So Over It

by Stephanie Morrill

  I let myself out the door without saying good-bye.

  When I entered my house through the garage door, it was clear Mom and Dad hadn’t heard me arrive.

  “That’s not what this is about,” Mom said. It sounded like they stood in the kitchen. “Why do all our arguments turn into you concluding that?”

  “I think it’s a valid point.”

  “It’s not a valid point. Especially because I’m telling you that’s not my issue with you working late.”

  “And I hear what you’re saying, but—” Dad spotted me and put on a smile. “Oh, hi, honey. How was Heather’s?”

  “Fine.”

  Mom turned, her smile forced as well. “You make much progress on the dress?”

  “Some.”

  Then we all just stood there.

  “Well, I’m gonna go upstairs.” I turned and left them to finish their argument in privacy.

  That gnawing feeling had returned, that my parents couldn’t make it work. That the path they’d started on last fall, when Mom left and started pursuing divorce, would eventually manifest itself.

  I didn’t doubt Mom and Dad wanted to reconcile. They’d been going to counseling and seemed to be controlling each of their vices pretty well—Dad’s hours at the office and Mom’s overspending. But I continued to feel as though the other shoe would soon drop. That once again Mom would split, Dad would pretend it was normal, and Abbie would close herself off. Once again I’d be left to piece the Hoyt family back together.

  As I entered the hallway, I heard crying. Not Owen’s scratchy cry, but Abbie’s heart-wrenching sobs.

  I crept into our bathroom and peeked through the gap between the door and the wall. Abbie knelt beside her bed, beautiful red hair streaming into her face, blocking my view. Her narrow frame shook, and she looked so much like a child. How had she possibly given birth just a few months ago? In the corner of her room, Owen snoozed in his bouncy seat, blissfully ignorant of his mother’s emotional state.

  “Please, God, help me,” Abbie choked out. “I don’t know how to get over Chris. I don’t know how to balance school. I don’t know how to do anything. I’d swear you said you wanted me to raise Owen. Please show me how. Please make me stronger. Make me better.”

  I backed away from the door, restoring Abbie’s privacy. She didn’t need me. She was in good hands.

  19

  “That’s the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen.”

  I smiled at Connor, who’d materialized behind me. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

  “What is that?” Connor leaned over my shoulder to look at the screen of my laptop.

  “It’s freaking awesome, is what it is,” I said, turning back to the picture of a Claire McCardell pattern. “Think I could pull it off?”

  “Why would you want to?”

  I frowned. “Easy, okay? Be nice to Claire.”

  “What’s with the bow on the butt?”

  “I wouldn’t make it with the bow. Or not one that full, anyway.” I enlarged the image. “I don’t know what kind of fabric she intended. I was thinking polished cotton. Wouldn’t it be perfect for Heather’s wedding?”

  “I don’t know.” He squinted at the photo. “What year’s she getting married in?”

  I grinned. “Hopefully 1957.”

  “You’re gonna look like one of those old-timey housewives.” “I won’t. You’ll see.” I clicked to add the pattern to my shopping cart. “Just a sec and I’ll be ready to go.”

  “Take your time.” He stretched out on my floor. “Your carpet smells nice. Mine smells like dog.”

  “Cevin’s a nice-smelling dog, though.”

  “Not this morning. He got in the garbage. Mom was livid.”

  I smiled as I typed in my credit card info. “I can’t imagine that.”

  “It happens.” His stomach growled. “I know I said to take your time, but—”

  “Thirty more seconds.”

  “You and Heather make up yet?”

  I hadn’t told Connor what Heather and I fought about yesterday, just that we had. “Not yet. Hopefully by her bridal shower.”

  “When’s that?”

  “Next Saturday.”

  “Tomorrow?”

  “No, next Saturday.” I closed the lid of my laptop. “If I’d meant tomorrow, I’d have said tomorrow.”

  “But tomorrow is the next Saturday.”

  I sighed. “Wanna go to dinner by yourself?”

