by Amy Spalding
Mom laughs. “Oh, god, doesn’t it? Like my cousin Sandra.”
I laugh, and we say it together: “Hashtag amvolunteering!”
“But,” I continue, “I just want you to know that I did things. And I’m going to keep trying to help when I’m up at college, even if everyone warns me my schedule will make it impossible.”
“I have faith in you, James.” Mom hugs me so tightly I don’t breathe for a moment. “I’m really sorry for making your year harder than it should have been.”
I stay right in her arms, like when I was little. “I am too.”
She makes me promise to text once I’ve arrived, and we hug again before I get back into Dad’s car. He’s nonchalant even though he must have seen the hugging, and for the millionth time, I’m grateful for him.
I take out my phone and hold it for a few moments as Dad navigates out of Mom’s neighborhood to the 170. With Logan’s words echoing in my ears, I type.
As soon as I tap send, I power my phone down. This drive shouldn’t be about waiting for her. This is for me and my next steps, and I guess a little for Dad and me, too.
Then he tries to turn the radio on to NPR, and I have to override him with my running playlist. I associate the songs with movement, of putting one foot in front of the other and not looking behind me.
I smile. That’s what I’m doing today.
CHAPTER TWO
September of Senior Year
KAT
I can’t believe how he tells me.
“We’re at school,” I say.
“Yeah?” Matty says, then shrugs. Matty is shrugging mere moments after dropping a horrible life-changing bomb. Matty is making the face he always makes, somewhere between bemusement and cockiness, and for maybe the first time ever, it does nothing to me.
It does nothing good, at least.
“How many times?” I ask, even though I don’t know what I want him to say. Since the answer won’t be zero, does it matter? If he slept with Elise Penderson once, twice, forty-two times, what’s the freaking difference?
“Kat . . .” He reaches out to push my curls back from my face, a move he’s mastered by this point. When I’ve listed all the things I love about being Matty’s girlfriend, his care with my Medusa hair always gets a mention. Some guys know to bring you chocolate or take you to special places you’d never find on your own or kiss you with an almost incomprehensible intensity. But Matty takes care.
He did, at least.
“Why?” I ask. It’s now that whatever magical resolve that was holding me together disappears completely, and my voice breaks on that one word. And now Matty is seeing me cry.
It’s not like he hasn’t seen me cry before. Matty showed up only moments after my mom died almost two years ago. We weren’t even serious then, but there he was with James, my perfect pair of support beams. After that, though, I didn’t want to be the girl who cried. To Matty, I wanted to be the cool girl he deserved. To Matty, I was the cool girl he deserved. Or I thought he deserved, at least.
“You know I believe in honesty,” he says, like he’s proud. “I messed up, and I’m telling you.”
“Good for you, Matty,” I say. “Super great. I’m so happy while you were doing it with someone so”—Elise Penderson, blonde, fun, probably never has to send dresses back to ModCloth because she can’t fill out the top—“not me that it was only under such strictly honest terms.”
“Babe,” he says, and I’ve always teased him for that, babe, like we’re some cozy married couple in our forties. That’s how it always sounded to me. “I love you.”
“You don’t,” I say, full tears now. For me, full tears involve snot. I go straight from girl to beast. “If you did, you wouldn’t have . . .”
“It wasn’t like that,” he says.
“Then what was it like?” I slam his locker door shut. Whoever wasn’t already looking at us is looking now. “Why?”
“I . . . I dunno.” He scratches his head and shrugs again. “You were out of town. I was bored.”
“You were bored?” The locker door didn’t completely latch, so I yank the door open and slam it again before slapping its cold metal side. “Good-bye, Matty.”
“Kat,” he says, the way only he can say my name, the way his lips curl around the syllable. The first time I heard my three letters in his voice, it practically brought me to my knees in an all-but-literal swoon. “This doesn’t have to be a thing.”
“Yeah,” I say. “It does.”
I walk off like I’m the brave one.
