Happenstance

by Jamie McGuire

  “No. But you telling me you won’t hang out with me because of a girl I don’t even like anymore . . . that’s an easy fix.”

  “Why would you stay with someone you don’t like for five years?”

  He shrugged. “Something to do, I guess. She’s not ugly.”

  “No,” I said, sighing. “She’s not. You sound like a huge asshole right now.”

  “Do we have to talk about this?”

  “No, you can just take me home.”

  He groaned, and then sat up, facing me. “My parents have been married for twenty years, and they don’t really like each other.” He paused, and when he realized I wasn’t satisfied, he continued, “I liked her at first, but I never liked the way she treated people. You, in particular. When I talked to her about you, she just seemed to treat you worse. But every time I thought about breaking it off with her, the drama I knew would follow didn’t sound all that appealing.”

  “Five years is a long time,” I said.

  “You have no idea.”

  “So are you just going to wait until you leave for college?”

  “That was the plan, but now I kind of want to do it sooner.” He leaned toward me, and I leaned away. He snorted. “You’re really going to make me do this by the book, aren’t you?”

  “I’m not making you do anything,” I said, handing him back his phone.

  “You’re making me miss this movie.”

  I glanced at the television. “It’s paused.”

  “Oh, yeah,” he said with a smile, pushing a button. The violence ensued, along with screaming, gun shots, and helicopter blades whirring in the air. Weston settled back into the cushions again, and I did the same.

  He looked down at his phone, still in his hand. “What’s your number, anyway?”

  “I don’t have a cell phone.”

  “Landline?”

  “Nope.”

  Weston frowned, but kept his eyes on the television screen. “Do you like hanging out with me?”

  I wasn’t sure if I’d heard him right. “Yes?”

  “Not because you don’t have anyone else to hang out with?”

  “I have other people to hang out with.”

  “Frankie?”

  “Yes.”

  “What if I wasn’t with Alder? Would you . . .?” He stared at the TV.

  “Would I what?”

  “Let me kiss you?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe. I’m not sure you’d enjoy it.”

  He turned to me. “What makes you say that?”

  “I haven’t had a lot of practice. None, actually.” I could feel my face heat up. I preferred to tell the truth, but it wasn’t always easy.

  “You’ve never kissed anyone before,” he said, as more of a statement than a question.

  “So?”

  He stared at my lips and readjusted so he could look straight ahead again. “I’m available whenever. If you want to practice.” He was purposefully keeping his face smooth, but he wasn’t doing a very good job because the corner of his mouth kept trying to curl up.

  “I don’t want to practice. I want a real first kiss. And not from a guy who’s cheating on his girlfriend.”

  He frowned. “I told you I’d break up with her. You don’t want me to.”

  “We’d never have a moment of peace. The whole school would freak out, and I’m pretty sure your mom would, too.”

  “Is that why you don’t want me to break up with her? Or is it because you just don’t want me?”

  I kept quiet, and the air in the room became thick and stuffy. It was suddenly hard to breathe. Weston squirmed while he waited for my answer.

  “I’ve thought you were kind of amazing since kindergarten,” I said.

  He peeked over at me and grinned. “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  With his eyes back on the television, he spoke softly and nervously. “Me, too. About you.”

  I nodded, and we watched the rest of the movie without another word.

  When it was over, Weston put on his jacket, picked up my backpack, and walked me upstairs. He snatched his keys from the kitchen counter. We made our way outside into the chilly night air. Weston pulled off his jacket and draped it over my shoulders. It was warm and smelled like him, and I pulled it tighter around me. Weston helped me climb into the passenger seat. Before he could round the front of the truck, his parents came outside to talk to him.

  Their conversation immediately looked tense, and Weston kept stealing glances at me. He put his hands on his hips, shifted his weight nervously, and shook his head a lot. He was beginning to look angry. I wished he didn’t have automatic windows so I could roll mine down to hear what they were saying.

  Finally, his parents turned to go inside, and Weston joined me in the truck.

