. “Not quite Dalmatian coat material, huh? Too bad.”
“No new coat for me. There’s a killer shoe sale going on this week, though. That’s pretty good consolation.”
“It is. We should go. I could use a new pair of shoes.”
Erika blinks and looks over at me. “Are you joking? I can’t always tell with you. You have a weird sense of humor.”
Hanging out with Erika is the last thing I would ever chooseto do, but I shrug noncommittally. “Hey, if you’d rather be friends than enemies, shoe shopping could be a good first step. We could get iced coffee, maybe grab lunch. There’s really no reason for us to hate each other.”
“Except the fact that we’re fucking the same guy,” she offers.
Sighing with disappointment, I shake my head. “You’re still on that? Seriously? It didn’t work, Erika. Move on.”
“See, that’s the thing. I know a lot of girls would just put up with Carter’s bullshit because he’s Carter. He won’t stop doing it, so you just have to deal if you wanna be with him. But I think you actually believe him. You really believe he changed for you or some shit, and that’s just sad.”
“I don’t care what you think of me, Erika.” Pointing to a random spot across the hall, away from me, I add, “Just judge me from way over there. Honestly, your opinion of me is not my business and I couldn’t be less interested.”
“I’m really not trying to be mean,” she states.
“Just naturally bitchy, huh?” I murmur. I can’t imagine why Carter didn’t want to be with her. She’s such a delight!
“I’ve been there before,” she tells me. “I wasn’t always like this. Carter made me… he changed me, because of the way he acts. I had to compromise a lot to be with him, and it never ends. He just takes and takes and takes. Just when you’ve finally adjusted and you think you’ll break if you bend another inch, he demands it. He’s… He drives me fucking crazy.”
That I can understand. Nodding and glancing over at her, I assure her, “I don’t doubt that at all. That just means he’s not right for you, though. I think Carter isn’t right for the majority of women. He’s a difficult guy. If that isn’t something you enjoy, you should really let him go. Wouldn’t you be happier? Why keep fighting to hang onto someone who literally drives you crazy? You couldn’t have had any peace with him. Were you always worried about other girls?”
“Constantly. If they so much as looked at him, I wanted to claw out their eyeballs. I lived in a constant state of terror that some bitch would steal him away from me.”
I’m surprised by the honesty of her answer, by her ability to admit that, but it triggers a strain of real sympathy for her. I completely get Carter making someone lose their damn mind. “You couldn’t trust him. It wasn’t your fault, Erika. He’s a hard person to trust. Not trusting him is probably the smart thing to do.”
Her eyes widen like she didn’t expect me to agree with her. “So, if you know that, then what are you doin’ with him?”
Sighing to myself, I sift through a few possible responses, but she won’t like any of them. He’s different with me would sound moronic. It’s an oversimplification for the better explanation, I fit him better than you do. She would hate that, though. It would make her feel like I’m putting the weight of their relationship’s failure on her shoulders, saying she was somehow inadequate. It’s not inadequacy, they just weren’t compatible. Carter is a handful, and the average woman is not equipped to deal with him. I don’t think Carter could make an average woman happy; luckily for him, I’m just a weirdo.
“I’m of the belief that why someone does something is super important. If you want to understand who someone really is, you don’t just need to know what they’ve done, you need to know why they’ve done it. I don’t know why Carter has done every bad thing he has done, but I do know why he cheated on you. Without being mean or hurting your feelings, I’ll just say, the same circumstances do not apply to our relationship. You and I are very different people, and I think that’s why Carter behaves differently with each of us. It’s not that I’m better or worse than you, we are just different, and I am more what Carter needs.”
I tried really hard not to offend her, but that last line slipped out, and now her eyes gleam with an embarrassed kind of anger that lets me know she feels attacked. “You think you’re so much better than me, Zoey, but you fall for the same shit. You think he always openly cheated on me? No. That was at the end, when everything had gone to hell and he didn’t care anymore. When it first started, when he still wanted to keep me, he lied about it. He tried to cover his ass, just like he’s doing with you. Carter is incapable of fidelity. He’s too damn selfish.”
That does not logically fit with what I already know about Carter’s opinions on cheating. Lying and trying to scare me off does fit with what I know about Erika though, so it’s easy enough to dodge this particular dollop of bullshit.
“I’ve gotta get to class, Erika,” I tell her. “I don’t believe you more than I believe him, I’m sorry. I think your motivation to lie to me about this is much stronger than his, so please, stop wasting your time with this. It’s gettin’ old.”
When I start to speed up so I can walk away from her, she stops and calls out, “I have proof.”
My steps slow. Proof? That’s a pretty bold claim to make baselessly.
Pivoting on my heel, I cock my head to the side and ask, “What kind of proof?”