The Girl You Thought I Was

by Rebecca Phillips

  Maybe he’s right.

  I stand up. “Dad—”

  “I’m going for a walk.”

  He turns and heads for the hallway, leaving me to stand there alone. The door closes behind him with a gentle click, but I flinch as if he’s slammed it shut instead.

  I’m not sure if I’m supposed to be grounded, but Dad’s not around to tell me one way or the other, so I head out to meet Eli as planned.

  I’m fifteen minutes late getting to Donovan Lake, where we agreed to meet up at eight thirty. We intended to go for a walk along the wooded trail that borders the water, but now it’s starting to get dark, which will make seeing the path in front of us a little tricky. At this point, it doesn’t really matter to me what we do. Honestly, I don’t feel like doing much of anything, not even with Eli. But I don’t want to be at home either, so here I am.

  Eli is waiting in his Jeep in the parking lot. He gets out as I’m pulling into the space next to him.

  “Sorry I’m late,” I say as I climb out and meet his gaze across the car’s roof. I try to keep my voice and expression light, even though my chest feels like something heavy has taken up residence on it. Eli was nice enough to let me cry on him the other night; I don’t want to make a habit of it.

  “It’s fine,” he says, frowning slightly as he studies me. I must not be hiding my distress as well as I thought.

  Determined to put the past hour behind me, I circle around to where he’s standing and take his hand. “Let’s go for a walk.”

  He doesn’t budge. “Have you been crying?”

  The whole way here. “No,” I say; then I remember about the automatic lies and change my mind. “Yes. But I’m good now. Just a fight with my dad.”

  “What was it about? Your mom?”

  I shake my head and look away, toward the lake. The air is turning cooler as the sun sets and the only person left in the water is a kayaker, gliding across the surface.

  “You can tell me,” Eli says, squeezing my hand. “You can tell me anything.”

  Can I? I look back at his face, shadowed in the growing darkness. My family drama didn’t drive him away, but my secret might. Though if I hadn’t shoplifted in the first place, I never would have ended up at Rita’s Reruns, and we wouldn’t be standing here together right now, hands linked. But knowing this doesn’t erase the fact that I’ve been basically lying to him from the start.

  “Thanks,” I say, reaching up to kiss him. Maybe I really can tell him anything, but right now, that’s as much as I’m willing to say.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  DAD AND I HAVE BEEN AVOIDING EACH OTHER FOR days, so naturally I’m surprised when I emerge from the back room of the thrift shop and discover him standing by the register, talking to Rita.

  “There she is,” Rita says triumphantly, like she made me appear just now through magic.

  I approach them slowly, wiping my dusty hands off on my jeans. “What are you doing here?” I ask my father. Saturday is the busiest day at the dealership—he doesn’t usually leave. And he’s never visited me at work before. He seems out of place here in his suit and tie.

  “I thought I’d pick you up and take you to lunch,” he says with a buoyancy that must be for Rita’s sake, seeing as we’ve barely spoken all week.

  I look down at my filthy self, then at Rita. She smiles and says, “Go ahead. I’ll let you out a half hour early. You can make it up next week.”

  “Thanks, Rita,” Dad says.

  “You bet.” She clasps his hand, her bracelets clinking together with the movement. “You’re raising a good girl there, Charles. Bright, hardworking, reliable. The apple sure doesn’t fall far.”

  Dad and I both flush at the compliment, making me glad that Eli’s at the store getting replacement bulbs for one of the overhead lights instead of here, witnessing my embarrassment. That’s the second time Rita has called me a “good girl.” She must have her own unique definition of good. Or maybe she’s just highlighting my positive qualities for my father’s benefit.

  Dad takes me to a sit-down, family-style restaurant near the thrift store, where we both look out of place. Him because of the suit, and me because I’m covered in dust from unpacking boxes of newspaper-wrapped dishes all morning.

  The waitress who takes our drink order doesn’t seem to notice or care about our appearance. Once she’s gone, Dad clears his throat and looks at me.

