A Week of Mondays

by Jessica Brody

  You look adorable sexy in my headphones.

  I broke out in laughter. Tristan held a finger to his lips and pointed to his phone.

  I schooled my expression into one of quiet contemplation. A serious record executive listening to a serious song.

  No one had ever called me sexy before. No one had ever called me anything before.

  He flipped to a blank page and scrawled out another question.

  Are you a fan yet?

  A fan? I was already brainstorming the Instagram handle for my fan club.

  The chorus started and I attempted to focus back on the lyrics of the song, but Tristan’s body next to me was so distracting. It felt like he was inching closer with every drumbeat, even though I knew he hadn’t moved.

  “Inside the mind of the girl,

  Is the reason we lose sleep.

  A map through the best dreams.

  The secret to everything.

  Inside the mind of the girl,

  Time passes in light-years

  Ships sink in the atmosphere

  But someday I’ll get there.

  Someday I’ll get there.”

  The chorus eased to an end and the second verse started. Tristan lowered his head to write something. I leaned forward to try to read it, but he tilted the notebook toward his chest. So I focused on the lyrics of the second verse instead, my stomach knotting tighter and tighter the closer I got to that mind-numbing chorus again.

  Inside my headphones, Tristan sang,

  “Tell me where to go,”

  Across from me, Tristan turned his notebook around.

  Tell me where to go …

  Inside my headphones, Tristan sang,

  “To know the things you know.”

  Across from me, Tristan turned the page.

  To know the things you know.

  My heart exploded, fire shooting through my veins and taking me over. Tristan started scribbling again. The music picked up. A big, powerful ramp-up to the second chorus.

  A ramp-up I already knew the words to.

  Lyrics I already knew by heart.

  “Kiss me in the street.”

  Tristan turned his notebook around in slow motion.

  Kiss me in the street.

  I looked up. His gaze was hot. Focused. Intense.

  “We’re not in the street,” I told him.

  It was the worst thing to say. It was the best thing to say.

  He turned the notebook around, his hand moving fast and furious over the page.

  Kiss me anyway.

  I let out a shaky breath. “I thought a gentleman always asks.”

  He flipped the notebook around and added one curvy line.

  Kiss me anyway?

  I laughed aloud, but the sound was cut off as his hands cupped the sides of my face. As he pulled me to him. As his lips covered mine.

  The chorus blasted into my ears, drowning me in his voice, his scent, his mouth. The song lifted to a crescendo as the melody raced toward the bridge.

  Suddenly, Tristan was everywhere.

  He was turned up so loud.

  He was everything I heard. Everything I tasted. Everything I felt.

  That kiss might have lasted a few seconds or it might have lasted days. I’ll never be able to tell you which one, because I lost myself in it. I lost my own rhythm in his drumbeat. I lost my own words in the soulful lyrics he was belting into my ear. I was a wandering melody with no direction. No goal. No reason. Ready to be pulled into his.

  If given the chance, I don’t think I would have ever stopped kissing Tristan. But eventually he pulled away, leaving both of us breathless and besieged.

  That’s when I first heard the silence and realized there was no longer any sound coming through the headphones. The song had ended and I had no idea how long ago that was. I had been listening to empty static but it still felt like music.

  He pulled the headphones off and a rush of cool air brushed against my ears.

  “I never said yes,” I whispered to him as he rested his forehead against mine.

  He smiled into me. “I took a leap of faith.”

  THE FIFTH MONDAY

  Here I Go Again

  7:04 a.m.

  Bloop-dee-dee-bloop-bloop-bing!

  No. It’s too early. I need to sleep in. I’ve had almost a week of Mondays. I deserve a weekend already. I deserve some rest.

  Besides, who’s texting me this early? Owen? He needs to chill.

  Groggy and blurry-eyed, I grab for my phone, knocking over a cup of water on my nightstand, and blink against the light of the screen. I bolt upright when I see Tristan’s name on the screen.

  Tristan’s texting me?

