Happenstance 2

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done that. I won't go into her room again. The worst part is that I knew it was wrong, but I did it anyway."

  Julianne looked up at me with wet eyes. "You're not the only one."

  "Pardon?"

  "I've always known that she kept journals. I've been reading them too, since she died. Curiosity is an awful trap, isn't it?" she said, sheepish. "But, Erin...You shouldn't read any more. You won't like it."

  "You sound like Weston," I said, looking away.

  "What do you mean?"

  "He said the same thing. That I shouldn't read any more. He acted really weird about it."

  "Really? What else did he say?"

  "Nothing else."

  She fidgeted. "He came by today."

  "He what?"

  "He told me you were reading Alder's journals, and he told me to tell you to stop."

  Weston had left art to tattle on me? There had to be a reason he didn't want me to read the journals. He wouldn't just try to get me into trouble with Julianne. Something was in there that would hurt me, and he knew about it.

  "Why would he do that?"

  She looked down, troubled. "Alder is different than we thought, Erin. Some of the things she wrote are...upsetting. She knew things. Things Sam and I had no idea about. And..." She shook her head. "I haven't read all of them. It was too hard. I haven't told Sam. I'm not sure how he would react."

  "I'll keep it between us."

  "Thank you," she said, relieved.

  "Julianne? Is there anything in there about me? I mean that I should know."

  She hesitated. "Yes."

  "Can I read them?"

  "I don't know how to answer that, honey."

  "I think...I think I have to."

  MY BLACK CONVERSE KNOCKED AGAINST THE BLEACHERS AS I climbed to the top. The baseball team was running laps, their T-shirts soaked in sweat, their faces red. I hadn't been seated for more than five minutes when Coach Langdon called practice, and they ran to the dugout.

  After a short meeting, they began filing out to the parking lot, including Weston. After a few moments, he ran back in, looking up to where I sat. He jogged up the bleachers, taking two at a time until he reached me. His arms wrapped around me, and he pressed his lips against me. His skin was covered in a thin sheen of sweat, but he could have been covered in toxic waste, and I still wouldn't have complained.

  "I was just getting ready to drive across the street, and I saw your car in the parking lot. What are you doing here?"

  I shrugged. "Just thought I'd come watch you practice since you don't have many left."

  He looked out on to the field. "I can't believe it's my last year. I'm going to miss it. For the most part. Prom. Graduation. Then it's all over."

  "Have you talked to your dad about Dallas?"

  He shook his head. "He's too excited about Duke, Erin. Every time I think about bringing it up, it doesn't seem like the right time."

  "There isn't a right time for something like that, and you're going to wait until you run out of time."

  "Maybe he's right. Maybe Duke will be good for me."

  "So you want to be a lawyer?"

  His face twisted into disgust. "No."

  "Weston," I said, turning his dirty, sweaty face toward me. "You have to tell them. You only have one life. One shot. Don't waste it on someone else's dream."

  His eyes danced back and forth to each of mine. "God, you're beautiful."

  I looked down, embarrassed.

  "Do you have a date for prom yet?"

  I shot him a look. "You know I don't."

  "Will you go with me?"

  I shook my head. "We talked about this already."

  "That was when you didn't have Julianne Alderman for a mother. She'll help you find a dress."

  "I can't ask her to buy me a dress."

  "You don't have to. Just tell her I asked you to prom."

  "I don't dance," I said, squirming.

  He held my necklace between his thumb and index finger. He leaned down and kissed it and then moved up to my neck.

  I sighed, moving my chin to the side, stretching my neck just a tiny bit to give him better access.

  He pulled away and frowned.

  "What?" I asked, surprised at his reaction.

  "You don't smell like ice cream."

  I chuckled. "I was barely at work today. Patty took over my shift, and my hours have been cut to give me more free time. Julianne's request."

  One side of Weston's mouth turned up, and then his mouth stretched into a full-blown grin.

  "Thank you, Julianne." He looked down at my lips and then moved toward me, kissing me softly at first. His mouth opened, and I welcomed his tongue with mine.

