A visual of Augustus kissing Meadow’s shoulder blasts across my vision. It feels like my ribs are breaking, collapsing around my heart, and I press both palms to the middle of my chest. I was jealous of Meadow, honestly, but it never really crossed my mind that he’d actually cheat on me. We were so together, so enmeshed.
So in love.
The sense of betrayal is painful, a burning rock in the pit of my stomach, but I also feel a keen sense of embarrassment. Did I think I was the only person he’d never cheat on, even though it was always his signature?
Honestly, yes. I was about as young as he could go—or so I thought. The bartender was even younger. Maybe not even twenty-five, which if I read it on Twitter would seem creepy and disgusting, but seems perfectly natural for Augustus. People who don’t know him probably think he’s a predator. You can’t think that if you know him. After all, I flung myself on the altar of his attention within twenty minutes of our meeting.
Tears blur my ability to read the screen in front of me, and I can’t remember what I was going to look up, anyway. Instead, I type in his name, Augustus Beauvais, and click on images. They show up, so many.
Did you know he was sleeping with Meadow?
If it had been only that revelation, I might not feel this way, partly because I did already suspect, and partly because she holds—held—a powerful position in his life. They had a remarkable connection, and maybe I wouldn’t have minded so much if it had just been Meadow.
But the bartender! She was so young she couldn’t really walk very well in high heels, and her collarbones and wrists showed beneath the white shirt of the uniform. She had great tits and long glossy hair and a sharp intelligence that was learning itself. I recognized myself in her the first time we met, but it never crossed my mind, not for a single second, that Augustus would fuck her.
I click through the photos, tears flowing down the back of my throat. The thing is, we weren’t having that much sex those last couple of months. He was tired. He didn’t feel well. He dragged home from Ojai or the restaurant and collapsed into bed, his hand over my belly as I read. I tried not to mind, tried to tell myself that he was worried about Maya and he had a lot of business trouble, and it wasn’t personal.
Turns out, it was personal. He wasn’t fucking me, but he had plenty of fucks to give Meadow and the bartender, whose name I can’t remember.
It’s humiliating. It stings in exactly the same place as those times I had to leave a foster home for some specious reason—but usually because I ran afoul of one of the other kids. It stings the same way losing an internship to another privileged white boy stung and sent me on my way here.
It stings because I knew better. I know better.
The only person I can count on is myself. It’s me who will drag me out of this hand-to-mouth life and into the one I want.
And Meadow Beauvais is my ticket—I can just feel it.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Meadow
Rory glumly watches them play with Barbies. “It’s like they don’t get it at all. I thought they’d be so upset.”
I rub her shoulder, aching for her. “They’ll understand more over time, but it just doesn’t make sense to them now. What’s death? What does that even mean?” I brush her hair away from her face, tuck a lock behind her ear. “Why don’t you sit down and let me make some dinner?”
“That’s okay. You don’t have to cook for me.”
I push her a little, and she sinks heavily. “I don’t have to. I want to.”
“I was just going to make spaghetti, nothing fancy. I even have bakery garlic bread. It’s pretty much the only thing the girls will reliably eat.”
As she talks, I fill a glass with ice and some of the tea I find in a pitcher in the fridge. As I set it down, she says, “Kind of a shocker about Maya being pregnant.”
I let go of a sound that’s not exactly a laugh. “That’s an understatement.”
“It’s exciting, though, to have something happy in the middle of all the sadness.”
“Yeah.” I wash my hands thoroughly and choose an onion from the mesh bowl on the counter. “I guess.” My gut twists again. “I just don’t want it to threaten her sobriety.”
“You made that pretty clear,” she says.
I glance up. “You don’t think it’s dangerous?”
She sighs, leaning on her elbow. “I don’t know. Having a baby was one of the best things that ever happened to me. I loved it. Maybe she will, too.”