Bella and the One Who Got Away

by Amy Sparling

  And if I’m lucky, I’ll also get to introduce Bella to everyone.

  I get dressed and drive down to the restaurant and meet up with my family. Matt and Dylan fight over who gets to hug me first, and I’m once again reminded of how much I miss them.

  The host takes us to a table, and before we sit down, a man and his teenage son come walking up. “Excuse me,” he says. “I just wanted to say hello really quick. We’re big fans.”

  “Oh, thanks,” I say. Now that the Houston race is here, I’ve been getting recognized in public a lot lately. “Would you like a photo?”

  The guy’s son nods. “That would be amazing.”

  I stand with them and the waitress takes our picture, then I sit down with my family.

  “Sorry,” I say.

  “Are you kidding?” Mom says, eyes gleaming with pride. “That was awesome. I’m so proud of you.”

  “You’re famous!” Dylan says. He slides closer to me in our booth. “You’re my famous big brother.”

  “He’s my famous big brother too,” Matt says with all the jealousy of a five-year-old.

  “There’s enough of me to go around,” I joke.

  Three more people recognize me before our dinner is over, and although I’m kind of annoyed at getting interrupted, my family seems to think it’s awesome. That’s the problem with being on the outside. It seems cool. It looks fun. But when you’re the famous person getting all the attention, it’s a lot different.

  But I don’t say anything about that because I don’t want to ruin the mood. This should be a good weekend. I’m finally a pro racer and I’m back in my hometown. Tomorrow I get to show Houston how much I’ve accomplished so far. And with any luck, Bella will be there to congratulate me after I get a podium finish.

  “So who all is coming tomorrow?” Mom asks while we wait for our dessert.

  “What do you mean?” I ask. “Dad said he’d try to show up.”

  She waves her hand. “I don’t mean him. I mean your other friends.”

  “Your girlfriend,” Dylan supplies for her.

  Mom nods, her lips pressed into a quirky grin.

  My breath catches at the thought of Bella. “I invited a few friends,” I say casually.

  “Is Bella coming? I’d love to see her again. I miss having her around.”

  I reach for a breadstick from the basket in the middle of the table even though I’m not hungry. I shrug. “I invited her, so probably.”

  “Great,” Mom says, beaming. “You should tell her she can still come over and hang out with me when you’re gone. I miss having her around.”

  “Mom, I’m not going to do that,” I say, taking a bite of bread.

  Luckily my step brothers have gotten distracted playing a game on Phil’s phone, so at least the entire family isn’t watching me have this embarrassing talk with my mom.

  “She was just a friend, mom. We’re not dating or anything.”

  “You can say what you want,” Mom says in that Mom voice of hers. “But I know what I saw.”

  With a stroke of luck, our waitress arrives with the desserts everyone ordered. I got the tiramisu, but I’m not exactly hungry anymore. The last thing I want to do is talk about girls with my mom, especially when I’m not sure how that girl in question feels about me.

  Everyone dives into their food, but my mother is not deterred. “I know what I saw when she was here, and you two had feelings for each other. I know she liked you, son. I could tell.”

  I roll my eyes like it’s no big deal, because I would love for someone to believe that, even if I don’t. “Mom, we’re friends. I can’t date anyway with my career, so stop trying to wish for something to happen.”

  “Who says you can’t date?” Mom asks, “Is it in your contract?”

  “No, but—”

  “Then you can date whoever you want,” she says. She stabs her fork into her pie with all the self-importance of someone who just had the final word.

  I’m not really in the mood to keep talking about the girl I’m crazy about with my mother, so I shut up and let her think she’s won.

  Maybe, if things work out tomorrow and Bella does show up, I might actually tell my mom she was right. I’m not a big fan of admitting when I’m wrong, but for Bella, I’d happily be wrong a million times if it meant getting to be with her.

  9

  Bella

  Saturday mornings are usually the busiest day of the week to go ride at my local motocross track. Everyone is off school and work and they want to spend the weekend at the track, which makes it annoying if you want any quality time to ride without people around, taking up space on the dirt. But this Saturday is different.