  About what?

  Our romantic evening last night? How hot I looked on stage next to him? How happy he is that we’re together?

  Obviously, those are the only three options.

  Obviously …

  Tristan: I can’t stop thinking about last night.

  No. It’s not possible. It can’t be. It’s not …

  Bloop-dee-dee-bloop-bloop-bing!

  Tristan: Let’s talk today.

  NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!

  I quickly tap over to the calendar app and my bedroom shrinks down to the size of a tuna can.

  Monday, September 26.

  Monday.

  Monday.

  MONDAY!

  How in the name of everything that is holy can it still be Monday?

  I fixed the problem. I righted the wrong. I did exactly what I said I would do when I made that moronic, ill-fated wish to the universe and asked for another chance. It can’t still be Monday.

  I shake my phone, willing it to change.

  Wake up, phone! Get with the program! It’s Tuesday, you piece of crap!

  The calendar doesn’t change.

  “What the hell do you know!?” I scream, and violently chuck the phone across the room. It crashes against my mirror, shattering both. Glass and broken phone parts rain down to the carpet.

  A moment later Hadley bursts through the door, eyeing the mess and gasping. “What happened?”

  “Get out!” I yell at her. “Just get OUT!”

  Her injured expression sends a shot of guilt into my chest as she quietly ducks out, looking like a dismissed Disney character.

  Whatever. I don’t care. Let her be hurt. Let my mirror shatter. It’ll all be reset tomorrow, because obviously nothing I do matters anymore.

  Nothing.

  I could set fire to the house, run naked through the school hallways, assassinate the mayor, and tomorrow no one will even remember. I’ll just wake up right here in this bed, with those stupid text messages.

  Over and over again.

  I’m trapped in a nightmare. I’m going to live the rest of my life in this awful, awful day.

  Why couldn’t it have been a Saturday? Or a Sunday?

  Why couldn’t it have been my birthday or Christmas or the day Tristan and I had our first kiss? I would have been perfectly fine reliving that day over and over again. But this one?

  The one where Tristan hates me?

  Where he’s on the precipice of ending everything we had?

  Not to mention the election speech and the rain and the school pictures and the softball tryouts and the ticket and …

  Gah!

  I can’t do it. I can’t relive it all over again. I can’t keep trying to make things right with Tristan only to have my efforts erased the next morning. It’s like running on a treadmill. You run and run and run, but in the end you’ve gone nowhere. What’s the flipping point?

  I lie in bed, resolved not to move. I won’t go to school. No one can make me. It’s not like I’ll get an absentee mark on my permanent record. I have no permanent record anymore!

  I don’t know how long I lie there, because my phone with my only clock on it is smashed in the corner, but eventually my dad knocks on the door and enters.

  “Owen is on the landline fo
r you. He said he’s been calling your phone but it goes straight to voice mail. Are you sick?”

  “No. Go away.”

  My father doesn’t move. I guess that line only works on little sisters. “I’m not going to school,” I vow.

  “If you’re not sick, then you’re going to school. Plus, you have softball tryouts today.”

  I groan and roll over, facing the wall. “What’s the point? I’ll just try out tomorrow.”

  “The email your coach sent said it was a one-day tryout. No makeups. Today is your only chance, Ellie.”

  I press my face into the pillow and let out a scream.

  When I look up again, my father is sitting on the edge of my bed. “Is this about Tristan? Your sister told me that you two had a fight last night.”

  Dang it, Hadley!

  I can feel the tears welling up but I refuse to cry in front of my dad. Especially about a boy.

  “No,” I mumble, but it sounds about as convincing as a confession of love on a reality show.

  My father lets out a sigh. “Well, I’m sorry if you’re having … boy trouble, but that’s no reason to miss school. Junior year is incredibly important when it comes to colleges, and you can’t let a little crush ruin your chances at a good future.”

  I growl and push the covers off me. “It’s not a little crush, Dad. May I remind you, you married your high school sweetheart?”

