Despite the horrible events of this morning, I feel content. This is not a Felicity moment. Over the Moon is not Dean & DeLuca coffee shop. Lexi and Sadie are not Julie and Elena. I’m not Felicity. Liam is definitely not Ben.
But that’s okay. For the first time in my life, I want the real thing and not the imagined version in my head.
“I’m sorry,” I say to Lexi as she drives us to campus. “I shouldn’t have lied to you in the first place. Or kept lying to you.”
She lifts one shoulder in a weary shrug. Her window is down so she can blow out the smoke from her after-dinner cigarette. “You weren’t happy with who you were, Caroline. I understand that better than most, if not the lying part of it. And to be fair, I didn’t give you a whole lot of reasons to trust me enough to tell the truth.”
“But I should have tried to—”
“Yeah, you should have. But it’s not all on you. I should have remembered that people fuck up sometimes. Doesn’t always mean they’re horrible.” She exhales a stream of smoke toward her window, and I wonder if she’s thinking about Jordan.
The silence that follows is companionable, the tension between us eased, if not quite gone.
“I don’t want to leave Ashmore,” I say.
“Then don’t,” she says.
“It’s not up to me anymore. My mom is coming on Sunday. She told me to be packed and ready when she gets here.”
“Ouch.”
“Yeah.”
The evening air rushes past, filling the truck cab with a dull roar.
“So what are you going to do about it?” Lexi asks, startling me.
“I . . . don’t know.” I hadn’t thought of there being anything to do, I guess. Mom is upset, and she’s decided I’m leaving, so I’m leaving. Right?
“Caroline, do we have to have this conversation again?” Lexi sighs, but she doesn’t sound angry. Not anymore.
I frown, confused. “What are you—”
“Look,” she says, flicking her cigarette butt out the window. “It’s the same thing.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
She makes an impatient noise. “You’re always thinking about what everyone else wants for you or from you. How to be someone Liam will like, what stories to tell so your mother will feel good.”
I bite my lip. She’s not wrong.
“You said you started lying because you didn’t want your mom to worry. Okay. But you’re done with that now. So what do you want?”
“I want to stay, but—”
“So what do you need to do to make that happen?” she presses as she makes the turn onto campus.
“I don’t know,” I say, surprised by the revelation. “I don’t know if it’s even possible.”
Lexi rolls up her window. “Then I guess you have to decide if you’re going to try,” she says dryly, giving me a look.
I roll my eyes. I never should have said that to her (even though I was right). She’s going to hold it over my head for the rest of my time at Ashmore.
Even if that’s only the next forty-eight hours or so.
Chapter Twenty-Two
My stomach makes a gurgling noise as the yellow cab pulls into the turnaround in front of Brekken.
I should have made index cards. I’m always better with index cards.
But index cards aren’t normal. And “normal” is the watchword of the day.
Yesterday, after the hospital discharged Tory, we picked her up and got her settled in her room. Lexi checked in with Ayana, giving her an update on Tory, and then went to her study group. I tried to figure out exactly what to do, how to convince my mom that Ashmore was the right place for me. That I was happy here.
Of all the things I considered and discarded—dozens of crumpled balls of notebook paper now littering our floor—the only thing that seemed to make sense was the one thing I’d never tried before: Tell the truth and stand up for myself, even if it makes my mom unhappy.
I don’t want her to feel guilty for the move to Arizona; I never did. She was only doing what she had to do. But I also don’t want to be responsible for her feelings forever.
The problem is, ever since my dad left, I’ve had this precarious, tilting feeling inside, like I’m standing on the edge of an endless drop. It feels like if I say or do the wrong thing, something bad might happen and Mom will be gone too. Or maybe she’ll leave, like he did.
So now, being honest and making her unhappy feels way scarier than lying and keeping the peace. This is probably part of what Dr. Wegman has been trying to get me to realize about being myself versus being someone else that I think others will like better, including my mom.
I watch now as my mom gets out of the back of the cab. She’s frowning, her forehead creased with lines. When she walks into Brekken, she stops as soon as she sees me.
“Caroline.” Mom sounds surprised to find me waiting. She looks me up and down, searching, it seems, for obvious mental or physical infirmities before folding me into a tight hug.
“Hi, Mom,” I say against her shoulder. She releases me, smoothing my hair back. Dark circles shadow the area beneath her eyes.
“Are you ready?” she asks. “I asked the cab to wait.” She looks around. “Where are your things?”
I take a deep breath. “They’re in my room. Where they’re supposed to be.”
Her expectant expression collapses in disappointment. “Oh, Caroline. We don’t have time for this today. You know how long it takes to get to the—”
“I’m not going.”
She goes still, radiating disapproval.
“I know you think this is about Liam,” I say. “But it’s not. It’s about me. Yes, I came here for the wrong reasons, but I want to stay for the right ones.”
She shakes her head. “Honey—”
“I’ve made a home here, friends. For the first time in years.”
Mom winces.
“Arizona was not your fault,” I say quickly. “It would have been hard for me no matter where we went. I didn’t know how to be comfortable with myself. I still don’t, but I’m working on it.”
