The Trouble With Before

by Portia Moore

  “I care because she’s Willa’s mother.”

  “If you can call her that,” I mutter. “What’s the emergency? San Diego isn’t sunny enough for her? Brett didn’t get her the perfect gift for her birthday?”

  “She’s hurting.”

  The tone of Ms. Red’s voice makes my heart skip a beat. It’s funny how you can write a person off after they do so much crap and hurt so many people, but a small part of you still manages to care.

  “And if anyone knows what hurting sounds like, it’s me,” she continues, her eyes locking on mine.

  I nod guiltily. If anyone deserves to hate and refuse to forgive Lisa, it’s Ms. Red, but somehow she’s managed to.

  “When she called me, she sounded terrible. Not in an obvious way; in a way only a person who has been there can recognize,” she continues. “I tried to call her mother, but that didn’t go so well.”

  I roll my eyes. The only mother worse than no mother would be Lisa’s mother. We used to bond over that fact. She had Evie as a mom, and I didn’t have one at all most of the time.

  “I know that . . . I appreciate that you’re so angry with her for me,” she tries to explain. “But if something happened to her, you and Chris would really regret not doing anything.”

  I let out a long sigh. She’s right. Lisa’s like the stain you get on a shirt that you keep wearing because it was your favorite and the stain happened on one of the best nights of your life. “You think she’s really in trouble? What did she say?”

  “She called and asked about Willa, then she just started crying, and when I asked her what was wrong, she said nothing and started to apologize for what she did. She said that she screws up everyone around her . . . and that it’d all be fixed soon.”

  I roll my eyes. “Lisa’s too selfish to kill herself.”

  “She sounded really drunk or high off of something maybe,” she says worriedly.

  I think of the last time I talked to Lisa, how she pretty much told me she was shirking motherhood and escaping to California. I wanted to throw up.

  When we were younger, Lisa and I were friends because of our best friend, Chris. We tolerated each other because of him, but somewhere along the line, we became close. She was one of the only girls who could put me in my place, who I could hang out with without any pressure or a hidden agenda. She was smart, funny, and could hold her own with the guys. And in some ways, we were alike. Chris was always the good kid, the Boy Scout with the perfect parents and perfect home. Lisa and I were kind of the outsiders, the kids no one expected to be much. We had it a lot harder than most.

  When I found out what she had done with Chris’s dad, and how she hid a whole person from us for all those years, I couldn’t believe it. Still I stuck by her. I went off on her of course, but I didn’t abandon her. I would have never left her. So for her to abandon her daughter without a thought disgusted me. Even after she told me she was leaving to go to California, I hoped she’d change her mind. I knew if she went through with it, that would be it. I’d never be able to look at her the same way. She’d lose me the way she’d lost everyone else, so when she called me and told me she’d made it to California and she left Willa with the Scotts—who Willa had never even met—to find herself in California, I was done.

  I told her to never call me again, and that she was a selfish bitch who deserved to be alone the rest of her life.

  It’s been almost seven months since that call. Someone I used to talk to every day became someone I pretended didn’t exist for seven months. I guess humans are so resilient that someone essential to your life can so easily be wiped out of it.

  “I don’t know where she is. I haven’t spoken to her since a few days after she left,” I tell Ms. Red.

  “This is the address.” She slides a piece of paper toward me.

  I look at her curiously. How the hell did she get Lisa’s address?

  “She called me from this hotel. Last I checked, which was an hour ago, she’s still checked in,” she explains. “There’s a flight that leaves at four today I could book for you . . .”

  I chuckle, and she smiles sympathetically. My phone buzzes again. It’s a text from Hillary saying she’s on her way to see me, complete with an angry face and a bunch of expletives. I throw my head back in frustration, then I text her back and tell her not to bother because I’m in California, bitch! Well, without the bitch part.

  HAVE YOU EVER done something so bad, so terrible, that the act stays with you, wraps around you, and completely stops you from moving forward?

