by Beth Reekles
I sat up slowly, rubbing my hands over my face. It was only nine in the morning, according to the clock on my nightstand, so I settled back against my pillows and picked up my cell phone, checking my messages.
There was a notification from Rachel—she’d tagged me in a post. I found she’d uploaded a bunch of photos from the dance last night, including one of me and Lee acting like dorks on the dance floor, and the one of Levi and me in the kissing booth.
I stared at the photo for a while. It was nice. I looked good in it, my dress flattering, my hair cute. And the more I looked at it, the more I thought how good Levi looked beside me. I hit the like button.
When I opened my texts to respond to someone in our group chat, my heart stopped for a second and my eyes bugged out of my skull, and then I felt like retching.
There was a text to my dad—to say I was on my way back from the party—and before that…
I’d texted Noah.
I miss you sooooo much xxxxxx
Shit.
Shit, shit, shit!
I clicked to see what the damage was—and was kind of relieved to find I’d only sent the one text. I’d have been even more mortified if I’d sent him two dozen pining texts. God, that would have been a total disaster.
But even so—one was pretty bad. My cell said that I’d sent the message at 12:24, which I was sure was when I was sitting outside with the guys. I must’ve been a little more drunk than I’d thought….
I was an idiot. My shoulders tensed up as I stared at the message, and the little Read: 07:58 message underneath it.
What did I do now? Noah had seen it, and there was no way I could take it back. He’d obviously decided to ignore it, since I knew he’d seen it over an hour ago, so what did that mean? Did he hate me? Or did he just figure I wasn’t worth replying to?
I swallowed the lump in my throat and ran a hand through my hair, my fingers getting caught in some knots.
Should I text him and apologize, say I was drunk and didn’t mean to send it?
Should I ignore it, too?
I tried typing out an apology first: Hahaha, just seen the text I sent you last night. Sorry about that—had one too many at the party after Sadie Hawkins!
I looked at the text, hesitating over the send button. It looked forced. It looked fake. I didn’t want him to think I was full of regret, pining for him. (Even if I kinda was.) And what if he didn’t reply to that, either?
Or what if he did reply, and say it was okay, and that he knew I didn’t miss him—he didn’t miss me either?
Worse: what if he replied and said he missed me too?
I deleted the reply I’d typed out and set down my phone, closing my eyes. If I’d thought being with Noah long distance was hard, getting over him was so much harder.
Chapter 18
In an attempt to really start getting over Noah, I decided to spend the whole day focusing on myself. After watching some YouTube videos, eating a breakfast big enough to cure my hangover, and finishing an essay for my history class, I was feeling pretty collected and motivated. I decided to try tackling my college application essay again. I’d made some progress on it over the last week. Maybe today would be the day I actually finished it.
I typed out a few new paragraphs before I read over the whole thing. It was almost there! All I needed was a good conclusion, but I knew it’d help if I read back over everything I’d written first.
The more words I read, the more I wondered why I’d wasted my time writing this crap in the first place. The elation I’d felt at thinking I’d almost finished vanished. I had to write about something I’d felt had inspired me—and I wasn’t feeling very inspired rereading my essay.
I’d been thinking about this damn essay so much, and rewriting pieces of it for weeks now. All that work and stress, and for what? This piece of crap on the screen now?
The words on the screen started to blur, mushing together until I couldn’t see them. I clicked the mouse furiously, highlighting random words, wondering what the hell was going on—until I sniffled and realized I was on the verge of crying. Again.
God, I was such a loser.
I couldn’t even keep it together over a single, stupid essay.
I’d never get into college. I couldn’t even write a damn essay! How the hell would I manage to make it through four years of college?
I didn’t even know what I wanted to do with my life yet. I had no idea what I wanted to major in.
I’d talked to my dad and the career counselor they’d brought into school, and told the teachers who’d asked me that I wanted to major in English, because then I’d have some options, and I got my best grades in English lit, so why not?
And here I was, sobbing—and wailing a bit, too—over my computer, because I couldn’t even string a decent sentence together.
My bedroom door opened, and since the figure, blurred beyond recognition by the tears in my eyes that just wouldn’t go away, was too short to be my dad, I figured it had to be my brother.
“Get out!” I wailed, my words hitching on a sob. “Go away! Leave me alone!”
Brad hovered in the doorway, and then I got angry. I didn’t know why—I was just suddenly overwhelmingly furious that I couldn’t even wallow in self-pity in peace.
“Elle? What’s the matter?”
He was being really sweet (for a change). He was genuinely worried about me.
And it only made me feel even angrier.
“Get out! Leave me alone!”
Eventually, Brad shut the door and I stopped, collapsing over my desk and crying into my arms. I probably looked about as pathetic as I felt, but now I’d started crying, I couldn’t stop. I hated this kind of crying.
What if I never finished the essay, and never made it to college? I’d disappoint my dad, and myself, and Lee would go to college without me and forget all about me, and—
The thoughts kept swirling, a vicious whirlpool dragging me further and further down. I slammed my laptop shut, unable to take the glare of the screen, the essay on it mocking me.
