Every time she walked in a room, it seemed like people stopped talking and she tried to pretend she didn’t notice. Girls who generally gave her the barest of glances in the hallway went out of their way to flash her tentative smiles. Ket spent their lunch period talking a mile a minute, planning a shopping trip to the outlet mall—Ket to the max. Rosie sat silently, reading a book, when she usually engaged at least a little—Rosie dialed even further down. Jenna and Miles sat across from them, and if Jenna was still mad, she didn’t show it—but she wasn’t overly friendly, either, when she usually did her best to split her attention equally between her friends and boyfriend.
Like always, Elin found herself glancing around everywhere she went, looking for Ben. But somehow, on this day, she couldn’t find him anywhere.
After they’d broken up, Elin had taken care to remain friendly, but Ben didn’t want to be friends. The old, I love you, but I’m not in love with you speech had that effect. After years of him eating lunch with Elin, Rosie, Ket, Jenna, Miles, and Teddy, suddenly Ben only ate with the soccer team. If his eyes locked with Elin’s in the hallways, he always glanced away first. When Elin waved, his response was always fractionally less enthusiastic than hers.
Eventually, Elin remembered that the plan had been to let him go, so she started to avoid him just as much as he avoided her. But she still saw him everywhere, from the corner of her eye—running up a hallway when she was coming down, sliding into a seat in class just as the bell rang—and that was sort of comforting in a way.
Except on that first day back. She didn’t see him a single time that day.
Finally, after last period let out, she found him standing by her locker. He was leaning against the row of lockers, arms crossed, eyes cast down. Elin’s throat felt like it was going to close, and she prayed, really prayed, that her medicinally influenced emotions would not betray her with a crying jag or giggle fit.
The hall was nearly empty when she’d gotten to her locker. She spun the combination on her locker, not even bothering to pay attention to the numbers. What was he doing here?
Finally, he spoke, but his eyes remained glued to the floor. “How have you been?” he asked.
Elin paused, trying to focus on the numbers. What’s my combination? Ever since the hospital, she’d had foggy moments. “Fine,” she said. She stopped trying to open her locker and turned to face him. “How have you been?”
Ben shrugged, eyes still glued to the ground. In that moment, Elin couldn’t have figured out whether he was trying not to cry or kicking himself for even talking to her. “Are you going to tell me where you were?”
Elin ran her fingertips over the grate on her locker. “Umm. I just needed to get away from school for a while. It’s a long story.”
Ben looked up and met her gaze, and her breath caught in her throat. Ben wasn’t a tall boy, an inch taller than Elin’s five-foot-six, and his eyes looked directly into hers. They were red-rimmed, which made his irises look even bluer. “I’ll listen,” he said.
Elin didn’t know why she hadn’t just told him right then. She’d wanted to.
But instead she’d just forced a smile, something she’d gotten extremely good at before the meds, and nodded. “Sure. I’ll call you sometime, okay?”
As soon as the words left her mouth, even she could hear the dismissal in her tone.
There was an awkward pause. Something in Ben’s open expression changed. His shoulders relaxed slightly, his jaw tightened almost imperceptibly.
It was like Elin could see him physically closing himself off from her.
“Sure,” he said, his voice casual and easy. He tapped her on the shoulder, like she was one of his soccer buddies. “See you around, okay?”
Her throat closed up, so all she could manage was a soft “Mmhmm” as she turned back to her locker, blinking back tears.
Later, Elin had decided that when he’d said, I’ll listen, he meant it as an open-ended offer. If she had done anything, said anything, to let him know that she wanted to take him up on it, she was sure he would have waited patiently until she found the words.
But she hadn’t done anything. And the longer she went without doing anything, the more impossible it seemed to explain.
The next day at school, and the next, and the next, Elin watched as Ben would offer her a faint half-smile. That up-nod guys give their friends. And she’d wonder, “Does he think he got me pregnant, and I never told him? Does he think I lost weight because I was bulimic or something?”