  He surrenders his hands into the air. “Right, right. Of course. Sorry.”

  I drag myself to the bathroom and run the hot water in the sink.

  “Does that mean you’re going to school?” he calls after me.

  “Yeah, sure. Whatever,” I call back, and then I slam the door.

  I stare at my reflection in the mirror. It’s the same old me. On the same old Monday. With the same old stupid life.

  I tug at my cheeks and run my fingers through my hair.

  And the same old hair.

  I open the drawer under my sink and rummage around until I find a pair of scissors. I gather all my hair into one fist, suck in a deep lungful of air, and start cutting. The scissors aren’t sharp enough to get through the entire thing in one snip, so I have to work at it, sawing through the wad of hair like a lumberjack.

  Finally, it all falls in a clump into the sink as the remainder of my now-jagged, shorn locks tumble around my shoulders. It looks absolutely horrible. Choppy and uneven. Some shorter strands curl around my ears while the longer ones drag across my shoulder. It looks like I visited a barbershop run by toddlers.

  Well, at least it’ll grow back by tomorrow morning.

  I pull on a pair of ripped jeans and zip up a ratty once-black-now-gray hoodie that hasn’t been washed in decades, pulling the hood up over my avant-garde haircut. I glance at my reflection in my busted bedroom mirror. The warped, splintered image is all too fitting.

  As I pack up my schoolbag, my gaze falls to the reading chair by the window. That’s where I put the stuffed poodle Owen won for me at the carnival last night. The chair is now empty. The whole night has been erased, including our fight. Part of me feels relief, part of me wants to cry.

  8:20 a.m.

  When I get downstairs, Hadley is already gone and my parents are in the midst of their heated argument, obviously the culmination of my mother’s cabinet door slamming earlier.

  I catch a glimpse of the clock on the microwave. School starts in ten minutes. Owen is going to kill me.

  “If you would just tell me what’s wrong, I can fix it!” my dad is saying to my mom, trying to put his arm around her.

  She pulls away. “If you paid any attention to anything, I wouldn’t have to tell you!”

  She opens her briefcase and starts loading it up with files. “Just forget it. I’m fine.” She slams her briefcase closed.

  “Obviously you’re not fine,” he tries. “And I’m sorry if I’ve been preoccupied lately with—”

  “With Scrabble!” my mom shouts. “Preoccupied with playing board games with strangers on the other side of the world.”

  I roll my eyes. I really don’t have the patience for this.

  “You forgot your anniversary!” I yell, causing both my parents to stop and stare at me openmouthed. “That’s why she’s pissed!” I push my bag farther up my shoulder and storm through the garage door. “Sheesh! Grow up, you two!”

  Good Golly, Miss Molly

  It’s raining. Again. Of course. It’s always raining. My life is one big rain cloud that I can’t ever escape. I consider running back inside the house to grab my umbrella but then I think, Screw it. What does it even matter?

  I slam the car door closed, rev the engine, and back out of the garage, tires screeching and squealing on the slick pavement.

  When I pull into Owen’s driveway a few minutes later, he comes running out from the cover of his front porch where he’s been waiting for me.

  “Yeah, yeah, it’s really chucking it down out there,” I grumble as soon as he opens the car door. “Get in.”

  Owen scowls and drops into the front seat. “Well, someone woke up on the wrong side of the universe today.”

  I slam the shifter into reverse. “You can say that again.”

  As I speed down his street, Owen starts searching for something in my car. Finally, when he can’t find it, he asks, “Where’s your phone? Someone needs her ‘Psych Me Up Buttercup’ playlist stat.”

  “I threw it against the mirror this morning and it broke.”

  Owen sits in stunned silence for a moment. “What happened to you?” His voice takes on a cautious tone, as if I’m a serial killer and he’s just now noticing after seven years of friendship. “Did you and the rock star break up or something?”

  “Nope. Not yet.”

  I turn left onto the main road without even pausing to check for oncoming traffic. Owen braces against the window as a car swerves around us, laying on the horn.

