Collide

by Michelle Madow

  COLLIDE

  Michelle Madow

  Monday, October 27

  An eighties song blasted from my phone, and I rolled over in bed, burying my face in the pillow. I’d been having an amazing dream—the details were already fading, but Mom was there.

  I wanted to lie in bed and return to the dream. But I needed to wake up to get ready for school, so I listened to the remainder of the song, promising myself that I would get out of bed once it ended.

  When it did, I rolled over to see what it was.

  Back in Time by Huey Lewis and the News.

  I took a screenshot and texted it to Jake.

  He replied immediately. From Back to the Future! One of the best movies OF ALL TIME. Let’s watch it soon :P

  I’m sure I’ll love it ;)

  I love you.

  I love you too <3

  I smiled and placed the phone back onto my nightstand, glancing at the framed photo of my mom and me at dinner on a cruise last year. She’d curled my hair so it looked exactly like hers, and we both looked so happy.

  My chest panged at the reminder of how I would never see her again.

  Needing to cheer myself up, I ran my fingers across the colorful beaded bracelets on my arm—the ones Jake had made me last summer when we were counselors at camp together—and traced the words on them. Love. Forever. Soulmates. Beautiful. Always. My heart warmed with each one I read.

  I never went a day without telling Jake I loved him. It’s too scary to think about how quickly a person can be taken away. One instant. Then bam, they’re gone.

  Just like what had happened with my mom.

  And it was all because of that one coin toss.

  It was the last day of spring break. My family and I had just returned from a ski trip, and we were deciding where we wanted to have our “last meal” before school started again.

  “Let’s get sushi,” I said. “I’ve been craving it all week.”

  “I want Italian,” my younger brother Eric said. “I hate sushi.”

  “You like the fried chicken at the sushi restaurant.”

  Eric stuck out his chin. “But I want pizza.”

  “Neither of them are budging.” Dad peered at us over the rims of his glasses. “We officially have the most stubborn kids on the planet.”

  “Yes, we do.” Mom sighed, suppressing a smile. “I suppose there’s only one way to solve this.”

  She opened the “random crap” drawer, pulled out a penny, and looked at me. “Heads or tails?” she asked.

  I stared at the coin, as if I could will it to do what I wanted. “Heads,” I decided.

  She tossed the penny in the air, caught it, and flipped it onto the top of her hand. I leaned across the kitchen island, holding my breath as she uncovered it, and…

  Tails.

  “Italian food it is.”

  The next morning, we heard about the outbreak of food poisoning at the sushi restaurant. We thought we’d been lucky to avoid it.

  But if I’d chosen tails and we’d gotten sushi, my mom would have been home sick that morning instead of on the road. That truck never would have collided with her car.

  My life wouldn’t have crumbled in a single second.

  Unfortunately, I couldn’t change the past, so I tried to shake the memory away by playing “Back in Time” again as I got ready for school. It was going to be a big day, since we were getting our first test back in AP physics. This test would have a huge weight on our final grade, and I knew I’d aced it.

  But once I got in the car to head to school, I couldn’t stop tapping on the steering wheel in anxiety as I pulled up to my neighbor Danny’s house to pick him up. As always, Eric sat in the front seat so he could take control of the music, leaving Danny the entire back row to himself.

  Danny hopped in the car, wearing his typical jeans and a polo shirt buttoned all the way to the top. “Good morning,” he said, placing his bag on the seat next to him.

  “Hey, man,” Eric replied. “Can I take a look at your math homework? Those last few problems destroyed me.”

  Danny opened his bag, took out a neat, organized folder, and held out a sheet of paper. Eric took it from him and copied a bunch of his answers. Danny’s eyes shifted down, but as always, he said nothing to stop him.

  Once Eric was finished, he tossed the now crumpled paper back to Danny. “Thanks,” he said, leaning back and letting out a long breath. “You’re saving my butt in geometry this year.”