The door opened again.
I was ready to tell my little brother, or Dad, to get out and just let me be, but there was someone else standing behind my brother: Levi. The words died on my tongue.
“I thought maybe you could use a friend,” Brad said quietly.
I sniffled again and managed a teeny tiny smile. Brad smiled back awkwardly—he wasn’t used to being this nice to me, either—and then backed out of the room. Levi clapped him on the shoulder and smiled at Brad before coming into my room.
He sat on the end of my bed, facing me, and I moved to sit next to him, leaning my head on his shoulder.
Levi didn’t seem to mind.
Then he put his arm around me.
“I was gonna ask if you’re okay, but I think that’s a pretty dumb question. You look like shit.”
I nudged him half-heartedly. “It’s the college application essay. I can’t do it. I don’t know what to write about. And what I do write sucks. I want to go to college, but I can’t do that if I don’t write this essay, and—”
“Hey, c’mon.” He squeezed his arm tighter around my shoulders. “Your whole life isn’t riding on whether you go to college or not, you know. Look at me. I’m not gonna go. I’m taking a year out to work and earn some money and try to figure out what I want to do. I’m not gonna waste four years, and rack up all that debt, for something I’m not sure about. Maybe that’s something you wanna think about.”
I picked at a chip in my nail polish. “Pretty much every time I sit down and hit a block with my essay, I think: maybe I should just do this next year.”
“But?”
“But I don’t want to get left behind.”
It took him a second. “Lee.”
Lee had been working so hard
to get into Brown, and keeping his grades up, and working hard on the football team, trying to make a name for himself (and, from what I could tell, he was doing a damn good job of it; they’d even stopped calling him “Little Flynn” now).
Lee had football. Rachel had drama club. Some of the other guys did sports or band. Sure, I had track now, but I didn’t really compete or anything. I’d even given up on hearing back from any of the after-school jobs I’d sent out applications for. I felt like I was a step behind them all somehow.
“Yeah. And even if Lee didn’t factor into it—I want to go to college. I do. It’s just…Like you said, I’m not sure what I really wanna do with my life after college, and it’s terrifying to think that what I do now commits me to that for the next few years, you know?”
“Not really,” he said, sounding disturbingly upbeat for my current mood. “So you have to pick a major. You can always change it. And unless you pick something really specialized, you’re not limiting yourself that much. Hell, you could do anything. Work on the next Mars rover. Run promotion for a baseball team. Open a vineyard. Be a kindergarten teacher.”
I gave a weak smile. “The sky’s the limit?”
“Elle, we’ve all seen Mean Girls. We all know that the limit doesn’t exist.”
I did laugh at that.
“Thank you for coming to my TED Talk,” he added, making me laugh again. “How about this? I’ll read your essay. We’ll work on it together. It can’t be that bad that we can’t make it work.”
That…actually didn’t sound so bad. Although it did make me feel like an idiot for not just asking someone for help on it before. I twisted to hug him. “Thanks, Levi. You’re the best.”
He hesitated before hugging me back. “I’m always here for you, Elle.”
* * *
• • •
Levi stuck around for dinner, and by the time he left later that evening, my application was pretty much ready to go. I couldn’t believe how much better I felt, and couldn’t thank him enough.
When I thanked him again as he was putting on his shoes to go, he laughed. “If you really wanna thank me, you can come to the aquarium with me tomorrow. I promised I’d take Becca. It’d be nice to have some company.”
A day at the aquarium sounded great, so the next morning, Levi picked me up, and Becca was totally hyper with excitement the whole ride. She talked a mile a minute about how her first ballet class had gone, and her ballet teacher, and the girls at ballet, and the recital they were putting on at Christmas—which made her start talking about Christmas.
I oohed and aahed in all the right places, asking her questions to prompt her on. Levi caught my eye with a shameless smile that said, Rather you than me.
Inside the aquarium, it wasn’t very busy. There were mostly families there, with young kids. A handful of couples on dates.
Which, I had to admit, did make me feel a little awkward. I knew it wouldn’t have been awkward if I were here with Lee, but this wasn’t Lee; it was Levi. And that made it just a little bit weird.
I must’ve looked uneasy as we followed Becca, who was dashing between the tanks of manta rays and starfish and eels like they’d disappear soon, because Levi turned and grabbed my elbow gently, looking at me with concern.
“Hey,” he said, voice soft, “everything okay?”
“Huh? Yeah. It’s fine. I’m fine.”
“Are you sure? You look a bit weird.”
“Oh, no, I’m…”
“Are you thinking about Noah?”
I wasn’t, actually, and was surprised to realize it; I wasn’t thinking about what it would be like to come here with Noah, or wishing that Noah and I were one of the couples walking around hand in hand. I was just thinking that, despite Levi’s little sister’s presence, it felt like this was kind of a date.
But it was easier to say, “Yeah.”
Levi gave me a sympathetic smile. “You’ll get over him, you know. I’m not saying you’ll forget you ever loved him, but it’ll get easier to not love him anymore.”
“You sound like you write for Cosmo or something.”