She told the girls at session about it one night. Half of them thought Ben sounded like a jerk and she should forget about him. The other half thought that she needed to give him a chance, to see if he really would listen.
Elin couldn’t decide which faction was right. So she kept doing nothing.
And she never mentioned Ben to the group again, even though girls asked.
Instead, she fantasized about scenarios in which fate would lead her and Ben back together. Elin’s car broken down on the side of the road in the rain, Ben coming along to rescue her. Ben getting injured in a soccer match and waking up to Elin sitting by his bedside.
And prom. Always prom.
That would put her life back together.
March 23
A code existed among the troubled teenage girl set: don’t talk about each other outside of the group.
It was like Alcoholics Anonymous, or Fight Club. It just wasn’t fair to repeat what a girl might say in the group. First, no one really understood the way they understood, so it would probably get misconstrued. Something that sounded totally crazy to a non-troubled person kind of made sense during group, which is why it was safe to talk in the first place.
And second, and perhaps more importantly, it was like that thing during the Cold War: mutual assured destruction.
Dr. Shumacher held the meetings in Salt Lake City on Sunday and Wednesday nights. Girls came from as far as Park City and Orem and Layton. While they probably wouldn’t run into each other in real life, finding a girl online was as easy as a Google search.
It never even had to be said—if you ruin me, I will ruin you.
At first, Elin didn’t know the rules. The first time she walked into session and saw a familiar face, she froze. But the other girl merely glanced at Elin and gave her a little nod, looking away without any other acknowledgment. As Elin took her seat in the circle, she realized that the other girl—Genevieve, according to her nametag—was never going to say a word about seeing her there. That Genevieve trusted Elin to give her the same courtesy.
After that, that little nod and the flick of her head as she looked away, Elin felt confident that, at least with this group of semi-strangers, her secrets were safe.
But one Sunday night after a particularly uneventful session, the other girl sat beside Elin on a bench while Elin waited for her mom to pick her up.
The two of them sat in silence as Elin wondered what she wanted. If she wanted to talk about therapy, she was breaking the rule. If she wanted to extract a promise that Elin wouldn’t blab about her secrets, well, she was undermining the rule.
Finally, she spoke up, peeling her nametag off her shirt. This time it said Clara. “It’s been awhile since you mentioned your ex-boyfriend.”
Elin shrugged, uncomfortable with this intrusion. She preferred to keep her crazy life and her real life separate, and while group therapy had only ended fifteen minutes ago, it had ended. “I guess.”
Clara glanced at her watch. “I’ll get out of here before your mom shows up. She doesn’t know I go here, does she?”
“No,” Elin said quickly. “Of course not.”
Clara nodded, relief etched across her face. “Good.”
They sat in silence until Elin couldn’t stand it anymore. “Why did you come over here?” Elin asked. She wanted to ask, Why do you write a different fake name on your nametags every session? But she suspected that was the question Clara expected her to ask.
The wind blew strands
of blonde hair across Clara’s face and she tucked them behind one ear. “I just wanted to say … if you wanted to get him back, I think you could.”
Elin glanced over at her sharply. “What makes you say that?”
“I know a thing or two about a thing or two,” Clara said, cracking a smile for the first time.
March 31
The second time they spoke after session, it was about Twilight.
They were both standing on the corner, waiting for their rides. “Eloise” was getting one from her cousin, she said, peeling her fake nametag off and folding it in two. He wouldn’t mind swinging by Elin’s house, too.
Elin declined, saying her mom was on her way. It was only a little because she didn’t want to meet Eloise’s cousin, to let separate worlds collide.
Elin didn’t mention that she had given her mom the wrong time on purpose the last three sessions, just in case the two of them were both stuck waiting again.
Elin should have known then that she wanted to be her friend.
Eloise tossed her cigarette on the ground, not bothering to crush it beneath her sole. Elin stared at the glowing ember, emitting a pathetic little stream of smoke.
“God, I hate sheep,” she said finally.
Elin blinked. “For reals?”
She hitched up one shoulder, twisting her mouth to one side. It was fascinating, watching this side of her. She was all jerks and quirks, like a different person than Elin had known before.
