This Girl: A Novel

by Colleen Hoover

  LAKE IS SPRAWLED across the bed on her stomach, wearing the robe I’ve fallen in love with. I’m stealing that robe before we leave here. She’s flipping through the channels on the TV with the remote, so I crawl onto the bed next to her and take the remote from her hand.

  “My turn,” I say. I flip it to ESPN and she grabs the remote back from me.

  “It’s my honeymoon,” she says. “I should get to watch what I want.” She turns her attention back to the TV.

  “Your honeymoon? What am I? An afterthought?”

  She continues to stare at the TV without responding. She glances at me, then back to the TV. After a few seconds, she shifts her gaze in my direction again and I’m still staring at her. “What’d you say?” she teases. “Were you talking?”

  I grab the remote from her and press the power button, then chuck it across the room. I grab her wrists and roll her onto her back, pinning her to the bed. “Maybe you need to be reminded who wears the pants in this family.”

  She laughs. “Oh, believe me, I know you wear the pants, Will. You even wear them in the bathtub, remember?”

  I laugh and kiss her ear. “If I remember correctly, you wore clothes in the shower once, too.”

  “Unwillingly!” She laughs.

  insanity

  AFTER I FINISH cooking breakfast for the boys, I walk to my bedroom and slip inside, shutting the door behind me. The last thing I need is for them to know Lake spent the night here last night.

  I sit on the edge of the bed by her feet. If I were to sit any closer, I wouldn’t be able to prevent myself from reaching over and touching her or hugging her or stroking her hair. It was torture holding her last night while trying to hold back the urge to kiss away her pain. Torture. Not that I didn’t give her a light peck after I was sure she was asleep. I might have also told her I loved her after I kissed her hair.

  Torture.

  “Lake,” I whisper. She doesn’t move so I repeat her name. She rustles slightly, but doesn’t open her eyes. She looks so peaceful and serene right now. If I were to wake her up, reality would just hit her again. I stand up and decide to let her have a few more moments of peace. Before I leave the room, I walk to the head of the bed and lightly kiss her on the forehead.

  •••

  “WHAT IF SHE loses weight?” Kel says.

  “She doesn’t need to lose weight,” I say as I scoop a spoonful of eggs onto his plate. I walk back to the stove and set the pan down.

  “Well, if you don’t think she’s fat and you like to kiss her, then why don’t you want her to be your girlfriend?”

  I spin around and face both of the boys. “I like kissing her?” I ask, afraid of his answer. He just nods and takes a bite of his food.

  “You kissed her that night you took her on that test date. Lake says you didn’t kiss her, but I saw you. She says you can get in a lot of trouble for kissing her and that I didn’t see what I thought I saw.”

  “She said that?” I ask.

  Caulder nods. “That’s what she told us. But Kel says he saw what he thought he saw and I believe him. Why would you get in trouble for kissing her, anyway?”

  I wasn’t expecting the third degree this early in the morning. I’m too tired to turn this into a life lesson, though. After everything that happened last night and having Lake next to me in my bed, I’m pretty sure I didn’t even get an hour of sleep.

  “Listen, boys,” I say, walking back to them. I place my hands on the bar and come face-to-face with them. “Sometimes, there are things in life that are out of our control. I can’t be Lake’s boyfriend and she can’t be my girlfriend. We’re not going to get married, and the two of you aren’t going to be brothers. Enjoy the fact that you get to be best friends and neighbors.”

  “Is it because you’re a teacher?” Caulder asks pointedly.

  I drop my head in my hands. They’re relentless. And intuitive.

  “Yes,” I say, exasperated. “Yes. It’s because I’m a teacher. Teachers cannot ask their students to be their girlfriends and vice versa. So Lake isn’t going to be my girlfriend. I’m not going to be her boyfriend. We aren’t going to get married. Ever. Now drop it.” I walk back to the stove and place lids on all the pans to keep the food warm. I don’t know when Lake will wake up, but I need to get these boys fed and out of this house before she walks out of my bedroom. How in hell would I explain to them that teachers and students can’t date, but they can sleep in the same bed.

