“Red circle,” I tell her.
“Huh?”
I point to her water bottle. “Poland Spring. It’s like a red circle, right?”
Sophie stares at me like I’m speaking a whole other language.
“Huh?” she goes again.
“No. I’m just . . . thinking of twenty things at once.”
Sophie goes back to her pencil sculpture.
Everything always leads back to Jason. We connect in a way I’ve always hoped could be real. I’ve been wishing someone like him would come into my life for so long. Now’s my chance to know what that kind of love feels like. How can I keep fighting it?
I could spend an eternity wondering if Jason’s thinking the same thing. But there’s only one way to know for sure.
17
It took me over a week to get the courage to do this. I couldn’t concentrate on anything else for most of that time, thinking about what I should say, totally afraid of what might happen. Avoiding Erin was hard, but there’s no way I could be hanging out with her while I was thinking about confronting Jason. I told her that I thought I was getting sick and I didn’t feel like doing anything. Then I reminded myself that there’s no way I could do this to her. I decided not to say anything to Jason.
But on Monday, my horoscope said that if I took a risk when I would normally play it safe, the payback would be immense. Magic 8 Ball agreed.
So I’m doing it. I’m going to ask Jason if he likes me. I have no idea what I’ll do if he does. I just have to know.
Jason thinks I randomly ran into him instead of strategically placing myself down the hall from his last class. He’s really high-energy today.
“You’re in a good mood,” I say.
“Totally.”
“Just because, or—?”
“No, I started lifeguarding again Memorial Day weekend. I love getting back out there.”
“Sweet.”
“It really is. Hey, can we—”
“Jay-dog!” Greg comes over and pounds fists with Jason. “Where you been?”
“Nowhere.”
“You going to Kaminsky’s?”
“For that party?”
“It’s gonna be killer. His parents are away all week.”
Greg is totally ignoring me. I don’t know if he knew that Erin was pushing me to like him before, but ever since I convinced her that it was never going to happen, it’s like he doesn’t even see me. Which is how some of the other Golden Kids treat me now, so I’m not all that surprised.
“Erin told me,” Jason says. “We might be there.”
“You might be there?” Greg is incredulous. “What’s that about?”
Jason glances at me. Greg doesn’t notice. Or he pretends he doesn’t notice.
“I’ll see you there,” Jason goes. I can tell Jason’s just trying to get rid of Greg.
“Later,” Greg says. Of course he doesn’t say bye to me or anything.
I say, “Can you believe he—” and Jason says, “Can we—” at the same time.
“You first,” I tell him.
“Can I talk to you?”
“Yeah.”
“Not here.” Jason pulls on the door handle of the classroom next to us. The door’s unlocked. We go in and close it behind us.
My nerves clang around, aware that we’re all alone.
“Some light would be good,” I say.
“Really? Because I was thinking light is so overrated.”
It’s a cloudy day and the windows have eastern exposure, so it’s all dim in here. Actually, it’s cool in a moonlit kind of way.
“You’re right,” I agree. “Not sure what I was thinking there.” Jason smiles my favorite Jason smile. It’s the one where his eyes light up, like we have a secret. This is a perfect time to ask him. But maybe I should see what he wants first. He’s never pulled me into an empty classroom before.
His smile slowly fades. His eyes change from aqua green-blue to deep sea green.
It’s really hard to breathe when he looks at me this way.
“Um . . .” Jason goes. “So . . . I like you.”
“Okay . . .”
“No, I mean . . . I like you like you.”
Oh my god.
I go, “Why didn’t you say anything before?”
“I thought you were going out with Blake, remember?”
“But why?”
“You know that time we went out for pizza?”
“Yeah . . .”
“I thought you guys were together.”
“Why?”
“Just the way you were acting. He put his arm around you and stuff.”
“But Blake is gay!” I shout.
Then I slap my hand over my face.
It’s too late.
I just said the most secret thing I promised to never say.
“Please don’t tell anyone that.” I glance around, even though we’re the only ones in here.
“I won’t.”
“No, you don’t understand. No one. Can know. About Blake.”
“Don’t worry, I get it.”
“His dad would kill him. Seriously.”
“Lani. Don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
“So . . . you didn’t say anything because you thought Blake was my boyfriend?”
“Yeah. Erin just said you guys were her friends and I assumed you were together. I mean, I never asked her, but she never said you weren’t. And I heard you were going out from some other people.”
“Who?”
“People.” He shrugs. “Around.”
“But you asked me if we were going out and I said no.”
“But by that time—”
“—you were already with Erin.”
“Exactly.”
I cannot believe he just told me he likes me right before I was going to ask him the same thing. I should be used to these non-coincidences by now.
“Do you . . . feel the same way?”
This is it. I can deny my feelings and go on pretending that we can just be friends. I can try to keep everything the same. I can try to keep Erin from hating me for falling in love with her boyfriend.
