Sending it through an email while I sat in my bed alone was about as unceremonious as you could get. Not that I ever thought I'd be one of those guys who had specials done of them on ESPN, sitting in the school gymnasium with an array of hats in front of me, and the whole crowd would erupt after I'd picked up the Clemson one. But I also never thought I'd be alone in my dark bedroom.
My father gave two sharp knocks on my door, but walked in moments after I'd met him with silence. Privacy was a luxury I was no longer afforded in my house.
"Are you packed?" he asked. "I'd like to leave before 10 tomorrow."
I gestured to my black Nike bag, hanging by its strap from my desk chair.
My father let out a sigh and raked a hand through his hair. I hated how much of myself I saw in him. "I'm not doing this to punish you, you know. You've always been such a good kid, I just...I don't know what to do with you."
"You could just leave me alone," I grumbled, rubbing stars out of my eyes.
"That's not what you need."
"How would you know what I need?" I snapped as I shot upright in bed. "You just think you know everything don't you?"
"Well I know more than you do," he replied, as calm as ever as he folded his arms over his chest. "Be ready by 10 tomorrow. I mean it."
I rolled over in my bed as he shut the door, still staring at my open text messages from Kaia. While we still kept our distance in school, she'd made it obvious I'd worried the crap out of her Sunday night after I'd left her house, and despite ensuring me everything was fine, I wasn't convinced she bought my excuse that I just hadn't been feeling well.
As if I wasn't on high alert with everyone in my daily life, I was now about to be forced into proximity with the one person who would see through me like I was made of glass and not hesitate to call out my bullshit - Chandler England.
When my father said he was getting me out of here, it hadn't truly hit me until we actually were en route Friday to the England family's old Nantucket house that I'd spent too many summers of my childhood at.
I had half a mind to text Chandler beforehand, but the optimistic part of me hoped that if I didn't acknowledge it, it would go away. I also doubted Chandler would easily forget the asshole move I made during the Diamond Duel last weekend, and her angst wasn't something that would so easily just go away if I ignored it either.
We boarded the ferry at Hyannis in Massachusetts after a silent three hour car ride, and the steady, gentle mist of rain didn't keep me from standing outside, pressed up against the railing of the ferry as it sloshed along the bay. Gulls cawed and circled overhead, some plunging down into the water to snag an unsuspecting fish for lunch. I didn't normally get seasick, but if it wasn't for the steady breeze that cooled the sickly heat pooling at my sweatshirt collar, I might have been.
Eventually, my father emerged from the indoor seating area to stand by the ramp exit, as if we desperately needed to beat the nonexistent crowd to be the first people off the ferry. I silently followed him and slipped my hat onto my rain soaked hair, accepting the mess for what it was.
It wasn't hard to spot Chandler England waiting at the base of the ramp. She looked like she belonged, and despite the fact that she fit the ambiance with her designer raincoat and boots, she was still Chandler, and she was easy to identify. It was just in the way she stood, casually vacant and clearly so done with my shit before I'd even set foot on the island. I did not look like I belonged.
Chandler purposefully turned away from me and slipped on a cordial smile for my father. "Hope last night's storm didn't make the water too rough."
"Nothing we couldn't handle," my dad replied, and I resisted the urge to roll my eyes.
"That's great to hear. Dad's fully committed to going straight to Cisco Brewery."
He chuckled. "As John would."
"He's just pulling the Jaguar around, he'll meet us at the curb in a minute."
Chandler finally turned to assess me, and judging by the way she arched her eyebrow at me, she dared me to acknowledge her back.
I casually swung my Nike bag off one shoulder. I was never one to shy away from a dare, especially not one from her. "Are you not going to offer to carry my bags, Chan?"
For a moment suspended in the tenseness between us, it was easy to forget my father was even there, until he intercepted whatever remark Chandler was about to fire back and shot our moment dead in the water.
"We've been here for one minute, don't start," he warned.
I averted my gaze away from both of them, pulling the brim of my hat further down. Thankfully Dr. England rolled up in his sleek Jaguar sedan, and we quickly piled in and glided away along the cobblestone streets through downtown.
