I almost choke on my pizza. “Again with this? Didn’t we agree that it’s not always better to share every little thing you’re feeling?”
“When was that?” Sadie asks.
“After we watched Unfaithful.”
“No, you said it was better to hide stuff. I think it’s better to be honest. Austin lied to me and look how that turned out.”
“Being married is not a little thing. It is monumental. There’s a huge difference between having an affair and not bothering the person you’re with about crap that could be your own issue.” I look at Rosanna. “Not that this is crap. I would have been furious if Logan walked in with some clingy hottie.”
“This could be my own issue,” Rosanna says slowly. “You know how we were talking about how we all have baggage? I wouldn’t be surprised if trust issues were buried in mine.”
“Why?” I ask. But Rosanna doesn’t answer.
Sadie purses her lips like I shouldn’t be so nosy. Again, the girl has a point. A good publicist knows when to shut up.
Sadie sits back down on the pouf. She looks around my room. “We could do some fun feng shui in here,” she says.
“‘Fun’ and ‘feng shui’ should not be used in the same sentence,” I protest.
“Have you ever tried it?”
“What do you think?”
“I’m guessing not so much. But it really is fun. We could move those two glass bottles on your dresser to your nightstand. That way they’ll be against the southern wall. Objects in pairs against the southern wall are good for relationship prosperity.”
My gaze flicks over to the shopping bag hanging on my closet door. The Princess Bride shirt I bought for Jude is inside. I can’t believe I haven’t given it to him yet. But what did I expect after the Logan debacle? Jude looked so disappointed at the park last week. I hate to disappoint anyone. But disappointing Jude? That’s really, really bad.
I wish this summer hadn’t turned into such a complicated mess of boy drama. Everything was so simple when Summer Fun Darcy ruled Manhattan. Now my head is spinning. Jude wants to be exclusive, but Logan is the one I have to be exclusive with. Logan was my first love. As much as I want to be with both boys, that wouldn’t be fair to either one of them. Logan deserves my full attention.
But I can’t help thinking about Jude.
There was a light that used to be in Jude’s eyes when he looked at me. I wish I knew how to find it again.
FIFTEEN
ROSANNA
I KEEP STARING AT THE phone.
The phone remains quiet.
I refuse to back down.
The phone refuses to ring.
This is how my night has been going since our pizza party in Darcy’s room wrapped up and I came back to my room. All I can think about is D out with Shayla. I can’t stop wondering where they are and what they’re doing and if D has told Shayla about me like he said he would.
Waiting for D to call is excruciating. Sadie was probably right that there’s no reason not to trust him. But I’m not sure he’s acting like someone who can be trusted.
I stare at the phone.
The phone stares back in defiant silence.
I need a distraction. Getting more research done on Do Something might work. I sit on my bed and wrangle with my old laptop until the Do Something site appears with its extensive lists of volunteer opportunities. Volunteer work is important to me. Everyone should give back to their community in some way. That’s why Sadie is my new role model. Sadie rocks at random acts of kindness. She’s completely confident about taking action. Like when she ran up ahead on the sidewalk to open that door for an old lady trying to maneuver her walker into a deli. Sadie didn’t hesitate. I don’t want to be shy about approaching strangers on the street. I want to be as confident as she is. No hesitation.
Studies have shown that people in a group watching someone who needs help, even if that person is in danger, will often keep watching without taking action. No one wants to be the next potential target by drawing attention to themselves. People usually rely on someone else to be the first person to do something because it’s easier to be a follower than a leader. It takes a person on a mission to zing into action like Sadie does. She doesn’t care what everyone else is doing. She’s a natural leader people want to follow. I want to zing into action the way she does.
I want to be more like Darcy, too. A little. I want to have the courage to put myself out there more and meet new people. That’s not easy to do when you’re an extreme introvert. Darcy is an extreme extrovert. Our social skills couldn’t be more diametrically opposed. She’s a natural people person. She told me that engaging people and figuring out what makes them tick has always come easily to her. She thinks everyone is interesting in their own way. Darcy is charming and witty and draws out the uninhibited side of people. Her enthusiasm loosens me up when we go out. Maybe she even affected my decision to go to South Beach with D. Old Rosanna never would have gone away with a boy she’d just met. But Shiny New Rosanna totally went. And had the best time ever.
When the UNY housing department placed the three of us together for the summer, they had no idea they were matching me up with two girls who would push me out of my comfort zone and inspire me to grow.
I open my notebook to a running list of volunteer opportunities. Working with my kids at camp has been lots of fun, so maybe I should work with kids as a Big Sister or a Girl Scout leader. There are a bunch of other programs for children and teens all over the city. Looking over my list, I wonder how much free time I’ll have when the semester starts. I’ll have to work at least twenty hours a week on top of my financial aid package. Maybe it would be better to wait until classes and my work-study job start to decide on volunteering. The last thing I would want to do is begin building connections with kids and then have to scale back. I know what it’s like to have someone you trust shatter a relationship you were counting on to never change. The kind of relationship a person should always be able to count on. I don’t want anyone to get attached to me if I can’t guarantee a commitment. My biological mother left when I was one. I was too young to remember her, but her abandonment still hurts.