  "Please go to prom with me," he whispered against my mouth. "I don't want to go by myself. I don't want to go with anyone but you, and it's my senior year. I don't want to miss it. Even if we only stay long enough to pose for a stupid picture."

  "I understand your dilemma, but I really don't want to go."

  "Well," he said, his lips moving to my ear, "sometimes we have to do things we don't like to do. It's a good life lesson."

  "You're right. If you break the news to your dad about Duke, then I'll go to prom with you."

  He sat up, shocked at my proposal. "That's not fair, Erin."

  "You just said--"

  "I know what I said. But prom and pissing off my dad are not exactly the same thing."

  "It's close."

  His eyes narrowed. "You'll go to prom if I tell him I want to go to Dallas? What if he says no?"

  "That's between your dad and you. But if you tell him, I'll go."

  "Deal."

  "Really?" I said, suddenly feeling sick.

  "You better start looking for a dress now."

  I swallowed.

  We stood, and Weston intertwined his fingers in mine, walking with me down the steps and out to my car.

  "Why don't you follow me home? My parents won't be home for a couple of hours."

  "Remember what Sam said?"

  He nodded. "He said to keep my hands off someone else's wife. But you're not going to be someone else's wife."

  "Slow down, speed racer."

  "You know what I mean," he said, opening my door.

  "I'll see you in a minute," I said, ducking into the BMW.

  I lay there, resting against Weston's bare chest, wrapped in his arms. The ceiling fan was whirling above us, the picture he'd drawn of me just overhead.

  "I love that you wear this every day," he said, touching my necklace.

  "I love that you gave it to me."

  "I love you."

  I sat still, wondering if what he'd just said was really what he'd just said. He'd alluded to being in love with me before but never actually said it. Not so direct. Not out loud.

  "Erin?"

  "I'm glad."

  "You're glad," he said flatly.

  I closed my eyes, knowing I'd upset him. "I want to say it. It just feels weird."

  "Would you mean it?"

  "I think so."

  "You think so."

  "Stop doing that," I said, sitting up and pulling my arms through my bra straps, and then my shirt over my head.

  He sighed, clearly regretting the turn of the conversation.

  "It's scary, Weston. Even if you go to Dallas, you'll be five hours away. We'll live separate lives. No one stays together when they go to different colleges."

  "You don't know that." He frowned. "Why do you have to be so negative? We're going to see each other as much as we can. We'll talk on the phone every night. We'll stay together, and then you'll come visit me and fall in love with Dallas, and you'll move there after you graduate."

  "Is that so?"

  He sat up against the headboard. "Yes."

  "I'm not being negative. I'm being realistic. I don't want either of us to get hurt."

  "If we don't stay together, it'll hurt. It'll tear me up. I don't want anyone else."

  "West
on, you're eighteen. You don't know what you want."

  He stood up and slipped on his jeans. "You definitely don't know what I want."

  I finished dressing and tied my shoes. "It's just common sense. We live in a fishbowl here, but there are thousands of young, beautiful women in Dallas."

  "There's only one you." We were standing on opposite sides of his bed, staring at each other. He shifted his weight, nervous. "Are you...are you saying this because you plan on meeting someone new in Stillwater?"

  "No!"

  "Sounds to me like you're keeping your options open."

  "God, Weston, that's not it at all."

  His breathing faltered, and he looked around on his floor, then saw his inhaler on his nightstand and grabbed it. He shook it, then took a puff.

  "Why are you getting so upset? Why do we even have to talk about this now?"

  "I'd kind of like to know if the girl I love sees me as temporary."

  "Blackwell is temporary."

  "I'm not even staying here!"

  "I know! I'm just not making any promises I can't keep."

  "Well, that's just great. Thanks, babe."

  My shoulders fell. He was fighting dirty. "I have to go home." I walked around his bed to his door, but he stood in my way. He took a deep breath, touched my arms, and pressed his forehead against mine.

  "Homework?"

  "Sort of."

  "What does that mean?"

  "I want to read Alder's earlier journals. I want to know why they quit talking to me."