  “Anytime.” Danny frowned and laid the paper on the center console, trying to flatten it back out. He eventually gave up and put it back in his folder.

  “Anyway,” Eric continued. “I still don’t have a date to the Halloween dance. Which is pretty pathetic, since the dance is this week.”

  “You don’t have to have a date,” I told him. “You could go with a group of friends. That’s what I did last year.”

  “I guess.” He shrugged. “But I would kill to go with Liana. It’s too bad you’re not on the dance team anymore. Then you could see if she wanted to go with me.”

  “If you want to go with her, why don’t you ask her?” I said.

  “Because Liana has no idea who Eric is.” Danny snorted. “He’s not on her radar.”

  “You can’t know until you ask,” I said. “What’s the worst that could happen?”

  “Uhhh…” Eric glanced up and scratched his head. “She’ll laugh in my face?”

  “No, she won’t,” I said, although I couldn’t know for sure, since I’d never actually talked to Liana. “You should ask her. Who knows if you’ll get this chance again?”

  Eric shrugged, which I knew meant he wouldn’t do it.

  “That’s a very interesting point,” Danny said, clearing his throat. “So, Anna. What do you think about going the dance with me?”

  “You’re asking me?” I laughed nervously, expecting that he would laugh too.

  He watched me closely, as if waiting for an answer. He couldn’t be serious. He knew I had a boyfriend.

  But he still hadn’t said anything, and the silence was getting awkward. I had to say something.

  “I’m going with Jake,” I reminded him, smiling at him in the rearview mirror so he wouldn't feel embarrassed. “But that was good practice for whoever you plan on actually asking.”

  “I probably won’t go.” His eyes darkened, and he shrank back into his seat. “There’s no point.”

  “It’s Halloween!” Eric laughed, sitting straighter. “The point is to dress up and have fun. I’m going as a pirate, and you can bet I’ll be filling my sack of gold up with rum. After all, what’s a pirate without rum?”

  “A sober pirate?” I suggested.

  “Ha-ha,” he said. “Very funny.”

  “Where do you plan on getting rum?” I asked, glancing at him from the side of my eye.

  “The mini bottles Dad always gets for Christmas.” He rubbed his hands together, like he was a criminal mastermind. “They’ve been collecting dust for years. He won’t notice if one or two of them are gone.”

  “Just make sure not to get caught,” I told him. “And if you do, remember—I knew nothing about any of this.”

  “I won’t get caught,” he said. “And don’t worry about me squealing. Pirates take their secrets with them to the grave.”

  At the reminder of death, we both quieted, the conversation over. That had been happening a lot these past six months. People mentioned death so casually in every day conversation… you never noticed it or were affected by it until losing someone you loved.

  “Speaking of,” I finally said, focusing on the road and trying to keep my tone casual. “I’m going to visit Mom after school today. Do you want to come?”

  “No.” Eric turned away and stared out the window. “You
know I like to remember her like she was when she was alive. Not like she is now, buried in the cemetery. But thanks for asking.”

  “Anytime,” I said. “But if you ever want to join me, just let me know.”

  “Sure,” he said, although I doubted he would be changing his mind any time soon.

  But I would never stop trying. Because we never knew what moment would be our last.

  And when my moment came, I wanted to make sure I had no regrets.

  Monday, October 27

  I rushed to class and settled into my front row seat between Jake and my best friend Marisa. I must have been tapping my pencil on the desk, because Jake’s hand was suddenly on mine, holding it still.

  “Don’t worry.” He watched me steadily, his clear blue eyes so intense that they took my breath away. “You aced it.”

  Ms. Bunnell walked into the classroom, opened her desk drawer, and pulled out a stack of papers. The tests.

  Please, I prayed, looking up at the ceiling and thinking of Mom. Let me have done as well as I think I did.