Which made sense. After all, wasn’t Elin different here, too?
“I mean, all that shit in there,” Eloise explained. “Candace talking for ten minutes about how unhealthy Twilight is. For ‘girls like us.’” She made air quotes with fingers like talons.
“Oh,” Elin said, a little puzzled. “I zoned some of it out, honestly.”
Eloise sat on the bench, resting her chin in her palm, elbows on her knees. Her hair was pulled back in a sleek ponytail, not a single flyaway anywhere.
“It makes me sick when people can’t come up with an original thought,” she said, as if Elin hadn’t said anything. “Like, everyone hates Coldplay, right? Except Coldplay sells tons of songs, so not everyone hates them. Same with Twilight. Okay, if you didn’t like it, whatever, but it’s just so trendy to shit all over it. And please, if you finished Twilight, it’s because you liked it. Everyone who didn’t like it stopped before Bella goes on her first date with Edward, because frankly, that beginning is a little hard to get through.”
“You read Twilight?” Elin asked.
She rolled her eyes. “Duh, who didn’t? I’m just saying, if you’re going to hate something, hate something original. Like Harry Potter.”
Elin’s eyes widened. “You hate Harry Potter?”
She waved her hand, impatient. “Of course not, Harry Potter is the shit. I’m just saying, if you want to hate something, pick something that everyone loves, not something that everyone already loves tearing apart.” She raised her eyebrows at Elin, but Elin had nothing to say. “Are you seriously this little lost lamb in the woods?” she said finally.
Elin cracked a smile. “Are you seriously this passionate about Twilight?”
Eloise laughed, standing up and pulling her pack of cigarettes from her purse. “Come on,” she said. “There’s a diner around the block, we should wait where it’s warm.”
Elin followed the other girl as she clicked down the sidewalk in her four-inch heels, like a tide to the moon. “How come you never share at troubled teenage girl club?” Elin asked suddenly, accusingly.
She turned and walked backward to face Elin, smoking her cigarette like a pinup girl in an old French movie. “You call it troubled teenage girl club? That’s funny,” she said, and Elin wondered how long she could walk backward in stilettos. “I call it the clinical cryfest, but I like yours better. Why don’t you ever share at troubled teenage girl club?”
Elin shrugged. “I don’t have anything in common with those people.”
She snorted. “Don’t you? Okay then. What about your boyfriend? You never told me why you stopped talking about him.”
Elin felt her cheeks flush. “There’s nothing to say. He’s not my boyfriend. We broke up.”
“And you aren’t getting back together?”
Elin hitched her bag up tighter on her shoulder. “How do you know so much about me and Ben?”
She shrugged, turning back around, waving her cigarette in the air. “We’ve been in school together since we were twelve. Who doesn’t know about you and Ben? You guys are like … Hazel and Gus, Katniss and Peeta without all the murder. You always seemed like a legit couple. You can’t really say that about many high schoolers.”
Elin blinked. “Well … yeah. I thought so, anyway.”
“So why did you break up?” she said, pushing open the door to the burger joint. A wave of salty, greasy air hit Elin and her stomach growled involuntarily.
“Umm …”
She stopped so abruptly that Elin ran into her and she stumbled. She turned and Elin expected a scowl, but she was amused. “Watch out,” she chided gently.
The girls ordered. Even though she hadn’t been hungry five minutes before, Elin was suddenly starving. She ordered onion rings and a cheeseburger with a Diet Coke. Eloise got zucchini fries and a chocolate-banana milkshake, paying for both of them.
“You’ll get me next time,” she said as they sat down at a booth to wait for their food.
Elin smiled, puzzled. “Why have we never hung out before?”
She shrugged. “If we had, it wouldn’t have been like this.”
Their food arrived and they ate in silence for a moment.
“So why don’t you try to get back with Ben?” Eloise said, licking milkshake from her spoon. It was like she had completely forgotten that she’d asked Elin why they’d broken up and that Elin hadn’t answered. “I mean, I know he’s dating Hannah Larson, but he doesn’t seem that into her. I bet you could get him back.”