  “Sorry about that,” he said.

  “Don’t be.”

  “No, that’s just fucking rude to do that in front of you. They could have waited.”

  “What did they say?”

  He shook his head and backed out of the drive. When he pulled onto the street, I reached over and touched my fingertips to his. He intertwined his fingers in mine.

  “What did they say, Weston?”

  He sighed. “They’re concerned about my new friend. They don’t think it’s appropriate for me to be spending time alone with you because of Alder.”

  “They’re right.”

  He squeezed my fingers. “I can’t give you up now. When we spend time together, I feel this peace that I don’t get when you’re not around. It’s kind of like when you’re a kid, and you put on fresh PJs after a bath and get into a made bed with clean sheets straight out of the dryer. That’s what being with you feels like.”

  My eyebrows lifted, and a surprised, appreciative smile swept across my face. “I think that’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”

  “It shouldn’t be. You’re so good, Erin. You’re just . . . good. You don’t deserve the way they treat you, and I don’t even know why they do it.”

  “I don’t know, either. One day, they just stopped talking to me, and then the silence turned into anger.”

  “That’s so weird. I don’t get it.”

  The Chevy pulled into my gravel drive, and Weston put the gear into park.

  I leaned back and stretched. “Just one more day before Spring Break. After that we have five weeks before graduation. None of this will matter after that.”

  “Are you . . . are you going to prom?” he asked.

  I laughed once. It was shrill, and it even surprised me. “No,” I said, amused.

  “Would you want to go with me?”

  “You’re going with Alder.”

  “I haven’t asked her, yet. Everyone just assumes we’re going together. Even her.”

  “I . . .” I shook my head, feeling overwhelmed. “I don’t have a dress. I wouldn’t even know where to look. And I don’t have the money, anyway.”

  “Okay. Don’t freak out. Just think about it. If you want to go, we’ll figure something out.”

  I swallowed, hard. “You’re freaking me out. I’m not sure how to feel about all of this.”

  Weston lifted my hand and touched his lips to my fingers. “We’re just winging it, remember?”

  I pulled the door handle and jumped down to the grass below, then pulled his jacket from my shoulders.

  “Hang on to it for me.”

  I tossed it into his truck. “I have a jacket. Thank you.”

  He smirked. “Not one that smells like me.”

  “Are you afraid I’m going to forget about you overnight?” I teased, trying to hide my embarrassment that he’d spoken my private thought.

  He pointed to his chest. “This? No way!”

  Weston waved to me as he pulled away, and I walked into my house, still giggling. It was dark and quiet. I crept into my room and let my backpack fall to the carpet, and crawled straight into bed. I was too tired to take a shower or even brush my teeth. I just wanted to
lie between the sheets and replay what Weston said about how I made him feel over and over again in my head. It was like a dream, one that I would inevitably wake up from soon. Something was going to come along and take it all away, because things like this didn’t happen to me.

  I reached over and set my alarm for half an hour earlier than usual, and then relaxed against my pillow. Tomorrow was Friday, the last day before Spring Break, and the beginning of a week-long vacation from the Erins, and nine whole days and evenings with Weston, doing whatever we wanted. He was becoming my best friend, and not just because he was my only friend at school. We actually had a lot in common, from music to art to a mutual love for the first three episodes of Star Wars.

  I felt my eyes grow heavy, and I drifted off, with his words about PJs and warm sheets playing over in my mind, narrated by his smooth, deep voice.

  Chapter Seven

  Friday morning, I stepped out of my home to see a white SUV parallel parked next to the curb. Mrs. Pyles rolled down the window and waved.

  “I told you I would be here!” she called, a big grin on her face.

  I looked up. The clouds were gray, the sidewalk and grass were wet, but the raining had stopped. “I think it’s okay to walk.”

  “It’s supposed to rain on and off all day, Easter. Get your rear in this car!”

