by T. Torrest
In other words, with one spiteful comment, I’d managed to completely emasculate him.
It wasn’t exactly what I’d set out to accomplish- ripping him to shreds while simultaneously giving the impression that I was some sort of pent-up slut- and I realized for the first time how powerful the weapon of words could be. When you’re popular, people listen.
Believe me, it wasn’t a pleasant revelation.
Trip was uncharacteristically quiet after that, but after what I’d just done to him, what did I expect? I’d felt justified at the time, but I started to feel awful about tearing him down. Technically, Trip was still “The New Kid”, coming to some strange town with all new people, trying to fit in, and there I was, treating him like a pariah at the cool kids’ table. The pang of guilt ate away at me as I gnawed at my bottom lip through a fake smile.
When the bell rang, Trip followed on my heels across the hall, but I pretended not to notice. Just as I went to grab my books, he stepped in front of my open locker. He put his hand on my arm, did a quick scan to make sure we weren’t being watched and leaned in to ask under his breath, “What the hell was that in there?”
I was trying to recover from the bolt of electricity that was running through me at the nearness of him, but I managed an innocent, “What the hell was what?” as I shook off his hand and squatted down to retrieve my books.
Trip stood to the side, allowing me access to my locker, which I was pawing through with abandon. “Come on, Layla. You know what. Why are you treating me like I’m some piece of garbage all of a sudden? Did I do something?”
Ha!
I shrugged off his question and said evasively to his knee, “Trip, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m just trying to get to class right now, okay?”
I stood up to leave, but he slapped a hand up on the wall next to my head, obstructing my path. I clutched my books to my chest as he backed me against the lockers, blocking my escape. His eyes were shooting icicles as he spat out, “Oh, really? You have no idea what I’m talking about? That’s just an ordinary day for you, then, huh. Hanging all over Coop Benedict, treating me like a disease... Obviously, you’re pissed about something.”
My heart was beating like crazy, having him that close. His arm braced on the wall next to my head, the entire length of his body just inches from mine, from the tips of our noses right down to our knees. Kids were shoving their way through the halls, bumping into Trip’s back every few seconds, pushing him even closer against me, his chest pressing against my book-laden arms in waves. My eyes were shooting up and down the corridor, trying to look anywhere but at his face, not an easy task considering it was only two inches away from my own. “Why would I be pissed?” I said like the fraud that I was.
“I don’t know, Lay. Why don’t you tell me?”
He looked so broken, so legitimately hurt, but I was determined not to get sucked in. All I wanted was to tear into him, make him explain what he put me through over the weekend, lay everything out on the table. But what would be the point? The only thing I could hope to accomplish would be to force Trip to say out loud what I’d already learned to be true: If I was in love with him, that was my problem to deal with. I didn’t think I could bear hearing him say outright that he didn’t feel the same.
I guess he took my silence for stubbornness, because the next thing I knew, he pushed off the wall and threw his hands up in the air. “Fine. You want to play games, go right ahead. I don’t have time for this. You want to talk, you know how to find me.” At that, he stormed off, throwing a punch at a random locker mid-stride on his way down the hall.
Chapter 19
DISTURBED
I’d spent the next few days after our big blowout retreating away from Trip. Not that I had to work very hard to do so; He had pretty much made it a point to avoid me, too.
The tension between he and I during that time was a tangible thing; a thick, heavy, syrupy smog that hung like a wet wool blanket in the air between us. But soon enough, we fell into a new normal; keeping things civil, simply pretending that our prior relationship never existed. It panged my heart sometimes, not having him there to joke around with or talk to, but I knew I needed to suffer the detox first before I could even begin to look forward to any sort of rehab later.
English Lit class- previously the highlight of my day- became so awkward and stressful that I would spend more of my class time concentrating on not thinking of the person sitting behind me than paying attention to the lessons being disseminated.