  “You know you don’t mean that.” He stretched up his hand, and I tugged him off the floor.

  “Oof,” I said as he stumbled into me. “Graceful.”

  “Why, thank you.” His hands pressed into the angles of my hipbones as he steadied himself. Our gazes met, and I had one of those moments. I knew I was a girl, he was a boy, and we were standing in an empty house.

  “Don’t take this the wrong way,” he said, “but we should leave.”

  I smiled. “You read my mind.”

  After a swift kiss, Connor took my hand and we headed out the door.

  “So I need you to answer something for me,” Connor said as we perused the dinner options at Houlihan’s.

  “Hmm?”

  “Why are you struggling so much with what to major in?”

  I bristled. He knew how much I hated this topic. “Lots of people struggle with what to major in. You don’t know.”

  “That’s because I’ve got no obvious talents.”

  “Are you kidding me? You’re so artistic! That sketch you made of—”

  He halted me by holding up a hand. “I don’t want to debate that. I want to talk about why you’re not pursuing design, or fashion, or whatever you want to call it.”

  “Don’t even want to wait until we place our order, huh?”

  He smiled. “It’s not that hard of a question. Come on, now. Straight answer.”

  “Straight answer?” I shrugged. “It just doesn’t seem like the right thing to do with my life, you know? I mean—fashion. How pointless is that?”

  “I think you’re looking at this all wrong,” Connor said, leaning forward. “It’s not that—”

  “Hey, guys.”

  I looked up to find Eli towering over us, his arm around the same cute blonde girl I’d seen in the truck.

  “Hi,” I said.

  “You guys know Marin?”

  We shook our heads.

  “This is Marin. Marin, Connor and Skylar.”

  She barely glanced at Connor, just zeroed in on me. Her eyes narrowed slightly with her assessment.

  “Hi,” I said.

  “Hey,” she said, her word a mere wisp.

  The waiter appeared with Connor’s and my drinks. He glanced at Eli and Marin. “What can I get you two?”

  I opened my mouth to explain they weren’t with us.

  Eli slid into my side of the booth. “I’ll have a Coke. What about you, Marin?”

  I turned round eyes to Connor—had our date just been hijacked?

  “Water,” Marin said. She perched on the booth next to Connor, looking totally uncomfortable. All of us did except Eli and the waiter.

  He placed the drinks on the table. “Be right back.”

  “Dr Pepper?” Eli asked, winking at me.

  “Uh, yeah.”

  “That’s our girl, huh?” Eli said to Connor, his smile big and fake. He stretched his arms along the back of the booth. He didn’t touch me, but still. Weird.

  “Could you move your arm, please?”

  “Right. Sorry.” He flashed Connor another smile. Dimples, crinkled eyes, the whole charming package. “Haven’t seen you for a while, man. What you been up to? Besides stealing my girl, that is. For the second time.” He punctuated this with a big, hollow laugh.

  A twentysomething couple at a nearby table glanced our way. I wanted to crawl under the table and slither out of the restaurant.

  “I’m not even sure I should let Marin sit over there with you,” Eli said. “I might leave the restaurant with no one.
”

  Connor took a deep breath but didn’t say anything, just looked at me. He seemed as dumbfounded as I was.

  “Maybe you two should sit at another table,” I said.

  Eli turned to me, his eyes round. “Why?” He said it big and breathy. I hoped to smell alcohol—an explanation—but didn’t.

  “This is really awkward.” I glanced at Connor and Marin. “I think everyone would be more comfortable if—”

  “If we just didn’t talk about what’s going on?” Eli said. “That’s your philosophy for everything, isn’t it, Skylar? Don’t talk about it. Don’t tell anyone.”

  “Look, man—”

  Eli shot Connor a look that shut him up. “Don’t even start with me. Has Skylar told you what it was like with her and me this spring?”

  The twentysomething couple looked our way again.

  “If you’re going to keep talking, will you at least lower your voice?” I asked.