  He stiffened. "I thought you weren't going to read them anymore."

  "I changed my mind. Julianne kind of doesn't care."

  "What?" he yelled.

  I leaned away from him, stunned by his explosive response.

  "They're none of your damn business, Erin. It's wrong, and you know it!"

  I blinked and then gritted my teeth. "Move."

  "Fine." He stepped to the side, and I stormed out, passing Veronica on my way.

  "Erin?" she said.

  "Sorry, I have to go."

  When I got to my car, Weston caught up to me, breathing hard. "Don't read them, Erin. Just don't do it."

  "Why not? What are you afraid I'll find?"

  His jaws worked under his skin, and he swallowed. After a few seconds without an answer, I got in my car and drove home.

  I parked and ran up the stairs, straight to Alder's room.

  "Erin?" Julianne called after me.

  I shut the door and leaned against it, out of breath. Alder's closet door was shut, and I glared at it, knowing now that whether it was right or wrong, I had to read them. I had to know what was so terrible that Weston didn't want me to continue.

  I marched over and swung open the door, dragged the tub out of the closet and into the middle of her room. I pulled all of them out, one by one, until I got to the plastic diary, skimming over the descriptions of dreams and boys she liked. Once I finished reading that diary, I moved on to the binders. I wanted to skip over to her journal from our fifth-grade year. That was when they'd stopped talking to me, but I forced myself to read one at a time.

  Fatigue began to set in when I opened the yellow, plastic, covered binder titled 5TH GRADE. Any mention of me was like before. We were still friends. She still liked me. On a few occasions, she talked about asking her parents if Sonny and I could join them on their family vacation, and Sam and Julianne were considering it. I flipped the page to the entry I'd been searching for.

  Most of the entries after that were about how much they hated me, and what mean things they did and said to me. Sonny's parents had never gotten a divorce, so I assumed they had worked it out, but it wasn't until I got to the binders that I fully understood. Sonny's father and Gina had an affair. Harry had gotten Gina pregnant. I shut the binder. The Erins were half sisters.

  That's why they hated me. They thought Gina and I had nearly caused Sonny's parents to divorce.

  "Gina," I whispered, flipping the pages.

  That was what Carolyn was talking about at the restaurant. Gina's daughter had been a reminder, an object at which Carolyn could direct her anger. After the accident Carolyn figured out that she had welcomed Harry's illegitimate child into their home, taken her on vacations, and bought her Christmas and birthday presents. In a strange twist of fate, Harry helped raise his own daughter, even when he thought he was ignoring her to save his marriage.

  My thoughts drifted to Gina. Sonny's parents were quite a bit older than her. He was part owner of a prosperous fabrication plant just outside town. He would have to have been in his early thirties when Sonny was born--when we were all born. Gina wasn't even old enough to buy alcohol when she got pregnant, and she never spoke about the man we both thought was my father.

  A sudden sympathy weighed me down, making me feel so heavy, I felt stuck to the floor. I'd been so angry with her, but the truth was, we both knew what it felt like to be hated by everyone. To have no one. To learn early that the best defense was to shut everyone out, even those who try to help. She was too broken to be my mother; it wasn't that she didn't want to be.

  As the dates on the entries wore on, Alder wrote less about Gina and more about how much they hated me. The older Alder was, the better she explained Sonny's reports of Harry and Carolyn's periodic fights about Gina--usually around our birthday--and by middle school, it was clear to Carolyn that Gina's daughter would always be a reminder of her husband's infidelity, and she hated me for it--and so did the Erins.

  She also talked about watching me watch Weston, and catching Weston looking at me--dozens of time. My stomach began to hurt.

  A knock sounded on the door.

  "Erin?" Julianne said before peeking in. Her hair wasn't soft and shiny. It was in tangles and matted in places to her head. Her face was shiny and makeup free, and her pink floral pajama set was mostly covered by a long, thin robe. "Oh, honey. It's three in the morning. Do you think maybe you should take a break?"

  It was then that I realized my eyes felt like dry, scratchy balls under my lids, and the skin around them was heavy and tight at the same time.

