“You wanted to make me jealous? So you showed up with another girl? Wow, you really are an asshole.”
“I said it was some part of me that maybe wanted to make you jealous.” He takes a deep breath, and his tone softens. “Look, let me go talk to her and then you and I can talk. I’ll take you to breakfast, there’s this really good place—”
“I’m not going anywhere with you.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’re an asshole.” Isn’t he? Suddenly, I’m not sure. The whole thing sounds like he’s playing one big game with me, and it’s confusing.
Beckett looks like I slapped him, and I want more than anything to take it back. I want to apologize to him, to tell him I don’t think he’s an asshole, that I’m just confused, that I can’t stop thinking about him, that I’ve never felt this way about anyone before and it’s messing with my mind and I’m not acting like myself.
But before I can talk, his face hardens again. “Oh, that’s really mature, Lyla. Calling me an asshole? What about you?”
“What about me?” I’m shocked that he’s turning the conversation back on me. What the hell have I done to him?
“You want to talk about doing the wrong thing? You hooked up with me when you had a boyfriend!”
“You kissed me!” I say. “What was I supposed to do?”
“You kissed me back,” he says. He shakes his head. “Did you ever stop to think that not everything is completely black and white, Lyla? That things are complicated, that they can exist in gray areas?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say, trying to sound haughty. But my voice is faltering. Is it true? Do I not know how to let things exist in gray areas? A flash of Quinn and Aven, standing on the lawn outside of school, me telling them to get the hell out of my life hits my mind. Was that another way I lived in black and white? Refusing to be friends with them, cutting them out of my life when maybe, just maybe, we could have worked it out?
Beckett reaches out and grabs my purse. He reaches into it and pulls out my phone. “This,” he says. “I’m talking about this.”
He holds it up, showing me the email I wrote to myself four years ago.
Before graduation, I will . . . learn to trust.
“What the hell does that have to do with anything?”
“It has to do with everything! You have to learn to trust people, Lyla. You said so yourself.”
“I do trust people!” I say. “I trust people who are worthy of being trusted.”
“Oh, like Derrick?” he asks. He throws his head back and laughs. “God, you are so naive, Lyla. What do you think Derrick was doing all day when you couldn’t find him?”
“He was with his friends.” I point my chin in the air, daring him to tell me different.
“Yeah, he was with his friends,” Beckett says. “But Juliana was there for part of it, too, Lyla. I’ll bet he didn’t mention that to you, did he?”
I swallow. “That’s a lie. You’re lying just to hurt me.”
“And why would I do that?”
“Because that’s what you do, Beckett! You lie just to hurt people. Like Katie. I’m sure you’re lying to her, too.”
“And you’re so honest, right, Lyla? You kissed me back on that beach. You kissed me and you had a boyfriend and you pretended like it didn’t mean anything to you, but it did.” He shakes his head. “Trusting someone doesn’t mean everything’s perfect, Lyla. Learning to trust means that you trust people even when they’re not perfect, even when things get messed up.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say, trying not to cry.
“You have no idea what’s going on with me and Katie,” he says. “Yes, I came into the club with her last night. And the only reason I hung out with her for as long as I did was because I was sad about you. I thought you’d gone back to Derrick, that I wasn’t going to ever get to spend time with you again.” He shakes his head. “I fucked up. That’s what I do sometimes, Lyla, I fuck up. Everyone does, even you, even Derrick.” He shakes his head. “But it’s what you do in those moments—that’s what real trust is about. You talk about the problems, you work through them.”
I’m so mad I can hardly speak. How dare he stand here and talk to me about things he knows nothing about? How dare he talk about the things that I’ve done wrong, the things that were wrong in my relationship with Derrick? He has no idea about anything I’ve done with Derrick, or how I feel about him, or if I trust him or not.
“How dare you stand here and judge me,” I spit.