“Which is exactly why I want to bring you home—” she begins.
“It’s exactly why I need to stay,” I say. “You can’t fix this for me, Mom. I need to do this for myself.”
“But you’re not off to a very good start. All the lying, Caroline, even after you promised me—”
I grimace. “I know, I messed up, but I—”
“Caroline!” Lexi calls from behind me.
I turn.
“I thought you were meeting us in the cafeteria,” she says as she approaches, giving me a look, silently communicating . . . something.
Meeting? Us? Who? “I, um . . .”
“Hi, Mrs. Sands. Nice to see you again.” Lexi extends a hand to my mother.
My mom glances from Lexi to me, in question. Is this the same girl?
“Nice to see you, too, Lexi,” Mom says, shaking her hand.
“I found her,” Lexi shouts over her shoulder in the direction of the cafeteria. Sadie and Tory, still looking a bit pale, emerge from the doors. Followed by Del and Maisy and Matt the Hot TA from Yarn Club.
“Oh, um, hey, guys.” I wave lamely and then yank Lexi off to the side of the lobby, away from my mom and everyone else.
“What is this?” I hiss.
“I told them your mom was buying lunch,” she says.
“What?”
“Relax—the cafeteria was the best place to watch to see if you needed us. I told them she was worried you weren’t settling in and was thinking about pulling you out. They did the rest themselves.”
I watch as Del introduces himself to my mom, saying something with expansive gestures while Maisy watches with equal parts amusement and fondness. Mom, looking confused but also charmed, shakes his hand. The fact that he’s here must mean Lexi overcame her PBT distaste to reach out to him, and that’s . . . that’s huge.
My eyes start to water.
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“Seeing is believing, Caroline,” Lexi says. “If you’re trying to prove you belong here, what better way than showing her that? And I thought you could use the help.”
“Thank you,” I say, my voice cracking.
She steps back warily. “Do not get mushy on me, Sands. This is just . . . what friends do.”
I laugh through my tears and wipe under my eyes. “I thought we weren’t friends.”
“We’re roommates,” she says, dismissing my words with a wave. “That’s even better.”
Tory and Sadie are talking to my mom now, with Tory carefully pulling the lid off a see-through container marked PRALINES to offer Mom one.
They are pulling out all the stops.
Which is the kindest, best thing that could possibly happen. But it won’t be enough. I know what I have to do.
“I need to finish talking to my mom,” I say to Lexi.
“I figured,” Lexi says, folding her arms across her chest. “But at least she now knows you’re not alone.”
Before I can thank her again, she spins on her heels and charges back toward everyone else. “Come on, guys. Caroline is going to catch up with us in the cafeteria later.” The emphasis on the last word, in combination with the serious side-eye she gives my mom, is a challenge—or quite possibly a threat.
Then she waves them in the direction of the Brekken cafeteria and leads the way. Matt is a hurried step or two behind her.
“We’ll see you in there, darlin’,” Tory says with a faint smile, clutching the praline container to her chest as she follows Lexi, and Sadie nods.
Maisy surprises me by wrapping her arm around my shoulders. “I’ll save you a seat. Or”—she pauses with a faux-reflective look toward the ceiling—“maybe Del will.”
“Maisy,” Del mutters in protest, and then Maisy pinches my cheek and lets me go.
Once they’re gone, Mom clears her throat. “They’re lovely, Caroline . . .”
I feel the “but” coming and rush to cut it off. “And they’re real. No Felicity, not a fictional character among them. One hundred percent friends of mine. Well, except maybe Matt. The tall one?” The words spill out faster and faster. “I think he was here because he has a crush on Lexi and would probably do anything she asked, including stabbing himself in a nonvital area with the size thirteens.”
Mom frowns at me.
“Those are the big knitting needles,” I mumble.
“Be that as it may, Caroline,” she says. “It doesn’t change anything.”
My heart plummets. But instead of a surge of panic closing off my throat and stealing my words, I feel anger urging me to speak.
“It does, actually,” I say as calmly as I can. “It proves that I can do it, that I’m okay.”
“Of course you’re okay, honey; that’s not what—”
“No, you don’t understand. Part of the problem in Arizona was that I was afraid. I was too scared to be myself and try to find people who might like me, because what if they didn’t? What would that say about me? My own father didn’t even want to stay in touch after—”
“I told you, it’s more complicated than that.”
“It’s not that hard to make a phone call, Mom. He doesn’t want to.”
She starts to speak, but I cut her off again. “I’m not finished. It’s my fault for lying, my fault for letting that fear beat me. But worrying that I was disappointing you made it worse. I kept thinking that I was letting you down by not being who you wanted and expected me to be. All those stories about the friends you made in high school, the activities—”
Her lips are pressed into a thin, pale line. “I was trying to help.”
“I know. You were worried about me. But it felt more like pressure to hurry up and make things okay.” I rub my palms down the sides of my jeans. “It felt like if I didn’t live up to what you needed me to be, that I wouldn’t be good enough for you, either. And I . . . couldn’t. I couldn’t lose you, too.”