Levi just laughed, and Becca drew our attention by squealing loudly, “Oh my God! Look at this! It’s HUGE!”
As we made our way around the aquarium, I relaxed enough to manage to enjoy myself. Becca, it turned out, had a lot of random trivia about jellyfish to tell me. (Like: “Did you know jellyfish can clone themselves? Like, you can cut one in half and then you just get two jellyfish. I read it online.” And: “Jellyfish don’t have brains. Just like Levi!”)
She kept reading the information cards nailed next to the tanks out loud to us, excited about each new type of fish.
Levi hung back a little as Becca grabbed my hand to haul me after her to the next tank, after giving up on trying to find the hermit crabs in the one we’d just spent ten minutes at. I glanced over my shoulder at him as Becca pressed her nose to the glass, peering in with wide eyes.
“What’s that smile for?” I asked him. It was a weird sort of smile, not exactly his usual. Small and thoughtful. A kind of smile that made me feel warm and blush and tuck some hair behind my ear as I smiled back.
It seemed to change quickly, once I’d pointed it out, back to the easy smile I was used to seeing. “It’s just nice for Becca, to have a girl to hang out with.”
“What about you? You’re not enjoying my company, too?” I teased, and he rolled his eyes. I probably shouldn’t think about that smile, or what it might mean.
“I always enjoy your company, Elle. Now get over yourself.”
I laughed, and then Becca said, “Hey, Levi, come look at this!” and broke whatever moment was going on.
* * *
• • •
Later, when we were standing at the shark tank, watching the sharks swim overhead and around us, with Becca occasionally making a soft “oooh” of awe, I felt Levi looking at me. He was close enough that his arm was pressed against mine, a fact I suddenly became hyperaware of.
I had to make an effort not to stare right back at him. Glancing quickly out of the corner of my eye, I noticed he had that same weird smile on his face as he’d had earlier.
And it made my stomach feel different. I didn’t have butterflies, exactly, but…it was something similar.
Because it was the kind of look I always saw Lee giving Rachel when he didn’t think anyone was looking. And it was the kind of look I used to catch Noah giving me sometimes, when he didn’t think I’d seen him.
Becca stood a couple of yards away. I knew that if I turned and looked at Levi now, there would be something. Enough of a something that he might kiss me.
I swallowed, my mouth suddenly dry.
I realized that I wanted him to kiss me….
And then my cell phone rang.
The noise was loud, violent almost, in the quiet of the aquarium tunnel. I flinched, and the people around us looked over at me as I fumbled in my purse for my cell, finally finding it and pulling it out.
It was Lee.
“Hey,” he said before I could say anything. “Where are you? I just went to your house and your dad said you’d gone out for the day with Levi.”
“We’re at the aquarium.”
“The aquarium?” The shock in Lee’s voice was palpable. “What, like…like…just…the two of you? Like a date?”
I stole another glance at Levi. Who I’d just been very much thinking about kissing. Who I’d sort of almost kissed. And I told Lee, “We’re with Becca. You know, Levi’s little sister. He promised to bring her to the aquarium and wanted some company.”
“Oh,” Lee said, and I was sure it was relief I could hear in his voice. “Okay, well…” He trailed off, clearing his throat, and I got a nervous feeling in the pit of my stomach. Whatever he’d called me about, it was serious.
“Lee?
Is everything okay?”
“I can just tell you later, when you get home. It’s okay.”
He tried to sound casual but totally failed. I knew him too well for him to play something serious off like it was nothing. He’d gone over to my house to look for me, wanting to tell me something. Panic seeped through me.
“Is it Rachel? Did you guys have a fight or something?”
“Oh, no, it’s…it isn’t about me and Rachel. Seriously, don’t worry. It’s…No…I’ll just tell you when you get back.”
“Lee,” I snapped. The way he was avoiding whatever it was—and the fact that it was so important that he wanted to tell me in person—terrified me. “What’s going on? Please.”
He sighed. “Okay, well, my mom just got off the phone with Noah. About how he’s coming home for Thanksgiving…” Lee paused, waiting for my reaction.
Even though I was dreading seeing Noah at Thanksgiving dinner, I couldn’t avoid it, and I knew that. I just had to suck it up for that one day and be polite to him. Just like I sucked it up now and tried to sound like I didn’t care. “Yeah, well, I figured he would be. What about it?”
Lee drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. It whistled, crackling, down the line. My palms began to sweat. “He’s bringing a friend back home for Thanksgiving, too, is all, and I thought you should hear it from me first.”
“A friend?”
But who was Noah that close with that he’d—
No.
No, he wouldn’t do that. He wouldn’t. Not after everything that had happened. He wouldn’t dare. But maybe I was jumping to conclusions…God, I hoped I was jumping to conclusions.
“You mean, like, Steve?” I could hear the desperation in my own voice, and I hated it, hated the way I clutched at my phone with both of my clammy hands. “His roommate? Or Whatshisname that he hangs out with from football. David? Dave?”
“Yeah. I mean, no. I mean…that’s not who he’s bringing home for Thanksgiving.”