  “Are you crazy?”

  I ignore him and step on the accelerator until I’ve caught up to the car that honked at us. I pull up beside him, matching his speed, and press down on my horn until the driver looks over at me. Then I flip him the middle finger.

  Owen grabs my hand and yanks it back down. “Do you want to lose your license? Or get shot?”

  “Relax. Nothing’s going to happen. I’m invincible.”

  “Invincible?” he echoes dubiously.

  “Yup. I’m done playing by the rules. I’m done being the goody-goody sugar-and-spice girl that everyone can rely on. Do you know why I’ve always played by the rules?”

  “No,” Owen says uneasily. “But I have a feeling you’re going to tell me.”

  “Because I’ve always been terrified of consequences. If I fail a test, I won’t get into a good college. If I ditch class, I’ll get detention. If I say the wrong thing, or act the wrong way, or fail to be the cool, no-drama, easy-breezy, cucumber girl that Tristan wants, he’ll break up with me. But you know what? I was wrong. All this time. I’ve been worried about consequences my whole freaking life, when in reality there are no consequences. None. Nothing I do matters. So why should I bother following the rules?”

  Owen looks terrified. I eye the fateful red light up ahead at the intersection of Providence Boulevard and Avenue de Liberation. It’s just starting to turn yellow and I’m still a good two hundred yards away.

  “Uh, Ellie. That’s a yellow light. Aaaand now it’s a red light.”

  I floor the accelerator.

  Owen grips the door handle. “Ellie!”

  As we race through the intersection, I let go of the steering wheel and yank up on the bottom of my hoodie, giving the cameras a nice clear shot of my bra. “Eat your heart out!” I shout.

  Flash! Flash! Flash!

  I feel like a Victoria’s Secret runway model.

  With slightly less cleavage.

  When I lower my sweatshirt and return my hands to the wheel, I notice Owen is staring openmouthed at me.

  But not at my face.

&nbs
p; At my …

  “What are you looking at?” I ask. My tone is not accusatory. It’s amused.

  He quickly averts his eyes, turning the color of a fire truck. “Uh … nothing.”

  I let out a cackle. “You act like you’ve never seen boobs before.”

  His face turns an even deeper shade of red. “I’ve … um … just never seen … you know, your boobs before.”

  “Wait,” I say, suddenly overwhelmed with curiosity, “whose boobs have you seen?”

  No response.

  “Interesting,” I muse.

  “What’s interesting?”

  “Nothing.” I shake my head, a playful smile dancing on my lips. “Now, where’s my bloody fortune cookie?”

  8:35 a.m.

  “So, are you going to tell me why you’re acting like a suicidal maniac?” Owen asks as he crumples up his fortune and tosses it into my backseat.

  Once again, his said the same thing, while mine changed to:

  You make your own happiness.

  Not helpful.

  I tried to make my own happiness. I’ve tried for more than four days now and nada. So needless to say, mine got crumpled up and tossed into the backseat as well.

  “Do you want the long version or the short version?” I ask, replying to Owen’s question.

  He glances out the window. “Well, seeing that we’re about twenty seconds from the school and first period started five minutes ago, the short version.”

  “This is the fifth time I’ve lived this exact same day.”

  Owen’s face scrunches up. “Okay, maybe I need the long version.”

  I turn in to the parking lot and find a spot in the back. When I park the car, Owen makes no move to get out. He crosses his arms expectantly over his chest. “I’m waiting.”

  “You’re already late.”

  “Precisely. I’m already late. So spill.”

  I let out a sigh and push back the hood of my sweatshirt.

  Owen’s eyes widen when he sees what I’ve done to my hair. “Holy crap! Ells, what did you do?”

  I don’t answer the question. It will all become clear soon enough. “Maybe this time I should start with the proof. It might speed things along.”

  “What proof?”

  “Did you by chance have a dream about skinny-dipping with Principal Yates last night?”