Then there was my job. As excruciating as it would have been to face work had he been there, it was even worse to face it while he wasn’t. The job went back to being the same sucky chore that it was the first week I started. Without Trip, it ceased to be fun anymore, regardless of the fact that we were hardly speaking. Add to that the fact that Martin had hired some thirty-year-old degenerate as Trip’s replacement who spent more time getting high in the parking lot and trying to sneak a peek down my blouse than actually doing any work. Thankfully, I only had to deal with Dirtbag Ray on Mondays and Thursdays.
The weekends were their own train wreck.
Lisa and Pickford were practically inseparable and therefore MIA at that point, leaving me to hit every party alone, or worse yet, with Coop, the poor guy roped unknowingly into my drama. I supposed I was only reaping what I had sown, but it was torture not only to have to look at a misled Coop every day, but to see Trip stroll through the door with a new girl on his arm every night. A circumstance made more agonizing by the revelation that he’d obviously not been exclusive with Tess Valletti for quite some time.
The first Friday, it was Barbara Vlajnik, whose reputation was less than pristine. I watched her sidle up against him throughout the evening at Rymer’s, but was able to take some perverted sense of pride out of the fact that he barely even looked in her direction all night.
But then just twenty-four hours later, he showed up at The Barrens with Margie Caputo, where he proceeded to down about three hundred beers before nuzzling his lips against her neck and trying to shove his hand up the front of her sweater in full view of everyone sitting around the fire. Thankfully, Margie hadn’t been so receptive to his exhibitionism, but we did all hear her try to talk him into the woods for a more private session instead. Soon after, they got up to take their leave- in Margie’s car, however- where I heard later that she’d brought him home only to watch as he promptly passed out two steps inside the foyer.
The following weekend, Pickford and Penelope had a party at their house. Pick was going through a bit of a defiant phase toward his father and what better way to rebel than by defiling the old man’s condo?
Trip came staggering through the door of The Redys’ with a bottle of Jaegermeister in one hand and some skank from Norman Valley in the other. Lord only knows where he picked that one up. She was even more drunk than he was, taking digs at any girl within earshot about being “nuns in training” while she hung all over Trip, downing shots of booze straight from the bottle.
When I couldn’t watch another minute, I asked Coop to drive me home. On the way out the door, Trip shouted at my back in the most awful voice, “Have a good time, you two!” Then out of nowhere, the skank decided to chime in by saying, “Hell knows we sure will!” before drooping a bony arm around Trip’s neck and adding, “Right, baby?”
They both enjoyed a good laugh at that.
It was enough to turn my stomach.
My mind kept seeing that filthy waif hanging all over him, contaminating him with her skank spores. Even worse was the fact that Coop assumed I pushed to leave the party early because I wanted to be alone with him, leading to a very distracted makeout session in the back seat of his car. And no, the hypocrisy was not lost on me that I was unable to put my heart into making out with Coop while my mind was consumed with thoughts of Trip hooking up with someone else. But I knew I was only dating Cooper because I’d cornered myself into it, not because I had any desire to actually be with him,
selfish witch that I was. Besides, old habits die hard. Being with Coop was easy. It was familiar and constant and held no surprises. Trip, on the other hand, was maintaining his impulsiveness. He seemed to genuinely be enjoying all the attention he was receiving from his multitude of clingers and the thought ate away at me that he might actually fall in love with one of them.
Lisa informed me the next day that Pickford had sent the skank home in a cab once he realized that Trip was about to pass out- right in the middle of the entire party. Apparently, he spent the night on the Redys’ couch but snuck out early the next morning. Pickford woke up to a twenty tacked to his bedroom door, where Trip had simply scribbled “Thanks. Sorry.” across the front of the bill.
There was a huge part of me that was relieved to hear that nothing happened between him and the skank, but there was this irritating other part of me that wanted nothing more than to pick up the phone and call him. I hated the idea that he was headed down this self-destructive path and wanted to stop him before the Keith Richards impersonation went too far, mostly because there was a tiny little fragment of my brain- a miniscule, infinitesimal speck- that felt the need to take responsibility for kicking him down that road in the first place.
