I KNOW WHAT YOU DID
I can’t run out of class. She’ll hunt me down.
When the bell rings, she takes my hand and leads me out of class.
“Val, I’m so sorry,” I blurt out.
“Why didn’t you tell me you had a date?”
“Colin Baker?”
“He sounds cute! Dish!”
A tsunami of relief washes over me. My date seems like forever ago. I refresh my memory before describing the guy and date to Val. I omit the broken-nose detail.
“He was a nice guy, but I don’t think he was into me.”
“I know all about that. Don’t worry, Becca. On to the next,” she says. We head through the cluttered corridor as kids race to catch their buses.
“I’m going to hold off for a little while on the dating front.”
“Becca,” she says, wiping a clump of mascara from my lashes. “You have to get back out there. So you had one bad date. Move on. You just have to keep searching, weeding out all the losers. Mr. Right is out there, but you can’t just sit back and hope he finds you.”
And then Val gives me the look, the look Diane warned me about. The look Huxley has perfected into a science. The “oh, you poor, pathetic single girl” look. Wide eyes, pouting lips. One of the biggest joys coupled girls have is giving their single friends dating advice. Just because they lucked out—and it’s luck, nothing more—they believe that makes them dating experts. I’m sure it’s one of the reasons Val worked so hard to land a boyfriend. She’s always wanted to be on the other side of this conversation.
“Val, I just don’t feel like dating right now.”
“That’s not a healthy attitude. There are so many great guys out there. Don’t shut yourself off.”
“I don’t need your advice!”
Val leans back, surprised by my outburst. “Fine, you don’t want my opinion. Let’s get a guy’s point of view. Ezra!”
With preternatural timing, Ezra walks down the hall at that exact moment. I wonder if he’s been watching us, if he saw my outburst. My body clenches, bracing for impact. But I also can’t wait to look at him again.
“Hey,” he says to Val. I never noticed how cute his deep radio-deejay voice sounds.
“Ezra, tell Becca that she needs to get out there and keep dating.”
Ezra and I look at each other, neither of us wanting to talk first. The thumping of my heart in my ears drowns out all ambient noise. It’s just me, Val, Ezra and blurriness.
“I don’t really think that’s my place to say,” he says.
“C’mon, even as a hypothetical,” Val says. “She needs to keep dating. There are a lot of good guys at Ashland.”
“I don’t know,” he says, his eyes drifting up.
“Can we not talk about my dating life?”
“Oh, stop. We’re all friends here.”
Ezra licks his lips. Awkward and adorable, for sure.
“What do you think, Ezra?” I ask. “Are there decent guys at this school?”
“There’s a handful.”
“Exactly, sweetie,” Val says. “Well, more than a handful. Three and a half handfuls.”
“But, you know,” Ezra says. He waves his finger, a grin emerging on his face. “I don’t think you should worry. I think if there is a gentleman interested in you, he will make it known. He wouldn’t let you get away.”
I grip my hanging backpack straps. “You think?”
“I have a feeling. He just has to wait for the right time, or until he can’t wait any longer.”
“It’s all about timing,” Val says.
“Good to know,” I say. I take a calming breath.
“Thanks, honey,” Val says to Ezra. “You’re the best.” She kisses him on the lips softly. Not like how I kissed him.
* * *
The only way to get my mind off the current drama surrounding my life is work. Not homework.
My other work.
Since it seems dangling another girl or guy in front of their faces is useless, I have to take a new tack to split up Steve and Huxley. I have to look within. I browse pictures of them online. I can only imagine how much worse school will be now that they’ve patched things up. Everyone will want to be like them. Students will move heaven and earth to find a suitable soul mate. And us singletons will be ostracized even more. I can’t let that happen. I click on a picture of Steve and Huxley in cowboy hats at some carnival, and the conversation I heard between Coach and Steve flashes in my mind. Then I remember Greg Baylor talking up Chandler University at lunch.
A half hour later, I waltz into Diane’s room with my laptop. I’m thinking this will be my last case as the Break-Up Artist, so I better make it count. Bari and Calista are onto me. Who knows if they’ve recruited others.
Diane finishes folding laundry. My mom wants her to do more chores around the house, and watching talk shows doesn’t count.
Without notice, the kiss with Ezra rears its ugly head again. Why do I keep thinking about him at the most random times? Is laundry some kind of subliminal trigger? I remind myself that I kissed my best friend’s boyfriend. I could be stoned to death in parts of the world for that.
Diane snaps her fingers in my face. “What’s gotten into you? Are you still hung up on that Colin guy?”
“No.” Of course not. I have a new boy to fixate on. Is that true? This is how a girl becomes guy obsessed. Will I just keep finding guys to pine for, an addict perpetually in search of my next fix?
“Don’t lie to me, Becca. I’m your sister. I used to change your diaper.”
I have to tell somebody. I have to say what happened out loud, to somebody. And Diane’s right. We are sisters. If I can’t tell her, then who can I tell? Definitely not my best friend.
“I kissed Ezra, Val’s boyfriend.”
Diane snorts when she laughs.
“I’m a horrible person.”
“You’re only a horrible person if you enjoyed it.”
She catches the extra current of shame rippling across my face. “Becca!”
This is bad. Even Diane is taking Val’s side. Every rush of excitement I get from thinking back on it causes an equal and opposite reaction of disgust. What if Val finds out? What if anyone at Ashland finds out? Is there a scarlet letter for bad friendery?
“I don’t know what to do,” I say. “I can’t stop thinking about it.”
“That’s easy. Don’t do it again.”
“What if I want to?” A week ago, I would’ve rolled my eyes and walked away from a person talking such nonsense.
Diane doesn’t roll her eyes. Her expression turns solemn. I wonder if she knew this day would come eventually.
“So you like him?” she asks.
I nod my head. I don’t know if there exists a tipping point for officially liking someone, but I believe I’m hitting the major criteria. Can’t stop thinking about him. Uncontrollably smiling when I do think of him. Want to see him right now.
“He sounds like a creep,” she says.
“No, he’s a good guy.”
“He’s dating your best friend and openly pursuing you. I don’t have a dictionary on hand, but I’d say that’s a creep.”
“It’s not like that. You don’t understand.” I picture the way Ezra acted with me, so delicate and sweet. He didn’t have a secret agenda. Diane only views people’s actions in black-and-white—mostly black.
“Will Val understand? You do realize that if you want a relationship with lover boy, your relationship with Val is over.” Diane scowls at me, taking this very seriously for someone not involved. “Are you going to be one of those girls who happily ditches her friends for a guy?”
That leaves a bruise.
“It’s not like I meant for this to happen. It just did. I’m still trying to make sense of it, and I thought I could talk to you about it honestly. I thought for one day you could drop the whole ‘everybody sucks’ mentality.”
I set my laptop next to her. “Can you just make the call? I wrote out what to say.”
Diane gives me a disappointed look, as if I must always view her life as a cautionary tale. She peruses my script.
“And use a Southern accent.”
Diane dials Steve’s house. She rests her feet on the clean-clothes pile.