While my father and Dr. England jumped into their usual banter, Chandler and I resigned ourselves to staunch silence in the backseat. I kept my gaze out the window, watching droplets of rain race down the glass and turn the normally picturesque downtown streets of Nantucket to distorted, foggy shapes. The hairs on the back of my neck abruptly stood on end, like when you know someone is watching you.
I snapped my head in Chandler's direction, and sure enough, her gaze was already pinned to me.
"What?" I groaned.
"What do you mean what?" Chandler quipped in a hushed tone. She tilted her head subtly towards the front seat, keen to keep our fathers out of whatever conversation she was about to wrangle me into.
"You just have that look," I stated, pulling at the sleeves of my hoodie.
Chandler scoffed in response and turned her head down towards her phone. "You always have a look, Dallas."
I turned back towards the window and watched as a group of kids came laughing out of an ice cream parlor on the corner of the street, oblivious to the grey misery of the day.
"Remind me why we're here again?" I asked with a sigh.
"Nostalgia," she drawled out. "Or something like that."
✗✗✗
"I'm actually quite impressed by Clemson's alumni network. They've received hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations towards their new business school," my father went on, as if he'd always been on board with me going to Clemson in the first place, and of course Dr. England did nothing but entertain this.
From the moment we sat down at Cisco Brewery, I'd emotionally checked out. Sun poked through the rolling grey clouds, warming the dampness of my rain-speckled sweatshirt, but the string lights still flickered on as the afternoon darkened. There was a guy in the corner of the deck setting up an oyster shucking station, and idle conversation floated over obscure indie music. On a normal day, I would have enjoyed being at a place like this. But nothing about today or my forced proximity with the England family was normal.
While the dads continued to chat over beer and bar food, I picked at a stray splinter of wood at the corner of the table, trying to resist the urge to flick the ugly, oversized bucket hat off of Chandler's head. Every time she half-nodded at something, making feeble attempts to be included in the conversation, it flicked bits of rain in my direction. If I actually spoke up and told her to stop, she'd just be more inclined to continue. Instead, I propped my chin up on my hand and made an obvious move at turning away from her, wondering if it would be frowned upon to fall asleep at the table. Dr. England and his overtly charismatic voice was the only thing that kept me semi-engaged - probably why he was such a popular professor.
"So, we're not looking to buy another place on Nantucket," he was saying.
"By we, Dad means him and Teá." Chandler suddenly launched herself into the conversation, head first. "She's so great. Has tenure at Boston College. Apparently, they've been together since last fall."
At Chandler's mention of Dr. England's girlfriend, I found myself inadvertently sucked back into the conversation. I'd figured out by now that when I met Dr. Teá Daly during Christmas, her existence was unknown to Chandler, and while her pedantic, self-centered whining continued to wear down my patience, the more sensible part of me understood her frustration. Chandler's comment rolled off everyone's backs, as most teenage girl antics did, and the conversation carried on.
"I think Meredith has a crush on her," my dad chuckled, referring to my mother's recent obsession with Dr. Daly's books on political psychology. While my mother decided against a profession in psychology after I was born, she still ate that kind of shit up.
"Oh, well it's hard not to," Chandler's tone grew more hostile. "She's such a celebrity. Dr. England loves to be starstruck."
As Chandler absentmindedly poked at her food, the redness in her cheeks continued to flare. If we weren't engaged in yet another emotional cold war, maybe it would have been funny, but now, it just fueled her discontent. I could see the inevitable escalation as she stabbed at her fries. Dr. England was obviously well-versed in absorbing the blow of her petty antics. A conversation like this wasn't worth the verbal swordplay. However, it was for me.
Something about watching Chandler eat french fries with a god damn fork is what ultimately wore my patience down to the bone. I turned my body fully to reinsert myself into their circle, making sure to bump Chandler's knee with mine under the table.
"Chandler, stop talking. Please." I didn't care how exhausted I sounded. She exhausted me. "And if you're not going to eat your fries like a human being, I will."