He shakes his head again, and now his face doesn’t look mad or intense anymore. It just looks sad. “That’s the thing, Lyla,” he says. “I’m not judging you. And I wish you could see that.”
We stand there, face-to-face in the hallway, and I have that sensation again, that sliding-doors-moment feeling, like the ball is poised over the net and it could go either way. That if I say the right thing, that if I let my guard down and tell him he’s right, I could get what I want.
But then it passes by, and I realize just what I’m looking at.
A guy who doesn’t care about me.
A guy who doesn’t care about anything but himself.
“Give me my phone,” I say.
He holds it out and I take it from him.
I make it back to my room before the tears start.
FIFTEEN
I LIE ON MY BED, CRYING AND FEELING SORRY for myself, for what seems like forever but is really probably only an hour. I’m crying about everything. About Derrick, about Beckett, about myself. About this dumb wasted trip that I spent so much time looking forward to. About how stupid I was to listen to anything Beckett had to say, about how wrong I could be about my feelings. I was going to have sex with Derrick! I was going to lose my virginity to a guy I ended up breaking up with. How could I have been so wrong? And if I was so wrong, then how can I trust myself when it comes to anything else in my life?
Was my email right? Do I really need to learn how to trust people, including myself? Was Beckett right about me? Do I only look at things in black and white?
I think back on my relationship with Derrick, wondering if there were any signs that I missed.
Of course, when we first met, I kind of thought that maybe he wasn’t smart enough for me. Okay, that’s not true. He was smart. He is smart. He gets good grades and he studies and he’s responsible. It was more like . . . we didn’t vibe intellectually. Like when we were talking, a lot of times I would feel like I wanted to debate or talk about something a little more in-depth, and he wouldn’t really do that with me. Or when we’d watch funny movies—he’d always be laughing at the physical humor parts, the stuff with people tripping or falling all over themselves, and I’d be laughing more at the sarcastic dialogue.
One kind of humor isn’t better than the other, it’s just that it was a little weird that we didn’t find the same things funny. Actually, not weird, just kind of . . . I don’t know, disconnected.
I sigh and roll over so that I’m looking up at the ceiling. I stretch out my toes. The housekeeping team must have come this morning, because the sheets feel clean and scratchy. I hate brand-new scratchy clean sheets. I prefer my sheets slept on for a day or two, so that they’re broken in. These sheets feel foreign.
My whole body feels foreign. My brain is a mess. It’s like a trapeze, going back and forth and out of control. I can’t stop thinking about everything in my life, about how maybe it’s all been a lie.
I’m lucky that I’m still a child. Yes, seventeen is pretty grown up, but you’re really not allowed to make that many of your own choices. Can you imagine if I’d been allowed to choose a career? Or a husband? I’d probably be married to Derrick and having an affair. It really is a miracle I haven’t just dropped out of school. I’m obviously completely insane. And it’s making my brain race.
The door to my room opens and Aven walks in.
She glances at me, then crosses the room and throws herself down on
her cot. We both just lie there for a moment, in silence. After about ten minutes or so, I’m starting to think that maybe she’s fallen asleep. I’m just about to look over and check when the room door opens again and Quinn walks in.
She also throws herself down on her bed. But unlike Aven, she doesn’t stay silent.
“Why are you guys just lying here?” she asks.
“I’m sad,” Aven says.
“I’m wrecked,” I say.
“Life’s a mess,” Aven says.
“I want to go home,” I say.
“Me too,” Quinn says. “To all of the above.”
I want to ask them what’s wrong, but it’s like some kind of unspoken rule that I can’t. It’s none of my business. We’re not friends anymore. And besides, the last thing I want to do is start confiding in Quinn and Aven about what happened between me and Derrick. And me and Beckett.
“You know what?” Quinn says, propping herself up on her elbow. “This is ridiculous.”
“What is?” I want to add, Us being in the same room together? but I don’t want to hurt Aven’s feelings or start a fight. I’ve had enough fights in these past few days to last me quite a while, thank you very much.
