Page 94 of Under the Weatherman
What she’d said didn’t make any sense, though. She’d been untouchably popular, and if she’d wanted to ask me out, she would have. The more I thought about it, the more convinced I was she’d lied just now to save face, but there was nothing I could do about it. I couldn’t confront her again without looking insane or abusive, and so I’d just have to swallow another lie, more gaslighting. She was probably in the other room, laughing at how she’d forcedmeto apologize toher.
Kyan squeezed by to grab another beer out of the fridge. “Hey, Elizabeth, we’re all wondering how you knew to impersonate Lizzy Grant.”
She sputtered. “What?”
Dex leaned over the counter. “She pretended to be Lizzy?”
Elizabeth rolled her eyes. “I never said I was Lizzy Grant. Chelsea dared me to lie, so I told Evan we’d been in school together, that’s all. I figured social etiquette would make himactlike he remembered me for a short conversation. I never meant for him to confuse me with someone else.”
Kyan chuckled. “Naughty girls.”
Elizabeth shot me a nervous glance. I clenched a fist, trying to regain my composure, nodding to assure her I’d gotten past this. I had, but I was also not in the headspace to relitigate another embarrassing chapter of my life.
She shrugged. “I honestly thought he was playing along.”
Kyan clapped my back. “You’re so lucky, Evan. I tried to use their scavenger hunt checklist to my advantage, but Elizabeth never gave me the time of day.”
I stared at him, trying to make sense of his words. “Scavenger hunt?”
“You know”—his eyes darted side-to-side, like he was accessing his internal database—“give your phone number to a guy”—he shot a glance at Aidan in the next room—“or join a writing group.” His eyes snapped back to mine, and he started laughing. “Lie to a total stranger.”
I grinned, but the room might as well have been empty for how deaf I’d become to the noise, how oblivious to the people bumping into me. Was I a scavenger hunt trophy?
“Wait.” I looked at Elizabeth, seeing her like it was that first night, only instead of confusing her with Lizzy, I was searching for someone who’d taken a bar dare on the spur of the moment, not someone who’d plotted to add me to a string of conquests. “You never told me Bas and I were some kind of prize.”
Elizabeth shook her head. “I swear I told you about the list.”
“No.” I set my bottle on the counter, feeling queasy now. “I think I’d remember.”
She pulled her phone out and held the screen up for me to see. “We talked about it at the picnic. It’s why we decided to go out to see live music. Remember? The double date?”
On the screen, the wordspicnic,live music,double date, andbullshit conversationfloated around. I scanned the other items.
Let someone cook you dinner.
Have a deep, authentic conversation with a total stranger you’d be dtf.
Realization came crashing down. Now I understood why Chelsea, the so-called romance-phobe, had kept Bas on the hook. Had she been using him since that first night to fulfill some sick bucket list? If so, what did that make me?
God, I was tired of being a punching bag. “Was I just a trophy?”
She exhaled slightly, a hint of impatience. “At first, yeah. That’s what a dare is.”
“A dare is a spontaneous one-off. That list reads like a pre-meditated manhunt. Did you get a bonus point for getting me into your bed?” I could imagine her laughing with Chelsea about their dual conquests, and I wanted to kick something.
“First of all, no.” Her voice sounded forced, and she glanced around at the people listening in, my so-called friends. “And second, do you hear yourself? Maybe you want to take a beat to calm down.”
I did hear myself, and some self-preserving part of my brain watched on in horror, but I needed to know I hadn’t been played again, that she wasn’t playing me still. The universe continued to fuck me over.
“I am calm,” I ground out.
She stepped a little closer, quieter. “I’ve already told you I wasn’t trying to hit on you that night.”
“Sure. Like Chelsea wasn’t planning on banging my best friend.” My head fell back, and I laughed at the cruel irony. “At least she was honest about her emotional unavailability, but she was just miming authenticity for experience points, right? Jesus.”
“Unavailability?” Her eyes widened, likewow. “If you recall, you ghostedme. Not the other way around.”
“You. Could. Have. Called.” I enunciated each word like a knife stab, recalling how I’d chased the wrong Lizzy for two weeks, while Elizabeth never picked up the phone. “So did you just move down the list to the next guy?”