  “I’ve had a chance to think and cool off,” he says, shifting in his chair. “First, I’m sorry about what I said. About you being better off with your mother. I don’t really think that, and I hope I didn’t make you feel like I don’t want you around, because I do.”

  My stomach unclenches a bit and I nod. “Okay.”

  “Also,” he continues quickly, like he’s been rehearsing this in his head and has to get everything out before he forgets, “I think it would be a really good idea if you talked to someone, a therapist or counselor or some type of professional, about your shoplifting problem. This has gone beyond both of us, Morgan. We need outside help.”

  My stomach tightens again at the thought of telling a stranger about my personal life, but I know he’s right. My issues run too deep to resolve on their own. “Okay,” I agree. “I’ll talk to someone.”

  The waitress appears with our drinks then and asks if we’re ready to order. We scan our menus quickly and decide to split a large order of nachos.

  “One last thing,” Dad says when the waitress walks away. “I really think you should you should go with Rachel to visit your mother next weekend.”

  I sigh. This again. “Dad—”

  He holds up a hand, cutting me off. “I’m not going to force you. I just want you to seriously consider it. You’re never going to get over this animosity you have toward her unless you face it. Face her. Go there and talk to her. Scream at her, if that’s what you need to do. Just get it out and move on. Give her a chance to make things right.”

  He takes a large gulp of water, like his little speech scorched his throat on its way out. I watch him, doubt swelling inside me. He and Rachel make it sound so simple. Like I can just go see her as if a million things haven’t changed. On the other hand, Dad’s willingness to mend things with me even after the horrible things I’ve done makes me think that almost anyone can be forgiven.

  “I’ll consider it,” I tell him.

  “Good. Thank you.”

  A few minutes later, our waitress reappears and plunks a huge plate of nachos and a bowl of salsa in front of us. It’s enough food for at least four people. Dad laughs at the sheer magnitude of the pile, and after a moment, I do too.

  “So Rita says you’re doing really well.” More relaxed now, he takes a tortilla chip out of the pile and dunks it into the salsa. “She couldn’t stop gushing about you. Have you considered staying on after your community service hours are up? She could probably use the help.”

  I pull out my own chip, severing the ribbon of cheese with my finger. I have considered staying on, but I’m not sure if Rita would want that. A few hours of community service is one thing; a regular job is something else entirely. She’d probably rather hire someone who hasn’t been in trouble with the law.

  “Once school starts, most of my Royal Smoothie hours will be on the weekends. I don’t think I can do two jobs and school.” It’s the same explanation I gave to Eli when he asked why I was only volunteering for the summer.

  “Makes sense,” Dad says with a nod. “I’m proud of you, though, for taking the job so seriously. I know you were reluctant at first.”

  “It turned out to be better than I expected.” It’s the truth. I think I might actually miss it once I leave. I’ve gotten used to Rita’s outlandishness, and Eli’s door slams, and the customers, and the marigolds that greet me on the way in, and the mustiness of the stockroom. I feel more useful there than I do at Royal Smoothie, where my biggest accomplishment is getting the correct ratio of yogurt to coconut milk. At Rita’s, I’m contributing to something
worthwhile.

  Damn my father for being right.

  He digs out another chip, so loaded with cheese and peppers and chicken that it sags toward the table. “If only more things in life turned out that way.”

  Sophie and I both have the next day off work, which rarely happens, so we hop into my car and head to the jewelry store to pick up Alyssa. At first she says she can’t get away, but we manage to lure her out with the promise of ice cream.

  “I can’t stay out long, guys,” she says once we’re driving again, ice-cream cones in hand.

  Sophie twists around to look at her. “You spend way too much time inside that store, Lyss.”

  “Sorry. I have no choice. It’s not like we have the money to hire someone.”

  I feel a pang of guilt for some reason and change the subject. “Have you heard from Dawson at all?”

  “No. Have you?”

  I hand Sophie my cone so I can make a left turn. “Barely.” He still meets me after work for a drive home sometimes, but otherwise he’s been pretty scarce. It sucks.