“That we’re in Florida, and we’re just sitting in this room. We should be out having adventures.”
“Sounds exhausting,” I say.
“Sounds depressing,” Aven says.
Quinn stands up and throws a pillow at me, then another one at Aven. “Get up,” she says. “We’re going out.”
I sit up and look at her incredulously. “The three of us? Like, together?”
She tilts her head. “Do you have anyone else to hang out with?”
“No, but . . .” I trail off, trying to decide which is worse. Sitting here in the room feeling sorry for myself, or hanging out with Quinn and Aven. I’m surprised to find that hanging out with Quinn and Aven actually doesn’t even sound bad. It sounds kind of fun. Suddenly, I miss them. I miss them so bad it hurts.
“I’m in,” Aven says happily, jumping out of bed.
“Me too.” I stand up, and as I do, I get a look at myself in the mirror over the desk. Wow. I look wild. My hair is all flat on one side, probably from sleeping on a lounge chair. My clothes are wrinkled, my face is blotchy, and my eyes are bloodshot. I look like I’m about two seconds away from mugging someone and/or robbing a bank. “But can I wash my face first?”
“Of course,” Quinn says.
I wash my face and brush my hair and change into a red-and-gray-patterned sundress. I slip my feet into my flip-flops and then head back out into the room.
“Okay,” I say. “I’m ready.” I grab my purse off the chair and slip the strap over my shoulder. I realize I’ve done this dozens of times—made Quinn and Aven wait for me before we go somewhere. It feels so natural, it’s weird.
But then I start to wonder if this is really a good idea, if Quinn’s offhand comment about us all going somewhere together is going to end up turning into some kind of horrible disaster.
Quinn and Aven and I all glance at each other nervously, and I can tell they’re thinking the same thing I am. But what are we supposed to do? No one wants to be the one to call the whole thing off, the one who has to admit she’s so petty she can’t hang out with the other two for the day.
Because to admit that would mean you were still invested. It would mean your feelings were hurt, that they were hurt so bad you couldn’t even stand for us all to be together for even a day. And that would be admitting you cared.
And the three of us have spent the past two years pretending we don’t care at all.
Of course, it’s a lie.
But no one wants to be the first one to break.
SIXTEEN
WHEN WE STOPPED BEING FRIENDS, IT WAS October of sophomore year, which somehow made it worse. The beginning of the school year wasn’t supposed to be when you got into a huge fight with your best friends. The beginning of the school year was supposed to be when you figured out exactly how you were going to spend the next ten months, which classes were going to be hard, which teachers were going to give you a hard time, and which boys you were going to crush on.
October was not a good time for you to get into a fight with your friends. It was also not a good time for your parents to announce they were getting divorced, but that’s what happened.
It was all very not unexpected.
I mean, I wasn’t an idiot. My parents didn’t fight, but they also didn’t even really . . . talk. My dad had been sleeping in the guest room for pretty much as long as I could remember. And so when they sat me down and told me they were separating, I knew what it meant—they were getting divorced.
I wondered if they’d waited to separate until I was almost out of the house, but I didn’t want to ask. It was way too depressing to think about my parents wasting their lives waiting for me to be old enough to handle them getting a divorce when I didn’t even care if they got divorced in the first place.
So I just shrugged and said it was fine. And it was. There was no question about who I would live with—it would be my mom. My dad and I weren’t close. It wasn’t like we hated each other or anything. He wasn’t a mean father. He was just never really around. He was a surgeon, but it never felt glamorous to me, or exciting. It just felt kind of blah. He worked long hours, but he didn’t do the kind of lifesaving surgeries you’d see on television, the kind where they wheel someone in at three in the morning with a gunshot wound and everything descends into chaos.
He did routine things—gallbladders, appendixes, maybe an intestinal obstruction. He worked to the point of exhaustion, and even though I knew he’d always wanted to be a doctor, I don’t think he was satisfied with his life. At all.