“Hello, Mr. Overland? How are you doing today? I work for Coach Robert Latham at Chandler University. I was calling to find out if Steve is coming down next weekend to check out our lovely campus....He hasn’t told you about it? Teenagers today!”
I stifle a laugh at Diane’s over-the-top accent. She’s watched Steel Magnolias one too many times.
“Greg Baylor had mentioned Steve was visiting next weekend during our open house....News to you? Well, here’s some news for you. It’s a great opportunity! All-expenses paid, meet with the coach and players, bunk in the dorms. I think he would really enjoy it.”
Diane gives me the thumbs-up. We can argue, but she’s always there when I need her. The definition of a Grade-A sister.
“...Of course. I understand. Absolutely discuss it with Steve, and just send us an email. You can even talk to Coach Latham directly, if you want. Don’t even have to bring up talking to lil’ ole me....Uh-huh. Sounds good. And tell Steve it’s seventy-five and sunny here. You have a wonderful night, sir.”
Love is in the air at Ashland. But not for long.
28
I’m woken up, not by it finally being light at this hour of the morning (hello, daylight savings!), but by the buzzing of my phone at five forty-five in the morning. From an unknown number. Curiosity overtakes grogginess, and I answer.
“Two-point-oh. Did I wake you?”
“Aimee?” Diane’s friends always called me Two-point-oh, a newer version of my sister. Leave it to her to call apart from Erin and Marian. She always did her own thing, even if that included calling at insanely early hours. “Shouldn’t you be sleeping?”
“The baby loves to kick.”
“Wow! It’ll be born before you’re twenty-five. You’ll be more of an older sister,” I say with a laugh. I don’t get why people want to have kids so young. I’ve heard your twenties are the best years of your life. Why do you want to waste them changing diapers? But Aimee always had a competitive streak, and if Erin could pop one out, then so could she—without gaining as much weight.
Wait—why am I making chitchat with my sister’s alleged friend at too-early o’clock?
“What do you want?” I ask. That sounds rude, but she can attribute that to lack of sleep.
“I want to talk to Diane. We all do. This has gone on long enough. I don’t know why Diane is so mad at us, but it’s time to clear the air.”
She makes it sound like Diane’s some little kid having a tantrum. “It’s been a tough year for her.”
“I wouldn’t know. She hasn’t spoken to me.”
“You don’t know what she went through.” My heart speeds up. I wasn’t expecting a fight this morning. I stay on the defensive. Even though what Aimee’s saying is technically true, like with my mom, Diane doesn’t have anyone else in her corner. It’s forever us versus the couples. “She was devastated. She was in shock for weeks.”
“I don’t know why,” Aimee says.
That puts me into shock. No need for coffee. I am awake.
“The writing was on the wall for months with them. I’m shocked they didn’t call it off sooner.”
“First of all, they didn’t. He did. Six hours before! If he knew from the beginning that his family wouldn’t let him marry a non-Indian girl, then why did he continue to string my sister along?”
“A non-Indian girl?”
“Yeah. His family said that if he didn’t marry an Indian girl, he would lose his inheritance.”
Aimee doesn’t say anything. I’ve heard of pregnancy brain, where you forget certain things, but did she honestly forget about that? “Is that what Diane told you?”
“Sankresh just wanted some fun before finding a traditional Indian wife.”
“Becca.” She lets out a long exhale, like people do when they have to say something they really don’t want to. “Two of his older brothers married white girls, and his family didn’t say a word.”
“Maybe not in public.”
“Being Indian had nothing to do with it. You think he would’ve waited until just before the wedding to call it off? Trust me, that was the least of their problems, and Diane knows it.”
“Then why didn’t she break it off?”
“Because she wanted to get married.” Aimee stops herself. “I’m sorry.”
“That’s not true.” I grip my phone until I feel the plastic buckling. “It’s not like you care.”
“But I do! We all care! Diane is one of my best friends. Even though she won’t talk to any of us, I still consider her one of my closest friends.”
“Seriously?” I wonder why they kept trying, when Diane wasn’t giving them anything back. Was their friendship really that strong?
“She was there for me when I was in a dark place, almost as dark as where she is now. It’s a weird-ass bond we all have, and now she won’t even talk to me. Do you know what that’s like?” I find myself nodding without realizing it. Diane can be stubborn, but she needs the maxipad girls.
I have some time before I need to hop in the shower. “I know how you can see Diane again.”
* * *
With ten days to go until opening night, rehearsals have been stretched an extra hour, which feels like an extra decade. Each minute is another challenge to not look over at Ezra, and to stop wondering if he’s looking at me. In those moments (and there have been plenty) when I succumb to temptation and turn my head to him, he’s distracted with painting or talking to his crewmates.
“Huxley, can we take a break?” Ally says, wobbling around. “I’m feeling a little dizzy.”
“If you must,” Huxley says, looking unimpressed. “Let’s take a quick water break.”
I’m relieved. Most of my hydration has sweated onto my clothes. I stumble to the water fountain with my empty bottle. Who knows what kinds of germs rest on it, but I don’t care. Must have water.
Kerry fills up hers and Ally’s water bottles. “Did you hear that another girl came forward claiming that she hired the Break-Up Artist? Urban legend, my ass.”
“I think between her, Sarah, Bari and Calista, they should find her in no time,” Ally says. I suddenly feel fully hydrated, but I can’t move. I must keep eavesdropping.
“Seriously, how sad and pathetic do you have to be to break up couples for money? She must be uuugly.” Kerry caps the bottles. “It’s all yours,” she says to me.
I check myself out in the reflection of my bottle. Isn’t it sad and pathetic that people in relationships act so horribly that they force people to contact me? I inhale a gulp before filling up my bottle. When I finish, I jump back, startled that it’s not a girl waiting behind me. It’s Ezra.
I look at him. I have to. He’s right in front of me. It’s the perfect excuse.
“Hey,” he says.
“Hi.”
“I was just getting some water.” He points at the fountain.
“Yeah. I just got some. It’s good.” I squeeze my bottle until the cap almost pops off.
“Good.”
“Yeah.”
“Um, you looked... You guys were good out there.”
“Yeah. Ten more days.”
“Cool.”
“Yeah.”
“Good,” he says.
“I’m really excited.” We’re just two people having a conversation. Totally normal. Just talking about...I’m not really sure what we’re talking about, but it’s of the G-rated, non-home-wrecking-slut variety.
“I’m gonna get back to the squad and drink my water.”
“Cool.”
“Yeah.” I run-walk back to the bleachers. I remember that I’m still thirsty and take a sip. I would love for us to kiss again. (Wow, I did not know what I’d been missing out on!) Instead, I pucker up to my water bottle and chug.
“Rebecca,” Huxley says. I stop in my tracks. She waves me over.
I do as I’m told. “What’s up?”
“I have a question for you.”
“What is it?”
“How long have you and Ezra been hooking up?”
29
I peel pieces of the label off my bottle. “What are you talking about?”
“Don’t lie, Rebecca. It’s rude and it gives you premature wrinkles.”
I crinkle my brow, seized by worry.
“So does that,” she says.