  “He’ll come around,” Sophie says, giving me back my cone. “Hey, let’s hit the mall! I need a dress for my cousin’s wedding in September.”

  “But—” Alyssa starts.

  “An hour. That’s all. Please? I need you guys to help me find a dress that doesn’t make me look twelve.”

  Alyssa sighs and I head toward the highway, my palms already slick on the wheel. I haven’t been back to that mall since I got caught. I want to convince Sophie to go to the smaller downtown mall instead, but I know she’ll refuse. All the stores she likes are in the other one. I’ll just have to deal with it. I’ll stick close to my friends, and it’ll be fine.

  Or not. My paranoia kicks into overdrive the second we step through the doors. It’s Sunday, so the place is crowded. LP officers could be anywhere. I wonder if there’s a picture of me posted in the security office, with instructions to arrest me on sight. I feel exposed, like there are cameras on me, tracing my every move.

  “You know, Soph, I have tons of dresses,” I say as we walk down the mall. “You can borrow one if you want.” Please say yes, so we can leave.

  “Nah,” she says, pausing in front of a store. “You actually have boobs and hips. Your clothes would probably be baggy on me.”

  So much for that. I try to relax as she drags Alyssa and me from store to store, examining and discarding dresses in each one. Finally, about a half hour later, in a trendy little shop with creepy-looking mannequins and dance music blasting overhead, she finds a cute red dress that complements both her blond hair and her petite figure. I’m relieved. Now we can get out of here.

  “Now I need shoes,” she says as we leave the store. I resist the urge to throttle her.

  “Soph, I have to get back soon,” Alyssa tells her.

  I nod, suddenly grateful for Alyssa’s strong work ethic. “Yeah, Soph, you said an hour.”

  “It’ll just take a minute.” She makes a beeline for the closest available store that sells shoes. Which just happens to be Nordstrom.

  Panic rises in my chest. I can’t go into Nordstrom. I’m not allowed. The last thing the woman in the security office told me before I left that day was that I was banned from the store for a year. That if they ever saw me in there before that, I’d immediately be escorted out like the thief I am. Was.

  I can’t go into Nordstrom.

  “One quick look and then we’ll go, okay?” Sophie says when I come to a halt, right there outside the doors. She and Alyssa keep walking, unaware that I’m rooted to the floor.

  I could walk in there with them, take the risk, but being hauled out by security right in front of them and everyone else would be a nightmare come true. So I stay where I am until my friends notice I’m not with them anymore. They both turn to look at me, confusion etched on their faces.

  “Morgan, what’s wrong?” Alyssa backtracks toward me and touches my arm. Sophie follows a second later.

  “I can’t.” The words come out small and scratchy with shame. With one stupid decision, I ruined my chance to simply walk into a store with my friends like a normal person.

  “What do you mean, you can’t?” Sophie asks.

  Shoppers swarm around us, their presence barely registering in my brain. All I can see are my friends’ faces, staring back at me with concern. They love me. They trust me. And unless I can think of a way out of this in the next few seconds, I’m going to ruin that too.

  “Morgan?”

  “You’re freaking us out.”

  I look over at the store entrance, bright and wide and welcoming. Except if you’re me. “I can’t,” I repeat, this time with resignation. There’s no way out of this. And I know, deep down, that a big part of overcoming a problem is admitting, out loud, that you have one in the first place. “I’m not allowed.”

  They glance at each other, then back at me. “Explain?” Sophie says.

  I’m not sure I can explain in a way that won’t make me look like a horrible person, but I know I have to try. Glancing around me, I take their arms and lead them out of the flow of foot traffic to a vacant spot near a cell phone kiosk.

  “Remember the last time we were all here together?” I begin. “At the end of May, when Alyssa was looking for a swimsuit cover?”

  Alyssa nods. “You got sick and went home without us.”

  I lick my lips, which feel as parched as my throat. “I didn’t get sick. I got caught.”

  “Got caught doing what? What are you talking about?”

