I miss Ryan. I wish he had noticed I disappeared with Brian, and had come to save me like that time I got lost at Opryland when I wanted to drive a Tin Lizzie. Ever since Mom left us, I’ve cooked his meals. I’ve done his laundry. He needed me to rescue him, while I kept waiting on him to save me again.
“You should’ve called me!” Mom says to Dad, and I see my brother cringe. He shuts his eyes. He never meant for this to happen, I know he didn’t. Like me, he didn’t know how to deal. He couldn’t get the perfection back. So he changed for the worse. We both did.
I move from the love seat to the sofa where Ryan’s sitting and wrap my arms around his neck and bury my face in his shoulder. He rubs my back and presses his face against my hair.
Nobody talks to me at school on Monday.
Everybody’s too busy talking about me.
As if I don’t feel guilty enough.
When I walk through the hall between classes, I hear my name. Brian’s name.
“I heard she was sleeping with him,” says a younger guy I don’t know.
“Laura caught them doing it in the equipment shed!” says another.
“We lost our coach because of her,” Paul says to Jake Sanders. “I can’t believe we’re stuck with the damned music teacher the rest of the season.”
“She’ll mess around with anybody,” Matt Higgins tells Kristen Markum.
Dr. Salter calls me to his office after third period. He’s playing with his paperweight again. “I’ve asked the faculty not to discuss Coach Hoffman’s resignation with the students, but I’ve been hearing rumors all morning. Do you want to speak with the guidance counselor?”
“No, thank you,” I tell him, bowing my head.
“I don’t have any evidence anything actually happened…but I’m worried about you.”
“I’m fine,” I say quickly, quietly.
“I hope this dies down before graduation. I’d hate to have these rumors be the focus of graduation, rather than your valedictory speech and the other students’ accomplishments.”
When I peek up at his face, he swallows and looks out the window.
At lunchtime, I take a deep breath, and dragging my fingers across the white concrete walls, I head toward the cafeteria. I push the double doors open to find Will and Drew sitting together. I slowly walk to their table.
“I’m really sorry,” I whisper.
Will scrunches his forehead, stands, and leaves the cafeteria without saying a word, abandoning his sandwich, chips, and apple.
I sit down across from Drew. He’s still here. I hope that means he’s willing to forgive me. Or at least let me explain that nothing was happening with Will.
“Drew,” I say quietly. “I realize I’ve hurt you, but I need you to know I didn’t hook up with Will. I swear I didn’t.”
He starts tearing up his paper napkin. “I’m just glad I didn’t tell you that Corndog was interested in you.”
I close my mouth to swallow. “You knew and you didn’t tell me?”
“Does that mean you liked him back?”
“Don’t my feelings matter as much as yours?” Just because he came out, I’m supposed to ignore everything I feel for Will? Is that what true friends do to each other? I touch my throat. “I wish I’d known he liked me.”
“But you had Coach Hoffman. You would’ve just hurt Corndog. Like you’d hurt our other friends.”
So this is what friendship is?
I thought friends gave you the benefit of the doubt. I thought friends stayed beside you through everything. I stayed beside Drew. At least I think I did. At least I tried. He’s acting like Laura did.
“I’m sorry I hurt you and your friends,” I say honestly. I stand up. “I’ll see you around,” I tell him.
I move to leave the cafeteria, wondering if Drew will blurt, “Wait.”
But he doesn’t.
I chose not to act on a relationship with Will for him. I wish Drew could’ve listened. I’m okay. It’ll be okay. I’m panting. I lean up against the wall next to the gym, shutting my eyes.
That’s when I decide to make Spring Break plans. To begin to try to heal from this mess, if healing’s even possible.
Dad is way old-fashioned, so when I was growing up, he never wanted Mom to work a job. He wanted to make ends meet so she could stay home with Ryan and me, to drive us to tee-ball practice and to piano lessons, to help us with our homework after school. To cart us to teeth cleanings.
Up until this year, Ryan and I were pretty great, and we’ve always had excellent grades, so Dad did us right by asking her to be a homemaker. But I always knew Mom was itching for a job.
She loves gardening. Our front yard won the Franklin Beautification Award six years in a row, thanks to Mom’s hedges and rose bushes. She wanted to learn topiary design but never got around to it because she was chauffeuring me to softball game after softball game.
I was so excited to find out that Mom recently got a job at a florist. It doesn’t pay much, but she loves getting her hands dirty. The store’s sales have skyrocketed since she started designing bouquets.
Mom and Theresa bought a place in Oldham, Tennessee, a tiny town smack dab in the middle of the Great Smoky Mountains. It’s a close drive to Pigeon Forge, home of Dolly Parton and a buttload of outlet malls. It’s also near Gatlinburg, where there’s ice skating and great skiing. The cabin smells of cedar, and Mom made me a room here, with a cast iron twin bed and a shelf full of books.