James runs up alongside me. She’s built for track-and-field and so my faux confident strut is no match for her. “Sofia told me you tore the door off of Matty’s locker.”
I laugh so hard I snort, and snot from my tears flies in all directions from my nose. James, true BFF that she is, doesn’t flinch.
“Honestly it was easier for me to believe that you”—she makes air quotes—“‘hulked out’ than that you and Matty . . .”
“Oh, god.” My laugh feels yanked out of my body, and for a second I think I’ll never feel anything but sadness and anger again. I’m not capable of strutting at all, much less in such a confident manner.
“Let’s get out of here,” James says.
I take a step toward my first period class.
“No, Kat, out of here,” she says.
“Like skipping?”
“More than like it,” she says. “Come on.”
She links her arm through mine and steers me down the hallway. Since the first bell hasn’t rung, people are milling about everywhere, including in front of the school. James and I blend in until we’re magically not on school grounds anymore.
I think about our lunch table, right in the center of the courtyard. Last year, James and her boyfriend, Logan Sidana, sat in the two most prominent spots, but since Logan graduated this past spring, Matty and me sat in the center, with James right at my side. I’m not someone who set out to be popular, and in a school as big as Magnolia Park, literal popularity might not actually be possible anyway. It feels like some leftover idea from old movies about teens and like it has less to do with my actual life.
But the thing is, you can’t even go outside to eat lunch without seeing us and our crowded table of athletes and top students and couples who get crowned prom king and queen. So where does that leave me today? And for the rest of the year?
Today, I feel safer when Magnolia Park High School is behind us. It’s like out here, Matty’s still mine, and I’m no table’s centerpiece.
“Do you want to talk about it?” James asks gently.
“Matty fucked Elise Penderson.”
James flinches when I say the f-word, because I do not say the f-word.
“When I was in Indiana. Or maybe when I was in Ohio. Maybe both.”
“Yeah,” she says. “That’s what I heard.”
“When?” I ask. My heart thuds like it also spots all the worst possibilities. “Right before you found me today? Did people know before I knew? Did you know? Did you know and, like, not tell me?”
“No, geez,” she says. “I’m not sure of the exact timeline. I think Elise might have told people. I had literally just heard, so I was coming to find you. And then I ran into Sofia and she told me about the fight.”
“Why are you yelling at me right now?” I ask.
“Kat, I’m not,” she says, and I realize she’s right. Her voice is raised just the slightest bit, but that’s so rare from James it might as well be a scream.
Or maybe I can’t judge anything right now.
“I’m sorry.” I lean my head against her shoulder as we walk down Keystone Street. My heartbeat seems OK now, despite my heartbreak. “Everything just feels out of control. I know it sounds stupid, but sometimes I kind of hoped Matty and I might be together forever.”
“It doesn’t sound stupid,” she says. And why would it to James? Her parents fell in love in high school and they’re still the happiest couple you could imagine.
/>
“I mean, I at least assumed we’d be prom king and queen.” I’d already pictured the crown glittering in my curls and how handsome Matty would look as he led me to the dance floor.
“It’s a fair assumption.”
“I can’t believe this is our first Friday as seniors,” I say. “We were supposed to go out tonight.”
“We were?” James asks.
“No, me and Matty,” I say. “His parents are going out tonight so . . .”
“So it’s more that you were supposed to stay in tonight?” James asks with a smirk. Her mouth quickly straightens out. “I’m sorry. I somehow forgot for a moment.”
“Me too,” I whisper. I try to imagine it, Matty and me in his bedroom, but instead of my face, it’s Elise’s.
“What do you want to do?” she asks.
“A burger.” I realize it as I say it. “The biggest cheeseburger you can dream up.”
“I thought you were vegan now,” James says.
“Well, yeah, but me and Matty . . .”
James grins. “Dump a vegan, eat a burger?”
I’m not sure it counts as dumping someone when they betray you first, but I guess I did technically break up with him. I dumped Matty Evans, the bicycle-riding, hybrid-driving, violence-protesting vegan.
