“Hey, watch it!” he growled.
I ignored him, squeezing in closer to the counter. My stomach turned and horror rose in my chest. I saw what was written beneath Carly’s name: Will the cow give Ethan a ride?
Across from each guy’s name and dollar amount, a prediction was made. How far could Ethan get Carly to go?
Dave—$500.—Kiss and run (for your life!)
Chris—$500.—Naked, above the belt
Ethan—$750.—All the way, baby, with her tent-size underwear balled up on the floor
The list went on and on.
I stood there frozen, trying to comprehend such cruelty.
Just then, I saw the bathroom door open down the hall and Carly emerged, rosy and smiling. I felt the air stir in the kitchen as all the guys noticed her too.
“It’s go time,” I heard someone say.
A blur of Owen’s navy shirt swirled past me.
My heart was beating so fast I was sure it was popping in and out of my chest like in a cartoon. I looked over at Owen. He was staring in Carly’s direction, patting Ethan on the shoulder.
Ethan grabbed a cup. “Better fill this up,” he said.
“Maybe not, dude.” Aidan laughed. “She might just be willing.”
Ethan shuddered. “I meant for me. I need the drink, moron.”
They laughed.
I scanned the room, frantically searching for Lindsey. I spotted her talking to a girl from her homeroom. I pushed through the circle of guys toward her. Owen grabbed my arm, but I pushed his hand away, darting toward Lindsey.
Andi chased after me. “Em, it’s just a joke.”
I whipped around to face her. “A joke?” I said, my voice rising.
“Shhh,” Andi said, holding her manicured finger up to her mouth.
I stared at her in disbelief. “You think this is funny?”
Lindsey came over. “Hey, what’s going on?” she asked, eyes darting back and forth between me and Andi.
“They,” I said, pointing toward the guys. “They are getting ready to humiliate Carly.”
Andi was quiet, looking across the room toward Aidan.
I grabbed Lindsey’s hand and pulled her across the room to the bet board.
She stood there, jaw dropped. “Oh my God,” she whispered. “We have to get Carly out of here.”
Our eyes shot back toward the living room. Carly was attempting to walk into the kitchen but was stuck behind the kissing couple who had migrated from the front door.
I turned toward Andi.
She looked over toward Aidan, then back toward us.
I raised my eyebrows as if to say, Are you coming?
But she didn’t move.
So Lindsey and I turned and left Andi standing in the kitchen. We shoved our way into the living room.
“Quick,” I said. “Whip up some tears.”
“Huh?” Lindsey asked.
“Just do it!” I commanded as we pushed the slobbering couple out of the way.
Carly saw us and lit up. “I was wondering where you guys were!”
I grabbed Carly’s arm and spun her around, away from the kitchen. “We’ve gotta go.”
“What?” Carly said, dumbfounded. “But we just got here.”
I jabbed Lindsey. She sniffled.
“Crisis,” I whispered. “Lindsey just saw her boyfriend kissing another girl.”
“You have a boyfriend?” Carly asked Lindsey.
“Um—well,” Lindsey stammered.
I yanked both of their arms toward the door. “COME ON!”
I know I heard footsteps approaching. I know I heard protests from the kitchen. I know I heard Owen calling my name. But I didn’t stop. I opened the apartment door, propped it with my foot, and pushed Carly and Lindsey out into the hallway.
“Um, maybe I should just say goodbye to Ethan,” Carly said. “He doesn’t even know that I came.”
Lindsey flared her nostrils, wrinkled her forehead, and quivered her lip. “I can’t believe that jerk! And he just told me he loved me!” She let her head fall into her hands. “Ooh, I thought I loved him!”
Carly patted her back but looked longingly at the door.
“Tell you what,” I said. “I’ll run inside and tell Ethan what happened and that we have to go. Okay? You stay here with Lindsey; I really don’t want her to be alone.”
“Ooooooooh. Aaaaaah,” Lindsey wailed into her hands.
I opened the door a sliver and squeezed in, not wanting Carly to get any glimpse of inside. I decided I would find Owen and tell him that I was really upset that he participated in this joke and that we would have to talk about it tomorrow. I started to walk toward the kitchen, then froze.
I saw the back of Owen’s blond hair and his shoulder propped against the wall. With his left hand he twirled the chestnut-colored ponytail of the girl we saw earlier. Her hands were wrapped around his waist. As she threw her head back and laughed, Owen leaned in closer, almost touching her neck with his nose.
I stood there, watching my boyfriend fall all over some other girl. I guess I wasn’t enough, I thought miserably, a well of tears filling my eyes. Then Jolie’s words rang in my ears: To those kind of men, you are replaceable.
I whipped around and walked out the door.
Lindsey and Carly were squatting down on the floor.
“It’s just that . . . I trusted him.” Lindsey fake-sniffled as Carly patted her back.
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s go.”
They got up and we took the elevator downstairs and hailed a cab home.
