Just Listen

by Sarah Dessen

  I turned toward him again, thinking this, and opened my eyes. He was looking right at me.

  “You were right,” he told me, his voice low. “This is great. Seriously.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “It is.”

  Then he shifted, moving closer to me, and I felt his arm press against mine, his skin warm. And then, finally, Owen kissed me—really kissed me—and I couldn’t hear anything: not the water, the music, or even my own heart, which had to be pounding. Instead, it was just silence, the very best kind, stretching out forever, or only a moment, and then it was over.

  Suddenly, the car wash was quiet, the music finished. Above me, I could see one big drop, dangling precariously over our heads. I kept my eyes on it until dropped, landing with a plunk on my arm just as a horn beeped behind us.

  “Whoops,” Owen said, and we both sat up. He cranked the engine as I glanced back at a guy in a Mustang who was waiting, windows already up, by the entrance. “Hold on.”

  When we pulled out of the bay, the sun was bright, catching the pools of water as they broke up, sliding off the hood. With the kiss, and the dark, I felt like I was still underwater, the brightness startling.

  “Man,” Owen said, blinking as he pulled over by the curb, “that was really something.”

  “Told you. Everything sounds better in the car wash.”

  “Everything, huh?”

  He was looking at me as he said this, and I had a flash of his face just moments earlier, staring up at the windshield, listening so carefully. Maybe sometime, I would be able to say everything I’d thought at that moment. And even more.

  “I wonder,” he said now, running a hand through his hair, “if it works for techno.”

  “Nope,” I said flatly.

  “You’re sure.”

  “Oh, yeah.” I nodded. “Positive.”

  He raised an eyebrow at me. “Yeah, well,” he said, pulling away from the curb and starting around the building again. “We’ll see.”

  “Did you hear?”

  It was six o’clock on the Saturday of the fashion show, and I was sitting in the makeshift dressing room at Kopf’s, waiting. For the last few hours, while getting my hair and makeup done and my outfit fitted and tweaked, I’d managed to ignore the chatter around me. Instead, I focused on getting through this show so I could move on to the one I really cared about, at Bendo, with Owen. It had been working just fine. Until now.

  I looked to my left, where Hillary Prescott had just sat down beside a girl named Marnie. Like me, they were already done with hair and makeup, which left them with nothing to do but drink bottled water, examine their reflections, and gossip.

  “Hear about what?” Marnie asked. She was a thin girl with a long face and high cheekbones. When I’d first seen her I thought she looked like Whitney, somewhat, although she was more pretty than beautiful.

  Hillary glanced over one shoulder, then another, the classic double-check. “What went down last night at Becca Durham’s party,” she said.

  “No,” Marnie said, dabbing a finger over the gloss on her lips. “What happened?”

  Hillary leaned in a little closer. “Well,” she said, “from what I heard, there was total drama. Louise told me that about halfway through the party—”

  She stopped talking, suddenly, staring at the mirror facing us just as Emily Shuster walked in. She had her arms crossed over her chest, her head ducked down slightly, and her mom was with her. I only got one quick glance, but that was all it took to see Emily looked terrible: Her face was puffy, her eyes red, rimmed with dark circles.

  Hillary, Marnie, and I all watched as she and her mom passed, continuing toward Mrs. McMurty, who was on the other side of the room. Then Hillary said, “I can’t believe she showed up here.”

  “Why?” Marnie asked. “What happened?”

  Not my problem, I thought, turning my attention back to the history notebook I’d brought with me to get some studying in during the downtime. As I did so, though, I felt a piece of hair stick to my cheek. I looked up at the mirror to brush it away just as Hillary leaned in a little closer.

  “She hooked up with Will Cash last night,” she said, her voice low, but not that low. “In his car. And Sophie caught them.”

  “No way,” Marnie said, her eyes wide. “Are you serious?”

  Because I was looking at my reflection, I was able to actually see myself react as I heard this. I watched myself blink, my mouth fall open just slightly before I shut it, quick, and looked away.