And it might only be eight o’clock in the morning, but suddenly the only thing I can think of is the taste of red meat.
I’m home, alone, when Dad walks into the house that evening. Since we got back from Indiana without Luke, this is our new normal. Our new new normal, because you can’t have your mom gone for only two years and be completely used to her absence already.
I can’t, at least.
“Your school called me,” Dad says as he puts his bag down on the counter. Mom used to pack a lunch for him every day, and at night he’d carefully take out all the empty reusable containers and load them into the dishwasher. Now I don’t know what Dad eats during the day. His bag only carries his laptop to work and then home again.
“What about?” I ask.
“Nice try,” Dad says, and I remember that I skipped school today. This morning feels so long ago, and the decisions made like someone else’s. “I covered for you. Figured you had a good reason.”
I nod. “Matty and I . . .”
“Sorry,” Dad says, though his posture’s different now. It reminds me of when I wrote tampons on the weekly grocery list for the first time after Mom was gone. Dad’s so great at so many things except when he remembers I’m a girl with girl feelings and girl needs and a whole girl life.
I don’t understand why that has to be a scary revelation.
“I’m sorry I skipped.” I try to sound innocent even though Dad probably hasn’t forgotten that I used to skip school sometimes even when I wasn’t going through a major life crisis. Before Mom was gone, I didn’t worry so much about rules. I barely even thought about them at all.
“It’s fine.” His back is already to me as he roots around in the freezer. “How about this lasagna thing? It’s got those soy bits in it you like so much.”
“I’m eating meat again,” I say.
“Oh, yeah?” He turns around and grins. “That’s my girl.”
“Don’t be so happy,” I say, but I haven’t seen him smile like this in a while. I realize I’m smiling right back at him. “I’ll still eat the lasagna.”
“No way,” he says. “Not until times are more desperate, at least. Can I take you out to dinner? Or is it too embarrassing to be caught with your old dad on a Friday night when your friends are all doing parties?”
“‘Doing parties’?” I giggle. “Dad. You can’t possibly think that’s how normal people talk.”
“I never claimed to be normal,” he says. “Come on.”
“I have to change,” I say, because once James and I finished eating burgers at Carl’s Jr., we came back here and I traded my new flowered romper for a tank top and old baggy yoga pants. The romper had been the favorite thing I’d bought during back-to-school shopping, but now it’s tainted by Matty and the rest of today’s events.
“Well, go change,” Dad says. “We’re getting steaks.”
The romper is on the floor of my bedroom, and I realize that I don’t want it to only be the thing I was wearing when I was part of a humiliating public breakup. So I put it back on, fluff my curls, fix my eyeliner, and dust powder over my face in the hopes that I no longer look like I was crying most of the day.
I’ve lost the ability to judge if I do or not.
We see him as soon as we walk outside. Dad silently gets into the car, and suddenly for the first time in years I’m glad we don’t have one of those relationships where I tell him everything. If Dad knew about Elise he might back his Subaru Forester right over Matty. And I might hate Matty now, but I don’t want him dead or my dad in jail.
Matty shoves his hands in his pockets. “Hey.” Honestly, if anyone looks like they’ve fallen apart, it’s not me and my romper.
“What?”
“Kat, I love you,” he says like he’s giving me a gift.
“Stop saying that when it can’t be true.”
“We’ve been together for two years,” he says. “I thought you were committed to this. To us.”
I stare at him, the messy brown hair I normally can’t keep my hands out of, his slightly crooked nose, the tiny scar over his lip he got wrestling with his brother when he was only five, the way his dimples settle in like they’re sneaking behind the corners of his smile. If you’ve memorized someone’s details, how can it be possible that maybe you don’t actually know him at all?
“You’re willing to just give up on this?”
“OMG.” I shake my head. “You cheated on me, Matty. Because you were bored. You don’t get to make me the mean one now.”
He grabs me around my waist. “Elise means nothing to me.”
