Someone Else

by Rebecca Phillips

  “Well, you got home fifteen minutes late,” he said, sounding almost like a parent. And I already had two of those. Three if you counted Lynn.

  “I had to stop at the store for something. Jeez, what’s with the interrogation?”

  “You could’ve just said that in the first place.”

  “I didn’t realize buying tampons was vital information.”

  Bad idea. When lying, keep it as simple as possible. Adding too much detail will only complicate your story, making it harder to remember later. I learned that much from Law & Order.

  “Okay,” Dylan said, finally satisfied. Nothing like the word tampons to shut a guy up. “Listen, I gotta go. I’ll call you after the game. You’ll be home all night, right?”

  “I already told you I have to work on my history paper tonight.”

  “Have fun with that.” His voice was lighter now, almost cheerful. “Call you later.”

  I hung up the phone, feeling Leanne’s gaze on me. “What the hell was that?” she asked.

  “Dylan,” I replied, slipping my cell into my pocket, keeping it close in case God forbid I missed his call later.

  “Do you guys always snipe at each other like that?”

  I shrugged. We had been butting heads a lot lately. Sometimes I couldn’t stop myself from being snarky—he could be so damn stifling.

  “He called here earlier, by the way,” Leanne said, yanking half a dozen tissues from the box. “After you didn’t answer your cell, I guess. Dude needs to chill. He sure does like to keep track of you, doesn’t he?”

  “He’s insecure.”

  She gave me a long, thoughtful look, telling me silently that she knew as well as I did that something was wrong with this relationship. And if all I had the guts to do was make excuses for it, and for Dylan, things were bound to get much worse.

  “Pay attention, Taylor,” she said, her raspy voice suddenly dead serious.

  My head jerked up. “What?”

  “Not to me. Pay attention to what’s going on. The warning signs.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I had an ‘insecure’ boyfriend once.” She coughed into her tissues. “When I was in tenth grade. His name was Eli. He was this popular, charming guy who all the girls wanted, and for a while I thought I was the luckiest person on earth. Then he changed.”

  Leanne never discussed personal stuff like this. I leaned forward, riveted, as she told me about Eli. About how he started off nice but then changed into someone else, someone who ragged on her about everything, from how she acted to how she dressed. She couldn’t please him no matter what she did. Then he started alienating her from her friends, telling her they were all idiots, too stupid to hang around with, until finally she dropped them all. He called her constantly so he’d know exactly where she was and what she was doing at all times. He didn’t stop until her whole world revolved around him. Which it did, for a long time.

  “I lost myself,” she said.

  The whole thing was shocking to me. Leanne always seemed so tough, so in control of what she wanted. Where had I been during all this? I remembered her being wild back then, lashing out at her mom, running away. Her problems had been kept from me, or maybe I had purposely chosen to steer clear of anything to do with her because she’d intimidated the hell out of me up until a year and a half ago. “How did you get away from him?” I asked.

  She started shredding a Kleenex into thin ribbons. “One day I didn’t show up when I was supposed to and he beat the crap out of me. Before that he’d never laid a hand on me, but I guess I pushed him too far that day. He just…exploded.”

  I swallowed hard. “Oh my God.”

  “It was bad. Mom freaked. Called the police and pressed charges. You know my father used to beat her, right? Well, no one was going to do that to her daughter and get away with it. So we got a restraining order and Eli wasn’t allowed near me anymore.”

  “Is that why you switched schools?”

  She nodded. “If I’d stayed where I was, his asshole friends would’ve made my life a living hell. So I transferred to Redwood Hills High, where I didn’t know a soul. I was surrounded by all these preppy rich kids who pretty much ignored my existence, but that was what I needed then, to be left alone. After a while I made friends with some of the outcasts and ended up having a decent couple of years there.”

  My mind whirled with the knowledge that some guy had beat up my one-hundred-pounds-soaking-wet stepsister. I tried to imagine Dylan losing control like that, “exploding” like Leanne’s boyfriend had done, but I couldn’t fathom it.

  “I’m not saying Dylan is like Eli,” Leanne said, reading my mind. “But the way he calls you all the time, making sure you’re where you’re supposed to be, brings back some crappy memories for me. That’s all.”

  “Dylan and I aren’t serious or anything,” I told her. “I don’t think it’s going to work out, to tell you the truth.”

  “Rebound guys rarely do.” She gathered up the strips of tissue. “Just pay attention. That’s all I’m saying.”

  I promised her I would, even though I was still positively sure that my story wouldn’t have the same ending as hers. But the other things she’d said, about how it all began, awakened a niggling voice in the back of my brain that wouldn’t shut up no matter how hard I tried to silence it.

  ****

  The only class I shared with Jill Holloway was art, and on Monday afternoon after class I caught up to her at the doorway.

  “Jill, can I talk to you for a minute?” I asked, and watched her face register surprise and then suspicion. She glanced both ways down the hall before nodding.

  I led her toward the nearest girl’s john. It was empty. We stopped by the paper towel dispenser and awkwardly faced each other.

  “Well?” Jill asked, more curious than unfriendly.

  “I need to know about Anna.”