“I was just getting water.”
“I didn’t just fall off the boat. I’ve never seen such a charged interaction between two people. Well, aside from Steve and me.” She does a quick stretch while I stand here awkwardly. “Now I get why you weren’t into Colin Baker.”
I think fast for a cover story. “It’s really embarrassing.”
“I can’t wait to hear it, then.”
I sit down on the bleachers and act mortified—head in the hands, et cetera. “He picked me up from Chris’s party since you obviously weren’t driving me home. I was stupid drunk, and I kind of threw up in his car.” I laugh it off. “Like chunks of dinner all over his leather interior.”
She holds up her hand. “No need to elaborate. I recommend you stay away from alcohol, Rebecca, if only because of the empty calories. So nothing else happened?”
“No.” My voice returns to calm. The key to lying is convincing yourself that what you’re saying is true.
Huxley calls everyone back to practice. Even though she thinks nothing happened, I still feel uneasy about her knowing anything. I get back into position, and with all my mental power, I concentrate on dancing. Not on Ezra.
* * *
Diane sits in my mom’s throne watching a cooking show with a chef so thin I doubt she ever eats anything she prepares.
“Hey,” she says. “You can change it if you want.”
“I have a question.” My voice travels to helium levels. “Did Sankresh’s brothers marry white women?”
“Wow. That was the non sequitur of non sequiturs.” Diane is wearing her usual uniform of Rutgers sweatshirt and pajama pants, and I want to take her in the back and hose her down. I feel this disgust toward her creeping in, toward what she’s done to her life.
“Did they?”
“Yeah, I think so.”
“Then why was that okay?”
“Sankresh wasn’t as strong as they were. He was kind of a pushover.”
Maybe that explains why they were together as long as they were. Diane mutes the TV and kneels on the Throne to look at me. “Becca, relationships are complicated.”
“They can’t be that complicated if I break them up so easily.”
“Did you hear that?” I hear faint screams from upstairs, my mom’s voice. Diane and I look at each other, verifying that we both heard it.
“Mom, are you okay?” Diane yells as we run into my parents’ bedroom.
“If you don’t stop that, we’re going to call the police!” my dad yells.
Diane swings open the door. My mom and dad are screaming at someone out the window.
“Oh! My windows!” my mom says, feeling the glass. “If I find scratches, you’re paying for them! Do you hear me?”
I race to the window and nearly die from simultaneous shock and embarrassment. Ezra stands in our backyard, next to our rusty swing set. Pebbles lie at his feet.
“What the hell were you doing? You vandalized my property!” my dad yells.
“I’m sorry,” Ezra says. “I thought this was Becca’s window.”
“No, she’s one window over. Couldn’t you have sent her a text message?”
Diane pats me on the back. “It’s lover boy.”
“Who’s lover boy?” my mom asks. She comes closer and whispers to me: “Is that the boy you went on the date with? He’s not what I pictured.”
“No!”
“You vandalized my property!” my dad says again. He repeats himself when he’s angry.
“He’s a friend of mine from school. I’ll take care of this.” I draw the blinds and sprint to my bathroom for an outfit check and a quick blush and lipstick touch-up.
I haven’t spent time in my backyard in years. I’m too old to play here. It’s a shame I can’t donate the space to little kids in need. Ezra sits on a swing, probably getting tetanus as I speak. He digs his hands inside his hoodie. Our outdoor lights paint him in silhouette, and he’s never looked cuter.
“I’m sorry for the fracas,” he says. His voice sounds sexier than ever. I’m the only one that gets to hear it.
“Hey,” I say. For some reason, it’s the only word that comes to mind.
Ezra pulls me in for a kiss, and it sends a blast of electricity through me. “I can’t stop thinking about you,” he says.
“Me, too.” But I’m also thinking of Val. I squeeze his hand, wanting him to squeeze back.
“You’re incredible, Becca. I’ve never felt this way about anyone.” He runs his hand down my cheek. It makes me shiver.
Ezra’s phone chimes with a call, but he silences it before the second ring.
What if that was Val? I can’t let myself get sucked into the vortex like the couples at school. Not when Val is sitting in her bedroom alone trying to talk to her boyfriend.
“What is it?” Ezra asks, noticing my giddiness deflate.
“I can’t do this,” I say.
“Val?”
I nod. “How is this so easy for you?”
“I feel awful, but I know I’d feel worse if I let you go. It drives me crazy being in the same halls as you, and not being able to do anything about it.”
Does he prewrite these lines? Still, I can’t help but swoon. They only sound stupid until a guy says them to you.
“What are we doing?” I ask. “I can’t go behind my friend’s back.”
“We don’t have to. If she saw how right we were together, she would understand. She wants us to be happy,” Ezra says, completely clueless about his girlfriend. “I think she would be more upset if we kept sneaking around.”
“She would be miserable, no matter what.”
Ezra swings next to me. He laces his fingers into mine. I can feel his warmth prickling the hairs on my arm. “I don’t want to hurt Val. But why should we both be miserable to make her happy?”
I pull back. Suddenly she’s making him miserable? That’s a bit harsh. Val isn’t some third-world dictator.
“Bad choice of words,” Ezra says. He reaches for my hand again. “Not miserable. Val and I just aren’t right, not like us. There’s chemistry between us. You have to see that.”
I gaze up at the sky, reaching for some kind of answer. All I can see is the North Star and a few others fighting through the pollution and lights. I don’t know how a field of science with beakers and boron came to be a relationship necessity. There is something between us. A natural comfort level and physical attraction. It’s all brand-new, and maybe I should keep experiencing it. I want to.
I take a deep breath. “So what happens now?”
“I—I don’t really know. I guess I’ll start by meeting you first thing in the morning at your locker, and we’ll take it from there,” he says. Ezra tries for another kiss, but I shuffle to the side.
“What about Val? You need to break up with her.”
“I’ll do it before homeroom.”
“Ezra!” Even though we’re outside, I feel walls close in on me. I need time to process what’s happening. Does this mean I have a boyfriend? Isn’t there more of a gestational period? I wish there was an instruction manual.
“The longer we wait, the more upset she’ll be. We have to tell her.”
“Eventually,” I say. I leap off the swing set. I need to move around. “We have to wait. First, you need to break up with Val immediately. We’ll play it cool for a few weeks so she can heal and I can get used to all of this, and then we can go from there.” Ezra won’t have a problem because people always blame the other woman. I may not be popular, but Ashland High won’t be able to resist sinking its teeth into this gossip and piling on the dirty looks.
“What do you mean, ‘go from there’?” he asks. He grounds his feet into the dirt. “You mean become official?”
“Sort of.”
“I don’t want to wait! I want you to be my girlfriend now.”
“I thought you weren’t into labels.”
I prefer labels on my clothes, not my life. Why does it always come down to being in a relationship? I’m not sure I’m ready for that. I don’t want to join the packs of relationship zombies at Ashland. I don’t want to be known solely as someone’s girlfriend, or begin all my sentences with “my boyfriend.”
