Like You to Me

Adele sat across from me, eating her waffles like it was going to be the last meal she’d ever eat. I stared at her plate, wishing my appetite was a fraction of hers. The whipped cream, the slices of strawberry, the maple syrup – it all made my stomach swirl. And I wasn’t the one with the hangover. Against my better judgment I told her what’d happened. She didn’t seem surprised. She said she saw it coming from a mile away but that didn’t make me feel better. Mike would still think I was lying. He still wouldn’t talk to me.

“He’s a dick,” she said through a mouthful of food. “Forget about him.”

“I can’t.”

She swallowed. “Right, since he’s your best friend.”

“It’s more than that–”

“So you two had sex a few times. So what?” I looked at her, stunned. I’d never told her that. “Oh, come on, Shea. I see the way you look at him. And the way he tore your heart out when he starting dating Skankerella – so obvious.”

“Skankerella?”

“Whatever her name is. Look, I’ve been there before, and the best way to get over it is to sever all ties. Hanging on and waiting for him to come around is only going to cause more pain.”

I shrunk back into the vinyl cushion and sighed. “I’m used to it by now.”

Adele rolled her eyes and stuck her fork out at me. “Don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“Act like you deserve this.”

“I’m not–”

“You are.” She stabbed a strawberry and stuck it in her mouth. “You always do.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means you think you’re supposed to let people treat you like shit just so they’ll stick around. You never tell them to fuck off and stop taking advantage of you.”

“They don’t take advantage of me,” I said quietly.

“For fuck’s sake! Mike didn’t have to keep having sex with you. He could’ve done the mature thing and not lead you on. Your brother doesn’t have to drag you on tour. The band can find someone else to do merch.” She paused, then looked down at her plate. “I could…be nicer, too.”

I moved my food around my plate, avoiding her stare. Adele was almost always the only one who was honest with me. If I was doing something wrong, she told me. If I was making her mad, she told me. She didn’t sugarcoat anything to spare my feelings and she certainly never lied to me. Sure, this often got on my nerves and cause minor spats between us, but at the end of the day, I couldn’t fault her for being honest.

But she was right. I let people take advantage of me; I always had.

“No, no, you’re right.”

She looked at me with a mixture of guilt and sympathy in her eyes. “Can I tell you something I never told anyone?”

“Of course.”

“Remember when I said that I know how it feels?” I nodded. “Well, I do. And I’ve never told anyone this because I’m ashamed.”

“Adele, I’m not going to judge you–”

“I know, and that’s why I’m telling you.”

“Who was it?”

She sighed and started fiddling with her hands. It felt like hours before she took another breath. Whether it was for dramatic effect or it really hurt her, I didn’t know. But I knew how it felt. And when she finally told me, I thought I was going to collapse. “Anderson.”

“Anderson? As in used-to-be-in-the-band Anderson?”

She nodded. “Yeah, that one. But it was a long time ago and it only happened twice–”

“You two had sex?” She groaned. I laughed. “Was he any good?”

“Shea!”

“What? I need to know why he’s so cocky!”

She turned the color of the strawberries on her plate before finally nodding. “Yeah, he was actually very good…”

“God, that’s so gross!”

“It is not! Shea, you don’t understand. When he first joined the band I was in love with him.”

“Did he know?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. He obviously knew I wanted to fuck him but I’m not sure if he thought it was beyond that.”

“He thinks everyone wants to fuck him,” I clarified.

“True. But the moral of the story is I eventually got over it.”

“How?”

“By not talking to him anymore. I deleted his number from my phone and stopped answering his messages. I stopped going to the band’s shows until I could bear it.”

“So that’s why you never wanted to go on tour with them.”

“Right-o.”

The waitress handed me a box for the plate of food I never touched. Adele and I paid our halves of the bill before promising one another a phone call later in the day. She had a hangover to nurse and I had a lot of thinking to do.