  There’s a professional race going on in Houston, which is only two hours away. Every year when the races come to Houston, my local motocross track is practically abandoned because all the fans drive in to Houston.

  So it’s eight in the morning and I’m sitting on the edge of my bed debating if I should load up my bike and go ride today. I haven’t been on my dirt bike in at least two weeks. I say it’s because of my college work, but it’s really not. I just can’t enjoy being at the track like I used to because it always makes me think of Liam.

  I should really be over Liam by now.

  If I go ride my bike today, then I know I’ll be thinking of him the entire time since today he’s in Houston racing. I was supposed to be at that race. We had talked about it all summer, about how cool it would be for him to race in his hometown. I was going to go and cheer him on and it would have been a blast…

  …if I hadn’t gone and fallen hard for him. But now with the way things are, there’s no way I can go. No way I can see him in person after weeks of only seeing him through TV and phone screens.

  I’d probably break down and cry right there in the stadium.

  But I have to do something to take my mind off it today. Maybe I won’t go ride. Maybe I’ll go to the craft store and try to find a new hobby.

  There’s a quick knock on my bedroom door.

  “Yes, I want coffee!” I call out as I go to open it. My mom always asks the same question every weekend morning.

  “Oh you’re getting coffee,” a voice that is not my mom’s says back. I swing open my door and my best friend is standing there, all wide eyed, big smiling, and clearly up to something.

  She hands me a piping hot Starbucks cup of blonde roast, and then she does an overly dramatic assessment of my pajamas and messy hair. “This is not going to do.” She takes the coffee back from me. “Go change clothes, and for the love of God, run a brush through your hair.”

  “Mom!” I call out playfully as I snatch the coffee back from my best friend. “Why did you let a lunatic into our house?”

  “She let herself in!” Mom calls back, laughing from the other room.

  I take a sip of coffee and look at Kylie. There’s something off about her. She’s not dressed up in a “trying to snag a hot guy” outfit. Instead she just looks normal. Jean shorts, a white T-shirt with a cat embroidered on the corner pocket, and her hair pulled off to the side with some bobby pins. Her makeup is on point though. It always is.

  “What do you have planned today?” I ask, giving her a suspicious look.

  “Today, we are making a journey for true love,” Kylie says, walking over to my closet and throwing open the double doors.

  “True love?” I say. “How are you going to find true love in one day?”

  She snorts. “Not for me, hun. It’s for you.”

  I roll my eyes. “Okay, that’s even more impossible.”

  She ruffles through my closet and then tosses a blue shirt to me. At my dresser, she pulls open the third drawer and digs through my shorts, finally choosing a pair of white shorts with a cuff at the hem. She tosses them at me too, and I catch them and sit on my bed.

  “We’ll need good walking shoes…” she says, looking between my worn out Chuck Taylors and a pair of Nike trainers. “These,” she says, tossing trainers at me.
”

  “Okay, get dressed. I’m going to go steal some of the cinnamon rolls your mom just baked. Then we’ll hit the road.”

  She leaves, and I’m sitting here on my bed with some coffee and clothes, and I’m not sure if I have the greatest best friend ever, or a really weird one. But she’s already here, and she’s clearly not leaving any time soon, so I go ahead and get dressed in the clothes she picked out. I brush my hair and put on some light makeup.

  When I venture into the kitchen, my mom and Kylie are having a spirited discussion about different brands of hair dye.

  “You ready?” Kylie asks me.

  “I’m still not sure what we’re doing,” I say, reaching for the last cinnamon roll on the plate in the middle of the kitchen table.

  Kylie turns to my mom and gives her a look as if I’m a child who is refusing to eat my vegetables. “I’ll keep your daughter safe,” she says, grinning. “Thanks for letting me steal her for the day.”

  Mom chuckles. “Ya’ll have fun.”

  And just like that, I’m walking outside to Kylie’s car and still have no idea what’s going on.