  “Eli, let’s go to another table,” Marin said. Her face bloomed crimson. She was probably very nice, and Eli was blowing it with her over some stupid vendetta.

  Eli ignored her. “You could’ve called me from Hawaii, you know.” His blue eyes accused me. “But you just got out of the Land Rover and left. With him.”

  “Look, I’m sorry I didn’t say good-bye. That was a rotten thing to do. But—”

  “But you don’t care about me. Right?” Eli smirked. “Just like you’ve never cared about me. Not this spring. Not when we were dating. And not last summer when you’d been flirting with me all day at the pool, only to go to Jodi’s party, where you practically threw yourself at that preppy—”

  “That’s enough.” I looked across the table and saw that Marin had been smart enough to leave during Eli’s tirade. “If you’re not gonna go, we will.”

  I thought Eli would put up a fuss, but he slid out of the booth. “Fine. Go. But you know next time Connor screws up and starts kissing girls who aren’t his girlfriend, I’m not gonna be around for you to rebound with.”

  “I can only hope,” I said as I stood. Connor stalled my triumphant march out of there by throwing down cash for our untouched drinks. So not the time for his conscience. But it gave me time to say, “You used to be a real nice guy, Eli.”

  He swallowed. “I’m a sore loser.”

  How sore?

  “Best of luck, Connor,” Eli called after us, his voice jovial. “She gets bored easy.”

  “I didn’t throw myself.”

  Connor glanced at me. “What?”

  We’d been silent since we left the restaurant, both of us isolated in our own minds. I hated to consider what he might be thinking.

  “Eli said I was throwing myself at Aaron that night. I wasn’t.”

  Connor nodded, appearing to ponder this. “How do you know?”

  If he’d said it to tick me off, it worked. “How do I know?” I demanded. “Because it’s not something I do. Ever.”

  He shrugged. “You were drinking a lot. You’d possibly been drugged. How do you know how you acted?”

  “Is this your way of comforting me? Because I gotta tell you—it stinks.”

  We’d stopped at a red light, and Connor turned to me. “Do you need comforting?”

  “My ex-boyfriend just made a scene at a decently nice restaurant. I could use a little comforting. And the light’s green.”

  Connor punched the accelerator and the SUV jumped forward. “You handled yourself so well in there. I didn’t think you needed to be comforted.”

  I crossed my arms over my chest. I needed Connor to tell me that what he’d witnessed back at Houlihan’s, the stuff he’d heard Eli say, hadn’t changed his mind about me. That he still wanted us to be together.

  Unfortunately, he couldn’t read my mind and remained silent.

  “Where are you going?” I asked as Connor turned into a random parking garage.

  “We need to talk.”

  “In here? It’s creepy.”

  “Well, where do you want to go?”

  “I don’t know. What do you want to talk about?”

  He gave me a semi-exasperated look. “I want to talk about that night.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it! I’ve told you that, like, a thousand times!”

  “I think you need to,” Connor said, keeping his voice steady even though I’d screeched.

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m wondering if Eli told you the truth about what happened or if he’s making it up.”

  “Making it up? What would he be making up? Why would he make something up?”

  “Were you at the same table as me tonight?” Connor asked. “He said it right to your face—he’s a sore loser. And the night of Jodi’s party, it sounds like he thought he lost.”

  “I wasn’t his to lose.”

  “I don’t think he saw it that way.”

  I swallowed and turned my back to him. Eli had been right—I’d been flirting with him that day. In four days, it would be exactly a year since the day of Jodi’s party. We’d been at the pool, baking in the sun. I’d leaned too close to Eli when I talked, brushed against him whenever I could. It sickened me to think of it now, my silly mind games. What would Connor think if he knew? Good-bye, happy, healthy relationship.

  “I don’t want to talk about this,” I said. “I don’t know how else to say that to you.”

  “I know you don’t, and I get it, but your entire truth of that night is based on stuff Eli told you. And after what I just witnessed, I don’t know if he’s the most credible source.”