“WE WISH YOU A MERRY CHRISTMAS, WE WISH YOU A MERRY CHRISTMAS, WE WISH YOU A MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR.” Jolie and Trent were singing at the top of their lungs, dancing around an enormous evergreen whose limbs were bending at the ceiling and protruding into the fireplace.
“Oh, Emily, you scared me,” Jolie said, dropping an ornament onto the carpet.
“Sorry. Hi. Wow, looks like we had a visit from some elves. Is it me or is it still only December 5th?” I said, looking around at the huge, retro colored lights strung across the door frame.
“Don’t knock the spirit, sugar. It’s important to be ahead of the curve with one’s Christmas planning,” Trent said, laying a long string of red beads around my neck.
“Why are you home so early?” Jolie asked while placing a silver ornament on the tree. “I thought this party was going to be huge. Not that I was eavesdropping or anything.”
“Oh, it wasn’t that great,” I said, and took off my coat. I headed to my room to call Georgia, ignoring their questioning expressions.
“Please tell me you’re not locked up in a bathroom, ready to puke again,” Georgia said as soon as she answered the phone.
I opened my mouth and the entire day’s events just spilled out of me, starting with getting ready with Carly and ending with our fake crisis escape route.
“Wow.” That was all Georgia said. And not many things render Georgia speechless.
“I feel like such an idiot,” I said, feeling the tears prick the corners of my eyes.
“Why do you feel like an idiot? Because Owen was hitting on another girl?”
“I just don’t understand. Five minutes earlier he was all over me.” I gurgled on my tears again. “I just thought he might actually like me.”
Georgia sighed.
“And then the bet—the things he wrote—I guess I didn’t know him at all.”
It was quiet for a moment, then Georgia spoke. “Remember that summer when you and I decided we were going to bake a blackberry pie?” She said randomly.
“Uh-huh,” I said, wondering how a pie would relate to my current crisis.
“And remember how my mom kept telling us to wait, that the blackberry trees weren’t ripe yet, but I insisted they looked so plump and juicy?”
“Yeah.”
“And then my mom in her snide little way said that if the deer weren’t eating them yet, we really shouldn’t . . .”
&nb
sp; “Georgia, is there a point to this little trip down memory lane?”
She exhaled with exaggerated annoyance. “Remember how you popped a few blackberries in your mouth?”
“I do.”
“And as much as it pains me to admit my mother was right, just because the berries looked perfect on the outside didn’t mean they were perfect on the inside.”
God, why did Georgia have to be so insightful?
I LAY IN BED later that night, thinking about how Lindsey hadn’t hesitated to abandon the party simply because she wanted to help me protect Carly—someone who Lindsey barely knew. But Andi, on the other hand, torn between her loyalties, ultimately chose her boyfriend. And Carly gave up all chances of romance to comfort Lindsey, a virtual stranger.
How well do we really know anyone?
I had always assumed that Jolie was single and career-minded by choice, not because she repeatedly ended up with the wrong guy. And given Trent’s focus on fashion and flair for drama, I was completely unprepared to see the softer, kinder side of him. Maybe I’d spent my whole life failing to see people as they really were. After all, Mom’s letters and picture revealed a side of her I never thought existed. I spent every day of sixteen years with them, but did I ever really know my parents?
I thought back to the day on the cold, concrete steps of the Metropolitan Museum, lost in my anonymity. Maybe we were all just strangers, I thought, passing each other by but seldom taking the time to truly understand each other.
chapter twenty-nine
THE REVENGE OF MY MOUTH returned the next morning.
I glanced over at my unused night guard lying on the dresser. I’m such an idiot.
I gently pried my locked jaws open to slide some Advil down the back of my throat, then ambled out into the kitchen.
Jolie was standing in front of a frying pan. She turned toward me with a spatula in her hand. “Look! I’m making a healthy twist on the Egg McMuffin!”
I stared down at the frying eggs, turkey bacon, and fat-free cheese in the pan and at the plate of toasted whole wheat English muffins.
She scooped up the eggs and turkey bacon and cheese and layered them into a sandwich on the muffins.
“I didn’t even break the yolk,” Jolie said triumphantly.
I sat down at the kitchen table. Why did Jolie have to have her first successful attempt in the kitchen on a day I couldn’t open my mouth more than an inch wide? I forced a smile. “Mmmm. Looks great.” I took the heel of my hand and squeezed the sandwich down as flat as a pancake. Yellow egg yolk oozed out the sides of the muffin.
Jolie watched with a crestfallen expression.
I continued as if everything was normal. I broke a tiny sliver of the sandwich, slanted my head to the side, and gently slid the food between my lips. I swear my jaw creaked.
“Okay,” Jolie said abruptly. “What’s going on?”
“What?” I faked ignorance. “This is so delicious.” Too bad my eyes were welling up.
“First you come home from your big party after like ten minutes,” Jolie said. “Then you lock yourself in your room on the phone all night. And now you’re acting all strange and robot-like.”