Anyway, my parents told me not to worry, that my dad was taking a job in New Hampshire but that he was going to have a house there and I could visit him whenever I wanted. That’s what they said—whenever I wanted. Not anything specific, like every other weekend, or some Christmases. I said that sounded good, and then my dad went back to work and my mom and I ate dinner and then I did my homework and went to bed.
It was two in the morning when I heard it. Crying, coming from the living room. At first, I thought it was my mom. She could be emotional about things sometimes, and I figured she must be feeling bad about the divorce.
I put on my slippers and crept down the stairs. But it wasn’t my mom. It was my dad. He was still in his scrubs, sitting there on the couch, the same couch where they’d told me they were getting divorced just a few hours before.
His head was in his hands and he was sobbing.
I wanted to turn around and go back upstairs—it felt weird, like I was intruding on a moment I shouldn’t have been seeing. I knew there was no way my dad would have ever wanted me to see him crying like that.
But it was too late. He’d seen me.
“Hey, Lyla,” he said.
“Hi.” I moved awkwardly back and forth from foot to foot. “Um, are you okay?” I thought about offering him something—tea or a piece of cake—but it somehow felt wrong. How could I offer my own father tea and cake in his own house while he sat there crying on the couch? The whole scene was very weird.
“No, no, I’m fine.” He looked at me then, with the saddest look in his eyes. It was actually quite shocking. I’d never thought of my dad as someone who could look that sad. Hell, I’d never thought of him as someone who could show any kind of emotion. “Lyla,” he said. “I’m sorry I haven’t been more of a father to you.”
“It’s okay,” I said. “You’ve been a great father.” It was a lie, of course—he hadn’t been a great father, but really, what else was I supposed to say? You had to tell your dad he’d been good to you when he was sitting in the living room in the middle of the night crying. And it wasn’t like he’d been horrible—he’d never yelled at me, never hit me, had always made sure I had food and clothes and whatever else I wanted. When it came to fathers, I knew a lot of people who wer
e a lot worse off than I was.
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “I haven’t been. And now . . . now you’re grown up, and I’m just . . .” He started to sob again, and I just stood there awkwardly.
“Dad,” I said finally. “Seriously, please, you don’t have to feel bad.”
“Lyla,” he said again, and this time, he looked up at me, desperate. “Come with me.”
“What?”
“Come with me. To New Hampshire. Please. I can’t . . . I can’t be alone. I have this house, this big house, and I just . . . you should come. To live with me.”
I didn’t know what to say. It was a ridiculous request. Of course I wasn’t going to come and live with him. I hardly knew him. And he hardly knew me. But what are you supposed to say when someone asks you something like that? So I told him I would think about it.
He went to sleep after that, and the next morning, Saturday, I told Aven what had happened.
We were eating pancakes at IHOP after hanging out at the mall, and she stopped, mid-syrup-pour.
“Are you going to go?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I’m . . . thinking about it.” The thing was, I was thinking about it. I hardly knew my dad, but my mom and I didn’t have the best relationship either. It seemed . . . I don’t know, like an opportunity. I’d just broken up with a guy—this loser named Marco Price who made out with me and then pretended it never happened, which, in my deluded tenth-grade brain, felt like a breakup and not what it really was—a blow-off—and I felt like I needed to get away from things.
“Please don’t tell anyone about this,” I said.
“Of course not.”
But she did tell someone. She told Quinn.
Aven said she thought when I said not to tell anyone, Quinn wasn’t included. But she was. Because Quinn’s mom was friends with my mom. And Quinn told her mom. And Quinn’s mom told my mom that she was sorry to hear I was moving to New Hampshire with my dad.
And my mom freaked out on me.
She started crying and screaming, and begging me not to go. I told her I wouldn’t. But I was mad. Mad at Quinn for telling her mom, mad at Aven for telling Quinn.