I grabbed the fork from her hand and aggressively shoved the french fry in my mouth. She gawked at me, appalled that I'd even dared to breathe the same air as her at this point, let alone eat food from the same utensil.
"Dallas, that's rude," my father sighed out. "Really glad to see a change of scenery has not changed your attitude."
I shrugged and plucked another fry off of Chandler's plate. "I don't have an attitude."
Chandler turned her shoulders towards me and leaned into me, filling the air with her flowery perfume. The delicate smile she wore softened me for a moment, but only until I felt the heel of her boot come down onto the toe of my sneaker, hard. I swallowed back a yelp.
Pure sabotage.
"You're right. You just have zero tolerance for conversations that don't revolve around you," she quipped.
Tensing my jaw, I nudged her knee with mine again, this time to force her heel off of my foot. My whole body rattled as I slid away from her, but before she could revel in her small victory, Dr. England wisely picked his battle.
"That's enough, Chandler." There was a casual finality to his voice. It wasn't all that firm, but it was enough to straighten Chandler up in her seat. He then turned to my father and gave him a smirk. "They used to be little angels. What happened?"
✗✗✗
Chandler had made it more than apparent how unwelcome in what was technically her space, and I was happy to oblige. After Cisco, the dads took their whiskey out to the deck, uninterested in facilitating any kind of truce and letting us retreat to our respective rooms so they could enjoy their own night without our drama. They went to golf early the next morning, leaving Chandler and I to our own devices - meaning I slept until noon, and she did...whatever it was she did. I kept my door shut and alternated between sleeping, reading Brave New World for my next AP Lit assignment, and seeing how long I could ignore everything - text messages, the desire to claw off the scabs on my elbow from baseball, Chandler stomping around the kitchen, and the growing knot of sickly dread in my stomach.
Night came quickly, and the dads had yet to return from their day out. I'd assumed Chandler continued to revel in her pettiness and let her father know I hadn't come out of my room all day, which meant he'd then passed the message on to my father. If a change of scenery for Patrick Gunther meant a change as little as the four walls surrounding a bed I slept in, consider the weekend a success.
We were leaving before noon tomorrow, and if I made an attempt to get myself ready for bed, it was one step closer to the end of this whole sordid weekend. I tip-toed across the hardwood floors towards the bathroom door and leaned against it, and when I was met with silence, I figured it was safe. Over the years, Chandler and I had shared a Jack & Jill bathroom between our rooms under the guise that it was fun for us as kids to brush our teeth together and learn how to share a space, since neither of us had siblings. We weren't those kids anymore, and other than the occasional glare, there would be nothing else shared between us.
Deciding it wasn't worth sweating through another t-shirt while my body continued to rebel against me, I went shirtless into the bathroom. Chandler was far too stubborn and far too proud to break our fun little cat and mouse game, and as I fumbled around my travel kit for my toothbrush and toothpaste, my hand brushed over my newly refilled pill bottle. My stomach rolled again, and I quickly pulled the bottle out and spilled out two before turning the sink on high, sticking my mouth under the running water and swallowing them back.
Without warning the door swung open, and in strode Chandler with her chin up and a baggy Duke lacrosse shirt hanging off her shoulder. The walls in the house were far too thin for her not to know I was already in there, and yet her eyes glazed over my bare chest with annoyance.
As Chandler's eyes broke away from me, her gaze snagged on the pill bottle still sitting on the other side of my sink. I quickly snatched it up and dropped it as nonchalantly as I could into my travel bag, where I pretended to rifle around for my toothpaste. She resumed her nightly routine, and the bathroom quickly filled with the scent of whatever cream she swiped over her face. It seemed she was back to her current favorite past time - ignoring me - and I found myself letting out a quick sigh of relief.
"So, am I entitled to the full story?" she asked casually, imploding that relief. I recognized the suspicion in her voice, but I wasn't so unraveled enough to back myself into a corner.