I managed to resist the urge, however, and by the time Christmas break rolled around, it had become much easier to pretend he didn’t even exist.
Or maybe it was just getting easier to lie to myself.
Chapter 20
MISERY
The First Snow is always fun- especially if it lands on a school day- and you can either bundle up and go outside to goof around or curl up next to the fireplace with a mug of hot chocolate and a good book. The snow gets old pretty fast, however, especially when your dad forgets to get the snowblower fixed and has to recruit his kids to help him shovel out the car at six in the morning.
But most of winter is just... grey. Grey and wet and boring. After the excitement of the holidays is over, there’s nothing left to do but watch your Christmas tree die as you stare at the walls in your house every night. Then there are the months of hibernation, no parties to go to because nobody bothers to throw one. It’s not worth the risk of driving icy roads at night and everyone has Seasonal Affective Disorder anyway, so it’s not as though my calendar was filled with an excess of socializing opportunities.
In other words, I hardly had to put any effort into avoiding Trip over the winter.
Of course I had to see him at school every day, but pretending he wasn’t there had become almost as habitual as breathing by then. Hockey kept him pretty busy, so he wasn’t able to make too many appearances on the rare occasions when there actually was a party or something going on, and I wasn’t sure if his absence made the situation easier or harder to deal with. At least when we were ignoring each other, we’d have to be in the same room in order to do so, consciously aware of the other person at every moment. In a sick way, it allowed me to still think him a part of my life, even though the relationship- or lack thereof- was in tatters.
When he wasn’t around at all, I couldn’t keep tabs on him.
I knew I shouldn’t have cared and scolded myself for being pathetic all over again. But at least this version of pathetic was a far cry from the old one, as I was the only one to be aware of it. The tradeoff being that at least my misery was known only to me this time.
Lisa was the only one who knew me well enough not to buy into my act at nonchalance, but she also knew I wouldn’t have been very receptive to her input on the matter. I’m sure she figured she’d already said enough on the subject of Trip Wilmington and to tell the truth, I’d have been inclined to agree. It’s not that I harbored any bad vibes toward my best friend, but she was the one responsible for kicking this little birdie out of the nest a tad prematurely. Rather than be there to help pick me up after my fall, she just went on with her perfect life as if the matter was over and done with.
Maybe that’s being a bit too harsh. Nobody has a perfect life and it’s not like Lisa left me completely flat. I’d made it a point to put up the front that nothing was wrong anyway. I guess I just found so many things about her to be jealous about and I was feeling more than a little left behind. After all, she was Miss Popularity. She was the one with the great boyfriend.
She was the one who had a mother.
In addition to Christmas and Valentine’s Day, my mother’s birthday was in January, making winter even more unbearable. Dad, Bruce and I had gotten in the habit of “uncelebrating” the occasion with a pineapple upside-down cake every year. About a week before the actual day, Dad would start compiling the necessary ingredients on the kitchen counter without comment, the shrine of groceries standing sentinel for days until I finally caved and made him his miserable cake. It was an unspoken ritual between the three of us, maybe a downright masochistic one, but one we honored nonetheless. Like the swallows returning to Capistrano every spring, we all knew that my mother’s birthday was rolling around the corner when the cans of Dole found their way back to our kitchen. As if we could forget.
Lisa knew that January was always pretty tough for me. Aside from July, it was the only other time of year when I relied a little heavier than usual on my surrogate mother, a woman who lived three houses down and went by the name of Stephanie DeSanto. Having Lisa off spending every minute with her boyfriend, she was depriving me of my much-needed quality time with her mom. I missed hanging out at the DeSantos’, having Mrs. D say things like, “There are my girls!” whenever Lisa and I came walking through the door.
