In Real Life

by Jessica Love

  Following the rules for the past seventeen years has gotten me absolutely nowhere.

  I really need to do something about that.

  CHAPTER

  2

  THE SUMMER AFTER TENTH GRADE

  I’ll never forget the day Nick and I almost met.

  Our almost-meeting lived and died the summer after sophomore year. The inciting text came in while I lay sprawled out on my bed, trying, like the overachiever I am, to get ahead on my Honors English summer reading.

  CALL ME WHEN YOU GET A CHANCE GHOST. I HAVE A WEIRD QUESTION FOR YOU.

  I glanced at the clock. Grace was driving down from UCLA so we could go to lunch with Mom. But, as usual, she was late, because Grace Time had absolutely no connection to the actual clock. I punched Nick’s speed dial icon.

  “I thought you were at lunch with your sister?”

  “I don’t even get a hello?”

  “Sorry. Hi, Ghost. I thought you were at lunch.”

  “Oh, you know Grace. She’s not even here yet. And when she does show up, she’s going to want to start her laundry. Lunch will turn into dinner at this rate.” I laughed. “What’s up?”

  “Are you sitting down?”

  “I am.”

  “I have a wild proposition.”

  “No, I will not rob a bank with you.”

  “It’s not that wild. But close.”

  I bent down the corner of my page in Slaughterhouse-Five and reached around to adjust my pillow, pulling myself into an upright position. “I’m listening.”

  “Well, now that we both have our licenses, I think we should meet. Like, in person.”

  I jolted straight up. Meet in person? Me and Nick? What? We couldn’t. That would be so weird. What would we say to each other? It would be awkward. And wrong. And the world might implode. And … no.

  No.

  “Um … Ghost? You there?”

  “Oh, yeah, I’m just surprised. That’s not what I was expecting you to say.” Hello, understatement of the year.

  “I have it all figured out. I can’t expect you to drive all the way out here, and I don’t know if my P.O.S. truck will make it all the way to you. But we can meet in Barstow. It’s about halfway between us, and it’s completely in the middle of nowhere, but it has a cool McDonald’s on, like, an old train car. And there’s a little outlet mall. And I’m sure there’s a movie theater or something. We won’t get bored. Not like we would get bored, though. Not if we’re together.”

  He rattled off all these plans he had for us meeting in Barstow, but I was stuck on the fact he wanted us to meet at all. For two years we had talked—mostly online, but we’d just recently started texting and talking on the phone, too—but for whatever reason, I never considered him, like, a real person. Us meeting for real had never occurred to me, really.

  And then there was the possibility we would meet in person and not even like each other. What if we didn’t get along? What if our differences, which were fun and interesting on the phone, were too much to bridge in real life? Meeting meant risking our friendship the way it was, and I wasn’t sure I could handle that.

  “You’re awfully quiet, Ghost. What do you think?” He was talking so fast, his voice higher than normal. “Let’s do this.”

  “Yeah,” I said, but with no conviction. This was one of those defining moments in a friendship, I thought, that could make or break it. I didn’t want to break it, and I didn’t want him to know how unsure I was and think my hesitation was because I questioned him or our friendship. I so didn’t. I just had no idea how this virtual friendship would translate into real life.

  “Yeah? Awesome.” I could actually hear his smile. “We’ll have to figure out a date and decide where to meet and stuff.”

  “I’ll have to make sure it’s okay with my parents if I drive that far.” As soon as I said it, I realized if I decided I didn’t want to do this, I could totally work the parent angle. Sometimes my parents were cool, way cooler than the parents of some of my other Asian friends, but most of the time they were pretty strict. But, for real, even non-strict parents would not be good with their sixteen-year-old daughter driving to the middle of nowhere to meet some strange Internet boy, right?

  What kind of teenager was I, hoping my parents would say no to my outlandish request? Lo would smack me on the hand for this, for sure.

  Well, if I told her.

  “If they don’t let you drive by yourself, bring Lo with you. I’d love to meet her.”