“You know what?” I pull out of his grasp. “That doesn’t make me feel better. Honestly it makes me feel worse. You ruined this for nothing, and I’m not taking the blame.”
He doesn’t move as I walk toward Dad’s car, but I pretend that he’s gone. Dad seems to have extra worry lines on his forehead, so I’m genuinely relieved he just backs out of the driveway. I sneak my phone out of my purse to text James, but I lose track of that original goal because I haven’t looked at my phone in ages, and my screen is lit up with texts from basically everyone in my contacts list. Are you ok? and He’s an idiot! and WHERE ARE YOU??? and I feel like I can’t believe in true love anymore.
“She’d know what to say,” Dad says. “If she were here.”
I blink back tears and don’t say anything. It would be so much easier if he wasn’t right.
My phone lights up again. Text from James: How are you doing, Kat?
I reach for the chain around my neck and pull on the gold monogrammed letters. Mom’s initials in engraved swirls, her eighteenth birthday present from her parents. And I miss her so much it’s like an injury, and while Sofia’s text was overdramatic, I might not believe in true love anymore, either.
But I have a lit-up phone and a dad driving me for breakup steaks. It’s not enough, but I’ll try to pretend that it is.
James shows up early the next morning, dressed in her sleek running outfit. She knows my schedule better than practically anyone, but I still feel like a total slacker because I’m in my pajamas with sleep crusty in my eyes.
“Come on,” she says. “Get dressed. Let’s go get breakfast.”
I make a grumpy sleepy noise, but James just shakes her head.
“Matty doesn’t deserve your wallowing.”
“I’m not wallowing!” I say. “It’s, like, six A.M., you freak.”
“This is the only way we can get Porto’s without waiting in line for an hour,” she says, which is unfortunately the truth. I let her inside and quickly change back into my wallowing clothes, which are fine with James because she doesn’t know they’re my wallowing clothes. Athletes are much more co
mfortable with stretchy clothes in public, so I’m able to get away with a lot. If we were out with a larger group, someone would definitely call me out on these yoga pants.
The line is fairly short, as expected, and James insists on ordering dozens of pastries in two boxes. I know that one box is for her family and one is for mine, and I know that Dad will smile when he sees the familiar yellow, gray, and white box. Porto’s is a Cuban bakery with rows and rows of sweet and savory pastries and desserts beyond what your mind could even dream up. They’re magically cheap, too; James pays only twenty dollars, total, for both boxes.
“What do you want to do today?” she asks, once we’re seated on the patio with little cups of coffee. I’m still learning to appreciate its bitterness; we both know once we’re done here I’ll walk up the street to the proper coffee shop for something milkier and sweeter.
“I thought you were hanging out with Logan today,” I say. Logan Sidana, James’s boyfriend, is a new freshman at UCLA. He and James have the most mature relationship of anyone I know. By next year she’ll be at UCLA as well, and I already have ideas about anecdotes I’ll tell in my speech at their wedding when we’re twenty-five or whenever.
I’ve actually been thinking a lot about Logan in the last twenty-three hours. James and I were getting ready to go to junior prom last year, and Logan showed up early. He didn’t want to get left out of the conversation, because Logan’s not one of those guys who doesn’t like hanging out with girls. He has two sisters and he’ll compliment your hair or notice if you get new shoes. So he stood outside James’s closed bedroom door, chatting with us while we finished getting ready. James, of course, was ready much earlier than I was, so she joined Logan in the hallway.
Matty’s running late! I’d called when I got his text. James called back a No problem! We have time! but I clearly heard Logan mutter something about that douchebag. I still remember how chilled I felt by his words, because I liked Logan. Everyone at Magnolia Park liked Logan, because he was handsome and polite and ended up giving a valedictorian speech that brought the majority of the audience to tears. And back then I loved Matty—a mere twenty-four hours ago I loved Matty, after all—but I had this deep respect for Logan. So instead of thinking about someone like Logan thinking that my boyfriend, the love of my sixteen years of life, was a douchebag, I decided that was where Logan and I would never agree.