I hated myself for feeling so selfish about everything, but once Lisa’s virginity status had finally been relegated to the history books, it was as though she and I were officially living on different planets. There she was, relaying this Big News and all I could think about was how it affected me. Thankfully, I shut up about it and she was able to remain unaware of my self-centeredness in regards to her life. I could have done without hearing all the intricate details of their every coupling, however, but maybe I would have felt that way regardless. I’d never really been the kind of girl who was ever comfortable discussing such intimate events in such excruciating detail.
Or maybe it was just that I didn’t have any intimate details to discuss.
I went out on a handful of dates with Cooper, but again, we found ourselves just kind of going through the motions. We were both aware that there wasn’t some storybook, fairytale ending awaiting the two of us and managed to strike a mutual, unspoken agreement about our romantic status. Basically, we liked each other a lot, and since neither one of us was dating anyone else, we decided to kill some time together.
Cooper was a huge help to me over those months, even if he wasn’t completely aware of it at the time. It was comforting to have a friend- a great-looking, charming friend- there to keep me from slipping down into a depressed, winter funk. Just the idea that an awesome guy like Cooper Benedict sought my company was enough to bolster my confidence.
Normally, after work on Friday nights, I’d bring a movie home, he’d come over and we’d stay in to watch it. Sometimes, we’d fool around a little, but only if the movie sucked so badly that it couldn’t hold our attentions.
When I finally figured I’d saved enough money for a car, it was Coop who took me from lot to lot, helping me do my homework and kicking the tires of every used car in the Northern New Jersey area. By the time we narrowed it down to two different front-runners, Dad stepped in to make sure I wasn’t being taken to the cleaners. I felt pretty proud that he’d stamped his approval on both cars, saying that I’d done good and was free to make my own choice between the two.
The first car was a Ford Mustang. It was candy-apple red, which was a little flashy for my taste, but it was also a convertible, which was a major check in the pro column. And each time I slipped behind the wheel, something just felt right. I loved the exhilarating grumble of the engine and the way I felt about myself when I had taken it out for a test drive. It would, however, also have sapped my entire budget,
barely leaving me with enough scratch afterwards to buy a tank of gas. Plus, the leather seats had seen better days, the upholstery cracked all over and ripped clean through in a couple spots. I’d definitely have to use my next paycheck to invest in a couple seat covers.
Therefore, I’d been leaning heavily toward the Ford Taurus. Don’t be fooled into thinking it was boring and dull. It was a really good car with low mileage and under my budget, allowing me to hang onto a nice chunk of my hard-earned cash. It was black, too, which made it look a little cooler than if it was Grandma Blue or something like that. I liked it. It was a good, solid, dependable car.
I had worked for months at a job I could barely tolerate, socking away enough money for a car of my own. I’d kept a lid on any frivolous spending just for the opportunity to be in that position, the one I’d dreamt about forever. Obviously, I wasn’t planning to take the decision lightly.
All in all, I thought the Mustang was an excellent choice.
Chapter 21
STEPPING OUT
Spring came without fanfare at first, just a steady thaw of frozen earth, softening just enough to let the first crocus peek through and for a few birds to return to the neighborhood.
A few days after that, we were blessed with The First Nice Day.
There’s nothing quite like The First Nice Day in Jersey. It’s like we’ve all been released from cages or something, everyone jumping the gun on those opening rays of sunshine by wearing sunglasses and driving around with their windows down. I had taken advantage of my new convertible that day, taking the top down to drive around in barely sixty-five degree weather while pretending I wasn’t freezing my face off. Everyone’s music got played a little louder and their spirits got raised a little higher.
My spirits had certainly been raised; I’d received a few acceptance letters to some really good colleges- Swarthmore, Amherst... Dad’s beloved Northwestern. I’d jokingly applied to Harvard purely as a shot in the dark, so there was no big surprise when I found out I’d been rejected.