  “Don’t say that.” I couldn’t believe how menacing my voice sounded. “I know he’s not your favorite guy in the world—he’s not mine either—but he rescued me that night.”

  “Here’s what I can’t figure out—”

  “What part of ‘I don’t want to talk about it’ do you not get?”

  “—if he saw Aaron put something in your drink, why didn’t he do something right away? Why wait until you were already up in the bedroom?”

  I remembered Eli lifting me off the bed like I weighed nothing, his voice warm in my ear as he told me I’d be okay. And I had been, because he carried me out of there and kept me safe.

  “Take me home,” I said in a flat voice. “I have nothing else to say to you.”

  20

  When my stomach growled a couple hours later, I realized I’d never actually eaten dinner that night.

  “I’m starving,” I said to Abbie. “You want anything?”

  Her eyes never left the Lifetime Original Movie. “Nah.”

  As I dished myself leftover Pad Thai, Abbie called to me, “I thought you and Connor went to dinner.”

  “We didn’t stay. Eli was there.”

  “Is that what you fought about?”

  I hesitated. “Who said we fought about anything?”

  She snorted. “Please. You stormed through the door hours before curfew with your face all scrunchy. How stupid do you think I am?”

  I didn’t answer, just stared at my plate of food spinning in the microwave.

  When I turned around, Abbie stood in the kitchen as well. She opened the freezer.

  “I thought you weren’t hungry,” I said.

  “I’m not.” She pulled out a half gallon of mint chocolate chip. “But it’s the first Friday night I’ve got my driver’s license, and I’m at home.” She grabbed a spoon. “I’m eating till I hit cardboard.”

  “Go for it.”

  We both padded back into the living room, where Mom forbade us to eat. We did it anyway when she was out. Tonight she and Dad had gone to a black-tie fund-raiser of some kind. Or maybe that was tomorrow night and tonight they’d gone to a movie. I couldn’t keep track.

  “How lame is it that our parents have more of a social life than us?” I said.

  “Totally.” Abbie sighed. “You could, though. At least you’ve got a boyfriend.”

  I thought of how I’d seen Abbie yesterday, crouched beside her bed,
begging God to help her get over Chris.

  “You want to talk about Chris yet?” I asked.

  She seemed surprised by the question. “Is there something to talk about?”

  I shrugged. “We haven’t discussed it much. I just thought you might want to.”

  “Nope.”

  “O-kay.”

  Abbie rolled her big, cinnamon eyes. “Don’t do that.”

  “What?”

  “Say ‘okay’ like that. Like you think I’m holding out on you.”

  “You’re not?”

  “No.”

  “Abbie. You told Chris you loved him and he broke up with you. But you don’t want to talk?”

  “No.”

  “You’re not upset?”

  She laughed. “Like I said, I was really just surprised it didn’t happen sooner. Guys like Chris don’t date girls like me.”

  Her words wounded me. As if girls like us didn’t stand a chance with nice guys. “You’re not who you were back then.”

  When she took a breath, it wobbled. “She’s still part of me.”

  Justin’s face came to mind, his hurt expression as he accused me of using him. “I understand.”

  I woke up Saturday morning with that feeling in my stomach like I’d done something really, really wrong. It came back in a flood of anger and hurt—Eli showing up at Houlihan’s, Connor’s insistence on us talking about what happened a year ago. Almost exactly a year ago.

  All night, I’d pushed Connor’s phone calls into voice mail. I hadn’t wanted to deal with him, but in the light of the morning, I could see how he’d been doing what he thought would help. How he wanted what was best for me.

  I quietly buzzed through my morning routine—a shower, blow-drying my hair, fifteen minutes of choosing and changing my outfit, followed by three minutes of makeup. Then I snuck downstairs to the kitchen for a quick bite to silence my rumbling stomach.

  “You’re up early,” Dad called from his office.

  I jumped. “You scared me.”

  “I gathered.” He maneuvered from behind his desk, through the open French doors, to the kitchen. “Where you off to?”

  “The Rosses’.”

  Dad frowned at the clock. “At eight?”