Flower

by Shea Olsen

  “Charlotte!” they yell. And I realize: They know who I am. How? And how did they know I’d be here, getting off a plane on Christmas Day, when my plans didn’t change until the middle of last night?

  As Hank curses, my thoughts tumble backward, to the crew, the new pilots the flight attendant had mentioned. Did they somehow tip off the media, give them my name, tell them I was the mystery girl Tate has been keeping a secret?

  Either way, it doesn’t matter now. It’s done. Yet I can’t help but panic as my fingers fumble for the window button, trying frantically to roll it up as Hank inches the car forward through the small mob that has gathered. He pounds the horn and shouts dire warnings, all of which go unheeded.

  “Charlotte, Charlotte!” they continue to call. “What’s it like dating the sexiest singer alive? Did you meet his parents? Is there a ring?”

  They know who I am, but they don’t know what happened—they don’t know that I returned early because Tate ended it between us. Somehow, that makes it even worse.

  “Hang in there, honey,” Hank says, gunning the engine to show he means business. “Time to ditch the vultures.”

  The window finally slides upward, sealing shut the outside world. With a squeal of tires, Hank pulls out onto the street, speeding away from the flash of cameras.

  * * *

  My grandmother is not easy on me—not at first.

  “What did you think would happen?” she asks while I sit at the kitchen table, slumped and defeated, my suitcase still propped up by the door.

  “It was a mistake,” I tell her, staring down at my hands in my lap. “I shouldn’t have gone.”

  I think about the mob at the airport, the flashes of cameras. Mia popped her head into the kitchen when I first got home, her voice uncharacteristically gentle as she told me that the photos were already online, then disappeared back into her bedroom—I think she realized Grandma wanted to talk to me alone. Moments like this, I’m glad I don’t have Twitter or Instagram or Snapchat, where I’d be forced to see the same GIF of myself trying to roll up the backseat window over and over again.

  Grandma refolds a stack of towels and straightens the row of spice jars on the counter. She’s upset. When she’s upset, she paces, she fidgets, she tries to keep her hands busy.

  “I’m sorry,” I tell her. “You were right. You were completely right about him.”

  She turns to look at me and I’m surprised to see there are tears in her eyes.

  “Grandma,” I breathe. “I’m so sorry.”

  She takes a deep breath. She wraps her arms around me.

  “It’ll be okay,” she tells me. “It’s good that you found out now, before things went any further.”

  But there, circled in her arms, I can’t help but feel like it did go too far. I went too far. I felt too much. And now I don’t know how to feel anything else.

  FIFTEEN

  IT’S A RELIEF TO BE back at school, to have something to do with my days. For the last week of winter break, I spent most of my time at home, avoiding anything that could remind me of Tate. I took a few extra shifts at the Bloom Room, but it wasn’t enough to distract me.

  Carlos folds his arm over my shoulder, forcing me to fall in step with him as we walk to English. “I never liked his music anyway,” he’s saying, his chin held high as we move through the sea of people, all staring directly at me.

  Everyone knows by now. Everyone knows that I, Charlotte Reed, had some sort of fling with Tate Collins. And now they all stare. They look at me like they’re trying to see something they’ve missed for the last four years—some part of me they just didn’t notice. But I’m still the same Charlotte, at least on the outside. Just maybe a little blonder.

  “Nice try,” I say to Carlos. “You’re obsessed with his music.”

  He grunts and flips his hair back from his eyes. “Not anymore. I deleted all his songs from my playlists, even the Love Is a Verb, Live Tour album.” He pauses, as if expecting me to be impressed, but then rushes on. “I have stripped my life clean of him.”

  “I wish a simple ‘delete’ would rid him from my life.”

  “There should be an app for that.”

  “Yeah, I’d pay at least ninety-nine cents for that one.” I smile.

  Carlos winks and pokes my ribs. “See? You still have your sense of humor. You’ll be fine.”