  “I’ll be handing back your tests so we can go over them,” Ms. Bunnell said, clutching them to her chest. “Remember, while this test will have an impact on your final grade, it certainly won’t determine it. So don’t panic if you didn’t do as well as expected.”

  Had the entire class not done as well as expected? Was she trying to warn us so we weren’t disappointed?

  Luckily, since I was in the front row, I was one of the first to find out.

  “Good job, Anna,” she said, placing my test facedown on my desk.

  “Thanks.” I lifted the corner, holding my breath as I peeked at my grade.

  104.

  I bounced my feet, wanting to hold the test high in the air and show off my grade to everyone. But that would be obnoxious, so instead, I glanced at Jake to see how he did.

  “Great job,” he said, motioning to my test.

  “Thanks.” I smiled. “How’d you do?”

  “Ninety-six,” he said. “All thanks to you forcing me to study for hours on end.”

  “You’re welcome,” I teased, sticking out my tongue.

  Then I glanced around at the rest of the class, curious to see how everyone else had done. My eyes stopped on Claire—my ex-best friend from when I’d been on the dance team last year. She was sitting in the back row with her boyfriend Robby and the football quarterback Zac.

  She frowned when she peeked at her grade, fiddling with her Eiffel Tower necklace. I had a matching one buried in a drawer in my room—we’d gotten them last year when we’d planned to go on a European teen tour together over the summer.

  I saw what looked like a “see me” on the top of her test, and I felt bad for her. Claire had wanted to go to University of Florida for as long as I could remember—we used to talk about going there together—and she needed good grades to get in.

  Not wanting her to know that I’d seen, I glanced away, and my eyes accidentally met with Zac’s. He flashed me his perfect all-American smile, motioned to his test, and made signs with his hands. A one, a zero, and a five.

  A 105? My eyes widened in surprise. That couldn’t be his grade. Sure, he was in mostly AP classes, but he was a jock and he spent a ton of time partying. He couldn’t have done better than me.

  There was only one explanation—he must think that 105 was my grade.

  A 104 was close enough, so I nodded and re-faced the front.

  But as Ms. Bunnell started to go over the answers, I couldn’t push the interaction with Zac out of my mind. Why did he care how I did? We’d only had one conversation, last year when we were assigned to be temporary lab partners in AP biology. We barely knew each other.

  I was tempted to look back at him to make sure that was what he’d meant, but I stopped myself. Because Claire, the dance team, and the jock guys they partied with were in my past.

  I’d left that life behind months ago.

  And I needed to leave it there—because that was exactly where it belonged.

  Friday, October 31

  “I’m fat and ugly in my costume, and you both look perfect,” Marisa said as she, Jake, and I got ready for the dance in my room. Well, more like as Marisa and I got ready—Jake was lying on my bed in his vampire costume, reading theories out loud from his phone about what was going to happen on our favorite show, Doomed, next week.

  “You’re the perfect Alice in Wonderland,” I told her. “With your blonde hair and big eyes, you look like you stepped right out of the movie.”

  “Maybe if Alice gained thirty pounds from those cakes she was eating,” Marisa mumbled, wrapping her arms around her stomach. “And you’re this perfect, gorgeous angel. I look awful next to you.”

  “Don’t be so hard on yourself,” I said. “You look amazing. We’re going to have fun tonight—I promise.”

  She shrugged and refocused on doing my makeup, but my lack of sleep recently was catching up to me, and it was getting harder and harder to keep my eyes open.

  “You need to stop blinking so much,” she said. “It’s making it impossible for me to get your eyeliner right.”

  “Sorry.” I yawned. “I was up late last night doing homework.”

  “Go grab a Red Bull. Eric always drinks those, right?”

  “Yeah.” I stood up and stretched—hopefully moving around would help me feel more awake. “Do either of you want one?”

  They both passed, and I headed downstairs. Eric was already in the kitchen, in full pirate costume, rummaging through the cabinets above the fridge.