But of course I can’t do that. Everything is different now. My fate has been decided.
“Yeah,” I say. “I like you, too.”
“You do?” He has the biggest smile ever.
“You couldn’t tell?”
“Not really. Well, I thought maybe you did, but I wasn’t sure if it was all in my head. Like how much of it was really there instead of just what I wanted to see, you know?”
“Totally! I felt the exact same way!”
All along, I knew he liked me. But that knowing was deep down, squelched by insecurities. Your heart always knows, even if the truth is too hard to admit. The truth can never be denied.
Jason goes to push some hair off my face. My bangs get swept to the side.
I pull back from him. “Don’t,” I say.
“What’s wrong?”
If he pushes my bangs back, he’ll see my scar. I can’t think of anything that would gross out a potential boyfriend more.
Wait. What am I thinking? Potential boyfriend? Am I crazy? It’s one thing to admit the truth about how you feel. It’s a whole other thing to take it to the next level.
Jason looks confused, like he wants to know what he did wrong.
I go, “I have this . . . scar . . . on my forehead. From the accident.”
“Can I see?”
“No! It’s really gross.”
“Oh. Can I see it anyway?”
“Why?”
“I just want to see your whole face.”
I can’t believe he wants to see my scar. And I can’t believe I’m standing here, letting him push away my bangs to see it. But Jason doesn’t look grossed out or anything. His expression doesn’t even change.
I pull away from him again and shake my bangs back over my forehead.
“I told you.”
“Well, you’re wrong. That scar has character. It has rock-star quality.”
“I hate it.”
“But you’re so beautiful.”
This is too much. Jason thinks I’m beautiful. Even with my face all ripped apart, he still thinks that.
I want to tell him everything I’ve been thinking and feeling, but I can’t. Which really sucks. It sucks how Erin and I are both falling in love with him, but he’s only falling in love with one of us.
Jason’s standing so close to me. It’s obvious that he’s going to kiss me. And all I want to do is kiss him back.
part two
june-august
“A person often meets his destiny on the
road he took to avoid it.”
—Jean de La Fontaine
“You’ve got to take a chance on something
sometime, Pam.”
—Jim Halpert
18
How could I do this to her?
She saved my life.
19
When Erin and I were ten, her mom was driving us back from Girl Scout camp. A huge storm had suddenly moved in that last day. It was a good thing that our tents and everything were packed up before the downpour hit.
Riding home was really scary. I could hardly see anything out the windows. The windshield wipers were almost invisible. They were madly smacking at the rain, struggling to push heavy sheets of water off the glass.
We were almost home when Erin’s mom leaned forward really close to the windshield. She said, “I can’t see the road.”
I started to cry. Erin told me not to worry. She said we would be home soon.
“I’m going to try to pull over,” her mom said. “We can wait for the storm to pass.”
Putting on her blinker was useless. We had no idea if there were cars ahead of us or behind us. It was one huge water wall wherever you looked. Sometimes we’d see a blurry glow of light, but only for a few seconds.
Erin’s mom wanted to get us over to the side of the road, but none of us could see where that was. All of a sudden, it felt like we were skidding. Later I learned that the car was hydroplaning.
Then there was a crash. It felt like we had smacked into something. I thought we had run into the car in front of us, except we were still moving. But not like driving moving. More like wobbling.
“Oh my god!” Erin yelled. “We’re in the lake! Open your door!”
I tried to open my door. I pushed and pushed against it, but it wouldn’t open. Neither would Erin’s.
Erin’s mom didn’t say anything. She was hunched forward over the steering wheel. She wasn’t moving.
“Mom?” Erin said, tapping her on the back. “Mom?”
The car rocked back and forth. The front end began to tip forward. A weird wooshing sound surrounded us.
“Try your window!” Erin yelled at me. She sounded really far away, even though she was sitting right next to me.
We pressed our window buttons. Nothing happened.
The front end of the car tipped forward some more.
The next thing I remember, the car was filling with water. The dashboard was almost submerged.
“We’re drowning,” I said. It was hard to get the words out. I was crying really hard.
Erin tried to pull her mom out of the front seat, but she couldn’t. She could only pull her back enough so that her mom was leaning against the window. Water sloshed all over her mom’s lap. The whole front of the car was filling with more water. Since the car was tilted forward, there wasn’t as much water in the back.
“Mom!” Erin screamed. “Wake up!”
Erin’s mom didn’t move.
“Come on!” Erin told me. “Get in the back!”
I unclicked my seat belt and twisted around to climb into the back of the car. The car lurched forward. The metal part of the headrest slammed into my forehead.
I can’t remember what happened next. All I know is that Erin and I were hunched together in the back of the car for eons. More and more water sloshed over us. The front of the car was almost totally submerged. Erin’s mom was up to her neck in water. But there was more space in the back where we could breathe. Erin told me to keep my head above the water.
I focused on her.
I focused on breathing.