  I’m not so sure. But the days and weeks find a way of tumbling past, even when memories of Tate rise up inside me: the way his hands felt that first night when we danced on the grass and he sang into my ear, the way his lips fit perfectly against mine, like we were made for each other. I try to pretend that none of it ever happened. I throw myself into school, into work. I stuff all the clothes he bought me from Barneys back into their bags—I plan on giving them to Mia or donating them to a thrift store. But I just can’t bring myself to do it, so I cram them into the very back of my closet—out of sight. To Mia’s unending joy, I babysit for Leo in the evenings after my shifts are over, barely letting myself have a moment alone.

  I give in and go to parties with Carlos when he promises it’ll help. I drink beer (well, I drink a beer, but it’s gross so that’s about as far as I get). I try to be social. I show up at beach bonfires, chat with classmates I’ve only really known in passing until now. Sometimes, when something epically funny happens, like Andy Strauss losing his trunks after diving into the rough midnight surf, we laugh and in the warm glow of the fire I forget for an instant about everything before.

  But then I find myself staring blankly into the flames, and I can’t help but think about him.

  Him.

  Him.

  * * *

  One of those nights brings me to Alison Yarrow’s birthday party. Her parents actually leave town so she can invite all her friends over and throw, basically, Pacific Heights High’s biggest bash of the year. Even bigger than prom, some say.

  I’ve never been invited before. I’ve never wanted to go.

  But this year, Alison stops me in the hall before calculus and personally invites me. “I really hope you’ll be there,” she says, like she’s truly counting on me coming, like my presence at her eighteenth birthday party will somehow solidify her most-popular-girl-at-school status. Everyone still thinks I’m with Tate, no matter how many times I deny it, or maybe the fact that I was with him is enough to catapult me to a different social stratosphere.

  I pick up Carlos and we drive to Alison’s house at the base of the Hollywood Hills. Alison isn’t exactly rich, but she has a pool and her backyard is lush and manicured by an actual gardener that comes once a week.

  Alison spots me as soon as we walk through the sliding glass doors onto the back patio, and she runs up and gives me a hug. “You came!” she screeches, holding me out at arm’s length. As if she and I have been besties since kindergarten.

  “Beer, margaritas, and fiesta snacks are all over there,” she adds with a nonchalant wave. “Get yourself a drink, then come hang with me in the cabana.”

  I glance over her shoulder at the poolside cabana with white sheer fabric draped over the little roof, swirling in the breeze. Lacy Hamilton and Jenna Sanchez are already reclining on the white mattress with regal superiority.

  As the evening wears on, Carlos and I sit side by side on a pool chair, observing the party around us like social anthropologists. After a while he goes to get another beer, and I hear someone behind me.

  “Charlotte Reed,” a voice says, and I turn in the chair.

  It’s Toby McAlister, looking very buzzed, his cheeks flushed and his hair tousled like he’s already had a closet rendezvous with one of the sophomore girls I noticed flirting with him earlier. I think briefly of the sycamore tree at school that bears the testament of Toby and Alison’s short-lived romance. Their own version of paparazzi photos, I suppose. I w
onder if it’s ever painful for either of them to walk by those initials and be reminded of the past. Then again, maybe not, considering Toby seems to have no problem being here tonight. “Aren’t these parties beneath you?” he asks. “PHH’s very own celebrity. I heard about you and Tate Collins.”

  I refrain, barely, from rolling my eyes. If I had a dollar for every person who has mentioned Tate to me in the last few weeks, I wouldn’t have to worry about financial aid next year, I swear. “That’s over.” Maybe if I say it enough, it will finally stop hurting.

  “Cool.” He shrugs. “Looks like you need a beer,” he says, holding out a red cup, sloshing with frothy brown liquid. He’s clearly had several.

  “I’m not drinking actually,” I say. “Designated driver.”

  “Oh. Very responsible of you.” His mouth twists into a grin, revealing a perfect row of teeth. Toby McAlister is obviously good-looking. The problem is that he knows it.

  I offer him a terse smile.