  I turned around, double-checking that Gina wasn’t watching me from the door then hurried to Mrs. Pyles’s vehicle.

  “Buckle up,” she said, twisting the key in the ignition.

  “Can we please hurry?” I asked, hearing the click at my hip as I fastened the seat belt.

  She pulled away, and moments later, paused at a stop sign. A blue pickup passed through the puddle that always filled the corner of that intersection when it rained, splashing water all the way up the sign.

  “If you’d been standing there, you would have been soaked,” Mrs. Pyles said, shaking her head.

  “Thank you,” I said, biting at my thumbnail.

  She pulled forward, and after a block, stopped at another stop sign. I looked over at the Dairy Queen. It was dark and the parking lot was bare. If it kept raining, we wouldn’t be much busier after school. Just as that thought crossed my mind, the sky began spitting on us.

  Mrs. Pyles turned right toward the school, her blond hair grazing her shoulders as she leaned forward to turn on the windshield wipers. “Do you have plans for Spring Break?” she asked.

  “Not really.”

  “You’re not going to South Padre with the other seniors?” I gave her a side look. She smiled sheepishly. “I’ve noticed you’ve been spending time with Weston Gates. I thought maybe you would. Hoped maybe you would.”

  “You’ve noticed?” I said, my heart beating fast. I thought we were being careful. Weston had been taking up for me in class, but I thought no one knew that we’d actually been spending time together.

  She smiled her sweet smile. “Veronica Gates is in my women’s auxiliary church group. She’s talked about you two a little bit lately. That’s all. Just to me.”

  “She doesn’t want anyone else to know, I’m sure.”

  “She doesn’t want to cause problems.”

  “For Weston and Alder.”

  We parked in the teacher’s lot, and Mrs. Pyles turned to me. “He’s a nice boy.”

  I waited, imagining she might tell me to stay away from him, or something equally offensive.

  “You sure can pick ’em,” she said, winking at me.

  She got out and shut her door. After briefly processing her words and feeling half a second of appreciation, I got out and hurried to walk next to her. We strode toward the school, dry under Mrs. Pyles’s umbrella. She pointed her key ring at the white SUV, and it made a stunted honking noise as it locked.

  In grade school, before I realized I wouldn’t get a car at sixteen, I dreamed about what car I wanted. No matter what it was, it always had keyless entry. Something about holding that remote in my hand while the keys dangled from it seemed so cool. Then sixteen came and went, and so did seventeen. I went ahead and got my license, just to have an ID, but there was no point. Owning a car seemed so impossible. So I would just do one impossible thing at a time, starting with somehow getting myself to OSU’s campus. But even if I had to start walking in July, I would get there. Maybe, if he wasn’t already at Dallas or Duke, Weston could drop me off.

  That thought warmed me as I walked down the long hallway lined with lockers, across the commons area to a set that sat alone in the middle of the floor next to the library. I specifically requested a locker here because, even though it wasn’t with the rest of the seniors, the library was surrounded by a wall of glass, and the librarian, Mrs. Boesch, always kept a watchful eye between classes.

  I pulled books out of my backpack and hung it up on a hook. The morning sun streaming in through the front windows of the school was suddenly blocked, and I looked to my right to see Weston leaning against the locker next to mine.

  “What are you doing after work tonight?”

  I shrugged.

  “Let’s eat at Los Potros.”

  I looked around, and then nodded.

  Weston beamed and walked away, not trying the slightest bit to conceal our conversation. I shut my locker, and Sara Glenn stared at me with her big, dark eyes.

  “Are you screwing Weston Gates?” she asked.

  I narrowed my eyes at her, disgust weighing down my face. What was it with small-town people automatically assuming that because two people of the opposite sex were speaking, they must be having sex? “No.”

  “What was that, then? He just asked you to dinner. Why is he asking you out?”

  “He didn’t ask me to dinner. You heard him wrong,” I said. Technically, it was the truth. He didn’t ask.

  “I heard him,” Sara snapped. “I’m telling Alder.”