Her mouth opens in a small, shocked O and she rocks back a step as if I’ve slapped her. “I didn’t . . . Caroline, I—”
“I didn’t want you to be upset anymore.” My voice breaks, and I wipe at the sudden rush of tears filling my eyes. “And I didn’t want you to be stuck with a freak of a daughter, on top of everything else. So yeah, I lied. I made shit up. But I did it because I was scared. Scared of being alone, of being a disappointment, of being rejected again. And lying made me feel safer.”
Mom reaches out and pulls me into a hug, one so tight I can barely breathe. “I would never walk away from you. Ever. Do you hear me? No matter what is happening, I love you.”
“I love you, too,” I say against her shoulder, hiccuping. Beneath the familiar scent of the Dove soap she uses to wash her face, I also catch a hint of the Japanese Cherry Blossom hand sanitizer and lotion she keeps on her desk at the hospital. Both are very much my mom.
She takes a step back but grasps my hands to maintain the connection. “Caroline, what are we going to do?” she asks wearily, but it seems a genuine question rather than a rhetorical one.
“I don’t know,” I admit. “I understand why you don’t trust me and why you want me to come home. But that won’t fix anything. Nobody has it all figured out, and—”
“Believe me, I know that, honey.” She lets one of my hands go to dab a finger under her eye.
“But I didn’t. I thought everyone else had the answers, and I was the one falling behind. But now that I’m here . . . I want to stay. I want to do what I couldn’t do before. Please.” I squeeze her hand. “Please.”
She wants to say no. I can see it written in the lines on her forehead. “Everyone makes mistakes, Caroline,” she says eventually. “The hard part is not knowing ahead of time which decisions will be the ones you regret.”
I want to push, to tell her she won’t regret letting me stay, but with effort I manage to keep my mouth shut.
“So,” Mom says, “sometimes you have to choose what kind of regret you can live with.”
I understand that, more than she probably realizes. I’m just not sure that the regret she can live with is one I’ll be able to survive as well.
• • •
As soon as I walk into the cafeteria, six faces turn toward me expectantly. Lexi, Matt, and Sadie are on one side of the table, and Del, Maisy, and Tory are on the other. There’s an empty chair at the end, between Del and Lexi, waiting for me.
It strikes me, then, how different my life is now from three months ago at my graduation party, an event marked by uneaten food, unoccupied tables.
Here there’s only one empty spot, and it’s for me. It makes me want to pinch myself to see if this is reality.
“Caroline?” Tory asks, crossing her arms over her chest, like she’s hugging herself. The back of her left hand bears a bruise from her IV, now in stunning shades of yellow and green.
“What did she say?” Lexi asks, putting her fork down.
“Trial basis, until the end of the semester,” I say. I’ll have to check in with her and Wegman more frequently and possibly look into finding someone on campus to talk to about anything that comes up. “But I’m staying.”
Tory cheers quietly. “That’s great news!”
“Well, it’s something, at least,” Lexi says, sounding annoyed.
“It’s everything,” I correct her, my smile so wide I feel foolish, but I don’t care. “And it’s way more than I would have gotten on my own. Thank you.” I turn to the rest of the table. “Thank you, all of you guys. For showing up. I know it’s weird and you didn’t have to—”
“My parents used to send care packages twice a week,” Del says. “I’m the first kid in our family to go to college. I think they would have moved here if they could have.”
“It’s true,” Maisy affirms. “He had so many packets of ramen, we used them to build forts during the water-gun war. Until Mayer ate a bunch of them.”
“The ramen,” Del adds. “Not the water guns.??
?
He pulls out the chair next to him, and I drop into it gratefully.
Then the conversation shifts back to whatever they were talking about before. Maisy and Matt are arguing about some cartoon—or anime, possibly—that I’ve never heard of before, with Del dropping in comments occasionally. Sadie is urging Tory to drink more water, while Tory rolls her eyes.
It is both spectacularly normal and totally new: this place, these people gathered around me. And by no means perfect. But I kind of want a picture to commemorate the moment. It’s the start of the life I was searching for, even though it’s nothing like what I expected. Liam didn’t change my life—I did. And that’s so much better.
“You okay?” Lexi asks, stabbing a forkful of lettuce as if it has personally offended her.
“Yeah,” I say. “Just happy to finally be here.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I wrote this book because I kept hearing from kids who were like me: introverted, a bit shy, maybe not great at joining in activities or reaching out to others. One of them told me he was looking forward to college because he’d have a chance to catch up on his Netflix queue. And I heard myself in those words.
I went to college determined to reinvent myself, just like Caroline. And I, too, took great comfort in fictional characters and their worlds. Luckily for me, I was “adopted” by an extrovert pretty early on and, through her, found people I could be myself with. I’d never before had friendships that lasted more than a few years or withstood a change in location, but these friends have been with me now for more than twenty years. I wanted to show the start of that same thing happening for Caroline. I wanted to give hope to the others who are/were like me.
I’m so grateful to Christian Trimmer, my editor, friend, and fellow Felicity fanatic for giving me a chance to tell this story and working with me so closely as I flailed through a couple of drafts. A huge thank-you to Catherine Laudone for guiding me through the final draft and being awesome.