The drive back to my apartment didn’t provide much enlightenment. All I could think about was what would’ve happened if Anderson and Adele had become a couple. What if Mike and I had become a couple? Would people hate me as much as they hate the girl he’s dating now? I didn’t have answers for any of those questions. I hated that more than anything.

My brother was still asleep on the couch when I walked in. It was nearing eleven-o’clock. I wanted to wake him and ask him if he knew about Adele and Anderson but I decided against it. He, too, was nursing a killer hangover and I wasn’t sure if she wanted anyone else to know. At this point I couldn’t afford to have anyone other than Mike mad at me.

“Shea? That you?”

I turned around and laughed at Saxon. He was wiping the crust from his eyes and looked utterly terrible. There were dark bags underneath of his dark blues, his hair was disheveled and uncooperative, and the left side of his face was swollen from being pressed against his arm all night.

“Who else would it be?”

He sat up and stared at me. “Mom called while you were out.”

I stiffened. “What?”

“Yeah,” he rolled his eyes. “She wants us to come see her this summer.”

“Why?”

“Fuck if I know,” he said as he stood up. He scratched his stomach before wandering into the kitchen.

“What did you say?”

“I told her to fuck off. What do you think I told her?”

I scoffed. “Really, Saxon. Did you tell her we’d come?”

“No, Shea, I really told her to fuck off.” He stared at me and my look of disbelief before returning to the living room with a can of beer and a bag of potato chips. “She wants you to call her, by the way.”

“My god, you’re disgusting,” I said over my shoulder as I climbed the stairs to my room. “When are you going home?”

“Never!”

As a response, I slammed my bedroom door. I left my phone on my nightstand when Adele and I went to breakfast and, just as Saxon had said, there were two missed calls from my mother. They were twenty minutes apart, meaning the second one was probably from after she talked to him. Without listening to them, I deleted her voicemails. With all the things going on in my life, I didn’t need to deal with her drama, too.

But there was a message I couldn’t ignore.

“Shea, it’s me. I, uh – I think we need to talk. Call me when you get this.”

My eyes closed tightly, trying to block his voice from my mind. No matter what I did, no matter what conclusion I came to, he always interrupted. As soon as I was convinced I was done with him, going to take Adele’s advice and all but delete him from my life, there he was, wanting to talk. And I couldn’t say no. I could never say no to him.

“Where are you going?” Saxon asked as I made my way through the living room.

“Out.”

“To Mike’s,” he mumbled under his breath.

“Are you going to be here when I get back?”

“Uh, as long as you have beer, food, and Netflix, I’m here.”

“Great,” I muttered, “now you’ll never leave.”

I locked the door behind me, knowing if he kept at his current pace, he’d be drunk by noon. Then he’d be useless against burglars because he’d offer them a drink instead of calling the police. Brothers.

I drove the familiar streets and reached Mike and Vic’s house in normal time. Vic’s truck was gone and I didn’t see any unfamiliar cars so I figured only Mike was there. That was fine. Whatever he needed to talk to me about was probably best done in private. (Although doing things in private only seemed to get us into trouble.)

I rang the doorbell, feeling the nerves inch their way into my stomach. My hands began to sweat and tremble and I felt sick to my stomach. I couldn’t hear anything inside so I pulled out my phone and shot him a quick text asking him where he was. I got a one-word reply: Beach.

It was a short distance so I took to walking. A whole five minutes later his lanky silhouette came into view.

“Hey,” I said quietly as I sat down beside him.

“Hey yourself.”

We stared at the ocean for a while before even thinking about speaking again. It’d been so long since we were together and not screaming or hurting one another. I didn’t want to ruin it, and I was sure he felt the same. Or maybe he didn’t feel the same way I did. Maybe he just didn’t know what to say.

“How’re things?” I asked. I didn’t dare to look at him. I was scared I’d see things in his face that I didn’t want to see.

“They’ve been better.”

I nodded. “Yeah.”