  Well, let’s just say that in my other life, I was a bad person. Terrible, actually. I’m not even exaggerating. I can say that now because I’ve changed. When you change, you can recognize the bad things about yourself. You can tick off things that you didn’t used to notice but everyone else did.

  Once upon a time, I was called everything in the book. There’s no word that could be thrown at me that would make me bat an eye. Selfish, inconsiderate, and manipulative? Those were the kinder words people used to describe me. Whore, conniving, and cunt were some of the not-so-nice ones. But they were just words then. Until they weren’t just words. Until they weren’t just accusations thrown around and I couldn’t defend myself, especially when the people I cared about most used them.

  That, however, is the past. It’s not who I am anymore. Then I was a girl who put herself before everyone else. Doing that came so easily. It was second nature, almost inevitable, a dreaded family trait wrapped around my mother’s DNA that manifested the moment my boobs became full-grown. I should have seen it coming—my grandmother always said that I was my mother’s spitting image. I had taken Evie’s long blond hair and emerald-green eyes, so it only made sense that other traits would creep out sooner or later.

  She was born to the perfect family, but managed to avoid doing a single worthwhile thing in her life, and she made every mistake she could, except putting her bra on right. That includes marrying my father, who walked out on us when I was just two years old. She made bad decisions, but her beauty usually offered her a way out. By the time I was five, Evie had met and married my stepdad, a successful man who was kind and owned his own construction company. When he was around, our life was good. I don’t remember wanting for anything, but apparently my mom wanted for a lot, seeing as she got caught sleeping with his brother. Needless to say, my stepdad divorced her.

  She became a single mom again, with a pissed off family and a high school diploma, but this time, she had the screwed-my-husband’s-brother tattoo on her reputation in our small town. No decent man would come near her, so she settled for the drunks, screw-ups, and passersby, and she adapted who she was to whichever guy she was with. Of course, that made life very interesting for me. I never knew which guy would be there when, who I was safe with, who I needed to hide from.

  The older I got, the more I looked like her. Once, I overheard my favorite aunt, Danni, arguing with Evie. They didn’t do it much—usually my aunt was my mom’s cheerleader—but this argument was one for the ages. I remember the most scathing thing she said to my mom.

  The worst thing that could happen to Lisa is that she turns out like you.

  It was an attack on my mom, but I remember her words cutting through me. They echoed in my thoughts every time I saw my mom with a new guy, or whenever a woman would show up screaming at our house in the middle of the night, having followed her very married husband. The thought of becoming her haunted me so much that sometimes I’d wake up to panic attacks.

  I wanted to prove them wrong, every guy who said I was the spitting image of her, the townspeople who believed it was only a matter of time until I became her. I wanted every single last one of them to eat their words. I worked hard to make sure they would do just that, and it all seemed to be going perfectly until I turned seventeen. I was in my senior year, headed to college after working my butt off to make sure I had enough to money to pay for it if I didn’t get enough financial aid and scholarships. I was still a virgi
n even, and I was a good friend. Then, well, genetics kicked in, and everything just sort of fell apart . . .

  But now, I finally have a clean slate, the opportunity to start all over, and it has been scarily amazing. For the first time in my twenty-eight years of life, I’m living in a state where no one knows what I’ve done or who my mother has done what with. Here, the secrets of my past don’t haunt me or remind me of how unworthy I am everywhere I look. Now I’m not weighed down; here, I can just breathe. For the first time in my life, I feel as though the universe isn’t pitted against me; I’m not destined to fail or set on the path to make a horrible mistake. Someone up there finally gave me a break in the form of someone I didn’t treat well in the past, someone I selfishly and stupidly looked over.

  Brett Steltson.