Elin stole one of Eloise’s zucchini fries, resisting the hope that was blooming in her chest. “How do you know that?” Elin asked, dipping the fried veggie in the watery ranch sauce.
She shrugged, licking shake off her straw. “Like I said. I know a thing or two about a thing or two.”
21
Ket West-Beauchamp
April 18, 8:05 PM
“Why do I get the feeling you aren’t so happy to see me?” Teddy asked, his half-smirk revealing that one dimple in his left cheek, legs stretched out in front of him as he leaned against the wall. A blazer was tossed in the corner next to him—houndstooth. Probably his grandpa’s.
I wouldn’t have thought it was possible, but he had actually gotten cuter in the last few hours.
“I … I totally am!” I said. “What are you doing here? I thought you were going to watch Golden Girls all night!”
He held up his iPad, which was streaming Blanche and Dorothy in all their crinkled chiffon glory. “I have been. But I was thinking about what you said, and … I don’t know, you’re right. I miss you guys, too. I figured I’d just hang out here until the dance was over and then tag along with whatever you did afterward.”
I forced a smile. “You won’t believe this, but I think we’re actually going to Fisher Reese’s party.”
Teddy whistled. “Seriously? How did you guys pull that off?”
I shrugged. “No clue.”
My phone buzzed and I jumped. Teddy raised his eyebrows. “Stressed out about something?”
“Ha, not really,” I said, swiping open my phone.
Just trying to deal with a sexual psychopath.
VAUGHN: So where are we going to do this thing?
I’m leaving Fisher’s in a minute.
I scowled. I didn’t see him looking for a solution to the problem, did I?
KET: I’m assessing the situation.
Patience.
Patience was not Vaughn Hollis’ strong suit.
Neither was empathy, tact, or common sense
.
Homeboy was kind of lacking in a lot of essential areas, I was realizing.
“Ket?” Teddy asked. I glanced up. Teddy stared at me, puzzled.
“Sorry,” I said after a too-long-pause. “It’s … Jenna. She got drunk at Fisher’s party, I was looking for a place she could sober up.”
Teddy’s eyebrows shot up. “Our Jenna? The Jenna who made us spend a whole Saturday delivering nonpartisan campaign signs for a city council race?”
I laughed. “The one and the same.”
What was it about Teddy that made all my stress melt away? I felt like I could sit here and joke with him for the rest of the night.
Except, if I did, Vaughn would definitely blab.
And Elin would never talk to me again.
Vaughn might not remember exactly why we stopped hooking up, but I do. I remember every detail of our Non-Relationship Relationship. He was the conquest I’d worked toward all winter. While Jenna applied for ten thousand safety colleges, Elin did piles of make-up work for all the classes she was failing, and Rosie’s parents dragged her into one last mediation to determine who got her for the final holiday season of her childhood, I pursued Vaughn Hollis.
Vaughn was desirable for many reasons, all of which seemed stupid to me within days of our breakup.
He was one of the hottest guys in our class.
He had his own credit card and took the girls he dated to great restaurants and concerts.
He made the National Ski Team earlier this year. He got into events and received free gear from sponsors—he even gave me a sweet pair of goggles that he didn’t want.
And he was allegedly great in the sack—which turned out to be true only seventy-five percent of the time. I didn’t think I’d ever experienced anything as frustrating as hooking up with someone who DEFINITELY knew what he was doing—a rarity among the guys I’d hooked up with—but sometimes just couldn’t be bothered to make an effort.
We successfully hooked up at a party right before New Year’s Eve—I broke curfew so badly I ended up grounded on the actual holiday. I couldn’t have cared less. We dated for the next two and a half months, and I felt like I had really achieved Something. I wasn’t sure what, exactly, just that when Rosie told me that Teddy had confessed his True Love, it wasn’t the searing stab of pain I had expected. More like a slow constriction of my airways.
When the Truth Unravels Page 10