  “Are you stealing those mini bottles of rum from Dad’s stash?” I asked him.

  “You promised you wouldn’t say anything.” He kept his voice down.

  “If you give me one of your Red Bulls, I won’t say a word,” I promised. “And by the way, you’re looking in the wrong cabinet.”

  We quickly found the mini-bottles, and I helped Eric rearrange everything so Dad wouldn’t notice. I doubted he would—Dad rarely drank—but it didn’t hurt to be safe.

  I headed back to my room, but I paused when I heard Marisa and Jake’s voices echoing through the closed door.

  “I still think about that day,” Marisa said. “I know you don’t, but I do.”

  “I know,” he said. “I don't know what else I can tell you other than I’m sorry.”

  “I wish…” she said, and then she lowered her voice enough that I couldn’t make out the rest.

  I felt terrible for listening in—it wasn’t right—but I was frozen where I stood, the worst assumptions flooding my mind. Because while Jake and Marisa had never been anything more than friends, whatever they were talking about sounded intense. I just wanted verification that I was overreacting.

  But all I could hear was the end, when she said, “Who knows what would have happened?”

  “I don’t know why you’re bringing this up again.” Jake sounded agitated now. “I’m sorry that you felt led on, but you told me you were over it. Didn’t we both agree that everything worked out the way it did for a reason?”

  Unable to listen any more, I twisted the doorknob and let myself in.

  Jake still lounged on my bed. Marisa was sitting next to him, so close that if she moved her hand a few inches, she would be touching him.

  She stared at me, shocked, as if I were the last person she wanted to see.

  “Hey guys.” I looked back and forth between them, gripping my can of Red Bull. They both refused to meet my eyes. “What’s going on?”

  “Nothing.” Marisa sighed and moved away from Jake, wiping away a tear. “Not having a date to the dance just made me think about Sean. But getting upset about him again is stupid. Why should I get worked up about someone who led me on for an entire summer and ditched me when he left for college?”

  “I don’t think he purposefully led you on.” I grabbed a tissue and handed it to her, joining them on the bed. “He just didn’t want to do long distance. It’s hard, but at least he did the right thing by
letting you know.”

  “I guess.” She sniffed and wiped her nose.

  “We’ll find you someone way better at the dance tonight, okay?”

  “Okay.” She dabbed under her eyes, threw the tissue away, and forced a smile. “Now, how about you let me finish up your makeup?”

  Friday, October 31

  “It looks great.” I mustered up a smile as I studied my reflection. “But do I need the fake eyelashes? They itch so much that I’ll probably rub them off by the end of the night.”

  “They’re only bothering you because you keep touching them.” Marisa swatted my hand off my face. “You look hot. Doesn’t she, Jake?”

  “You look beautiful,” he said, and I blushed, even though I felt silly with the layers of makeup on my face. “The perfect angel for my vampire.”

  “Thank you,” I said, standing to examine my outfit. I’d found the white gown in my mom’s closet a few weeks ago, and it fit perfectly. After finding the fluffy halo and wings at a Halloween store, I knew it would make a fantastic costume.

  It would be like my mom was with me tonight—or at least like she was watching over me.

  “You should take those off.” Marisa pointed to the stack of bracelets on my wrist. “They clash with your outfit.”

  “No.” I placed my hand over the bracelets, protecting them. “I’m keeping them on.”

  “Fine.” She sighed. “But don’t say I never gave you good advice.”

  I rolled my eyes at her dramatics. “Now, are you both ready for the hundreds of pictures my dad will take before we leave?”

  “Ready as ever.” Jake swooshed his cape and motioned to the door. “After you.”

  Eric and my dad were already downstairs when we got there, and my dad had his huge camera ready.

  He and Mom always documented as many moments as possible. After the accident, he increased the number of pictures he took. He didn’t want to risk forgetting a single moment.

  “Gather together and smile!” he said, looking through the lens and snapping a ton of pictures in a row.