Ezra pats the swing next to him, and I sit down. His hands are clammy with sweat, and it’s nice to know I have the power to make a guy nervous. “Becca, I know this is fast. But have you ever seen When Harry Met Sally...?”
I nod yes. It’s one of the only Meg Ryan romantic comedies that doesn’t make me groan.
He gazes into my eyes, and it’s as if we’re back on the skating rink. “Remember the part at the end, when Harry says to Sally, ‘When you find the person you want to spend the rest of your life with, you want the rest of your life to start now’? That’s how I feel about you. Not the ‘rest of my life’ part. But you are the girl I’ve been searching for. You’re so different and interesting. This may sound crazy, but I can see myself falling in love with you.”
I lunge forward and kiss him, one of those deep kisses where our faces mash together like peanut butter and jelly. With tongue, but not gross lizard tongue.
“I don’t know if I’ll be able to hold back touching you or kissing you every time I see you pass in the hall, but I’ll try,” he says.
I blush at the thought of Ezra being so ravenous around me. “Parting is such sweet sorrow,” I say.
“Likewise.” Ezra kisses me again. We need to block out a Saturday afternoon to do that more. He pulls back, but our faces are so close.
I get a weird feeling and look up at my house. Diane glares back at me, then quickly draws her blinds.
30
Even Ezra chewing food is sort of cute. I dart my eyes at him for a split second while I stand in line to pay for my food. School has an added layer of excitement now. It’s a game we’re playing—sneaking glances in public, finding ways to brush against each other in the hall—and I want to win.
“Hey.”
I almost drop my salad. Behind me, Fred grips a tray with a Philly cheesesteak, potato chips and a regular Coke. I wish I could eat like that.
“Can we talk?” he asks. “In private.”
“Sure.” I sneak in a 1-2-3-look at Ezra while following Fred. We walk to the one pay phone left standing in school, possibly in the state. “What’s up?”
“Are you the Break-Up Artist?”
My stomach squeezes into a tight fist. I knew people would be suspicious eventually, but never thought I’d be accused point-blank. I don’t have time to prepare a story. Fred is drop-dead serious. He’s just looking for confirmation.
“What? No.”
“I saw you slip Steve’s phone into the couch cushions at Chris’s party. And then all that drama happened over the text messages. I started to think there was a connection.”
“I didn’t take his phone.”
“And then I remembered your revenge plot for Jeremy’s comics. The way you talked about it, it was strange, like you’d done it before.”
My hands are slick with sweat. I place my tray atop the pay phone. I thought I was so clever, so cautious, but apparently, I’m not invisible to everyone.
“Becca, I won’t tell anyone, but you have to stop.” He pushes his glasses up his nose, and he seems more nervous than me.
“Stop what?” I can’t even convince myself. “I’m not doing anything.”
Deny, deny, deny. Fred’s face sinks into a hangdog frown. He wants me to trust him, but I can’t. I can’t trust anyone with this secret. It’s too valuable not to use. He would be a hero to the school, to every school, to Huxley and Steve. His social standing would skyrocket. He’s too smart to not take advantage of that, and I won’t let him.
“I’m going to eat my lunch. The period’s almost over.”
“Bari keeps snooping around. She’s recruiting other girls who’ve used the Break-Up Artist. She’s getting closer. Whatever you’re planning, it’s not worth it. Give it up.”
I remain a locked fortress, and won’t even give him a nod.
“Listen.” He touches my arm then instantly pulls back as if I’ll bite. “I’m not sure why you’re doing this, but maybe it’s time to stop. You can’t manipulate people like this. Relationships are tough enough.”
“And how would you know? It’s not like you’ve ever had a girlfriend.” I pause, taken aback by my harshness. “Is the witch hunt over? Because I’d like to get back to my lunch table.”
He shakes his head, more like a teacher and less like a friend. “Don’t let me stop you.”
I leave Fred with the pay phone, and I fight back all feelings of guilt. His wounded expression burns into my memory, but I push it down. I have to look out for myself.
This will all be over soon, I repeat to myself. My time with Huxley is supposed to be temporary.
“You look flushed,” Huxley says. I take my usual seat across from her and her tiny green salad.
Greg horses around with Steve, punching his back and rubbing his shoulders. Huxley is not amused.
“Steve-o, we are going to tear up Chandler U! Like rip it from the ground. Start sleeping now, because this weekend is going to be nuts!”
Steve isn’t as hyper as Greg, but he can’t hide his dopey smile. He’s restraining himself for the table. Well, for one person in particular.
“Aren’t you already committed to going to Vermilion?” Huxley asks. “Isn’t it unethical to go on this visitors’ weekend?”
“I haven’t formally accepted either school yet,” Steve says. “My dad thinks I should check out Chandler before making up my mind.”
“You weren’t planning on playing football, though. Have you told them that?”
“I don’t know. I shouldn’t completely shut that door, you know?”
“I thought your mind was made up.” Huxley keeps up her pleasant, sing-songy tone.
“I guess it’s not.”
The table gets quiet. Before any of their friends can second-guess the stability of their back-on relationship, Huxley scoops up Steve’s hands.
“You’re right. You shouldn’t close any door just yet. The weekend sounds amazing! I know you two will have a blast.” Huxley pecks his knuckles. He caresses her cheek.
“Thanks, Hux.”
Huxley pushes lettuce back and forth on her plate, and presses on one of her fake smiles.
* * *
Diane hates needles. In high school, she attempted to get her ears pierced, but flaked the second she sat in the chair. It wasn’t until her bachelorette party when Erin, Marian and Aimee got some Long Island Iced Teas in her and dragged her to a piercing place that she finally got them done. Sometimes, Diane needs to be pushed. Sometimes, she needs to be ambushed. I repeat this to myself as I sit in the living room waiting. I’m doing this for a good reason. Because I love her.
Diane walks into the living room, and the same look of hurt and betrayal that flashed across her face at Owen’s birthday party comes roaring back. Her shopping bags slip out of her fingers.
Erin, Aimee and Marian sit on the couch in various stages of drinking coffee. I stand up from the ottoman, my hands clasped. “Hey, Diane. Look who came to see you.”
Diane sits fully upright on the Throne across from them. If she were in etiquette class, she would get an A plus. I feel our track lighting beaming straight on me.
Erin and Marian seem as uncomfortable as me. Aimee, for once, is the quiet, passive one. Maybe it’s the pregnancy wearing her out.
“I’m so sorry about Owen’s birthday,” Erin says to Diane. The words puncture the silence like a fire alarm. “I had no idea you were coming, Diane. We’ve tried a million different ways to get in touch with you.”
“Finally, we decided to come over to make sure you were still breathing,” Marian says, flicking red hair out of her eyes.
“I am.” Diane rolls her bracelet around her wrist.
Erin looks at me for some help, but I can’t step in. I have to stay back. This isn’t my battle.
“Diane,” Erin says, sounding more desperate. “Please talk to us. We’ve been worried about you all year.”
“If you were so worried, then why are you only coming around now?”
“Why have you been ignoring us for the past year?” Marian asks. “We’ve called, texted, emailed. I think Erin wrote an actual letter and mailed it to you.”