  “Please tell me you’re not actually trying to make me find true love,” I say as I get into the car.

  “I’m not making you find anything,” she says. She starts the car and backs out of my driveway. The car doors automatically lock, making my stomach twist anxiously. I feel a little trapped. Kylie looks over at me and smiles. “I’m just bringing you to the true love you already have.”

  My heart skips a beat. “Wait. What?”

  Kylie’s smile turns into an evil grin. She nods toward the cupholder in her car. “You’ll thank me later.”

  I reach for the folded paper and unfold it. It’s two printed out tickets to the Houston race.

  “No way.”

  I look up at her and she just grins. “You bought race tickets?” I say, staring at the papers in my hand. “You’re taking me to Houston?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Kylie says. “I’m not an idiot, okay? You love this boy. You’ve loved him all summer, even if you won’t admit it to yourself. As your best friend, I’ve had to sit here and watch you suffer for weeks and it’s just not okay.”

  We pull up to a red light and she looks over at me, her bottom lip frowning. “I love you, Bella, and you deserve your true love.”

  “Liam is not my true love.”

  Kylie gives me a look. “Don’t bother lying to me, Bells. I’m your best friend. I know you just as well as you know yourself, if not better. Because you might be able to lie to yourself, but I see right through it.”

  My bottom lip quivers. I can feel the tears in the back of my eyes but I push them away. “You might be right,” I say softly.

  Kylie’s lips press into a thin smile. “I am definitely right. Now sit back and pick some good music because I’m on a mission here. We’ll be in Houston in two hours and then you can go to your boy. If you want to give me a present to thank me for giving you true love, I accept Sephora gift cards.”

  The NRG stadium is huge, but the parking lot is almost more impressive. There are so many people and so many cars everywhere. You’d think this was Disneyland instead of a motocross race. Kylie and I make our way through the crowds, blending in with the hundreds of motocross fans. It’s a beautiful sunny day here in Houston, and although my nerves had been nearly on fire in the car, I’m actually getting a little excited now that we’re here.

  I grab onto Kylie’s hand. “I just realized I’m going to see Liam.”

  “Duhhhh, best friend. That’s the whole point of this trip.” Kylie’s eyes wander over to a muscular guy walking with a group of his friends. “Man, this sport is filled with hotties. I should get a dirt bike.”

  I laugh. “Just let me find Liam before you run off with another guy.”

  Kylie squeezes my hand. “I’m just playing. Today is about you and true love, not about me. I’ll keep my flirting to myself, I promise.”

  We follow the people toward the front of the stadium. But then we notice there’s actually two entrances. One goes into the stadium, which is where the dirt bike track is and where the races will be tonight. But those doors don’t open until five o’clock.

  “I don’t get it,” Kylie says, looking at me in confusion. “If the doors don’t open yet, how are we supposed to meet the racers beforehand?”

  “The racers are in the pits,” I say, nodding toward the left where everyone is walking over to another area of the facility. “We need pit passes.”

  She rolls her eyes. “I didn’t realize that. Let’s get pit passes.”

  We stand in line for half an hour at the ticket booth, and when we finally get to the front, a bored-looking woman in a polo shirt tells us that pit passes are sold out.

  “Are you kidding me?” Kylie says, pressing her hands flat to the metal counter that separates us from the ticket seller. “I need to get into the pits.”

  “They sold out a while ago,” the woman says. “Maybe you can find someone and buy their pass from them.”

  “Are you sure they’re sold out?” Kylie says. “Is this a situation where I can bribe you and you’ll find some more tickets in the back?”

  The woman laughs a big hearty laugh. “Honey, there isn’t anything back here but the sandwich I brought for lunch. I’m sorry.”

  We walk away from the ticket window and Kylie presses her hands to her forehead and groans. “Why! UGH!”

  She gives me a sad look. “I’m so sorry, Bella. I saw online that we can get here early and meet the racers but I didn’t realize we needed a stupid extra pass.”