  He was my blond-haired, blue-eyed dream boy, my blessing in disguise, so to speak. We met right before I made the biggest mistake of my life. A part of me thinks that if guardian angels existed, mine had sent him to me as a last-ditch attempt to keep me from wrecking my future. But I was so stupid then. I ignored the glaring warnings trying to stop me from going down a road that only led to pain and years of loneliness. I was seventeen, stuck between bad history and an unknown future, and content to listen to unfamiliar emotions instead of my brain.

  Still, even then Brett saw the good in me. He didn’t see how I needed to change, the mistakes I needed to fix, or the completely catastrophic decisions so close in my future. He only saw me. Not who I really was, but someone better, which was absolutely what I needed. He saw the person I could’ve been if I hadn’t let hormones and bad decisions shape the person I would become.

  He was the first boy I gave myself to, the only boy I would have shared myself with if I had been thinking straight. The guy who took me out and loved to show me off, who didn’t keep me a secret. He was a sophomore in college, nice, extremely attractive, and smart. When hundreds of beautiful girls would have gladly been his and only his, he chose me. But like an idiot, I didn’t see how special he was, how much he had to offer, and I chose an alternate route to a terrible chain of events.

  Brett and I broke up right before the end of my senior year of high school. I thought I was doing the right thing, but most seventeen-year-olds don’t do the right thing, only what feels good. They convince themselves that’s the right thing.

  When I bumped into Brett last year, standing in front of one of the last book stores that wasn’t named Barnes and Noble, I realized what a complete idiot I had been. It was as if the heavens had opened up their door, highlighting his bright blue eyes and smile designed for pictures. He was so excited to see me, as if he had forgotten how I had been one of the suckiest girlfriends in history during our short-lived relationship. I can’t recall a single time he ever said a bad thing about anyone. Not even the girlfriend who didn’t want to sleep with him because she was too busy screwing her best friend’s dad. Thank God he never found out about that. I’m sure everyone has their limits.

  When we broke up, I’d told Brett that I wasn’t at a good place in my life to be with him, and he seemed sad and confused. But instead of being angry, which he had every right to be since I had essentially wasted almost a year of his time, he told me he still wanted to be my friend, that he’d be there if I ever needed anything. I believe he meant it, but at that point in my life, I didn’t deserve him. Sometimes I think he’ll wake up one day and realize that I still don’t, even though I’m trying my very best to be the kind of woman who deserves a man like him.

  When I ran into him that day and looked into those warm blue eyes that never judged me, everything I felt came pouring out. Right there in a little café, I gave him tears and truth. I told him I hated my job as a teacher—not the kids, but the work—and that I felt like a fraud. I didn’t tell him why I felt like a fraud though. The truth was that I had only become a teacher because the married man I was in love with and had a child by was a teacher and he seemed like the only thing I could think about. I couldn’t stand another person I cared about looking at me as if I was scum.

  Without hesitation, Brett invited me to come stay with him awhile. Well, not exactly with him but in a place he owned in California. Brett was doing pretty well and had just started his own real estate company. He didn’t tell me how good he was doing, but when I arrived at his four-bedroom house off the beach—which looked like something right out of HGTV—I realized he was doing extremely well.

  He let me stay on the first floor free of charge, and the only thing I had to do in return was answer phones and make appointments for his prospective clients at his office. It was the easiest job I’d ever had, especially since he already had an assistant. Amazing Stephanie is what I called her at first, because not only is she smart and more organized than a Martha Stewart catalog, she’s a sweet girl who does all the hard real estate stuff while I pretty much answer phones, run errands, and watch Selling New York.

  Only a few more nights after I moved to California, I kissed Brett and not in the way that I used to, with mild enthusiasm or obligation. I kissed him with an appreciation I had never felt for anyone before, and not soon afterward we made love.

  Things have been great.

  More than great.

  Everything is perfect.

  For once in my life, everything isn’t in a shamble on the brink of complete chaos. That’s why, as I stare at the two pink lines on the stick in my shaking hand, I don’t want to throw myself off a bridge.

  I’m pregnant.