  •••

  AFTER BREAKFAST COMES and goes and she’s still asleep, I walk the boys over to Julia’s. Kel and Caulder rush in, but I feel inclined to knock on the door so I lag behind. When Julia opens the door, she shields her eyes from the sun and looks away.

  “Sorry. Did I wake you up?”

  She steps aside to let me in and shakes her head. “I don’t think I’ve even slept,” she says. She walks back into the living room, so I follow and sit on the sofa. “How is she?”

  I shrug. “Still asleep. She hasn’t come out of the bedroom since she got there last night.”

  Julia nods and leans back into the couch, then rubs her hands on her face. “She’s scared, Will. She was so scared when I told her. I knew she would take it badly, but not like this. I wasn’t expecting this reaction at all. I need her to be strong when we tell Kel, but I can’t tell him when she’s this emotional.”

  “It’s only been seven months since her dad died, Julia. Losing a parent is hard, but the possibility of losing both of them at her age is incomprehensible.”

  “Yeah,” she whispers. “I guess you would know.”

  She still doesn’t seem convinced that Lake’s reaction is normal. Everyone reacts differently to devastating news. I didn’t even cry right away when I found out my parents died, but that’s not to say it wasn’t the worst moment of my life.

  I was on my way to a game when I got the phone call. I was the emergency contact on their records. The person on the other line was telling me there was an accident and I needed to get to the hospital in Detroit. They wouldn’t tell me anything, no matter how much I begged. I tried calling my parents cell phones several times but never got an answer. I called my grandparents to tell them about the accident, since they were just minutes from the hospital. That was one of the hardest phone calls I’ve ever had to make.

  I drove as fast as I could, holding my cell phone in my hand against the steering wheel, keeping a constant eye on it. All I could think of was Caulder. I just knew something terrible had happened and that my parents weren’t answering their phones because they wanted to tell me in person.

  When an hour passed and even my grandparents still hadn’t called, I tried their phone for the fifth time. They weren’t answering, either. I think it was after the sixth time I called them and they pushed it through to voicemail that I knew.

  My parents. Caulder. All of them. They were all dead.

  I pulled up to the emergency room and rushed inside. The first thing I saw was my grandmother doubled over in a chair, crying.

  No, she wasn’t crying. She was wailing. My grandfather had his back to me, but his shoulders were shaking. His entire body was shaking. I stood there and watched them for several minutes, wondering who these people were in front of me. These strong, independent people I had admired and respected and thought the world of. These people that could be broken by nothing.

  Yet, here they were. Broken and weak. The only thing that can break the unbreakable is the unthinkable. I knew the moment I saw them alone in the waiting room that my worst fears were confirmed.

  They were all dead.

  I turned around and I walked out. I didn’t want to be in there. I had to go outside. I couldn’t breathe. When I reached the grass across from the parking lot, I fell to my knees. I didn’t cry. Instead, I became physically ill. Over and over, my stomach repelling the truth that I refused to believe. When there was nothing left in me, I fell backward onto the grass and stared up at the sky, the stars staring back at me. Millions
of stars staring back at the whole world. A world where parents die and brothers die and nothing stops to respect that fact. The whole universe just goes and goes as if nothing has happened, even when one person’s entire life is forced to a complete halt.

  I closed my eyes and thought about him. It had been two weeks since I had spoken to him on the phone. I had promised him I’d come up the next weekend to take him to his football game. That was the same weekend Vaughn begged me not to go. She said midterms were in two weeks and we needed to spend time together before then. So, I called Caulder and canceled my trip. That was the last time I had talked to him.

  The last time I would ever talk to him.

  “Will?”

  I looked up after hearing my grandfather’s voice and he was standing over me, looking down. “Will, are you okay?” he asked, wiping fresh tears from his defeated eyes. I hated seeing that look in his eyes.

  I didn’t move. I just lay there in the grass, looking up at him, not wanting him to say anything else. I didn’t want to hear it.

  “Will . . . they . . .”

  “I know,” I said quickly, not wanting to hear the words come out of his mouth.

