Sometimes It Happens

by Lauren Barnholdt

  “I saw Sebastian,” I say, my stomach starting to churn again. “In the pool. With another girl.”

  Her eyes narrow. “Please tell me it was just normal Sebastian stupid flirting behavior? Annoying but ultimately harmless?”

  “No,” I say, shaking my head. “There was kissing. Lots of it. With tongue.” And that’s when I start crying.

  “That asshole!” Ava says. She looks at the dirty towel in her hand, drops it on the floor, then reaches into the closet for another one.

  “Should we be using those?” I ask, as she runs it under the warm water. I grab some toilet paper off the roll and blow my nose. “They look kind of expensive.”

  “Hannah,” Ava says, giving me a look. “This is an emergency. And besides, you shouldn’t be worried about that, you should be worried about you.” She hands me the towel, then reaches into her bag and pulls out her cell.

  “Who are you calling?” I ask. I’m still crying, just not as hard.

  “Noah.” Then, into the phone, she says, “Hey, it’s me. Can you come into the downstairs bathroom, we’re having an emergency.”

  “I don’t want Noah to know!” I say. “That’s humiliating!”

  “It’s okay,” she says. “He’s good in a crisis.” She looks in the mirror over the sink, checks her teeth, and runs her fingers through her hair. There’s a knock on the door. Geez, already? I haven’t even had time to acclimate myself to the situation, and now I have to share it with Ava’s boyfriend? And how did he get here so fast anyway? Is he some kind of speed walker?

  “Come in,” Ava says, without even bothering to ask who it is. Noah walks in, looking slightly nervous.

  “What’s going on?” he asks when he sees me sitting on the closed toilet, sniffling into a stained towel.

  “Sebastian,” Ava hisses, “is out there making out with some troll!”

  Noah looks at me, his eyebrows raised, and I nod in confirmation. “Although she’s not really a troll,” I tell him, thinking about it. “I mean, I didn’t really get that good of a look at her, but she didn’t look trollish, she had these really defined arms and her hair was—”

  Ava shoots me a look and I cut myself off, square my shoulders, and say, “Sebastian is out there making out with some troll.” Ava nods in satisfaction, then whirls around and reaches into Noah’s pocket, pulling out his phone. She starts scrolling through it. “Who can we get?” she asks.

  “Who can we get for what?” I ask. I rip another piece of toilet paper off the roll and dab my eyes. I knew I should have brought my makeup with me. But the purse that matches these shoes is really teeny-tiny, and I couldn’t fit anything in it, so all I have is my lip gloss. Perfect for touching up my lips pre-make-out-with-Sebastian session, but definitely not at all helpful for fixing my face post-seeing-Sebastian-making-out-with-someone-else meltdown.

  “There’s Chase Parker,” Noah says immediately. He vaults himself onto the counter in Jenna’s bathroom. She has one of those huge counters that has two sinks, so there’s plenty of room for him to sit.

  “Chase Parker?” I ask, confused. “What are you guys talking about?” They’re not going to try and get Sebastian beat up, are they? Chase Parker could definitely take him. He’s huge and built, and there was even this whole craziness last year where Chase was running some kind of illegal steroids ring out of his gym locker. Allegedly.

  “Could work,” Ava says. She hands the phone out to me. “Call him.”

  “I don’t want Sebastian beat up!” I say. “I just want to go home.” I lean my head against the tile wall and close my eyes. Yes, going home to wallow sounds perfect. I can eat something greasy. Maybe I’ll take a couple of Tylenol PMs to help me get to sleep. I think my mom might even have an old bottle of Ambien lying around somewhere from right after her and my dad got divorced. Not that I’m usually into medicinal therapy. But your boyfriend making out with someone right in front of you calls for desperate measures.

  “Not beat up,” Ava says. “For a rebound.” She’s leaning into the mirror now, retouching her lip gloss.

  I must have a really blank look on my face, because Noah turns to me and says, “You know, like a rebound guy? To hook up with?”