  God. They really have no idea. If they even thought for a minute that I was capable of doing something wrong, surely they would have put the pieces together by now. “Shoplifting,” I say, finally. “I got caught shoplifting. In Nordstrom. That’s why I can’t go in there anymore.”

  Their reactions are immediate—Sophie’s face turns blotchy, while Alyssa’s goes completely pale. They stare at me, wide-eyed and shocked.

  “This is a joke, right?” Sophie shakes her head and laughs. “You? A shoplifter? I mean . . . that doesn’t even make sense. You don’t steal.”

  “I do. Well, I did. But I want to stop. I’m trying to stop.” I pause to wet my lips again, wishing for a drink of water. “I’ve been so angry about my mom, and I didn’t know how to deal with it. So I started shoplifting. But then I got caught stealing sunglasses in Nordstrom, and I had the option of doing community service instead of going to court, so that’s what I did.”

  “The thrift shop,” Sophie says, the pieces finally clicking together.

  “Yeah.” I glance at Alyssa, who hasn’t spoken a word yet. She’s not looking at me anymore; her gaze is focused on the floor, and she’s biting her lip and blinking, like she does when she’s trying not to cry. Oh God. “Lyss?”

  Her chest rises and falls as she sucks in a breath. When she looks at me, her brown eyes are glassy and bloodshot. “So that’s why,” she says, her voice trembling. “The other day at the diner, when I talked about the guy who stole the necklace from my mom’s store . . . that’s why you were acting so weird. Because you’re a thief too.”

  “Alyssa, I’m really—”

  “How can you be so selfish? Do you have any idea how much shoplifting hurts stores? They have to raise their prices. They have to spend extra money on security.”

  “I know,” I say quickly, before she can interrupt me again. “I know all that, Lyss, and I feel horrible about it. Believe me. I regret the moment I ever started stealing.”

  “Oh.” She barks out an incredulous laugh. “Now you regret it? Or do you just regret the fact that you got caught?”

  Sophie puts a hand on her shoulder, but she shrugs it off, her eyes still burning into mine. I ball my hands into fists to stop them from shaking. I knew they’d be shocked and disappointed, even disgusted, but I wasn’t expecting this level of fury. Especially not from Alyssa, who’s never lost her temper with me once in all the years we’ve been friends. Then again, I’ve never given her any reason to
.

  “And you try to justify it by saying you’re angry at your mom?” she goes on, her face regaining its color. “My father died and I don’t deal with it by stealing. You know what I do instead? I work. I help my mother. I don’t use the shitty things that happened to me as an excuse to rip people off.”

  Sophie touches her shoulder again, and this time Alyssa lets her. “Come on, Lyss,” she says softly. Her eyes flick toward me and then away. She can’t even look at me. I’m not the same person I was before. Not to them.

  “We’ll get the bus home.” Alyssa practically spits the words at me, and I feel every syllable. “We know the way.”

  They turn and walk away together, arm in arm. Again, I’m rooted to the floor, unable to move forward or do anything but stand there, watching them go until they finally round the corner, disappearing completely.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  I OVERSLEEP THE NEXT MORNING, MAKING ME late for my shift at Royal Smoothie. Luckily, my boss isn’t even there when I stroll in at ten after seven. My coworker Kyle is the only person in the place.

  “Man,” he says when he sees me. “Rough night last night?”

  I know I look like crap. After getting home from the mall yesterday, I climbed into bed and didn’t move for the next twelve hours, except to pee and get a glass of water. I told Dad I was sick. When Eli texted me in the evening to ask if I wanted to get together, I told him the same thing. It wasn’t a total lie. My stomach felt like something was trying to rip through it from the inside. It still does, kind of. The extra-large coffee I downed on the way here probably isn’t helping.

  “You could say that,” I reply, stationing myself at the register. There’s no way I can handle a sharp knife in this state.

  Kyle quickly throws a bunch of stuff in a blender and hits the start button. When it’s done, he dumps the smoothie in a cup and hands it to me. “Energy booster.”