  Two words that once destroyed me and scared me shitless actually do the opposite. They give me hope and a glimpse into a new life, an opportunity to get it right.

  “Are you okay, Lisa? You’ve been in there forever,” Stephanie asks, worry in her voice.

  I wrap the stick up into a paper towel and slip it in my purse. “I’m fine. I’ll be right out,” I tell her as I wash my hands. When I come out of the bathroom, she’s looking at me, her excitement apparent.

  She sweeps her bangs from over her eye and smiles nervously. “Soo?”

  “Yes. It’s a big fat yes,” I say, and she grabs me in a big hug.

  “Shut up!” she squeals. “I’m so happy, happy for you!”

  I laugh at how different this is from the last time all those years ago. Then, I lied to my best friend about the test results. Then, I was terrified and wanted to throw up. Then, it magnified the shambles my life was in. Now it’s different. I’m pregnant by a man who loves me, who I love, and things are just right.

  “Brett is going to freak out!” Stephanie says.

  “Freak out?” The nerves in my body start to bubble up.

  She notices and waves me off. “You know what I mean. He’s going to be so excited. Oh my God, the baby is going to be so freakin’ beautiful. You might as well sign it up for Baby Gap right now.”

  I roll my eyes playfully but can’t help imagining a beautiful baby boy with my bright-blond hair and Brett’s soft blue eyes and easy smile.

  “You are going to be such a pretty mom,” she squeals.

  Her enthusiasm is contagious, and I squeeze her hand. She’s been one of the first friends I’ve had in a long time. When I came here from Michigan, I didn’t want to judge people, since people had judged me all of my life, but I couldn’t help but think of all the clichés about everyone in California being made of plastic and only caring about the sun. And even though I’ve seen quite a few girls and guys with surgically enhanced features, I have loved everything about being here. The people are nice. Like, really nice. Everyone is so freakin’ happy all the time, and I guess why wouldn’t they be, when every day the sun is out and it’s the perfect temperature. Being miserable here is almost impossible.

  I pull Stephanie into a hug, so happy to have a friend again. Even though my childhood was pretty crappy after Evie screwed up our life, I had really, really great friends. Friends who always took up for me, who were there for me when I needed them. Not a day goes by that I don’t think of them. One was Aman
da, my best girl pal. We were complete opposites, but she really loved me. Then there were my two guy best friends. We had been inseparable, and I could never imagine going as long as I have without seeing them or speaking to them. Now they’re all just ghosts from another life.

  “You’re happy right?” Stephanie asks cautiously, and I realize my mood has sunk from thinking of the past.

  I flash her a wide smile, pushing away those memories of not so long ago . “Yeah, just a little bit nervous,” I say with a nervous chuckle, and she gives me a soft smile.

  When I first moved here, Stephanie showed me all the girly spots she said Brett had no idea about, like the spas and hair salons that would make you look like an A-list celebrity on a C-list budget. She even introduced me to her group of friends, who are all beautiful, smart, successful, and scarily nice. She reminds me so much of Amanda.

  I haven’t spoken to Amanda since I started college. A few months after the year that changed everything.

  Amanda never knew what happened to me that year. I never wanted her to know that I became everything her sisters said I would be, so I pushed her away. It killed me to not be able to share one of the most major events in my life with my very best friend, but I knew if I did, she’d never look at me the same way. I couldn’t stand seeing that look of disappointment mixed with disgust on her face, the way I saw it on everyone else I loved and cared about.

  I surveyed Stephanie, with her fiery-red hair swept up into a top-knot and her warm green eyes smiling at me. Stephanie likes me, but she doesn’t know all the terrible things I’ve done. If she did, she wouldn’t look at me the same way either. But that’s a different life and a different you, I remind myself.

  “So when are you going to tell him?”

  “Um, I don’t know,” I say, trying to tuck my nerves deep down into my stomach. There’s nothing like finding out you’re pregnant to make you reflect on the past you’ve been blocking out for a year.