  “If you had told me about your crazy plan last night, I could have warned you that you need pit passes,” I say.

  “No, because if I told you, you wouldn’t have agreed to go. This had to be a kidnapping situation, in the name of true love.”

  I roll my eyes. “Maybe this happened for a reason,” I say, gazing at the entrance for the pits. Beyond the gate and the security guards checking for pit passes are dozens of motor homes and busses and tents that are set up for all of the famous motocross racers. There’s energy drink companies and dirt bike companies set up too, often giving out free stuff to promote their brand. I’ve been in the pits before when I was a kid and came to the races, and it was always fun to meet the pros. They sit behind tables and sign posters to give out to their fans. Liam is in there somewhere, so close yet still so far away. We aren’t separated by state lines, or even city lines anymore, and yet I still can’t get to him.

  I look at my best friend, who tried so hard to do something kind for me today. “Maybe this is fate,” I say. “Maybe it’s a sign that Liam and I aren’t meant to be together. Let’s go find something to do in town and we’ll come back for the races.”

  Kylie shakes her head. “Absolutely not. This isn’t fate telling us to give up, Bells.”

  She puts both hands on my cheeks and looks me in the eyes. “This is fate telling us to try harder.”

  10

  Liam

  My eyes are closed and my face is shielded from the sun by the baseball cap I’ve pulled down low, covering most of my forehead. My chin rests on my chest while I lay slouched in this lounge chair underneath the Team Loco canopy. I’m doing a very good impression of someone who is relaxed, and I almost believe it myself. Unfortunately, the nervous fluttering in my chest says otherwise.

  I can smell Avery’s coffee shortly before she starts talking. “Five minutes until the pits open, guys.” She kicks at my foot as she walks by. “Put a shirt on, Liam, this is a family event.”

  “Just working on my tan,” I call back as I sit up and pull my cap back onto the top of my head.

  “More like showing off those abs,” Zach says. “We get it. You have the body of a god.”

  “Everyone here has the body of a god,” Avery says, rolling her eyes as she flits from one end of our pit to the other, getting things ready for the fans. Our Team Loco big rig is parked behind us, and there’s
a large canopy set up to shield us from the sun. A small plastic banner of triangle flags is sectioned off all around the parking lot of the pits, blocking the famous people from the fans. At the front of our perimeter, is a long table with five stacks of posters on it. Avery opens a package of permanent markers and sets a few down by each chair. Soon, the fans will pour in and line up to get autographs. Team Loco works fast. The posters I’m signing today feature a picture of me next to my dirt bike from that photoshoot a couple weeks ago.

  When I was a little kid, getting a pit pass and being able to walk around and meet all the famous riders was the coolest thing I did all year. But now that I’m the rider, I sort of feel like an animal in a zoo. There are a hundred racers here, all from different teams, as well as a few free agent racers who haven’t signed on a team yet. We’re all set up behind these little plastic flag barriers, waiting to say hello and take pictures and sign autographs for the fans. Sure, we can retreat into the Team Loco bus for a few minutes, but I still feel trapped. Like a lion on display.

  Today though, my nerves are all jumbled up for a much different reason. The gates open soon, and the truth will be revealed. Will Bella show up? Or has her silence been her way of letting me know it’s over?

  Nausea rises in my stomach. I can’t bear the thought of sitting here for two hours before the race, meeting fans and seeing my family and friends, and not Bella. I really hope she comes.

  “Shirt, Liam!” Avery calls out. “Six minutes until the fans show up.”

  “Yes, Mom,” I say sarcastically as I jog up the steps to the bus. Inside, the air conditioning is on full blast, and the Team Loco girlfriends are all sitting at the kitchen table. This weekend is one of those rare races where all the guys’ girlfriends were able to come. Keanna lives in Texas, so it was a no brainer, and Jenn is taking a sabbatical from her physical therapy training for whatever reason, I can’t remember. Bree is here too, because Zach surprised her with a plane ticket for their anniversary.