The phone finally rings a million years later, making my heart hammer. The screen says it’s D. I let it ring two more times while I steady my breathing.
“Hello?” I say all casual.
“Hey.”
“Hi.”
“How’s it going?”
“Okay. Just having pizza with Darcy and Sadie.”
“Sorry to call so late.”
“That’s okay. Did you just get back?”
“Yeah.”
Then . . . silence. D offers no elaboration on the yeah. Like why they were out so late. Or what happened. Or even where they went.
“How was your day?” D asks.
“Good.” Horrible. My stomach has been twisted in knots since last night. All day at camp I kept seeing flashbacks of Shayla clinging to D’s arm. Laughing too hard at whatever he said. Clacking away in her absurdly high heels. I could barely keep my lunch down. And we had fried chicken.
“Anything exciting happen at camp?” D tries again.
“No.” Enough. I’m not going to slide past D going out with Shayla without finding out the most basic information. “So how was it?”
“How was what?”
“Getting together with . . . Shayla?”
“Okay. I mean, she’s not okay. She’s a mess. It’s so frustrating when you want to help a friend but there’s not really anything you can do, you know?”
If it’s anywhere near as frustrating as your boyfriend going out with a hot girl he has a secret shared history with even though it makes you uncomfortable, then yeah. I know.
“What did you guys talk about?” I ask.
“You know I can’t tell you.”
“She talked about her family drama the whole time? You didn’t talk about anything else?”
“Some other stuff came up.”
/> “Like what?”
D sighs. He is clearly annoyed with me. I know I should simmer down and let D be friends with whomever he wants and not fixate on Shayla. But I can’t help it. I can’t pretend she doesn’t bother me.
“Can we not do this?” D says.
“I’m not allowed to know what you and your friend talked about?”
“You never ask what Jesse and I talk about.” Jesse is D’s friend from high school. He goes to UNY. They played basketball together in high school and still get together to play on one of the public courts.
“Jesse’s different.”
“Why? Because he’s not a girl?”
“Shayla’s not some girl. She’s a girl you have a past with. She’s a girl who trusts you more than any of her other friends.”
“I don’t know about that.”
“That’s what you said.”
“Rosanna. I’m with you. I want to be with you. You are my girlfriend.”
My jealous frost melts a bit.
“Didn’t we just have an amazing time in South Beach?” D says.
“We had the best time.”
“This is only the beginning. We’ll have lots more best times. Because we’re good together. I love being with you. You love being with me, right?”
“You know I do.”
“So why can’t we focus on that?”
“Okay,” I relent. He’s right. I’m being a crazy jealous girlfriend. I need to dial back the crazy and amplify the girlfriend. Or I might ruin everything.
“I have something for you,” D says. “Guess what it is.”
“A pogo stick?”
“What?”
“Never mind. Long story. Um . . . fresh watermelon juice from South Beach?”
“So close.”
“Really?”
“No.”
“Give me a hint.”
“You asked me for it when we were having dinner at that Italian place on the beach.”
That dinner was ridiculous. I’d never tasted pasta so fresh. I didn’t even know pasta could be that fresh. But I don’t remember—“Oh! You got her number!”
“Nailed it.”
D’s sister runs a campus activity group that’s sponsoring my camp and the affiliated camp on the Upper East Side. Her group threw the party for both camps where I met D. I was stuffing bags of chips and pretzels into my crossbody like the scavenger I am. He saw the whole thing. I was mortified. But not as mortified as I was when he saw Addison spill punch on me. D offered to ask his sister for Addison’s number so I could find out what her damage is. At first I said no. I wanted to ignore the situation, hoping it would go away. Then Addison went and turned Mica against me. And now she doesn’t even work at the Upper East camp?
What happened with Mica was something I was hiding from D. I didn’t want to bother him with my immature girl problems. But it really hurts that Mica won’t talk to me or even look at me at camp. Right before I left for South Beach, Mica actually spoke to me for a minute. Just long enough to tell me that she’s hanging out with Addison now. Mica is making friends with Addison instead of becoming better friends with me. The injustice kept bothering me in South Beach. So when D and I were talking about our friends at that restaurant, the unabridged Addison drama came out. D said he’d ask his sister for Addison’s number. This time I didn’t protest.
“What did your sister say?” I ask.
“She thought Addison worked at the Upper East camp. She couldn’t believe it when I told her you called there and they had no record of her. But she’s texted Addison before. So we know this is her real number.” D gives me the number. I write it down in the margin of my notebook.
“I wish I didn’t have to confront her. Even over the phone, it’s going to be nasty.”
“Do you want me to call her?”
“No, thanks. I can do it.” This will be a test. A test of building confidence. A test of confronting my problems instead of running away from them.
The second I get off the phone with D, I take a deep breath and dial Addison’s number. She doesn’t pick up. I leave a message for her to call me back right away.