  “Louise was inside,” Hillary was saying now, “so she only heard about it. But apparently Will had driven Emily there, and someone saw them. When Sophie heard, she freaked.”

  Marnie glanced over at Emily, who was now standing with her back to us while her mom spoke to Mrs. McMurty. “Oh my God,” she said. “What did Will do?”

  “I don’t know. But Louise said that Sophie had kind of suspected something lately. Like Emily had been flirting with him, always acting silly when he was around.”

  Silly, I thought. Or just nervous. I had a flash of Will’s intense, flat stare, how slowly the time seemed to pass whenever we were alone in the car waiting for Sophie. Behind me, people were passing by, other models talking, the same noise and commotion. But all I could hear were these two voices, and my own heartbeat.

  “God,” Marnie said. “Poor Sophie.”

  “No kidding. They were supposed to be best friends.” Hillary sighed. “I guess you can’t trust anybody.”

  I turned my head. Sure enough, they were both looking at me. I stared back at them, and Marnie blushed, shifting her gaze elsewhere. But Hillary kept her eyes on me for a long moment before pushing back her chair and standing up, then shaking out her hair and walking away. After picking at her water bottle for an uncomfortable few moments, Marnie got up and followed her.

  For a moment, I just sat there, trying to process what I’d heard. I looked at Emily, who was now sitting in a chair across the room. Her mom, standing beside her, was saying something, her face serious, and Mrs. McMurty, next to her, was nodding. Mrs. Shuster’s hand was on Emily’s shoulder, and every once in a while I saw her squeeze it, the fabric bunching, then unbunching.

  I closed my eyes, swallowing over the lump that had risen in my throat. She hooked up with Will Cash last night. Sophie freaked. They were supposed to be best friends. I guess you can’t trust anybody.

  No, I thought, you can’t. I had a flash of the last few months, my quiet summer, starting school alone, that awful day in the courtyard when I’d pushed Sophie away. Maybe I couldn’t have changed any of that. But now, too late, I was realizing I might have been able to change something. Or one thing.

  I tried to study, tried to think about Owen and what came next. But every time I managed to distract myself for even a moment, I’d find myself looking up and across the room, where Emily was sitting in front of a mirror. She’d been so late they were having to make her up quickly, a hairstylist and makeup person working in tandem, stepping around each other. In the room between us, people kept passing by, their voices high, movements busy, as the time to the show counted down, but Emily kept her gaze straight ahead, looking at herself and no one else.

  When they called us out of the dressing room, she didn’t walk out with the rest of us. Instead, she showed up after we were all in our places to take her spot second in line, three people ahead of me. There was a digital clock on a nearby mall directory—it was 6:55. Several states and miles away, Kirsten was getting ready to show her piece, and I had a flash of that green, green grass, suddenly not so perfect anymore.

  Usually, this was the time I was the most nervous, these last few minutes before I had to walk. Ahead of me, Julia Reinhart was tugging on the hem of her shirt, and behind me I could hear one of the freshman models complaining that her shoes were too tight. Emily wasn’t saying a word, her eyes on the slit in the curtain.

  The music started—it was loud and poppy, total Z104 material—and Mrs. McMurty came around the corn
er, looking frazzled, her clipboard in hand. “One minute!” she said, and the girl at the front of the line, one of the seniors, tossed her hair, squaring her shoulders.

  I stretched out my fingertips, taking a deep breath. Now, in the mall itself, everything felt brighter and more open. All I had to do was get through this, get out, and go find Owen, moving forward into what I wanted, not what I’d been.

  The music stopped for a moment, then began again. We were starting. Mrs. McMurty made her way up the stairs to stand by the curtain, then pulled it aside and motioned for the first girl to step through. As she did, I caught a glimpse of the crowd—so many people in the chairs on either side, and more standing behind them.