  He nodded and looked away. “Your grandmother wants . . .”

  “I know,” I said louder.

  “Maybe you should come . . .”

  “I don’t want to.”

  And I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to set foot back inside that hospital. Back inside the building that now housed the three of them. Lifeless.

  “Will, you need to come . . .”

  “I don’t want to!” I screamed.

  My grandfather—my poor grandfather just nodded and sighed. What else could he have done? What else could he have said? My entire life had just been ripped from me and I wasn’t about to listen to reassurances from nurses or doctors or clergymen or even my grandparents. I didn’t want to hear it.

  My grandfather hesitantly took a few steps away from me, leaving me alone in the grass. Before heading back inside, he turned around one last time.

  “It’s just that Caulder has been asking for you. He’s scared. So when you’re ready . . .”

  I immediately snapped my head in his direction. “Caulder?” I said. “Caulder’s not . . .”

  My grandfather immediately shook his head. “No, son. No. Caulder’s fine.”

  It wasn’t until those words came out of his mouth that everything hit me all at once. My chest swelled and the heat rose to my face, then my eyes. I pulled my hands to my forehead and I rolled onto my knees, my elbows buried in the grass, and I completely lost it. Sounds came from deep within me that I didn’t even know I was capable of. I cried harder than I’ve ever cried before—harder than I’ve cried since. I sat on the lawn of that hospital and I cried tears of joy, because Caulder was okay.

  “Are you okay?” Julia asks, breaking me out of my trance.

  I nod, trying to push back the memories of that day. “I’m fine.”

  She readjusts her position on the couch and sighs. “I don’t want her to have to raise Kel,” she says. “Lake needs the chance to live her own life. I’d never burden her like that.”

  “Julia,” I say, speaking confidently from experience, “it would burden her not to have him.” Not having the choice to raise Kel would kill Lake. Just like it killed me when I thought I’d lost Caulder. It would absolutely devastate her.

  Julia doesn’t respond, indicating I may have crossed my boundaries with that comment. We both sit quietly on the couch for a while. I feel like neither of us has anything else to say, so I stand up.

  “I’ll take the boys somewhere this afternoon. I’ll make sure Layken wakes up before I go so you guys will have time to talk.”

  “Thank you,” she says, smiling a genuine smile at me. It feels good. I respect Julia’s opinion and having her disappointed in me feels almost as bad as when Lake is disappointed in me.

  I nod, then turn and leave. I make my way back inside the house and back into the bedroom where Lake is still sleeping. I ease onto the bed at her side and take a seat.

  “Lake,” I whisper, trying to wake her successfully this time.

  She doesn’t move, so I pull the covers off her head. She groans and pulls them back up.

  “Lake, wake up.”

  She kicks her legs, then throws the covers off. It’s well past lunchtime and she acts like she could sleep twelve more hours. She opens her eyes and squints, then finds me sitting next to her. She’s got mascara smeared underneath her eyes, some of which is still on my pillowcase. Her hair is in disarray. Her ponytail holder is on the sheet beside her. She looks like hell. A beautiful hell.

  “You really aren’t a morning person,” I say.

  She sits up on the bed. “Bathroom. Where’s your bathroom?”

  I point to the bathroom across the hall and watch as she leaps off the bed and darts for the door. She’s definitely awake now, but I can almost guarantee she needs coffee.

  I go to the kitchen and make us both a cup. When she comes out of the bathroom I take a seat and place her coffee next to me.

  “What time is it?”

  “One-thirty.”

  “Oh,” she says, shocked. “Well . . . your bed’s really comfortable.”

  I smile and nudge her shoulder. “Apparently.”

  We drink our coffee and she doesn’t say anything else. I have no idea where her head is at, so I remain silent, allowing her to think. When we finish our coffee, I put the cups in the sink and tell her I’m taking the boys to a matinee. “We’re leaving in a few minutes. I’ll probably take them to dinner afterward, so we’ll be back around six. Should give you and your mom time to talk.”

  She frowns at me. “What if I don’t want to talk? What if I want to go to a matinee?”