  That surprised her. She tried to hide it, but I could tell. “Anna,” she said.

  “Dylan’s ex-girlfriend.”

  “I know who Anna is, Taylor. She’s my best friend.”

  I lowered my gaze to the grimy floor. “Sorry,” I said. “I know she’s your friend. That’s why I’m asking you. I need to know what went on between her and Dylan. Why they broke up.”

  “You really want to know?” She looked me straight in the face. There was a splotch of green paint above her left eyebrow, an art class memento.

  “I do.”

  Those two little words were all the invitation she needed. She went off like a fire alarm. “Dylan’s a dick, okay? I know you’re dating him, and I won’t pretend to know why, but he’s a dick. He treated Anna like shit the entire time they dated. He was controlling and possessive and just an asshole to her all the time. She’d call me in tears like three times a week because of something Dylan said to her. You think he’s a nice guy, all sensitive and intense, as Jessica likes to say? He’s not. He’s just a jealous, immature jerkwad who treats girls like pieces of property.” She held her hands out as if to say, There. Sorry you asked?

  “Are you done?” I said quietly. Talking to Jill had been a mistake. I didn’t want to hear this. I started to move past her to the door, but she grabbed my forearm, holding me there.

  “You’re too nice for him, Taylor. You’re too nice for all of them. Jessica’s a bitch and so are all her friends. I show up at their parties and at their lunch table for one reason only—to serve as a constant reminder of how they treated Anna after she broke up with Dylan. And when you get sick of his crap and dump him too, they’ll turn on you the same way they turned on her.”

  I tried to imagine this but couldn’t. Jessica was my friend—she’d be on my side.

  “Anna left school because of them, Taylor,” Jill went on, seeing the defiance in my face. “She’s in private school now because they made her life miserable. Is that what you want? Trust me, you don’t fit in with them. They are not nice people.”

  I thought about all the times
I’d witnessed Jess and Lia and Mallory confronting someone, taunting them to near tears, while I stood by doing nothing to stop it. I thought about how I’d lied to Dylan and continued to lie to him every day by passively letting our relationship continue, even though I didn’t love him and knew it would have to end soon. I thought about Saturday night, driving in the shadows past Michael’s house, praying not to be seen while at the same time craving even the smallest form of contact with him. Then I thought about now, right here in this bathroom, confronting Jill Holloway, aka Attention Whore. I wrenched free from her grasp.

  “Maybe I’m not a nice person either,” I said, and calmly walked out of the washroom, letting the door swoosh closed behind me.

  Dylan was in the hallway outside of his technology class, just about to enter the room when I came up behind him and tugged on his backpack. He spun around, startled.

  “Hey, what are you doing up here? Don’t you have—.”

  I pressed my body against his, temporarily suspending his power of speech. “Let’s ditch last period and go to my house,” I said, making my voice low and seductive.

  “Are you serious?” He turned his head toward the classroom door, scouting for teachers, and I took this opportunity to nibble on his neck. “Okay, let’s go,” he said, grabbing my hand and pulling me down the hallway, toward the stairs.

  Outside, it was seasonably warm for March. Dylan held out his hand for the keys as we sprinted to my car. Ever since he got his license, he’d pretty much taken over the role of driver whenever we were out together. At first I didn’t care, figuring he could use the practice, but like so many other things about him, it started to irk me after a while. Today, however, I handed over the keys without comment.

  “Art class make you hot or what?” he said, flashing his dimples at me as he maneuvered the car out of the parking lot.

  “No.” I slid my hand up his leg. “You do.”

  He couldn’t get us to my house fast enough after that. We went straight from the front door to my bedroom, no stops in between. This is it, I thought as he tipped me back on the bed, his fingers working the buttons on my sweater. This is the day we have sex. Because up until now, despite dozens of makeout sessions and several close calls, we still hadn’t. I just didn’t feel what I thought you were supposed to feel before having sex with someone. I thought I should at least love the guy first.

  Laying there beside him, so close that his breaths became indistinguishable from mine, it was easy to convince myself that I did love him. That he wasn’t the asshole Jill had made him out to be, or the rebound guy I was using to get over the guy I did love, or a potentially explosive monster like Eli. That he was just Dylan, the quiet, solemn boy who sat in the back row in chemistry class and rarely smiled, but when he did smile it was like getting an unexpected present. That was the Dylan I could love, all dimples and shyness and sweet gestures. But I hadn’t seen that Dylan in a long time. And I knew, already, that I would never see him again.

  “Wait.” I pressed a palm to his chest, easing us apart. “We have to stop.”

  Dylan looked down at me, uncomprehending. “Are you kidding me? You’re all over me at school and in the car and now that we’re here in your bed you want to stop?”

  I sat up, pulling the bedspread along with me. “Sorry.”

  “I thought…you gave me the impression that you wanted to come here to—.”

  “I did. I did want to. I’m not being a tease or anything, I just…I changed my mind.”

  “That fast?” He angled his body toward me. “If you’re worried about birth control, then it’s fine. I have condoms. We don’t have to rely just on your pill.”

  “It’s not that.”

  “Then what is it?”