"I slid into home plate without a sleeve," I replied, lifting my elbow up to show her the scabs I'd earned after beating a tag in our game earlier that week. Sliding on hard, gravely baseball field dirt was a unique kind of pain, and I'd bled for almost an hour from the litany of little abrasions. "There's no story."
"I wasn't talking about your nasty elbow," she huffed. Despite her pinched tone, she gestured to the cabinets below the counter that divided the two sinks. "But there should be bandages in the bottom drawer if you're interested in basic first-aid."
"Your chippy sense of humor is impeccable as always," I grumbled, but I couldn't ignore the bits of scab I'd picked at earlier, drawing out beads of blood from underneath.
Fuck it, I need several band-aids, and my pride wasn't as wounded as my elbows. I bent down to grab a small handful of band-aids, but a flash of movement from Chandler snapped me back upright, panic flooding my veins as she turned over a small orange bottle in her hands. My orange bottle. The sounds of the pills rattling against the plastic sounded like gunshots in the silence.
"No label," she drawled, making a show of inspecting the bottle. "That's so interesting."
"What the hell are you doing?" I croaked, my throat raw from the sudden surge in sickly anxiety.
"Oh my bad, I thought this was my bag." Sarcasm peaked in her voice, and I knew she was enjoying this. It wasn't like Chandler to kick someone when they were already down, but I was sure my increasingly debilitated state wasn't like me, and she knew that.
I let out a heavy sigh. "What is it that you want to hear, Chandler?"
"I know what painkillers look like, Dallas." She set the bottle back down on the counter.
I scoffed in disbelief. "Well, I'm in pain."
Chandler gave me a slow, contemplating nod, but everything about her tone felt intentional. "If you were actually in pain, your name would be printed on this bottle, no?"
"You've never been injured before, so you have no idea how any of this works," I snapped, pressing my hands firmly into the edge of the sink. "If I say I'm in pain, I'm in pain. How I alleviate it is not really your concern."
"If we're about to pull out our knives, you need to put on a shirt," she replied casually, patting her face with some liquid from a small glass bottle. "I won't fight you when you're half-naked."
"I'm sorry I'm so distracting." I snorted, and for a moment the coy wordplay felt normal between us. I smirked at her, but it only set her off.
"Get your head out of your ass, Dallas," she snapped. "You're acting pretty damn selfish right now. Don't you think we should talk about this? You might not care about your well-being, but I know other people do."
In hindsight, I could have seen this coming. Chandler prided herself on being overly perceptive, and making sure that everyone else knew it. But there was another layer to her tone - something that could have been mistaken for concern if you listened hard enough. Almost as if those other people she mentioned included her. Hearing her vocalize it only made my chest tighten more.
"You mean like my dad?" I raked a hand through my hair with a humorless chuckle. "Yeah, he cares a hell of a lot, that's why I'm stuck here with you this weekend."
She paused and processed the blow of my words. "Well, if my presence is inducing pain, maybe you should just take another one of your pills and call it a night."
I tossed my toothpaste into my travel kit and scoffed, feeling that same sick dread well up in my throat. It coated my words with venom before I launched them. "You know, I always felt like I could trust you because you're different than everyone else I'm around. But maybe you're not. You're just like every other person who thinks they get me, but they don't. So I'm gonna tell you what I tell them - I'm not a fucking child, so stop worrying."
It was at that point I realized how much of my deteriorating relationships I was projecting onto Chandler. She was objectively an outlier - someone watching my collapse from the outside - and yet hearing her go at me felt all too familiar.
"Do you really not care?" she said in a low voice.
I could only deflect, because I didn't have an answer.
"I'm sorry, but are you actually trying to start a fight with me?" I threw her words from that night at the Cornell Club back at her, carrying none of the wit that hers had. It kept her silent for a moment, almost as if she no longer recognized the person in front of her. I hardly did.
"We don't fight," Chandler said softly, her gaze dropping to the floor. She dragged a finger along the edge of the sink. "You never let it get that far."
I worked my jaw. "Yeah, well you're not supposed to be this person. You're supposed to be on my side."
"I didn't
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