  I lean forward across the bar. “You don’t need to watch a movie. You need to talk to your mom. Let’s go.” I grab my keys and jacket and head toward the front door.

  She kicks back in her chair and folds her arms across her chest. “I just woke up. The caffeine hasn’t even kicked in yet. Can I stay here for a while?”

  She’s practically pouting, her bottom lip sticking out, pleading with me. I stare at her mouth a beat too long. I think she notices, because she pulls on her bottom lip with her teeth and her cheeks flush. I shake my head slightly, pulling my gaze away from her mouth.

  “Fine,” I say, snapping out of my trance. I walk over to her and kiss her on the forehead. “But not all day. You need to talk to her.” I walk away, fully aware of the fact that the forehead kiss was probably crossing the line. However, the fact that she slept in my bed last night has already muddied the waters. The line isn’t so black and white anymore. I’m pretty sure gray just became my new favorite color.

  •••

  IT’S BEEN OVER five hours since I left with the boys, so Lake and Julia probably have had a chance to sort everything out. I tell Kel to stay the night with me to give them more time to adjust. I unlock the front door and follow the boys into the living room. We all come to a halt, not expecting to find Lake on my living room floor. There are dozens of white index cards sprawled out in front of her.

  What the hell is she doing?

  “What are you doing?” Caulder says, verbalizing my exact thoughts.

  “Alphabetizing,” she replies without looking up.

  “Alphabetizing what?” I say.

  “Everything. First I did the movies, then I did the CDs. Caulder, I did the books in your room. I did a few of your games, but some of those started with numbers so I put the numbers first, then the titles.” I point to the piles in front of me. “These are recipes. I found them on top of the fridge. I’m alphabetizing them by category first; like beef, lamb, pork, poultry. Then behind the categories I’m alphabetizing them by—”

  “Guys, go to Kel’s. Let Julia know you’re back,” I say, without looking at them.

  The boys don’t move. They continue to stare at Lake. “Now!” I yell. They listen this tim
e, opening the door and disappearing outside.

  I slowly walk to the couch and sit down. I’m afraid to say anything. Something is off. She seems so . . . chipper.

  “You’re the teacher,” she says. She looks at me and winks. “Should I put ‘Baked Potato Soup’ behind potato or soup?”

  What the hell? She’s in denial. Intense denial.

  “Stop,” I say. I’m not returning her smile. I don’t know what happened with her mom today, but whatever is going on with her needs to stop. She needs to confront this.

  “I can’t stop, silly. I’m halfway finished. If I stop now you won’t know where to find . . .” She picks up a random card off the floor. “Jerk Chicken?”

  I glance around the living room and notice the DVDs have all been arranged next to my television. I stand and slowly walk to the kitchen, eyeing the surroundings. Did she clean the damn baseboards? I knew I shouldn’t have left her today. Good God, I bet she cleaned the entire house and never even went to talk to her mother. I walk to my bedroom and my bed is made. Not only is it made; it’s perfect. I hesitate before opening my closet door, afraid of what I might find. My shoes have all been rearranged. My shirts have all been moved to the right side of the closet and my pants are on the left. The way they’re hung, their colors move from light to dark.

  She color-coded my closet? I’m afraid to complete the inspection. There’s no telling what all she did to this house. She probably left nothing untouched.

  Shit. I rush to the bed and open the nightstand. I pull the book out and open it, but the receipt for her chocolate milk doesn’t look like it’s been touched. I breathe a sigh of relief, glad she didn’t see it, then put the book back where it was. How embarrassing would that have been?

  I walk back into the living room, more aware of the spotless condition of my house than before. She’s been a little too busy, which can only mean one thing. She’s still avoiding her mother.

  “You color-coded my closet?” I say. I’m glaring at her from the hallway entrance. She shrugs and smiles, like this is any other day.

  “Will, it wasn’t that hard. You wear, like, three different color shirts.” When she giggles, it makes me wince. She has to stop this. Her denial isn’t good for her, and it certainly isn’t going to be good for Kel when Julia tells him. I walk swiftly across the room and bend down to snatch up the cards. We’re about to have a serious sit-down.