I call Addison a few more times that night. And the next day. Every time she doesn’t pick up, every time I leave another message she’ll probably never respond to, I get angrier.
Addison is definitely ignoring me. What a disgusting way to treat someone. The ignoring is a form of bullying. When and where will Addison strike again? What if she decides to hurt more of my friends? Or D?
Who will she hurt next to get to me?
SIXTEEN
SADIE
IT HAPPENS LIKE A HURRICANE. Actually, more like a flash flood or an avalanche. They give you warning if a hurricane is coming.
I do not see him coming. I am not prepared for the onslaught. I cannot even take a breath before he crashes into me.
Austin. Is confronting me. At internship.
We didn’t run into each other randomly. Austin came down to my floor to find me. He expected to find me in my cubicle. He did not expect to slam right into me as I was rounding the corner on the way back from the bathroom.
I freeze in front of the windows, paralyzed.
“Sorry!” Austin says. “Are you okay?”
Suddenly seeing him without warning is even more horrible than I’ve imagined. All I can hear is a whoosh of blood rushing to my head. All I can feel is my heart pounding in my ears.
“We need to talk,” he says.
This is the first time I’ve seen Austin since the night I found out he’s married. The first time his eyes have sparkled silver in the sunlight since I discovered how he lied. The first time he’s wearing his blue polo shirt with the frayed string on the second button from the bottom while I understand that his wife has never cared enough to snip it off. The first time I’ve seen him without a wedding ring, knowing he takes it off when he leaves home every day.
We don’t need to talk. We need to stay far away from each other.
“There’s nothing left to say,” I whisper.
“That’s not true. There’s so much I have to say to you. So much I owe you.”
I walked out on him the night I found out he’s married. But I can’t walk out on him now. Not unless I want to give up my internship. There’s no way that’s happening. Austin destroyed my love life. I will not let him destroy my professional life.
“Just leave me alone,” I say. “Walk away.”
“I can’t walk away from you. We’re soul mates.”
“A soul mate wouldn’t—” I shut up while two interns discussing solar arrays walk by. When they are out of hearing range, I say, “Soul mates don’t treat each other the way you treated me.”
“I know, and I can’t tell you how sorry I am. Please let me explain.”
“What could you possibly say that would change anything?”
“I left her, Sadie. I moved out.”
Oh. My. God.
He did it.
Darcy was ranting that when a guy is cheating on his wife, he promises to leave her but never does. The other woman always ends up devastated and alone.
But Austin did it. He left her.
There’s a chance he’s lying again. But something about the intense look in his eyes, something about the way he’s opening up to me, tells me he’s not.
My heart leaps like it wants to pull me back to Austin. I can’t let that happen. He completely shattered my world. Even if he did leave his wife, he’s still married. This is one mess I do not want to get tangled up in. There is no way I’m letting him take me back to that dark and twisty place. I picked myself up. I dusted myself off. Austin is not going to drag me down again.
He’s still talking, but I’m not listening. I don’t trust myself to hear any more.
“Um,” I interrupt. “I need to get back to work.”
“Can we—”
“We’re done here.” I dart back to my cubicle. Continue working where I left off. Pretend like he did not ju
st crash into me. If you act like nothing’s wrong at work or school or really anywhere, that’s how people will perceive you. Like a fully functional person going about her daily routine. Not like a girl whose heart was ripped to shreds.
I leave the office at 5:00. Austin starts calling me at 5:01.
His first call goes to voice mail while I’m in the elevator. I haven’t even had a chance to turn my phone on yet.
He calls again three minutes later.
By the time I get home, take a shower, and start making dinner, Austin has left me nine messages.
My phone rings again as I empty a box of pasta into a pot of boiling water. I refuse to pick up. There’s a moment of panic that Austin will come over if I keep avoiding his calls. But I get over it. I will not be intimidated into picking up.
“Who keeps calling you?” Darcy asks, coming into the kitchen. Darcy does not cook. We’ve gotten into a groove where she treats for dinner sometimes and I cook for the three of us sometimes. Most nights she’s out.
“Austin.” I throw some garlic bread into the oven.
“Wait. What?” Darcy’s mouth hangs open.
“Oh yeah. He came down to my floor today. He said we needed to talk.”
“Did you talk to him?”
“Only long enough to hear that he left his wife.”
“WHAT.”
“He moved out.”
“When?”
“Don’t know.”
“Where is he staying?”
“Don’t know.”
“Does she know about you?”
“Don’t know.”
“Why am I the only one interested in these answers?”
“Because I’ve moved on. Or I’m trying to move on. Moving on isn’t exactly the easiest thing if you get bogged down in the situation all over again.”
“But the situation has changed. He’s free. Isn’t that what you wanted?”
“No. I wanted to not fall in love with a married man. That’s what I wanted.”
Keys jangle on the other side of the front door. Rosanna bangs in, her face twisted in irritation. She drops her keys, bends down to pick them up, and chucks them into her bag.
“What’s wrong?” I ask her.