  “The pool,” he says, gesturing to the calm water. “Do you swim?”

  “Are you asking if I know how to swim?”

  “I’m asking you to swim with me.” He hiccups, then takes a swig from the cup he tried to give me only moments earlier. “Come on, Charlotte.” He stretches out my name, his brows rising in what I’m sure he thinks is an inviting expression.

  “No thanks.” I turn back to the lawn and stand up from the chair. “I think I’m going to go, actually.”

  “No—you can’t.” He reaches out for me, grabbing hold of my right arm. His fingers dig into my skin, not intentionally I don’t think, but because he’s using me now to keep his balance. But he’s pushing me backward, closer to the edge of the pool.

  “Toby!” I say, trying to shove him with my other hand, but we’re already stumbling backward, the momentum carrying us both. But just before we fall in, Carlos is at my side, pulling me upright.

  “You’re such an ass,” Carlos says to Toby, who has fallen over into the grass.

  “She wouldn’t swim with me,” he says through a chuckle, splayed out on his back, arms wide, blinking up at the sky. He doesn’t seem in any rush to get up.

  “I need to go,” I tell Carlos and he nods. “Can you find a ride home?”

  “I’ll just take a taxi. You know me,” he adds, batting his dark eyelashes. “I only like to travel in my private limo.” He says it with his faux British accent and I crack a smile, mostly to let him know that I’m not mad that he’s staying. “Text me when you’re home,” he orders.

  “I will.”

  The street that Alison lives on is narrow and steep and lined with cars along one side. There are no streetlamps, only the occasional glow from a porch light left on at one of the houses tucked up in the trees.

  A dog barks when I walk beside a fence, and I hurry past.

  Then, a crunching—like footsteps on gravel—disturbs the eerie calm. My skin shivers, a thread of panic starting to inch its way up to my brain.

  “Carlos?” I say aloud.

  Something moves, two cars behind me: a shadow receding back into the hedge lining the sidewalk. It’s the silhouette of a person.

  Someone is there... Someone is following me.

  For an instant, a sliver of a second, I allow myself to believe it’s Tate. That he misses me, that he’s come to win me back. But there’s no Tesla in sight, and I ruthlessly quash the thought before hope can rise up in place of the panic. I need to leave, now.

  I reach my car and fumble for my keys. I slam the car door and glance back in the rearview mirror: one shuddering heartbeat, two, three—still no sign of the shadow.

  A thump lands against my car door and I scream, jerking away from the sound.

  But it’s just Toby McAlister, being dragged by Alex Garza and Len Edwards. Toby’s palm slides across my car window as they pull him away, Toby swerving in and out of the street.

  I just want to get out of here.

  * * *

  Instead of heading home, I find myself driving west. I can’t imagine going back to our tiny house right now, climbing into bed with my thoughts still whirling. I drive north along the PCH, too itchy in my skin to sleep. It’s late, and the highway is a winding stretch of open road, the ocean black and gaping to my left, like an abyss yawning open. I reach Malibu quickly and pull into Playa Point beach. The parking lot is empty. It’s breezy and cold and moonless, the sky wrapped in a high layer of clouds.

  I stand on the shore for almost an hour, staring at the waves as they roll white and foamy across the sand. I remember the night I told Tate how sometimes I wish I could dive into the ocean and let it take me to a faraway land. To a different life.

  I strip out of my clothes, a shadow in the dark.

  The air is cold against my skin, but I wade out into the deep, letting the frigid water rise up to my thighs and then my waist, until it touches my chest, and then I dive under, letting the ocean take me.

  An icy chill passes through me but I don’t turn back, I pull myself down, under a series of waves crashing above my head. Bubbles spill from my nostrils and mouth, and when I finally come to the surface, I let out a gasp of air. I spin onto my back and blink up at the flat, featureless sky.

  My lips taste like salt—and I think again of Tate.

  I dip my head back under again, trying to rid him from my thoughts, wipe him clean from my skin, from every place he has touched me—his fingers branding my flesh. I need the cold, I need it to help me forget. To strip him clean from my memory.