  Ack, that would be even worse. Lo knew Nick existed, but she didn’t know much else. I had zero desire to explain this to her. I’d rather go alone and risk ax murder by Internet stranger so I could keep this all to myself.

  “Well, I don’t remember what you told me about the driving rules in Nevada, but California law says I’m not allowed to drive another minor in my car yet, and I’m not bringing Grace or my parents.”

  “Then it’ll be just you and me, Ghost.”

  “If we meet in person, then you can’t call me Ghost anymore. I won’t be a ghost. I’ll be real.”

  Nick had given me my nickname about a year before, during one late-night chat that turned from ripping apart the terrible movie we’d both happened to see the night before to an unusually serious discussion of our odd friendship. He admitted I seemed too good to be true, and he sometimes felt like there was no way I could be real. He asked me why I kept talking to him when we were so far away from each other, and I admitted he was different from anyone I knew in my real life, but in the best possible way, and that talking to him online was the absolute highlight of my day.

  He agreed, and he said I was like something he could feel with him all day, even if he couldn’t see me, like a ghost. I was so glad we were only talking online, because that description made me blush so hard, I thought my face was going to be red for the rest of my life.

  Ghost was born that night, and he’d called me Ghost ever since.

  I was never able to come up with an equally meaningful nickname for him.

  “Nah,” he said. “You’ll always be Ghost, no matter what.”

  My relief surprised me. Maybe meeting in person wouldn’t change things.

  “I do have to tell you something, though. I know this is going to sound dumb, so don’t laugh, okay?” He coughed, and I heard him shuffling around on the other side of the phone. “I’m sort of afraid you won’t like me. I’m bad at real life, you know? Talking and stuff. I’m super awkward. I always say the wrong thing and mess things up.”

  I shook my head, even though I knew he couldn’t see me. “I don’t believe that at all. I talk to you almost every day, and you’ve never messed anything up.”

  He lowered his voice to almost a whisper. “Because I don’t need to hide behind anything here. This isn’t real, so you’re the only person I can really talk to, Ghost. You’re the only person I’ve ever really talked to.”

  I doubted he could be all that different in person, but I also knew it was much easier to be yourself when there was nothing, no older sibling or band or good-girl image, to hide behind. “Well, just be how you are right now, and I promise I won’t think you’re awkward.”

  We talked until Grace finally decided to show up, picking a meeting date and penciling in the following Thursday at lunch on the calendar. We’d meet at the train car McDonald’s in Barstow and then play it by ear. We wouldn’t bring anyone, and we would leave for home before it got dark. All we had left to do was check with our parents. Well, he didn’t really. His dad, who had been in a cloud since Nick and Alex’s mom died when Nick was eight, hardly noticed what he did. His brother, on the other hand, had been harassing him about meeting me since we were thirteen. In fact, I suspected that Alex constantly riding his ass about it was the catalyst for him suggesting this meeting.

  There was no earthly way I could sell Mom on this plan, but I figured if I asked when Grace was around, there might be a better chance my sister would back me up with Mom. After all, it was Grace w
ho’d introduced me to Nick in the first place, after she met Alex at a concert. Alex had driven four hours to see his favorite band, Strung Out, play some secret show near our house, and she talked to him online for a few weeks afterwards, until she got bored of him and moved on to something new and shiny. That was so Grace. She was the devil on my shoulder, always poking me with her pitchfork to be more adventurous.

  At lunch, two hours later, I waited for the ideal time to broach the subject. Luckily, Grace gave me the perfect in.

  “So, how’s Nick?”

  “Which one is Nick?” Mom sipped her coffee next to me in the booth and gave me a knowing look, as if I were hiding some juicy secret from her. I was about to tell her to settle down when Grace answered for me.

  “You know, Hannah’s online boyfriend.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  “Oh yes, the one we can thank for the barrage of texts at all hours of the day. Thank God we don’t have to pay for every single one of those texts like we did when Grace was your age.”