“I - I just wanted to ask you something.”

I shrugged. “Shoot.”

“What were you trying to tell me last night? Before I–”

“Was a dick to me?” He nodded. “Nothing. It’s not important now.”

He finally turned to look at me. “Shea, don’t be like that.”

“No, Mike, just let it go.”

“I can’t.”

“And why not? You didn’t care to know last night so what’s different now?”

“I feel bad for how I reacted.”

“Then what I have to say will only make things worse.”

He sighed. “You don’t have to tell me.”

“I don’t plan on it. It’s something you should find out on your own anyway.”

I could tell he was getting frustrated. “Did something happen at the party?”

“Yeah.”

“With who?”

“My brother.”

“And?”

“Mike, seriously, what do you think happened?”

“Your brother fucked my girlfriend.”

“Wow,” I faux-gasped. “Rocket science.”

“That mother fucker,” he snapped. “I’ll fucking kill him.”

“Oh, because it’s all Saxon’s fault, right? You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“He fucked my girlfriend!”

“Hmm…let’s take a second to analyze that statement. He fucked your girlfriend. Your. Girlfriend.”

“Yeah, your piece of shit brother fucked my girlfriend.”

“It takes two people to have sex, Mike. You should know that by now.”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

I stood up. My hands balled into fists and my legs felt wobbly. If he said one more thing to make me mad I was liable to hit him. “It means that sometimes people make mistakes. My brother didn’t know she was your girlfriend.”

“Yeah, right. Who told him? You? Adele?”

“No one, you fucking asshole.”

“Right, I’m the asshole.”

“Yeah, Mike, you are. He made a mistake.”

“You don’t just mistakenly have sex with someone.”

“You did,” I snapped.

“What?”

“I was your mistake, wasn’t I?”

He laughed bitterly. “No, Shea. Not even close.”

“You sure act like it.”

“You may be a lot of things but you were never a mistake.”

“Whatever, Mike. You know what I had to tell you. Is that it?”

“No. Sit down.” He grabbed my hand and pulled me back onto the sand. “Don’t be mad at me.”

“You called my brother a piece of shit.”

“I was angry.”

“That’s no excuse.”

“I’m sorry.”

“He’s not a piece of shit.”

“I didn’t mean it.”

“He’s a good person.” I was on the verge of tears and it was obvious.

“Shea, don’t get upset.”

“He’s the only one who’s always been there for me.”

He wrapped his arms around me and pulled me against him. “I know, babe, I know.”

“I’d never hurt you like she did.”

“I know.”

I collected myself before saying any additional embarrassing things. Wiping my eyes on my sleeve, I muttered a quiet apology. I stood up and started walking back to Mike’s so I could leave. Words could not express how embarrassed I was. Breaking down like that certainly wasn’t on my agenda, but now it was too late to take back and I was stuck with having said those words forever.

“Shea, wait–”

“I have to go.”

“Don’t be embarrassed.”

I turned around quickly, nearly losing my balance, and I stared at him for a long time. My eyes were bloodshot and heavy and I was having trouble seeing straight. “Why not?”

“Because you have no reason to be.”

“You already know how I feel about you and you continue to throw it in my face. So yeah, I do have a reason to be embarrassed.”

“How do I throw it in your face?”

“You get girlfriends who cheat on you. You scream at me when I’m only trying to tell you the truth. You think a mediocre apology on the beach is enough to make me forget about all these things you’ve done to me–”

“I am sorry, Shea. You have to believe me.”

For a second, I almost did. I almost forgave him for all the fucked up things he’d done to me. I almost forgot that he was leaving for tour in a few weeks’ time and I may not have another chance to settle our differences. But I’d done that so many times and it always got me nowhere. It was time for a change. It was time to do something for myself, to stop letting people walk all over me. It was time to stop listening to my broken conscience and start listening to Adele.

“I don’t believe you. Not anymore.”

Then I walked away, and it never felt more satisfying.