“But you never came by the house. That would be too inconvenient for you, wouldn’t it?”
“No! Of course not,” Erin says, always the people pleaser. Baby Owen is going to be one spoiled child. “It’s just...”
“You’ve been too busy.” Diane shakes her head in disgust and points at Erin, Aimee and Marian. “A baby, an almost baby and a wedding. Who has time for the sad, pathetic friend?”
“You’re right, Diane,” Aimee says. “We were busy. Why would we visit you if you wouldn’t even pick up the phone? We love you, but we can’t put our lives on hold, and neither should you.”
Aimee glares back at Diane. She’s the muscle of the couch group. She possesses a bluntness and take-no-crap attitude that a woman needs if she’s going to work as a publicist while eight months pregnant. I would never tell Diane, but I always admired her.
“What Aimee means is that we are here to support you, but you can’t keep pushing us away,” Marian says.
“No, that’s not what I mean. What the hell is going on, Diane?”
“Why would you invite Sankresh and her to Owen’s birthday?” Diane says to Erin. Her entire body is still, poised to attack if need be.
“Because he returns phone calls,” Aimee says. “I’m not getting dragged down into your immature drama. It’s time to grow up and move on.”
Diane faces a wall of classic “I’m sorry you’re single” looks. In the mirror behind the couch, I catch my mom’s feet on the stairs. I want to join her so badly.
“It’s so easy for you to judge. Need I remind you that if it wasn’t for me befriending Bill senior year, you would still be single.” Diane looks up to the skylight. Tears form in her eyes, and she’s probably hoping gravity will push them back in. “The guy I loved broke up with me on the day of my wedding. You will never know what that feels like.”
“It’s not like you didn’t see it coming,” Aimee says. I want to throw her coffee in her face.
“What does that mean?” Diane says.
“Take off your rose-tinted glasses. There were plenty of warning signs, and you ignored all of them. Do you remember what happened at your bachelorette party? About two Long Islands in, you started crying about how you didn’t know if you loved Sankresh or not.”
I do a double take at Diane. I’m surprised she didn’t add dun dun dun.
“I was drunk!”
“But you still said it.”
“So I had a little bit of cold feet. I still loved him.”
“Dammit, Diane! Sankresh tried to break things off months before, but you wouldn’t have it. You knew he was such a pushover that you could talk him out of it. You were so hell-bent on getting married—”
“Get out!”
Before I have time to process this bombshell, Diane launches herself off the Throne.
“The only reason you guys came here was for a laugh. Oh, look how heartbroken Diane is. One year later, and it’s still hilarious. Well, you know what else is hilarious? Erin’s butt-ugly baby, Marian’s flaming husband and that eating disorder you had in college.”
Erin and Marian hop off the couch. Their shocked expressions quickly congeal into looks of pity. They lift Aimee off the couch. I bury my face in my hands, embarrassed enough for the two of us.
“You are pathetic, Diane,” Aimee says. Her words sting my ears. “But not for the reason you think.”
Once the women slam our front door shut, Diane whips her head around to me. I’ve never seen such darkness in her eyes.
“You ambushed me.”
A hydrogen bomb has exploded over my smart idea. I didn’t think this would happen, but I guess I don’t know my sister as well as I thought. “I wanted to help,” I say through tears. “Diane, you can’t keep living this way.”
“Do you think I want to? But how can I face anybody, when all they see is the jilted bride?”
“That’s what you see.”
What is she fighting against? It’s like she doesn’t want her life to improve. She just wants to keep hating Sankresh, and she can’t hate Sankresh if any part of her life doesn’t suck.
“Some sister you are. You steal your best friend’s boyfriend, and you think that makes you some relationship expert? Thanks a lot.”
I cry by myself in the living room a little longer before going to sleep. While lying in bed, I think about how beautiful Diane looked with pierced ears. She took them out right after the wedding, and the holes closed up a few weeks later. They didn’t leave any scars. It was like they never happened.
31
While I eat dinner at the alcove with my mom—another dynamite Friday night—the strangest thing happens.
Val calls me. Actually calls.
I know right away something is wrong. Val is a texter, which is odd for a girl who loves to talk, now that I think about it. Did Ezra spill the beans about our kiss?
No—kisses.
Multiple kisses.
“Hey,” I say, my voice tense with curiosity.
“What are you up to tonight?” Val sounds chipper, just like typical Val. Except typical Val wouldn’t call to ask me this.
“Nothing.”
“Becca! It’s Friday night!”
I tap my fork against the counter. “What’s up?”
“Do you want to meet up for coffee? I really need to talk to someone. The craziest thing just happened.”
“What?” I ask, a little too impatiently.
“Ezra just tried to break up with me.”
* * *
We rendezvous at Azucar, one of those hip coffeehouses that only exist near college campuses. A guy who would be cute were it not for the overdose of facial piercings slides a chai latte across the counter. I need to be here for Val, but I also want to be there with Ezra. A mishmash of emotions bounce around inside me like straitjacket-wearing psychopaths in a rubber room. It’s annoying how much real estate thinking about Ezra takes up in my head. I want to stop, but it’s like some sort of addiction that I keep lunging for.
“Roll it,” I say the second my latte hits my hand. I sink into the plush purple couch next to Val. She stirs her coffee.
“Last night, Ezra sent me this email saying that he didn’t think things were working, and that maybe we should see other people. And, sure, things haven’t been as great as they used to be, but that’s just the excitement of getting together wearing off. It happens to all couples.”
No, I say to myself, only to couples who are together for the wrong reasons.
“I’m so sorry! What a slimeball. Through email?” I say. And on second thought, did Ezra really have to break up via email? Val deserved better. “You should’ve called last night.”
“The thing is, I wasn’t upset last night. I was in shock, but I didn’t cry. I didn’t believe him. It seemed so abrupt. I was not going to sit back and watch my relationship dissolve. So I devised a plan.”
I lose my appetite for coffee. I should be the only one scheming on this couch. “What did you do?”
“I looked up quotes from movies that he loves and hid them around school, like a scavenger hunt for him. Under the piano in the band room, I hid a note that said ‘Play it again, Sam’ from Casablanca. He loves that movie, even though I fell asleep when we watched it. So he followed the clues around school until he ended up at my car. When I saw him walk up to me, I almost passed out or something. It was so romantic.”
It was. And clever. Who knew Val could construct something like this? She would’ve made a great co-Break-Up Artist in another life.
“What happened?” I sip my latte.
“I said we’ve been building something together, and I cared about him so much, too much to just accept his break-up. He once told me that relationships were about two people taking a leap of faith, having that initial attraction and seeing if there was more to it. Well, for me, I knew there was more to it. And if that meant waiting for him to come around, then I would, because I know we have something special. And he’ll realize it soon enough.”
I clutch my latte until it dents inward. Since Val isn’t in tears, I already know the answer, but I ask anyway: “So what did he say?”
“He pulled me in for a kiss. And it was...interstellar. Ezra’s an amazing kisser.”
I know!
I grit my teeth. My fingernail pokes a hole in my cup.