  “Go ahead. She won’t believe you. She’ll assume you’re trying to get them to break up so you can take a stab at him.”

  Sara thought about that for a moment, and then walked away, her confidence gone.

  I took a deep breath and continued to class, my hands shaking and my heart trying to beat its way out of my chest. That sudden burst of courage came from deep inside; a place I didn’t know existed. The thought of Sara ruining my little bit of happiness made me desperate enough to offer a threat that I myself found frightening.

  Everyone was too excited about South Padre to bother giving me grief. By the time I’d made it to seventh period, as weird as it was to say, I’d actually had a pretty good day. Weston had pulled his stool over to my desk, and a combination of nausea and exhilaration swirled in my stomach.

  “Check this out,” Weston said. His poster-sized project was spread out across the table, and I looked it over with an uncontrollable smile. It was a girl looking out the window, her face in shadow except for her bright blue eyes. She held her knees to her chest, and a small necklace hung loosely from her fingers. It was a silver heart with intricate detail chiseled around the border. In the middle appeared one word: Happenstance.

  “It’s incredible,” I whispered. “She’s so pretty.” I felt an urge to run my fingers over it, but didn’t want to smear the charcoal.

  “It’s you.”

  I looked up at him, in shock. We’d been working on this project for three months. My eyebrow shot up, and I shook my head, unconvinced. “You’re such a liar.”

  “I’m completely serious.”

  “Is everyone ready to reveal their final project?” Mrs. Cup said as she sauntered into the classroom, dressed in a black shawl and pants suit. “I know you have all been working incredibly hard. In years past, you’ve taken home these projects and framed them, given them away, or did with them as you choose. But I’ve asked more from you this year. We’ve learned about Faulkner’s lessons and that as artists, you must learn to kill your darlings.” She sighed. “For your final grade, I’m going to ask this of you.” She held up Shannon LaBlue’s poster-sized painting and ripped it in
half, length-wise. It made a quick, high-pitched sound, and we all gasped.

  Shannon’s mouth fell open. She looked around, unsure of what to do.

  Mrs. Cup walked to Zach Skidmore, who sat next to me. “Well?”

  “Are you serious? I thought this was going to be the crowning project of my high school years. I worked my ass off on this, Mrs. Cup!”

  “It’s your final grade.”

  Zach stared at the ground for a moment, breathed out through his nose, and then took his project, a beautiful landscape, and ripped it in half. We all winced, as if he’d cut his wrists.

  The teacher stood in front of my desk. I had worked hard on my project, a charcoal piece featuring a dark hallway with Victorian paintings. It made a horrid ripping sound as I separated one side from the other.

  Mrs. Cup took a step, standing in front of Weston. His project was still laid out on my desk, behind him.

  “Weston.”

  “This is cruel,” he said.

  “It’s a lesson. Not all lessons are easy. The best ones—those you learn the most from—are the most difficult.”

  “I’m not doing it,” Weston said, shifting just slightly, protecting his elegant and tender rendering of me.

  “It’s your final grade, Weston. It was the whole point.”

  He stood, pulled his poster from the desk, and rolled it carefully. “Then I guess I fail.” He left the classroom and walked down the hall toward the parking lot.

  Mrs. Cup shook her head, then took a step toward the next horrified student.

  “It was you?” Frankie asked, a little stunned.

  I nodded.

  “An art project he’d been working on for three months . . . and it was you?”

  “It was me.”

  “Whoa. And he failed his art class to keep it. That’s . . . that’s kind of poignant.”

  “I kind of thought that, but I wasn’t sure if I was reading it wrong.”

  “How can you read that wrong? It’s so romantic I could die!” She bent over, nearly in half, pretending to sob in a very unflattering way.

  “That’s ugly,” I said, trying to stifle a grin.

  “It’s soooo beautiful! I can’t stand it! Agh ha ha!”

  “Stop,” I said, scooping M&Ms into the cup of vanilla I’d just pulled out.