  I gasp. “I can’t hook up with someone just to hook up with them!” Have they both lost their minds? “Wait a second,” I say to Noah. “You think Chase Parker would hook up with me?” I’m kind of flattered. Not that I want to hook up with Chase Parker, obviously. But he’s kind of considered a catch. Most girls only care about his sexy washboard stomach, his deep blue eyes, and the fact that he’s popular. They don’t really care about the steroids, and if anything, that whole scandal kind of just served to make his stock rise. I guess because it makes him seem kind of dangerous.

  “Why not?” Noah says. He shrugs.

  “Thanks, Noah,” I say, wondering if he’s just being nice or if he really is that naïve. Probably both.

  “So should I call him?” Noah asks.

  “No.” I lean my head against the smooth tile of the bathroom wall and close my eyes. “I just want to go home.”

  “You’re not going home,” Ava says.

  “Why not?”

  “Because if you go home, you’re letting Sebastian win.”

  “He’s already won,” I say. “He’s the one out there making out with another girl, and I’m the one who’s in here, crying and wishing I’d never come.”

  I start to sob again, and Ava comes over, kneels down on the rug in front of me, and gives me a hug. “Look,” she says. “I am going to leave this bathroom, I am going to go out to the party, and I am going to find someone who is willing to hook up with you. And when I get back, you are going to be ready? Got it?”

  She turns on her heel and walks out before I can answer, leaving me alone with Noah.

  “Sorry,” I say, looking up to where he’s sitting on the counter.

  “For what?”

  “For making you waste the best party hours sitting in here with me.”

  “You’re not making me do anything,” he says. “And besides, it’s not a very good party.”

  “So if it was a good party you’d be mad at me?”

  “Maybe,” he says. But I can tell he’s joking, and I almost smile.

  We sit there in silence for a couple of minutes Awwwk-ward. I mean, I don’t know Noah that well. Definitely not enough to know what to say to him while I’m trapped in a bathroom having a crisis. He and Ava have been together for almost ten months so obviously I’ve been around him a lot. And the four of us—me, Ava, Noah, and Sebastian—hang out once in a while. But Noah and I have never, like, spent time alone or anything. And he wasn’t really in our group of friends before he and Ava started dating. In fact, he transferred to our school at the beginning of this year, so I don’t even have any, like, funny but forgotten stories I can bring up to him, like about how he threw up on a field trip in fifth grade or something.

  The silence stretches on for a couple more minutes, and I try to think of something to say. Something about him and Ava maybe? Or something about our computer class! That’s where I first met Noah, before Ava even met him. It was an Intro to Web Design class and only lasted half the year, so it’s been over for a while.

  Maybe I should ask him if he’s going to take Intro to Web Design Two? That would be kind of stupid, since we both agreed the first class was a total waste of time. Maybe I can ask him about baseball. Or I could ask him what he’s planning on doing for Ava’s birthday, which is coming up in a few months. Well, in September. But still. He’s probably going to need pointers way in advance on what to do and how to plan. Guys are completely clueless when it comes to birthdays. For my birthday last month, Sebastian bought me three bottles of lotion from Victoria’s Secret and this very trashy lingerie set from Frederick’s of Hollywood. I wasn’t sure what was more disturbing, that (a) he went to two different lingerie stores, spending God knows how long picking things out in there, (b) he thought I would like anything in a l
eopard print, or (c) it was a definite hint that he wanted to have sex.

  But now that I’m thinking about it, I really should have just worn that leopard-print teddy. Lingerie doesn’t mean you have to have sex, it just means you’re getting into a sexy mood, like maybe a let’s-do-Everything-But kind of mood. I could have worn it, or I could have taken it back and gotten something else, something in a softer pink, maybe, with some kind of lace—

  “So,” Noah says. “Are you going to take Intro to Web Design Two?”

  “I doubt it,” I say.

  “Me neither.”

  Silence again. Finally I can’t take it anymore, so I stand up and look at my reflection in the mirror over the sink. “So,” I say. “Scale of one to ten, how horrible do I look?”

  “You don’t look horrible.”

  “I don’t look great.”

  “You look exactly like you should after you just found out your asshole boyfriend is cheating on you.”

  “Thanks,” I say. I blow my nose again and start to feel a little bit better just as Ava comes tearing back into the bathroom.