She follows in behind me, carrying a short stack of towels. “Don’t worry about anything. I’ll cook and clean—all you have to do is relax.”
“Thanks,” I say with a nod. I give her a hug, and it feels better than being in any boy’s arms. “Where’s Theresa?”
“She went to visit her sister this week. I wanted some time to hang out with just you.”
I bite back my smile. “I’m glad. Not that I don’t like Theresa. Um—”
Mom waves a hand. “It’s fine.”
Annie the labradoodle follows me around as I check out the bathroom, kitchen, and dining room. I skip Mom’s bedroom, because I’m not ready for that yet.
Mom steams some vegetables and grills chicken for dinner. We sit on the back porch overlooking the mountains to eat. Annie lies across my feet. I cut my chicken breast in half and pick at it, and Mom comments that I’ve lost a lot of weight.
I nod, avoiding her eyes, and eat a bigger piece of chicken. I decide to change the subject. “Did you always know?” I ask, popping a carrot in my mouth.
“Know what?” she asks.
“That you were different. That you didn’t love Dad.”
She chews and wipes her mouth. She stares straight ahead at the mountains. “I love your father. But yes, I think I’ve known for a long time. You need to understand that I was raised to believe I needed to marry a man, raise a family, and go to church.”
“That’s how I was raised.”
Mom squeezes my hand. “And I’m telling you now that you should do whatever you want to do.”
“That doesn’t sound Christian. I want God to love me again.”
“God does love you, sweetie. What I’m saying is, is if you want to be a Christian and have a relationship with God, you can do that. You have free will.”
“Isn’t there such a thing as too much free will? I shouldn’t have gone after Brian. And look at Ryan.”
“What happened with Brian is not your fault, understand? He’s an adult.” Mom’s face goes hard. Sad. “And I don’t want you to worry about your brother right now, okay? It’s up to me and your father to help him. I know you care about him, but you’re seventeen and have so many exciting things to look forward to. Graduation. Prom.”
That’s not technically true. I can’t think of anything to look forward to. I lost Will. I lost Drew. Brian left me and didn’t look back. I have no friends.
“How did you meet Dad, anyway?” I ask, spearing a piece of broccoli with my fork.
She smiles and sips her water. “I met him on the first day of college. We lived in the same dorm, on the same floor. He helped me carry my boxes up three flights of stairs.”
“Then you got together?”
“Heavens, no. We were best friends for two years before he asked me out on a date, and he asked me to marry him senior year.”
“But something felt off?”
Mom bows her head to think. “Your father and I should’ve stayed best friends instead of getting together. I still consider him my best friend now, even though I’ve hurt him so much I’m worried he’ll never forgive me. I wish I had known back then that I had options. But my parents loved him. They still do. I thought marrying him would be enough for me.”
I love the idea of having options and doing whatever I want, but do I have the courage?
The next morning while Mom takes a nap, when we should be at church, Annie and I run down a patchy dirt trail and through thick trees and alongside yellow daisies. I inhale the outdoors. Being out here in peace almost lets me forget about Will. I stop at a country market, where a little bell jingles against the glass door. I buy a bottle of diet lemonade, then walk back into the woods, sit down on a log, hug Annie’s neck, and listen to a waterfall beating down on rocks.
“Pretty dog,” I say, scratching her back. She pants and barks at a cardinal.
I pull the romance novel I brought out of my back pocket and settle in to read about lords and servants and corsets. This one duke guy is sleeping with the maid, but he can’t marry her because she’s the help, and aristocracy isn’t allowed to have relations with the servant class, but no one knows she’s really the Duchess of York or something. I hope she’ll admit her heritage so they can get it on and have a legal marriage and all that jazz.
Annie rests her chin on my thigh, and I turn page after page, reading, but I can’t stop thinking of Will. In these novels, all the problems could be solved if characters would talk to each other. I pull out my cell and send Will a text: I’m staying with my mom for Spring Break. Maybe we can talk when I get back? I miss you.
I sit on that log and finish the novel. The duke and the duchess end up together (obviously—the key to any good romance is a happy ending), but Will never texts back.
Dear God, I think, Please…will you give my story a happy ending?
I don’t deserve a happy ending with Will after I used him to save Brian. To save me. But why hasn’t he told Drew the truth? Have they talked about it?
I grab Annie’s leash and trudge back to the cabin. Thinking of Will sucks, and it makes my eyes sting, but I’m okay. I like being outside with the dog. Maybe at college, I’ll study to become a vet. I’d work hard for that. Annie looks up at me and barks, and I’m glad that she likes me.
At Mom’s cabin, before I put the romance novel back on the shelf, I study the cover, the duchess’s sweeping blue gown. I want to wear Mom’s white dress to prom, regardless if I have a date or not. My cell rings, and I pray it’s Will calling to forgive me, or Brian calling to check on me, to find out if I’m okay. To tell me he’s okay.