A Beginner's Guide to the American West ✓

chapter twenty-six

t w e n t y - s i x

*

The ringing of my phone drags me from sleep. It takes me a few moments to register the sound until I recognise my ringtone, and then Arjun kicks me and grunts.

"Shut that noise up," he says, his voice muffled by his pillow. I feel around for my phone and squint at the screen to see that it isn't even four o'clock in the morning yet and it's a private number. It rings out before I can answer or decline the call so I drop the phone, and my head.

It rings again. Arjun grunts again, lashing out with his foot. He gets me right in the shin and I cry out.

"Please turn it off," he says, his voice scratchy and deep.

"I will. I don't even know who it is. If you kick me again, I'm gonna kick you back."

"If your phone rings again, I'm gonna smash it. It's too fucking early."

I decline the call, muttering about the private number, and switch my phone to silent. My eyes are heavy and I need to try to get back to sleep, but then it starts to buzz and Arjun rolls over to grab it before I can.

"It's four in the fucking morning, stop calling," he says, before he hands me the phone and I see that he hasn't ended the call. I can hear a tinny voice coming out of the speaker, one that sets me on edge before I lift the phone to my ear.

"March? What the fuck? Who's that? March?"

I'm wide awake now, every sense alert and on fire in the most uncomfortable way, as though I'm being burned by a fire that I can't even see, that I have no way of controlling. The tent is half unzipped and I scramble out of the hole, my phone clutched in my hand.

"What the fuck do you want?" I hiss into the phone, well aware that all around me, everyone is sleeping. "I'm pretty sure I told you to leave me alone and never talk to me again."

George sighs. "You seemed pretty drunk in that text."

"A drunk man's words are a sober man's thoughts."

"March."

"I blocked your number. How are you calling me?"

A slight pause. "I borrowed a friend's phone."

A friend. I get this stomach-churning feeling that his friend is Will. I don't even know if they ever broke up, if Will ever found out the truth. I never said anything to him. Right now, I'm clutched by the urge to find Will's profile again and message him, to spill the entire truth of the past two years.

"March, please."

"No. Fuck you. You don't get to say my name like that," I say, ducking under the line of laundry and picking my way across the dry, cool grass to the edge of the campsite. The air has cooled considerably overnight and it's a relief to be awake without sweating or burning, but I wish I wasn't awake at four in the morning with my bastard of an ex on the phone.

"I just want to have a reasonable conversation with you, when we're both sober," George says.

"I've listened to your side one too many times," I say, sounding a lot more confident than I feel, "and I've said everything I want to say. You hurt me, you used me, and I deserve better. I owe you nothing, and I don't want anything from you. I blocked your number for a reason."

"We were best friends, March."

"Were. Before you cheated on me for two years. My self-worth isn't so low that I can let that slide. What you did, how you treated me, is inexcusable," I say, letting the words tumble out without overthinking them. Apparently I'm more honest at four a.m., and I don't hold back. "I don't want to ever hear from you again. I don't want to talk to you or see you; I don't want your excuses or your pathetic apologies, George. I want you out of my life."