  “Jonah Moncuso!” she yells, waving her phone around. “Jonah Moncuso thinks you’re hot, he’s thought you were hot since seventh grade.” Somehow I find this a little hard to believe since in seventh grade I unfortunately decided it would be a good idea to put blue streaks in my dirty blond hair, and had buck-teeth that took three years of braces to fix. It’s more likely that Jonah Moncuso is drunk and figures hooking up with me is better than not hooking up at all.

  “I don’t know,” I say. “I’m not sure if it’s a good idea.” And by “not sure” I obviously mean “definitely not.”

  “Of course it’s a good idea!” Ava says. She’s in Jenna’s medicine cabinet now, rummaging around.

  “What are you doing in there?” I ask. If she thinks I’m going to take someone else’s prescription drugs to loosen up for my rebound, she’s definitely mistaken. Taking my mom’s Ambien is one thing, but drugs from some random medicine cabinet is another.

  “Looking for some makeup for you,” she says. “You can’t go kissing someone looking like that.” She pulls out a bottle of pills. “Wow,” she says. “I had no idea that Jenna was on Adderall, did you?”

  “Ava!” Noah grabs the bottle out of her hand and puts it back in the cabinet. “You can’t just go around looking through people’s bathrooms, it’s a breach of confidentiality.”

  “Yeah,” I say. Although now that I think about it, the Adderall does explain a lot.

  “Oh, relax,” she says. “It’s not like I’m going to tell anybody.” She’s setting up a bunch of stuff on the counter, lining up bottles and tubes. “Well,” she says, looking at me and then looking at the mess in front of her. “It’s not ideal, since you’re a lot fairer than Jenna or whoever these belong to, but it’ll have to do. We’ll just smear the foundation all down your neck and hope for the best.”

  “I’m not using that,” I say. “Who knows what kind of diseases I could get.”

  “What would you rather have happen?” Ava asks. “Everyone seeing you slumping out of here with your head down and your makeup a mess, or everyone seeing you making out with some other guy, even if there’s a slight chance you might get a skin disease?”

  “Depends on how bad the skin disease would be,” I say. “Like, is it one that eats my flesh? Or just your normal, run-of-the-mill rash?”

  “I think we should just take you home,” Noah says, jumping off the counter. “Come on, Hannah, you don’t want to make out with Jonah Moncuso, do you?”

  “Not really,” I say morosely.

  “Then let’s go,” he says, “We can stop at McDonald’s or something on the way and then I’ll drop you both off at Ava’s. You guys can watch chick flicks and listen to angry girl rock or whatever it is girls do when they decide they hate guys.”

  “That sounds good,” I say gratefully.

  “No way,” Ava says. “You’re going out there, and you’re making out with Jonah Moncuso!” She waves her cell in my face. “See? Here’s the text where he says you’re hot.”

  “Ava—” I start. But before I can finish, my own cell starts to vibrate in my purse. I pull it out. A text from Paige Brokaw, this girl who I’m kind of friendly with, but not really. It says, “S is in pool making out w/ some freshman!!! OMG, WHAT WILL U DO? DID U GO HOME??? CALL ME!”

  Well. I guess that makes the decision a lot easier. I can’t let the whole school witness my public humiliation. If I leave now, everyone will know why. So even though it’s completely and totally against my better judgment, I let Ava make me up with Jenna’s makeup. And then I follow her back out into the party, Noah walking reluctantly behind us.

  The First Day of Senior Year

  “Hannah!” Ava’s almost screaming now, and waving her hand around like a crazy person. Which actually kind of makes sense. I did stop after taking two steps into the room and now I’m not moving at all, even though she first called my name, like, ten seconds ago. “Are you coming over here or what?”

  “Yes, I’m coming,” I say, and shuffle into the room. Okay, I tell myself, new plan. Just pretend that everything’s normal! Which it is, pretty much. If Ava had come home twenty-four, or even, say, twenty hours earlier, what happened last night wouldn’t have happened. And she totally could have, too. Come home early, I mean. In fact, she was supposed to, but she decided to stay in Maine a little longer with her camp friends.

  Ava leaps out of her seat and throws her arms around me. “Ohmigod, I missed you so much!” She pulls away and grins.