  When it was Emily’s turn, she headed out with her head high, her spine ramrod straight, and as I watched her I wished I was like everyone else out there, who would see only a beautiful girl in beautiful clothes, nothing more or less. Another girl went out, then Julia, after which point Emily returned, walking off the other side of the stage to the dressing room. Then it was my turn.

  When the curtain opened, all I could see at first was the runway stretched out in front of me, a blur of faces on either side. The music was pounding in my ears as I began to walk, trying to keep my eyes straight ahead, but still, I caught the occasional glimpse of the crowd. I saw my parents on the left, my mother beaming at me, my dad’s arm around her. Mallory Armstrong was sitting with the red-haired twins from her party a few rows back on the other side. In the split second our eyes met, she waved excitedly, hopping up and down in her seat. I kept going, down the runway. When I got to the very end, I saw Whitney.

  She was leaning against a planter in front of the vitamin store, a good fifty feet from the back of the fashion-show crowd. I hadn’t even known she was coming. But what surprised me more than this was the look on her face, which was so sad that it almost knocked the wind out of me. When our eyes met, she stepped forward, sliding her hands in her pockets, and for a moment I just stared at her, feeling a tug in my chest. And then I had to turn back.

  I could feel a lump rising in my throat as I willed myself forward, toward the curtain. I’d been through enough. I didn’t want to think about anything that was happening or had happened, to Emily, or to me. I just wanted to be on the wall with Owen, talking music, and be the girl he saw, who was different, and in a good way. All the good ways.

  I was at the midpoint of the runway by now, halfway there. Four more changes, four more trips, a grand finale, and this would be over. It wasn’t my job to save anyone, anyway. Especially since I hadn’t even been able to save myself.

  “Annabel!” I heard a voice call out, and I glanced to my left to see Mallory, smiling widely as she lifted her camera to her face, her finger moving to the shutter. The redheads were waving, everyone was watching, but as the flash popped, all I could think of was that night in her room with Owen, looking at all those faces on the wall and not even recognizing my own.

  I turned back to face forward, and then Emily stepped out from behind the curtain. As I saw her, I heard Kirsten’s voice in my head, explaining why she was scared to show her film: This is personal, she’d said. Real. This moment was, too, even if you couldn’t tell at first glance. It was fake on the outside, but so true within. You only had to look, really look, to tell.

  The weird thing was that all fall, at school, rehearsals, anytime we passed, Emily wouldn’t meet my eyes. It was like she didn’t want to see me at all. But this time as we approached each other, I could feel her staring at me, willing me to turn my head, pulling my gaze in her direction. I fought it as hard as I could. But just as she passed me, I gave in.

  She knew. I could tell with one glance, one look, one simple instant. It was her eyes. Despite the thick makeup, they were still dark-rimmed, haunted, and sad. Most of all, though, they were familiar. The fact that we were in front of hundreds of strangers changed nothing at all. I’d spent a summer with those same eyes—scared, lost, confused—staring back at me. I would have known them anywhere.

  Chapter THIRTEEN

  “Sophie!”

  It was the annual end-of-year party, the previous June, and I was late. Emily’s voice, saying this, was the first thing I heard when I stepped in the door.

  At the time I couldn’t see her—the foyer was packed, the stairs crowded with people as well—but then, a moment later, she rounded the corner, a beer in each hand. When she saw me, she smiled. “There you are,” she said. “What took you so long?”

  I had a flash of my mother’s face an hour earlier, how her eyes had widened when Whitney pushed back her chair, then slammed it against the table, making all our plates jump. This time, the issue had been chicken, specifically the half a breast my father had deposited on Whitney’s plate. After cutting it up into quarters, then eighths, then impossibly small sixteenths, she’d pushed it all to the side before commencing to eat her salad, chewing each bite of lettuce for what seemed like ages. My parents and I acted like we weren’t watching this, like we weren’t even aware, keeping a conversation about the weather somehow aloft among the three of us. Still, a few minutes later, when Whitney dropped her napkin on her plate, I watched it drift down, draping the chicken like a magician’s scarf as she willed it to disappear. No luck. My father told her to finish her food, and then she exploded.