The car was found pretty soon after we went into the lake. It felt like a thousand years later, but my parents said the car was underwater for less than half an hour. Someone saw us go into the lake and called 911. So we got out okay. Erin’s mom was okay, too, just unconscious until we got to the hospital.
I don’t know how that person saw us. It had to be fate. Our lives were saved for a reason.
Big news travels fast in a small town. Everyone immediately heard about the accident. Tons of rumors were flying about us. There were so many versions of that day going around that I had to keep reliving what actually happened just to hold on to the truth. I had nightmares every night. I still have them sometimes.
When we got back to school, everyone was super nice. Girls who never talked to us before shared their candy and gave us stickers. One girl made us matching friendship bracelets that we wore for the rest of the year. Teachers gave us privileges. In social studies, I was allowed to pass out worksheets two days in a row and no one said anything. Even the boys stopped teasing us for a while.
These are the things that happen when you almost die but don’t.
Though the details of the accident are probably hazy for most people by now, everyone remembers that Erin and I were in it together. They all assume that we’ll be best friends forever. Because how can you share the most intense experience ever and not be soul sisters for life?
If Erin hadn’t told me to, I don’t think I would have climbed into the back of the car that day. I was so scared that we were going to drown. All I could do was sit there and cry. I was paralyzed by fear. But Erin made sure that I moved. She made sure that I kept my head above water. She kept me alive.
That’s how much I owe her. I owe her my life.
20
When the camp bus pulls into the rec center’s parking lot, all this gravel dust flies up into the air. It sticks to my sweaty skin. It gets in my eyes.
We’re having a heat wave. It’s supposed to be almost one hundred degrees today. For extra fun, it’s crazy humid.
I really don’t want to be here.
Erin wanted both of us to come with her to say good-bye. So Jason drove us over for Erin to catch her bus to sleepaway camp. Erin’s stoked because this year she gets to be a leader-in-training.
She’ll be in Vermont for two months.
Jason and I will be here.
Alone.
Parents are dropping kids off. Kids are dragging duffel bags across the gravel. Damp dust surrounds everything.
“I hope the bus is air-conditioned,” I tell Erin.
“I know,” she says. “It could not possibly be any hotter.”
Jason reaches over and picks a piece of driveway off my arm.
I panic. I don’t think he realizes what he just did. He’s just standing there holding hands with Erin, squinting into the sun. Picking a piece of driveway off someone’s arm is the kind of thing a close friend would do without even thinking about it. Except it’s not that simple with us. Every time Jason’s done something like that when Erin’s around, I’ve panicked that she can tell.
I really wanted to kiss Jason the day he told me he liked me. I never wanted anything so much in my whole life. But of course I didn’t kiss him. I’d never have been able to face Erin again. It’s the worst kind of luck that she’s already with the boy I want to be with. Or maybe fate got us confused.
Not kissing Jason that day was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. We just stood there in silence, looking at each other for a long time. Then he came closer, like he was going to kiss me. But I stepped back. I told him there’s no way I could ever hurt Erin like that. You don’t hook up with your best friend??
?s boyfriend. Even if he breaks up with her first. Which I would never want to put her through, so it’s pointless to even think about. I have to push those thoughts out of my mind and keep them there.
It’s a freaking impossible situation with no solution.
Desperately scrambling to draw attention away from the fact that Jason just touched me, I stick out my arms and go, “I know, it’s ridiculous! Look at all this dirt!”
Erin’s squinting, too. But not from the harsh sunlight. She’s squinting right at me.
Because she knows.
Wait. How can she know? It’s not like there’s anything to know.
I need to take the paranoia down a notch.
“Okay, you guys.” Erin puts her bag down. She turns one of her rings a few times. “This is it. Next time you see me, we’ll almost officially be seniors.”
Jason’s like, “Far out.” He’s still holding her hand.
Erin kisses him.
I look away, scuffing my flip-flop on the gravel.
“Don’t forget to write,” Jason says.
“You better write me!” Erin swats his arm. She’s already made it clear that writing is mandatory. Cell phones and laptops aren’t allowed at her camp. “I swear, if I don’t get at least two letters a week, I’m coming back to kill you.”
“Two letters a week!” Jason does this mock dying thing. “You’re already killing me!”
“Oh yeah, right,” Erin says. “Like that’s a lot.”
“Guys don’t have that much to say,” Jason informs her. “I’m sure Lani will write you all the time.”
“Absolutely,” I promise. It’s the least I can do.
Kids start packing into the bus. A groan goes through the crowd. Someone found out there’s no air-conditioning and it’s a three-hour ride.
“Good luck with that,” Jason tells Erin. He gives her a big hug.
Then I hug her. “I’ll miss you.”
“Me, too.” Erin picks up her bag. Then she does a beauty-pageant wave. “Be good!”
We watch her find a seat on the bus. We watch the bus pull out. We stay until we can’t see her anymore.