  “You just saw me two weeks ago,” I say, sliding into the seat next to her. I reach into my bag and get really busy pulling out a notebook and a pen. I wish it wasn’t the first day of school, so I’d have books or homework or something to keep me busy. Of course, I wouldn’t have homework for homeroom, but I’d have at least something I could pretend I was finishing up.

  “Yeah, but that was different. Did you get my text last night? I wanted to see if you wanted to meet up before school.”

  “Yeah, I was . . . I was already sleeping.”

  Her eyes narrow in concentration as she studies me. “Did you . . . you didn’t cut your hair, did you?”

  “No,” I say, reaching up and fingering my hair. “I mean, kind of . . . I just . . . I got a few layers.” I went with Lacey a couple of days ago to Bellaria, this super swanky salon in Boston. She got her long red curls straightened, and I got a trim and some layers, and then we went shopping for school clothes. It was really fun, although Lacey kept having to stop and fish around in her bag for her hand sanitizer. She doesn’t do well with taking public transportation or touching things that a lot of other people have been touching, like doorknobs, clothes racks—you know, pretty much anything.

  “You should totally get extensions,” Ava says. She tosses her newly long hair over her shoulder. “Don’t you think they look totally natural? Long hair is really in right now.”

  “Totally natural,” I agree.

  “Maybe after school we can go and get you some clip-ins,” she says. “You know, so you can try them out. They’re not that expensive, but you should probably get real human hair ones.” She giggles, like the thought of real human hair is funny. Which it kind of is. And also kind of gross.

  “Yeah, maybe,” I say, even though there’s no way that’s going to happen. First for the aforementioned gross factor, second for the fact that I really love my new haircut, and third because I’m totally and completely broke. “So how was the last day of camp?”

  “Amazing,” she says. “The girls just grew so much, you know? I really didn’t want it to end. I spent the whole car ride home last night bawling.”

  Ava’s been away in Maine, working as a camp counselor. If you knew Ava, you would know that this is not what you would call, um, a good fit. Ava doesn’t really like to work, and she’s definitely not the outdoorsy type, unless you count lounging around by the pool. So when she told me she
was going, I was shocked. Especially since she told me the day after I caught Sebastian cheating on me, which was definitely not the best timing. Not the best timing, the voice in my head whispers, story of your life.

  “That’s great,” I say, deciding not to get into the fact that from what I saw when I was visiting her there a couple of weeks ago, it didn’t seem like Ava had really learned anything. And the girls there seemed pretty much like exactly what they were—spoiled little rich girls, whose parents spent fifteen thousand dollars to send them away for three months.

  “Yeah, it was kind of life-changing, you know?” Her smile, while usually vibrant and white, seems even more so today.

  “Did you . . . did get your teeth whitened?”

  “Yeah,” she says, pretending to be embarrassed, but I can tell she’s pleased I noticed.

  “When did you have time to do that?”

  “Oh, you know, on one of our days off last week,” she says. “I went with Lulu.”

  Oh, right. Lulu. Ava’s camp friend. Apparently Lulu is super cool because she has ten piercings in one ear and none in the other, and she meditates and Ava thinks that’s so super spiritual. The two of them are planning a spring break trip to an ashram where they’re going to do Bikram Yoga six hours a day and eat an all-vegan diet. “So listen,” she says, “I wanted to say I’m sorry again about what happened when you came to visit, that was . . . I mean, it was kind of . . .”

  “Yeah,” I say, remembering the weirdness that happened that weekend. “It’s not a big deal, really!” I force a smile, hoping she doesn’t want to get into it. But I don’t have to worry, since Ava doesn’t have a chance to say anything. Because at that moment, Sebastian Bukowski comes walking into the room, his eyes scanning the class until they land on me.

  “Oh my God,” I say, turning my head and looking away. “I didn’t know he was in our homeroom.” I thought he was in room B3! I asked Jessica Conrad to ask her boyfriend, Blake, who’s really good friends with Sebastian, and she told me Sebastian was in B3, and since I’m in A3, I figured I was safe. But I must have gotten misinformation. Damn that Jessica Conrad! I should have known better than to trust her—she pushed me off the swings once in third grade.