  By this point, we should have been used to her dinnertime histrionics—she’d been out of the hospital for several months, during which time they’d become routine—but there were still times when the volume and suddenness of her outbursts took us all by surprise. Especially my mom, who always seemed to take every raised syllable, every slam or crash, even the numerous sarcastic sighs like personal attacks. This was why I’d lingered after dinner, standing in the kitchen as my mother washed dishes. I could see her face reflected in the window over the sink, and I kept watching it closely, the way I always did when she got upset, worried I might see something besides her features that I recognized.

  “I got held up at home,” I told Emily now. “What’d I miss?”

  “Not much,” she said. “Have you seen Sophie?”

  I looked around, past the clump of people beside us and into the living room, where I spotted her on a short couch by the window, a bored expression on her face.

  “This way,” I told Emily, taking one of the beers from her as I worked through the crowd over to the couch. “Hey,” I called out to Sophie, over the din of a nearby TV. “What’s going on?”

  “Nothing,” she replied, her voice flat. She nodded at the beer. “Is that for me?”

  “Maybe,” I said. She made a face at me, and I handed it over, then sat down as she took a sip, her lipstick staining the rim.

  “God, I love your shirt, Annabel,” Emily said. “Is it new?”

  “Yeah. Pretty new.” I reached up, running my hand over the pink suede top my mom and I had found at Tosca earlier the day before. It had been expensive, but we figured the whole summer’s worth of wear I’d get out of it justified the price. “I just got it this week.”

  Sophie exhaled loudly, shaking her head. “This,” she announced, “is officially the worst last-day-of-classes party ever.”

  “It’s only eight thirty,” I told her, looking around the room. There was a couple making out on a nearby armchair, and I could see a group of people sitting around the dining-room table playing cards. Music was coming from somewhere, probably out back, the bass thumping beneath our feet. “Things could improve.”

  She took another swig of her beer. “Doubtful. If this is any indication, this summer’s going to be the worst yet.”

  “You think?” Emily said, sounding surprised. “There were some cute college guys outside.”

  “And you’d want to date a college guy who hangs out at a high-school party?” Sophie said.

  “Well,” Emily replied, “I don’t know.”

  “Like I told you,” Sophie said. “Lame.”

  There was a burst of noise to our left, and I turned to see a group
of people pushing their way into the foyer. I saw a girl I recognized from my P.E. class, a couple of guys I didn’t know, and, bringing up the rear, Will Cash.

  “See? Things are looking up already,” I said to Sophie. Instead of looking pleased, though, she narrowed her eyes. They’d had some spat earlier in the week, but I’d thought it was resolved as much as anything ever was between them. Apparently not. Will only nodded at Sophie before following the people he’d come with down the hallway to the kitchen.

  Once he was out of sight, she sat back, crossing her legs. “This sucks,” she announced, and this time, I knew better than to disagree.

  I stood up, holding my hand out to her. “Come on,” I said. “Let’s go circulate.”

  “No,” she said flatly. Emily, who had started to get up, sat down again.

  “Sophie.”

  She shook her head. “You two go. Have a fabulous time.”

  “So you just want to stay here and sulk?”

  “I’m not sulking,” she said, her voice cold. “I’m just sitting.”

  “Fine,” I said. “I’m going to get another beer. You need anything?”

  “No,” she said, her eyes on the dining room, where Will was talking to the guy at the head of the table who was dealing out cards.

  “You want to come with me?” I asked Emily. She nodded, putting her beer on the coffee table, and followed me down the hallway.

  “Is she okay?” she asked me as soon as we were out of Sophie’s earshot.

  “She’s fine,” I told her.

  “She seems upset,” she said. “Before you got here, she was barely even speaking to me.”