  There was nothing I could say here that wouldn’t piss him off or deflate his ego or both, so I hugged my knees to my chest and kept quiet. He wasn’t dumb. He’d figure it out without a single hint from me.

  “It’s because of your ex, right?” he said, redness creeping up his neck. When I failed to answer, he laughed derisively. “Give me a break. He’s probably fucked ten girls since lunch.”

  “Dylan, stop.” He had to know that kind of talk bothered me.

  “Sure.” He flipped over on his back, shaking the entire mattress. “I’m getting really good at stopping. I’m practically an expert by now.”

  I whirled around to face him, anger surging like a geyser in my throat. “Maybe the reason I won’t have sex with you is because you act like such a jackass sometimes. Did you ever think of that?”

  Okay, so I hadn’t meant to be quite so harsh. I was just so sick of tiptoeing around his insecurities, of trying to convince myself that things were fine and normal and I was happy. But they weren’t, and I wasn’t. Still, the look he gave me in response to my words made me rethink everything. In his eyes, there was raw pain.

  “Dylan,” I said, reaching out to touch his arm. He jerked away from me and shot out of bed, throwing on his clothes with as much dignity as he could muster.

  “I’ll take the bus home,” he said, and left my room, slamming the door behind him with enough force to send several of the stuffed animals on my shelf crashing to the floor. They all seemed to look up at me in confusion, as if asking what they had done to deserve such a violent relocation.

  Chapter 17

  The basement renovations weren’t going very well. The contractor who had claimed—so many months ago—that it would be done in December must have been either lying or delusional because here it was, the middle of March, and the basement still wasn’t fit for human occupancy. First, there were plumbing issues. Then, a huge crack in the foundation had to be fixed. Now, apparently, there were moisture problems. Lynn was ready to call the whole thing off and take a loss, but Dad refused to give up on his dream of wine cellars and surround sound speakers.

  “Inadequate drainage,” he explained one morning when I made the mistake of bringing it up at Sunday brunch. “We had clogged eavestroughs so every time it rained or snowed, all that water accumulated around the foundation. It was coming in through that crack we just had fixed.”

  “Eavestroughs,” I said.

  “Gutters,” Lynn said, sitting down with a fresh stack of pancakes. “You’re supposed to clean them twice a year. We didn’t.” Here, she glanced at my father, who frowned as he reached for the syrup.

  “There’s a lot of work involved in maintaining an old house,” he said. “I can’t remember everything.”

  “You can’t remember anything,” Emma said. I snickered, and Lynn almost choked on a piece of bacon. My sister was developing quite the sarcastic streak.

  “Be careful, miss, or it’ll be you up there cleaning those gutters in the spring.”

  I took a gulp of coffee, which I’d started drinking daily now, more for the artificial boost than because I enjoyed the taste. “Is it really worth it though?” I asked my father. “All this work for another floor of rooms to clean?”

  Lynn beamed at me from across the table. “That, right there, is why I love this girl.”

  “Sweet pea,” Dad said, “ask me that again when you’re down there enjoying the nine-foot pool table.”

  “Pool table?”

  This was my cue to exit. I didn’t have time for another installment of “Lynn talks Dad down from a grandiose and/or impractical idea.” I had to be at work in thirty minutes.

  Sunday was Moretti’s busiest day, but this particular Sunday was insane. A blizzard the day before had forced us to close up early, so everyone who missed their Italian food fix on Saturday decided to show up today, with half a dozen or so friends in tow. My eight-hour shift turned into a nine-and-a-half hour one, and afterward I felt like freshly trampled roadkill as I hobbled out to my car.

  My phone started buzzing the second I collapsed into my seat, but I was too tired to answer it. When it finished ringing, I picked it up and scrolled through my messages. There were five altogether, and four were from Dylan, all received in the
past hour and a half. This could only mean one thing—the post-fight honeymoon was officially over.

  It had been going so well, too. The morning after our fight, I’d found Dylan in the Dungeon, stationed in front of his open locker. Realizing he wasn’t going to speak to me until I made the first move, I’d gingerly approached him. “You weren’t waiting for me by the door this morning,” I’d said, testing the waters. He didn’t look at me, and his face was stony as he shuffled through a messy pile of papers. I chewed on my bottom lip, waiting for him to acknowledge me.

  “Jackasses don’t do things like wait for their girlfriends, I guess,” he said, still refusing to look at me. This cold shoulder treatment made me feel ashamed and stupid, which was, of course, exactly what he was aiming for.

  “I’m sorry I called you that.” My backpack suddenly felt like a sack of boulders across my back. “I was mad. Can we talk about it?”

  He continued to search his locker for whatever he had misplaced, ignoring my question—and me—entirely, until I felt like a total idiot standing there beside him. Then, as I half-turned to go, he met my eyes for the first time that morning and said, “What do you have now?”

  “Um, study period.”

  “I can skip math. Let’s go.”

  So we cut class like we did that first day we spent together, cruising around town in my car as we talked and sipped bitter coffee. Only this time, I drove.

  We stayed out for about as long as our first class lasted, an hour, before circling back to the student parking lot. And there, brave in the wake of our apologies and promises, I asked Dylan the one question that had plagued me for months.

  “Why are you so afraid?”