The Hardest Cut by Jamie Bennett (book club recommendations .TXT) 📕

My heart sank down to my swollen ankle.  “Like what?” I asked, my voice shaking.

“Just how you think you’re so hot, and how you suck and shouldn’t make the team.”

I swallowed.  Ok, well, that hurt, but at least she wasn’t talking about Shep and me.

“Everyone knows that’s not true!  I mean, you’re totally hot, G!” Caitlyn announced.  “But you don’t suck!”

“Thanks, Caitlyn.”  I took a breath.  “I appreciate that.”

She hugged me but then stood up straight, her cheeks suddenly pale.  “Oh.  I feel a little…”

I shoved her toward the bathroom.

Fifteen minutes later, Caitlyn and I were on the way to her house.  Fifteen minutes, and about ten gallons of puke, that was.  She had apologized a million times for making me leave, but to tell the truth, I’d been glad to go and drive her home.  The night hadn’t been anything like the magical bonding I’d thought it would be, at least for me.  When I’d tugged a very miserable Caitlyn between the tables toward the door, the other cheerleaders had been on the dance floor going wild, and Addison had been grinding with a very cute guy whom I recognized as my friend Kiara Lee’s crush from high school.  I felt very apart from it all, an outsider looking in, just like all the other people in this bar who were staring in awe at the Woodsmen cheer squad.

Caitlyn groaned in the passenger seat next to me as we went over a pothole.  “What was in those drinks?  Do you think the fruit juice went bad or something?” she asked.

“No, I think that it really wasn’t a good idea to have four apple martinis in under an hour,” I counseled gently.  “They don’t actually have juice in them.”

“My parents are going to kill me,” she said, and I now I felt old enough to be her grandmother.

“Everybody does this at least once.  They’ll—”  I broke off when she put her hand over her mouth.  “Caitlyn, are you going to be sick again?”  I immediately slowed and started to pull off the road.

She took a deep breath.  “No, I’m ok.  I’m fine.”  We drove for a while in silence and I watched her nervously.  “Um, Gaby?  I was lying before.”

“So you are going to throw up?”  I headed back to the shoulder.

“No, I mean I was lying about having a boyfriend.  I don’t really.  Like, in high school last year, I wasn’t even allowed to date.  I’m really getting a slow start on things,” she admitted.

“That’s ok!  We’re not in a race, right?  Why did you feel like you had to lie?”

“Addison was making fun of Bexley because she said she didn’t want to sleep with anyone before she got married,” Caitlyn told me.  “I just didn’t want to say that I’m, you know, also challenged that way.  In the sex way.”

“Addison shouldn’t make fun of Bexley for that!” I said angrily.  “It’s not any of her business.  She’s…she’s…not very nice!  Sorry to be nasty, but I do think it’s true.”

Caitlyn started to laugh, hard, but then broke off mid-chuckle and groaned.  “Uh oh.  That kind of made my stomach turn.  I think—Gaby—”  I spun the wheel to get us to the side of the road, but not fast enough.

“It’s ok,” I told her a few minutes later.  We had every window down and had shaken out the floor mat as best we could, but the situation in the car was making me feel sick, too.  “I know you didn’t mean to do that.”

“I’ll make this up to you,” Caitlyn said.  She’d been crying on and off since my floor mat had met with the last of the apple martinis in her stomach.  “My dad owns the body shop on Westmorland Street and he’ll know who can get this totally cleaned up.  I’m really sorry.  I’ll never, ever drink again.”  She went on with a lot of promises about a reformed life and her eyes being opened to the evils of alcohol, but mostly I was concentrating on breathing the fresh air rushing in my window and trying to see around the tornado of hair it created in my face.

“It’s ok,” I said again, but gravy, I was glad when my phone announced that the destination was on my right and I pulled into her parents’ driveway.  “Can you go by yourself?”  I wasn’t sure if my ankle could make it.

“I’m so fine now, I think I could do a cartwheel.  I won’t,” she assured me when I objected to this idea.  “Bye, G!”  She still stumbled some as she went up to her front door, even though it seemed like most of the alcohol in her body must have exited back out of her mouth (and unfortunately, her nose).  I watched as an older version of Caitlyn, who must have been her mom, opened the door and yanked her inside.

This far out of town, I wasn’t that far from where I had started that night, back at Ben’s house.  Well, I wasn’t exactly close, but closer than driving back to my condo.  Kind of.  As the crow flew, anyway, even if by the roads, it was a little bit of a haul.  Tessa would be asleep by now and I wondered what he was doing.  Maybe he wouldn’t mind if I stopped by.  I opened my phone to his number and looked at his name on the screen.  I considered that I could use his hose on the interior of my brother’s poor, abused car, which would make the drive to my condo a little fresher.

But if I was being honest with myself, which I was really trying to do, that wasn’t the reason I wanted to call him.  I just…I just wanted to.  It was like he had said to me before: I wanted to hear his voice.

He picked up after the first ring.  “Gaby?”

“Hi,” I said, and then didn’t really know how to proceed.  “How are