  The tide tugs at me, drawing me farther out, to where the pale blue turns to black. I don’t fight it.

  The night stretches out around me, the minutes and seconds no longer measured. I drift until there is nothing left of me.

  When the chill starts to numb my legs and my entire body begins to shiver, I drop my legs beneath me and head back to shore.

  He is gone, I tell myself.

  SIXTEEN

  IT’S ONLY FEBRUARY ELEVENTH, AND everyone is already talking about Valentine’s Day. The Student Council has spent the last week cutting out paper hearts and making banners to hang from every doorway and hallway, signifying the approach of one of high school’s most highly anticipated holidays—the one where everyone confesses their secret crushes and makes out in the hallways just a little longer before a teacher yanks them apart.

  Midway through the day, lockers are already plastered with red and pink paper hearts, secret messages tucked inside. It’s a tradition to leave hearts on the locker of your secret crush. Those who get the most hearts by Valentine’s Day are the most desired...and therefore, of course, the most popular. At the end of the school day, there are still no notes on our locker. I’m relieved, but Carlos looks defeated.

  “This will all feel really far away by next Valentine’s Day,” I tell him, but I think I’m actually trying to convince myself.

  That afternoon, I sit for five minutes with my head down on the steering wheel, before texting Holly to ask if I can have the night off from work. She’d asked me to work extra shifts since it’s one of our busiest weeks, and I hate leaving her in the lurch, but she replies right away and tells me to go home and she’ll see me later in the week. She’s been way too easy on me since my breakup. I guess it’s one benefit of her hopelessly romantic heart. I go home and take a nap, praying that sleep will help.

  When my phone alarm goes off at six p.m. I force myself to get up. I have my internship hours at UCLA tonight, and if I skip, I could lose my position.

  “Do you want me to drive you?” Mia actually offers when I walk into the kitchen.

  “I’m fine,” I say, grabbing a slice of cold homemade pizza that Grandma made yesterday.

  * * *

  The UCLA campus is quiet this time of night, only a few evening classes in session, an
d I’m able to park close to the science building where Professor Webb’s lab is located.

  The lights are on inside the lab, but there’s no one inside. It will only be me and one UCLA undergrad working tonight—Rebecca, I think, but she’s not here yet.

  I drop my purse onto a swivel chair and grab one of the white lab coats hung behind the door. Today we are just supposed to babysit a control group of fungal spores that are being tested under an extremely damp environment, to see if they react by releasing fewer than a thousand spores. Likely nothing will happen tonight on my shift, so there will be a lot of watching and waiting.

  I sit on one of the stools and pull out my cell phone. I consider calling Carlos, just to kill some time before my lab partner gets here, when I hear the door swing open. I turn off my phone and slide it into my pocket.

  “Hey, Rebecca,” I say, swiveling toward the door.

  But it’s not Rebecca.

  Standing inside the doorway is Tate. He looks like he hasn’t slept—his eyes heavy and dark. But he’s every bit as tempting as I remember, his stance confident, his face too perfect for words, even if his gaze holds an edge of pain. Torment buried in his eyes. My pulse leaps, and I have to suppress the urge to run to him.

  “Before you say anything,” he starts. “Let me explain.”

  I push up from the stool and cross my arms, reminding myself that I want nothing to do with him. “You don’t need to,” I say. “This can’t work. You and me...us...we’re too different.”

  “I don’t think we are,” he says, moving closer, the nearness of him unsettling my entire body. “I messed up—I know I did. And I’m sorry. I never should have let you leave Colorado like that. I never should have pushed you away.”

  I’m grinding my jaw and I force myself to stop. “But you did let me leave. You kicked me out of your parents’ house on Christmas morning. Do you have any idea how that made me feel—how much that hurt me? Are you even capable of understanding? Is your heart so hollow, so numb from whatever ruined you, that you can’t even see when you’re destroying the people around you?”