  "I'm almost finished."

  "O-okay," she said. "Weston called a few times earlier. He said you weren't answering your phone."

  "It's still in my car, I think."

  Her lips made a hard line, and she offered a sympathetic smile. "You're a blank page, Erin. Maybe you shouldn't fill it with Alder's words."

  "Did you know? About Gina?"

  She nodded. "I think everyone knows."

  I closed my eyes. "No wonder Gina was angry. She was alone, and blamed, and hated, and all she had was me as a reminder."

  "Not you. It wasn't you. You were conceived of love and nothing else. You're ours."

  "Everyone was wrong."

  "Yes, they were."

  "No. They left her with all the blame, and he still got his family and his reputation. It's not fair."

  "No, it's not. I'm sorry Sonny and Alder took it out on you."

  "I need to see her. I don't know why. I'm not ready yet, but I need to talk to her about this."

  Worry sparked in Julianne's eyes. "Oh, okay. I, um, I understand."

  My eyes fell to the binder in my lap, and Julianne shut the door. I rested my chin on my fist as I turned the pages of Alder's high school journals. She knew I liked Weston, and that was the only reason she pursued him. She wrote about losing her virginity, but to my absolute surprise, it wasn't with Weston. She was cheating on him with Eric Liberty. My face twisted into disgust. Eric was a gangly, pimple-faced pothead who had been held back twice, and then dropped out of high school altogether, and she was in love with him, not Weston.

  The sky was changing outside Alder's window. I looked up at Alder's alarm clock. It was nearly six in the morning.

  I turned the page, reading about the first week of our senior year. Page after page, I'd read about my misery through her eyes, and how much she enjoyed inflicting it. It was one of the only things that brought her joy
. She hated Blackwell, her house, her car, and sometimes Sam and Julianne. Her aspirations included marrying Eric and moving to San Francisco.

  Her first entry in October made my blood run cold.

  My hands began to tremble, and I slammed the binder shut, leaving it on the floor with the others. My mattress barely made a sound as I crashed into it, burying my head in the pillow. As much as I wanted to believe it wasn't true, Alder wouldn't lie in her own journal. The Erins were planning one last twisted, humiliating moment for me before graduation, and Weston was going to help them. The picture he'd drawn of me, the necklace, the attention and phony kindness were all part of the plan to disgrace me in front of the entire school.

  My pillow was soaked with tears. After everything they had put me through, how could I have been so gullible? How could I have trusted that Weston had suddenly taken an interest in me for no reason? The nights at the overpass, the late-night talks, losing my virginity...It was all part of the plan. Maybe it wasn't his idea, but he was going along with it, and Alder was only pretending to be jealous because she knew it wasn't real. And even if it was, she didn't care. She was secretly planning to be with Eric anyway.

  I kept trying to make excuses for Weston, trying to think of anything that would make him an innocent bystander, but it was all there in her journals. One last stab at me, even after her death. No wonder Weston didn't want me to read them. He knew exactly what I would find.

  Why stay with me after Alder died? Why continue the charade? And then it hit me: he had asked me to prom. He was going to carry out her plan. He was in love with her, and he was determined to carry out her final wish.

  How malicious would someone have to be to agree to and go through with something like that? I knew the Erins were evil, but Weston...That's what Brady meant before. He knew what Weston was doing. I had given myself to someone like that. Let him touch me. Put his mouth on me. Penetrate me.

  I ran to the bathroom, pulled the necklace away from my skin, threw it in a drawer, and then stripped off my clothes. The knob whined as I twisted it, and the water rained down. I stepped in when it was still ice-cold, desperate to get any trace of Weston off of me. I stood under the water as it warmed, scrubbing and sobbing, feeling utterly destroyed and beyond betrayed.

  My skin felt raw and waterlogged, so I turned off the shower and wrapped a towel around me. A faint knock on my bedroom door made me stiffen. Julianne poked her head in, and her face fell.

  "Gracious, sweetheart, you look exhausted. Did you get any sleep?"

  "I'm awake," I said. "Wide awake."