  “The good old days,” Grace said, taking a huge bite of her meatball panini.

  “Nick is not my boyfriend. Not even close. And he’s fine,” I said. “He started a band with his friends.”

  “Following in his brother’s footsteps, I see.” Grace wiped marinara from the sides of her mouth. “How long are you going to keep this online romance going? Are you going to pine away from afar for the rest of your life?”

  “We’re just friends,” I snapped. “There is no romance. Absolutely no pining.”

  “A likely story,” Grace said. “You talk to him twenty-four/seven. That’s more than friendship. I don’t think you talk to Lo that much.”

  “I see Lo every day at school. I talk to her ten times as much, but you don’t see it.” I kicked Grace’s shin under the table. Even though I wasn’t 100 percent sure about meeting Nick, I didn’t want her to ruin the whole plan before Mom had a chance to shoot it down. “And it just so happens I was going to ask Mom about this.” I shifted so I faced Mom. “I, uh. I was wondering if I could maybe go meet up with him. Next Thursday.”

  She pressed her lips together. “Where does he live?”

  “Las Vegas,” Grace said, her mouth now full of potato chips.

  Mom’s face twisted up into the biggest hell no scowl I have ever seen. I’d seen her pull it out on Grace frequently, but I think this might have been its first appearance while aimed at me. Why are moms so good at that look?

  “But I don’t want to drive all the way to Vegas,” I said, kicking Grace again. “That would be ridiculous, right? We want to meet halfway. In Barstow.”

  Mom’s face relaxed just enough to give me hope. She looked a lot more likely to keep listening since I was still talking about California. “Barstow is two hours away, Hannah. I don’t think this is a good idea.”

  “I’ll make sure the tires are filled and the oil is changed and everything I need is in the car. And I’ll call every single hour to check in.” I turned on the sweet and innocent face Grace taught me the summer before middle school that has served me well over the years. “Please, Mom? We’ve been talking forever. We’re friends. We want to hang out.”

  Until this point I’d been waffling on this meeting, but as soon as I told Mom how much I wanted to meet Nick, I realized it was true.

  I did want to meet him.

  In real life.

  Mom’s forehead wrinkled. “This is not even an option unless you take someone with you. Can you bring Lo?”

  “I’d love to, but I can’t drive her in my car.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Grace said. I narrowed my eyes at her from across the table, and she shot me an evil grin in return. “Don’t worry; I won’t embarrass you or anything. I’ll just make sure you’re keeping it PG.”

  “Grace! I told you it’s not like that. And don’t you have class or something on Thursday?”

  “Nope. Couldn’t get into my summer school class, so I’m totally free. And I’m only messing with you. I’ll be cool. Stop freaking out.” She laughed. “Just think, this way you won’t have to tell your friends about him. Your secret is safe with me.”

  “Why doesn’t Lo know about this boy?” Mom leaned in toward me like I was about to share something illicit. Pssh. If it was that kind of story, I certainly wouldn’t tell her the details.

  “She knows who Nick is.” I slouched down in the booth. “She just doesn’t exactly know the specifics.”

  Mom tapped my shoulder to get me to straighten up. I did.

  “You shouldn’t keep secrets from your friends, Hannah.” Grace was always able to mimic Mom’s lecture voice perfectly. Mom and I both glared at her.

  “Enough, Grace.” Mom wrapped her hands around her coffee mug and turned back to me. “Now, I’ll consider this on the condition that Grace drives you. But I’ll have to talk to your father first.”

  I grinned. I was golden. Dad was a big-time lawyer, and super strict about my grades and extracurricular activities, but he softened to teddy bear status when it came to his wife and daughters. “Thanks, Mom.” I rested my head on Mom’s shoulder, and she patted my hair.

  I could hardly sleep the night before Nick and I were supposed to meet. But as soon as I stepped out of bed, I knew everything was going to go wrong. I could feel it crackling in the air. Disaster. It was everywhere.