“So, crisis averted,” Val says, back to her beaming self. Seeing her happy irritates me in a whole new kind of way. “Want to split an M&M’s cookie?”
“No.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Val, can I ask you an honest question? Are you really into Ezra? Genuinely?”
“Of course!”
“No, you’re not!” My yell attracts the attention of every college hipster and Mac enthusiast in the room.
“Can we please end the charade? You just wanted a relationship. You were desperate for one! It’s so obvious.”
Val places her coffee on the table. She’s either way too calm, or I’m way too pissed. “It’s not like that. Yes, I know I was a little boy crazy—”
“Understatement of the millennium. All you’ve done is lie and deceive and manipulate just so you don’t have to walk down the hall alone. You needed a boy, and you got one. But that boy is a genuinely good guy who deserves someone who actually cares about him.” The words stream out of me before I have time to process them. I’m so hot that my drink feels cool in my hand. My feelings about their relationship cannot be bottled up any longer.
“I can’t believe my best friend is saying this. I never lied to Ezra,” she has the audacity to say.
“Oh, yeah? Tell that to Annie Hall. Or why don’t we reread the email you had me write?”
“You sound like a jealous lunatic. Do you have a crush on Ezra?”
“No!” I blush at the question, but my already red cheeks hide it.
“I don’t have to justify my relationship to you,” she says. She feverishly runs her fingers down her blond mane, as she always does when she’s frustrated. “If you really think this is all fake, then why is Ezra still in the picture?”
I marinate on that but can’t come up with an answer right away. Ezra wants real love. Why can’t he see through this sham?
“Do you like him, or do you like being in a relationship more?”
Fresh tears bulge at Val’s eyes, and a pang of misery stabs at me. Nothing is worse than making your best friend cry.
“Maybe I wasn’t totally honest with him at first. I didn’t want my lack of movie knowledge to ruin everything. But my feelings for him were always real.” Val wipes her eyes with a napkin. The tears keep coming. “I always found that expression ‘my heart skips a beat’ so ridiculous. As if some guy could really cause that. But he can. Whenever I see Ezra walk toward me in the hall with that adorable smile, or see his number pop up on my phone, or hear his voice, I feel my heart stop for a second. Like it’s sighing or something. And then my heart beats really fast. It’s freaky mind-over-matter stuff, but really cool. That happens every time I see him.”
Val stares at me with an intensity that I didn’t know such a perky person could summon, one that tells me without any doubt that she is dead serious.
“I love him. I love him so much,” she says.
Heat strangles my neck. I didn’t know it was possible to be so furious at someone you care about so much. “No, you don’t! How deluded are you? Your relationship is bullshit, Val!”
Before she can respond, I’m out the door, hitting the night air at full blast. A double dose of pain shoots through my chest. Not only have I made my best friend cry, but she’s in love with a guy who doesn’t love her back.
* * *
On the drive home, I crank up a news station on the radio. Maybe world unrest can distract me from the chaos that has become my life. I need to ignore the disgust I feel for myself.
I am in serious like with Ezra Drummond.
Even though he’s still with Val for some unknown reason, I can’t help it. My heart and mind are conspiring against me.
“I like Ezra Drummond!” I scream over the weather report. It feels great to say it out loud. And then the dread sinks in. I roll down my window. The breeze blows against my face.
How can I be with him and hurt Val? How can I let him stay with Val? Why do none of these options end with happily ever after?
My phone rings. The second caller of the night. I am never this popular.
“Hey.”
“Hi, Rebecca. What are you up to this weekend?”
“Nothing.”
“Rebecca! You honestly have no plans this weekend?”
I roll my eyes at the comment. I’m glad one aspect of my life remains constant.
“What is it, Huxley?”
“Do you want to go down to Chandler tomorrow?”
I don’t think about the logistics, the lies I’ll have to tell my parents or the sheer lunacy of Huxley’s question. I’ve never needed an escape so badly in my life.
“What time are we leaving?”
32
On Saturday afternoons, most kids from Ashland are watching crappy movies on cable, running errands or working. (Maybe a scant few are doing homework, too. Maybe.) None of them are 35,000 feet up in the air lounging in first class, eating Salisbury steak and sipping on free champagne.
Except Huxley and me.
I told my parents I was hanging out with Huxley this weekend. I never specified where we’d be hanging out.
Huxley downs her second glass of champagne and peers out the window, something she hasn’t stopped doing since we crossed the Appalachian Mountains. It’s rare to watch her be so pensive.
“Are you okay?” I smack myself on the forehead. Dumbest question of the day. Let’s try again. “Do you want to talk?”
Worry clouds her face. “I know there’s not much we can do when we get there. I just need to see with my own eyes what he’s doing tonight, if...”
“If he’s having too much fun.”
“If he’s happy,” she says. She glances out the window again. “If he plays football for them, I don’t know if we’ll make it.”
“Don’t say that!” The flight attendant gives me the stink eye while she refills Huxley’s glass. She probably can tell I’m only in first class because of Huxley, not the other way around.
“He loves you. Remember Chris Gomberg’s party?”
She nods yes, but without conviction. “Things will be different if he goes off to school.”
“That’s why you want him to go to Vermilion.”
“I can’t lose him.”
She needs him close, needs the control. But I don’t get why she’s so intent on staying with him after he graduates. She’ll graduate a year later and go off to college and find another boyfriend. Is her senior-year status at Ashland that important?
“Maybe you two should just call it quits now. Let each other start fresh. We have brand-new lives waiting for us once we get out of Ashland.” I take a sip of my champagne. The bubbles tickle my nose, and I let out a Chihuahua yelp. The flight attendant shakes her head at me.
“I don’t want a brand-new life. I like my life with Steve. My parents were high-school sweethearts. They both went to Rutgers, got married right after and settled down back in Ashland. As old-fashioned as that sounds, it’s also incredibly romantic. They knew from the start what mattered the most. I want that with Steve.”
Diane also tried going that route with Sankresh, but it backfired. The only time when the whole high-school-sweetheart story works out is when the two people involved don’t think about it.
“Maybe you’re meant for something different. Maybe that’s not your life. You’re smart, Huxley, and you’re a born leader. Look what you’ve done with SDA. I think there’s this whole interesting future waiting for you. Do you really want to chuck it for the sake of some relationship?”
“It’s not just ‘some relationship.’” She swirls around her glass of champagne, watching the bubbles, so contemplative, as if she’s reviewing the past four years and making her own judgment.
“I began dating Steve for all the wrong reasons,” she says. “I liked him because he was Steve Overland. Now it turns out I actually love the guy.”
And I actually believe her when she says it. She sounds so natural about it, so genuine, like she’s stating a fact rather than proving a point. Unfortunately for her, it’s a fact that she can no longer control.
* * *
The warm breeze and amber setting sun of Dallas welcomes us. It makes me question living in a place that has snow.
When I turn my phone back on, I find a pair of text messages waiting for me.
Both from Ezra.
Can you meet up today? We need to talk.
I know how to fix what happened with Val. You’re the one I lurve.
Does lurve count as the L word?
