A few days passed, four to be exact, and Maci still wasn’t answering my calls. In school she barely looked at me, which was odd, and in practice she avoided me as much as possible. Her silence killed me, especially since I knew I deserved every bit of it. It was a lot easier to deal with rejection when there is someone else that could be blamed, but when there’s only you…
All the time I normally spent with Maci, I now used to busy myself with dance, future schoolwork, and useful tactics in avoiding Aiden. He hadn’t tried anymore mysterious calls in the middle of the night, but he had transferred into my English class and that in itself made my skin crawl.
It was Saturday morning, and I was awake, too keyed up to sleep after waking from a nightmare, but after cleaning my house, leaving another voicemail for Maci, and doing enough schoolwork to last until after Christmas, my mind, regrettably, was free to wander.
I thought again of Aiden, of the feelings I got whenever I was around them. Not that they were all unpleasant, they weren’t, but something about him did make me feel uneasy. Maybe he was mental or something. I mean, he seemed normal enough, but his strange fixation with me was…unsettling. And him randomly showing up in my room the other day…
Three sharp raps on my window snapped me back to reality. Please don’t be Aiden, please don’t be Aiden. I silently prayed to myself as I opened the window.
“—and don’t think that because I’m here you’re off the hook. I just don’t want my phone bill to skyrocket because you won’t stop calling me. I’m still really mad, you really hurt me and I’m not going to just forget about that…” Maci trailed on and on but, this time, I didn’t care. Tears welled up in my eyes as she rambled, and before I realized it, I was hugging her, holding on for dear life. My tears spilled over and onto my cheeks as I rushed out incomprehensible words, begging her for forgiveness.
“We need to talk,” she said suddenly, stopping my apology in its tracks. Looking in her eyes, I felt the color drain from my face. She was solemn, intense, and even somewhat grave. It scared me, in a way, her abrupt seriousness. Normally, Maci was a perky little ball of sunshine, but now… I didn’t know what to think.
“Are you okay?” I asked, my voice echoing her tone.
“I honestly don’t know.” She paused. “Can I make a coffee?”
“Sure, I think my dad made espresso this morning.”
“Here you go,” I said a few minutes later, pushing the cup towards her. “Double espresso caramel macchiato, six pumps caramel, five pumps vanilla, no whip, no foam, exactly 182 degrees.
“Impressive,” she muttered, taking a sip. She tried to smile, but the gesture didn’t quite reach her eyes. Twirling the cup around her hands, she shifted her gaze from me to the window across the room.
“”I’ve seen you do it enough; I think I’ve gotten pretty close.” I waited for her, taking a sip of my own coffee; a tick air of tension hovering in space between us. Looking down at the table, Maci traced the wood with her finger. I waited, watching tears form in the corner of her eyes; noting, with a small smile playing at my lips, how the bead made her eyes look even greener, darker, like moss rather than emerald.
“What are you looking at?” she asked.
“No-nothing,” I stammered. She didn’t buy it, I tried again. “You look really pretty right now. I’m jealous.” Silence followed, and I wondered if something I said might have come out in the wrong way. Now you’ve done it a familiar voice in the back of my head scolded me.
“You shouldn’t be.” Maci finally said her voice so low I could barely make out the words.
“I don’t understand,” I replied. I really didn’t. “Maci, really, what’s going on?”
“You really don’t know, do you?”
“Know what? What are you talking about?”
“Do you remember when I was dating Ian?” she asked, his name dripping with malice and hatred.
“Yes…? Why?”
“Do you know why I just stopped talking to him?” She finally looked at me, her eyes penetrating my own, almost in an unconscious begging fashion.”
“Didn’t he leave New York after you found out he slept with some sophomore behind your back, last summer?”
“I wish,” she whispered, her thoughts noticeably far way. “There’s something you don’t know about me, Aubrey. Something…something I’ve never been able to tell you... Something that I did, horribly wrong,” She looked petrified, and I had no idea why.
“Mace, you’re scaring me. What’s wrong, seriously, what is it?”
“Ian didn’t cheat on me last summer.”
“Okay…” I said, confused. Maci looked to the window again, then down at her hands. They were shaking, spilling her coffee out of the cup and onto the table around her, but she seemed not to notice. She looked back to me, disgusted. “Maci, what the— oh my God…” I stopped, recognition flooding me like an ice bath. I felt cold, as she gave me a small confirming nod, tears freefalling from her eyes and choked broken sobs escaping her mouth. She didn’t have to say anything; I understood completely. My best friend had been raped