  It started with Grace.

  I popped out of bed without needing the alarm and went to the bathroom to get in the shower, but the bathroom was locked. And a nasty retching sound came from the other side of the door.

  I pounded on the door. “What’s going on, Grace? Are you alive in there?”

  But she didn’t need to answer. I knew what happened. She’d stayed with us the night before instead of at her place in L.A. so she could do laundry for free and eat a few non-fast-food meals before our trip to Barstow. She told Mom and Dad she was meeting up with her friend Priya for a movie. But she snuck out to see her ex, Patrick—the one Mom and Dad called He Who Must Not Be Named—which meant going to a party somewhere and getting drunk. That’s what the retching was. Grace was really, really hungover.

  “Just tell me you didn’t drive,” I said into the crack in the door.

  “Patrick’s friend drove the car home,” she moaned.

  Once I established that Grace wasn’t dying and I didn’t need to kill her myself for driving drunk, I needed to come up with Plan B: convincing Mom I could make the drive on my own.

  But when I walked downstairs, holding our cat Bruce Lee in my arms as a buffer, I found Mom in the kitchen, drenched from head to toe with her clothes suctioned to her.

  “What happened to you?”

  If looks could kill, Mom could have launched a nuclear apocalypse. “Your sister,” she said, “took my car out to meet Priya last night because hers didn’t have gas. And she left the windows down.”

  “And it’s raining?” I hadn’t even looked outside, but now I could hear the rain pounding against the bay window in the kitchen and I groaned.

  “Freak summer thunderstorm,” Mom said, water dripping from her hair down to her face. “The inside of the car is completely soaked.”

  Stupid Patrick’s stupid friend left the stupid windows down. Unbelievable. I opened my mouth even though I wasn’t sure exactly what I was going to say, but Mom cut me off.

  “Don’t even think about going anywhere today.”

  “But, Mom—”

  Bruce Lee, as averse to confrontation as I was, twisted out of my arms, drawing blood with his claws on the way down.

  Traitor cat.

  “Your sister has food poisoning and is vomiting her guts out right now. I’m not letting my barely sixteen-year-old daughter drive alone to the middle of the desert to meet a boy she knows only from the Internet.”

  “But—”

  “Especially in pouring rain like this. You’ve had your license for only a few months, Hannah, and you don’t have practice driving in this weather. You know everyon
e in California forgets how to drive when it rains. I’m sorry, but there’s absolutely no way this is going to happen. Please don’t ask me again.”

  Tears stung my eyes. Mom was still all drippy, but she came close and tried to pull me into a hug. I didn’t let her get near me, though; I turned my back on her, stomped off to my room, and plopped on my computer chair, staring at my laptop and wondering how I was going to tell Nick.

  If our meeting spot had been closer, or if it hadn’t been raining, or if Grace had just gone to the movies like she was supposed to, or if someone would have rolled up the stupid windows, or if a hundred other things, I might have been able to talk Mom into it. But it was like the universe was determined to screw me over.

  Twisting back and forth in my chair, I briefly considered sneaking out. Telling Mom I was going somewhere with Lo and driving the car to Barstow anyway, soaking wet seats and all. It sent a thrill through me, the idea of breaking the rules and going against a direct order. But as soon as I entertained the thought, the what-ifs marched in. I could get a flat. I could get lost. Nick could turn out to be a kidnapper-murderer-rapist, and no one would know where to find my chopped-up body.

  I picked up the flattened souvenir penny Nick had sent in the mail the month before—the first present he ever gave me. It was from the Circus Circus Hotel and Casino, and it had arrived in my mailbox taped to the back of a “Vegas Strip at Night” postcard. I’d responded in turn with a penny I’d gotten at Disneyland a few years earlier, pressed with a picture of the three hitchhiking ghosts from the Haunted Mansion.

  I ran my fingers over the impression of the clown face on the penny. It was silly to think I might be able to break the rules. That was Grace’s area of expertise, not mine.