“Why are you so smiley?” Huxley asks me.
I shove my phone in my purse. Heat rushes through me, but let’s just attribute that to the desert weather.
Our cab whizzes down the highway. We pass a steakhouse shaped like a cowboy hat. It’s unabashedly corny, yet endearing. Steve would like it here.
“Who was that?” she asks.
“Nobody.”
“I’m sure it wasn’t.”
“I wasn’t smiley.” I can’t enjoy this. Not when every organ in Val’s body beats for Ezra.
We drop our luggage at the hotel. Huxley sprang for a penthouse suite with a living room, kitchen and balcony overlooking the pool.
“My dad had points,” she says.
I unfurl on the king-size bed and unwrap the mint on my pillow. It pays to be Huxley’s sidekick. I sit up, a thought coming to me.
“Why did you ask me to come with you?”
Huxley stops hanging up clothes. How much did she bring for one night?
“I don’t know. For some reason, when this idea popped into my head, you were the only friend I pictured joining me.”
“Really? More than Ally or Reagan?”
“Yes. They would never go along with this. You probably think I’m insane for coming here, but you also get it.”
It’s true, in some odd way. I guess I’m used to scheming, but she doesn’t know that.
“I know I can trust you,” she says.
I gulp down a lump in my throat. “Thanks.”
We change outfits, aiming for fun yet not very noticeable, and wash the smell of airplane off our skin. I crank country music on the alarm-clock radio, but Huxley’s not in the mood to laugh. She focuses on getting ready. She’s on a mission.
I release the dead bolt and open the door to the hall, but Huxley shuts it just as fast. She’s nervous as hell.
“Don’t worry,” I say. She’s so fragile and human. Any trace of the ice queen has melted, and I can see the girl I once knew underneath. “We’ll probably find Steve sitting on a bench, bored out of his mind.”
“Thank you for coming with me.” She takes a deep breath, and I can tell she wants to say more.
“What is it?”
“I’m sorry.”
I take my hand off the doorknob. “For what?”
“For ditching you. You were a good friend.”
I don’t have some huge emotional reaction where I grab her for a hug and cry hysterically into her shoulder while music swells. I thought I would if I ever received an apology, as if those words would magically fix the past four years. The damage can’t be undone, but I’m ready to move on.
I open up the door again and give her a reassuring smile. “Let’s go do some spying.”
* * *
After walking around campus for a good forty-five minutes, a student in the middle of a Vegan Rights protest sneers and directs us to Sigma Tau Iota, the fraternity of choice for football players.
“Say au revoir to your brain cells,” he said before returning to chanting. (“What do we want? Seitan! When do we want it? For dinner!”)
The frat house could use a paint job, but its majestic front columns and wide balconies give it a powerful aura. This is the place to be tonight, probably every night. Packs of students glom on to every inch of the property, each of them with a red Solo cup in hand. It’s two girls to every guy at this soiree.
The door’s wide-open (well, actually there’s no door), and we join the dense crowd. Sweat beads form on my forehead. This is Chris Gomberg’s party times fifty, except nobody has a history here. People scope out Huxley and me, but not because they know us. There’s no decade-long backstory branded on our foreheads. It’s freeing having a clean slate for once.
We push into a narrow hall and enter the stream of people going somewhere. Huxley looks like she wants to bathe in Purell. I’ll bet more than the heat and claustrophobia, Huxley hates not being recognized.
She peeks into a common room where girls and guys dance on plaid wingback chairs and an antique wood coffee table. My phone buzzes, and I remember that Ezra texted me earlier.
Where’ve you been? We need to talk. Can I see you this weekend?
“No sign of him,” Huxley says.
I can’t ignore him forever. I don’t want to. I don’t want to hurt Val, but this is my life, too. If she’s such a proponent of love and relationships, then she will have to understand. Nobody’s perfect, even best friends. I imagine Ezra and I talking about what happens next, and some more kissing.
I text back: Let’s meet up tomorrow night at 8. I can’t wait to see you!
“Who can’t you wait to see?”
I try to hide my phone, but Huxley’s too fast. I guess since we had a heart-to-heart, she believes she can know every detail of my life now. My face turns redder than a Solo cup as she scrolls through my messages.
“Wow, Rebecca. I had no idea.”
“I’m not a home wrecker,” I blurt out, which makes me sound super guilty. Looking for a distraction, I zero in on the keg and wait in line behind two guys with an aversion to grooming. We use their mushroom-cloud hair as cover in case Steve should come through.
“Do you love him?” Huxley asks, cutting to the heart of the matter.
I search for a definite answer. “I don’t know.”
“I thought you and Val were close friends.”
“We are!”
“Would you throw away that relationship for one with Ezra?”
How is Huxley so good with questions? She doesn’t mince words. Stalling, I glance to my left. A girl sips her beer and makes a stink face, then proceeds to pour out the rest of it on the carpet. I don’t even want to see Huxley’s reaction.
“‘Throwing away’ sounds so harsh. It’s more complicated than that,” I say.
“Not really. You are freely hooking up with her boyfriend. Why should she stay friends with you?”
“Because we’re best friends.” My head spins with guilt. I can’t live in a world where Val and I aren’t speaking. But does that mean I have to stay away from Ezra? I don’t want to live in that world either.
“I don’t know what to do. I can’t be with him, but I want to so badly.”
Huxley sizes me up. A satisfied smile is planted on her face, like she knows something I don’t.
“You don’t love him,” she says matter-of-factly.
Her confident tone ticks me off.
“You two sound like star-crossed lovers, and as you pointed out in English class, that makes you quote-unquote ‘full-on crazy.’ Knowing you shouldn’t be with Ezra makes you want him more.”
I’m shocked that Huxley was listening to me that day, and that she could quote me.
“Maybe Romeo and Juliet were in love,” I say.
“No. They weren’t full-on crazy, but definitely up there.” Huxley laughs at me, the first time she’s relaxed today. “What drew them together was the excitement of getting caught. That’s not love.”
“Or maybe they just fell for each other under really cruddy circumstances.”
“But what would’ve happened when things calmed down, when Romeo didn’t have to recite sonnets and get in sword fights? What would they be like on a random Tuesday? The couples that thrive on drama flame out the quickest. I’ve seen it a million times.”
I had a bunch of witty retorts, but they all fade away. I’m left gawking at my foamy beer, shocked that Huxley Mapother said something so...un-Huxley Mapother-ish. Do Ezra and I think we’re star-crossed lovers? Maybe that’s part of the excitement I feel when I think about him, knowing that I shouldn’t be thinking about him.
“And also, I have a feeling Ezra is the first guy who was ever into you. Am I right?”
She may be right, but I still find it rude. She reads my clenched expression.
“I thought so.”
He wasn’t my first kiss, though. I made out with a guy at a Model UN convention last year. He was from Ghana—at the convention, not in real life.
Huxley clinks my cup, and we drink. Now I know what sewer water tastes like.
“This is all so new for you,” she says. “I was in your shoes once, and I’m not condescending. I really was. I remember the mouthwash that fell out of Steve’s pocket, and that moment when I knew he was going to kiss me and my life was going to change forever. It’s so exhilarating. I think that’s what you like about Ezra. You like that he likes you.”
I scoff at the remark. “That sounds like Val.”
“Well, that’s why you two are best friends. You’re so alike. Honestly, I’m kind of jealous of the relationship you guys have. I don’t have that with any of my friends.”
“I shouldn’t throw it away.” The epiphany knocks me to the ground. I don’t care that I’m wearing a nice skirt. I sit cross-legged on the grimy floor, much to Huxley’s dismay. She’s right—I fell for the relationship crap, just like Val. Val just vocalizes what I refuse to say. I thought I was stronger than that. I thought I couldn’t be duped.
I’m half relationship zombie.
“I know what you need.” A guy in a baby-blue polo and cargo shorts grabs my free hand and pulls me up off the floor. He yells into my ear. I could get drunk off his breath. “You need. To do. A keg stand.”
“A what?”
“It’ll be good clean fun! I promise,” he says in his Southern twang, which is impossible not to swoon over. It’s the American version of a British accent.
“Um, sure.”
He takes my hand. Huxley clutches my other hand and pulls me away. “No. You’re not doing a keg stand. You’re wearing a skirt, Rebecca!”
We hear a holler loud enough to overpower the noise, and Greg Baylor barges into the far end of the hall. Beer stains streak his Chandler University T-shirt, but he certainly isn’t letting that get him down.
“It’s the beer train!” he says to the three girls behind him. “Chugga-chugga, chugga-chugga.”
Huxley and I turn away from him. We push through the tightly packed partygoers, who are magically parting for Greg’s train. We keep our heads down as he gets closer.
He stops at the keg, while Huxley and I flee into the common room. We sidestep around grinding girls and pass a contemplative foursome of wallflowers who came to the wrong place for conversation. Rows of house photos line the room.
In the photos, the boys look like respectable gentlemen. A guy in his underwear and a cowboy hat races past us, grazing Huxley’s boobs.
Pictures can be so deceiving.
We squeeze into a circle three people deep that lines the dining room table. They’re cheering something that I can’t see.
“That was close!” I say.
“If Greg’s here, then Steve has to be close.”
Very close.
Like right in front of us.
In the center of the circle is Steve, taking body shots off two blondes in bikinis lying on the dining table.
He slurps down both shots without looking up and garners whoops and hollers. Some Southern guy even yells, “Yee-haw!”
Steve smiles so wide that his teeth may fall out of his mouth.
“I need some air,” Huxley says.
* * *
Flying first class isn’t as fun on the return trip. I can’t enjoy my tortellini centimeters from an ailing Huxley.
I keep thinking about the couples I’ve broken up. I plot and scheme, but I’m never present for the personal anguish that comes with breaking up. I’ve never had to watch it firsthand.
“What are you going to do? Are you going to break up with him?”
Huxley locks eyes with me. Her misery has hardened into determination. “No. I’m going to fight for the guy I love.” She sips on her water. “What are you going to do about Ezra?”
The pilot makes an announcement that we’re getting ready to land. It’s time to reenter reality, and I’m prepared.
33
Ezra meets me at a Dunkin’ Donuts near my house. My heart has a mild gush when he sits down at the table. I can’t help it. It’s not fully on board with my head yet.
“Hey there! You’ve come out from hiding.” He reaches for my hand. I yank it back into my lap. His eyebrows squiggle in confusion.
“We need to talk.”
“This sounds ominous.”
“It kind of is.”
“Listen, I know you’re upset about the whole Val thing. But it will get done.”
I gaze into his hazel eyes one last time. They reflect the glint of waning sunlight pouring through the window. They’re beautiful, and that’s about it.
They’re just eyes.
“I can’t date you.”
He slumps back in his chair and shakes his head a bunch. “I thought we had something.”
“We did, but Val and I have something stronger.”
“I really could see myself falling in—”
“But could you? Really?” I notice how easily he throws that word around. It seems like it loses its power the more it’s said.
Ezra shrugs his shoulders, resigned to my decision, which he’s figured out won’t change. “I guess it’s like the end of Casablanca. I have to let you get on that plane.”
“What do you think would’ve happened if Ilsa didn’t get on that plane? She and Rick would’ve gotten bored with each other once things died down.” I rein myself in. I’m already breaking up with the guy. I don’t have to ruin his favorite movie. “I’m sorry, Ezra. You’re a good guy, honestly.”
“Thanks.”
That wasn’t so bad. Maybe messy break-ups are only for immature people.
“I know I don’t have any business asking you any favors, but this time, when you break up with Val, please do it in person. She’s a good person, and she deserves that much.”
“Who says I’m breaking up with Val?” Ezra takes a bite of his donut. He rubs the smear of chocolate frosting from the corner of his mouth and licks it off his fingers.
“What? But you aren’t into her!”
“Val and I have had our ups and downs, but maybe there’s something there.”
“There isn’t.” Five minutes ago, he was all set to breaiggle in confusion.
“We need to talk.”
“This sounds ominous.”
“It kind of is.”
“Listen, I know you’re upset about the whole Val thing. But it will get done.”
I gaze into his hazel eyes one last time. They reflect the glint of waning sunlight pouring through the window. They’re beautiful, and that’s about it.
They’re just eyes.
“I can’t date you.”
He slumps back in his chair and shakes his head a bunch. “I thought we had something.”
“We did, but Val and I have something stronger.”
“I really could see myself falling in—”
“But could you? Really?” I notice how easily he throws that word around. It seems like it loses its power the more it’s said.
Ezra shrugs his shoulders, resigned to my decision, which he’s figured out won’t change. “I guess it’s like the end of Casablanca. I have to let you get on that plane.”
“What do you think would’ve happened if Ilsa didn’t get on that plane? She and Rick would’ve gotten bored with each other once things died down.” I rein myself in. I’m already breaking up with the guy. I don’t have to ruin his favorite movie. “I’m sorry, Ezra. You’re a good guy, honestly.”
“Thanks.”
That wasn’t so bad. Maybe messy break-ups are only for immature people.
“I know I don’t have any business asking you any favors, but this time, when you break up with Val, please do it in person. She’s a good person, and she deserves that much.”
“Who says I’m breaking up with Val?” Ezra takes a bite of his donut. He rubs the smear of chocolate frosting from the corner of his mouth and licks it off his fingers.
“What? But you aren’t into her!”
“Val and I have had our ups and downs, but maybe there’s something there.”
“There isn’t.” Five minutes ago, he was all set to break up with her. It will get done. He was ready to cross it off his list like taking out the trash. Now he flipped a switch, and he’s back on the “falling in love with Val” track?
“I have to give things a real chance.”
“And then you’re just going to dump her when something better comes along?”
“You make it sound so crass. I can’t control the way I feel.”
“You’re disgusting.” I was going to get something to drink, but now I just want to leave. This can’t be the same Ezra I swooned over, but here he is, in all his selfish glory. “You think you’re some expert on romance, but you don’t know anything.”
“You’ve never had a boyfriend. You wouldn’t understand.”