“No biggie. My jaw is hurting again this morning. Just a little,” I said, trying to act nonchalant.
“Have you been wearing your night guard?”
“Well, most of the time.”
Jolie’s lips straightened into a thin line.
“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “It hasn’t been bothering me at all. I had a bad night. Bad night’s sleep, I mean. I might have ground my teeth a little.”
Jolie stared at me.
“I swear. I—I’m fine,” I stammered.
“Exactly what happened last night that made you stressed enough to grind your teeth again?” Jolie leaned forward on the table, inching closer to me.
“Nothing.”
“Spill!” Jolie commanded.
So I spilled literally and figuratively. “It’s just the kids here are awful,” I started, tears already rolling down my cheeks as I told her all the details of the joke and how Lindsey and I abandoned the party to save Carly from humiliation. Jolie listened without interruption. I purposefully left out any details about Owen, particularly finding him in an embrace with the ponytail girl.
Apparently, Jolie noted his absence. “So, where was Owen while all this was going on?” she inquired.
I reached over and picked up the top bun from the muffin sandwich. I started tearing it into small pieces, avoiding the question.
“He was in on it. The joke,” Jolie surmised.
I picked my eyes up off the muffin and looked into her pale eyes.
“Look,” Jolie said. “God knows I’m not one to preach, but I’ve spent my last day waiting for a sexy Mexican actor to call. I just hate to see you make the same mistakes I’ve made.” She paused, threw her hands up in the air. “I know, you’re sixteen! All I’m going to say is when you lie down with dogs, you get fleas. You know what I mean?”
What?
“What I’m saying is, before you go spending all your time with this guy and his friends, think about the type of person he is. You can tell a lot about someone by the company they keep. And if he wouldn’t flinch about hurting sweet Carly, what makes you think he wouldn’t hurt you?”
I sighed. This I understood.
As if on cue, my cell phone rang. I picked it up from the kitchen counter and glanced at the caller ID. It was Owen. I laid it down on the table, unanswered. Jolie saw his name flash on my screen. She reached over and patted my hand, then gave me a half smile.
After three unanswered phone calls from Owen, when I heard a knock at the door, I assumed it was him. I imagined him distraught, begging for forgiveness.
Emily, I was such a child. A wicked, immature child. Please don’t walk out on me. I can’t LIVE without you.
I would let him grovel. Perhaps I’d invite Jolie to witness his newfound maturity and humility. Of course he had made mistakes. A mistake to hurt Carly, but a bigger mistake to risk losing me. I fluffed my hair and opened the door.
“Hi,” Carly said from behind a fuzzy black scarf. She unwound the wrap and entered. She took off her gloves, unzipped her coat, and placed them on the couch before I could formulate a thought.
“When I got home, I realized I left my shoe bag,” Carly said, then pointed to her black duffel bag tucked into the corner of the living room.
“Oh, right. Of course, sit down.” I went over to the corner and retrieved the bag.
Jolie walked into the living room holding a plate with the uneaten egg sandwich. “Hungry?” she asked Carly. “I made it myself.”
Carly eyed the plate for a moment, then shook her head. “Nah, I’m meeting Trent at the gym in an hour. But it looks really good.”
Jolie beamed, returned to the kitchen, and started washing dishes.
Carly and I sat on the couch in silence for a minute, both of us staring at the sparkling lights on the Christmas tree.
“Wow, I’m pretty sure that wasn’t here last night,” Carly said, gesturing toward the tree.
“Yeah, Trent and Jolie decorated last night.”
Last night. The words hung in the air.
Carly leaned forward, looking toward the kitchen to see if Jolie could see us, then relaxed back into the white leather couch. She cleared her throat. “I know what you did for me.” Her voice cracked. “Last night. I know.”
How could she know? Carly didn’t exactly have many friends. Who did she know well enough to converse with between ten p.m. Friday night and eleven a.m. this morning that could fill her in on all the gory details of the unexecuted joke? I suddenly realized that Carly was crying, her head downcast and hands at her eyes. Should I put my arm around her? What should I say?
“I’m sorry,” I said. No, I hated it when people kept apologizing to me after my parents died. After all my grief counseling, shouldn’t I know how to comfort someone?
“It’s not a
big deal,” I said. Lovely, downplay her feelings. I really suck at this.
I handed Carly a tissue and she dabbed at her eyes.
“Wh-what was I thinking?” she stammered. “That he could actually like me?” She gestured at herself. “Like this?”
I wanted to tell her that I felt the same way about Owen. I wanted to tell her that thirty seconds after I left the party, my boyfriend was on the verge of a hookup with another girl. But I didn’t want to be a topper—one of those people who competes for the worst life.
I took a breath and tried again. “Ethan’s a jackass.”
Carly sniffled.
The water in the kitchen turned off.
Jolie rounded the corner, a look of concern on her face. She came over and sat on the coffee table facing us. “Hey, girl,” she said to Carly. “You’re crying all your mascara off.”
Carly reflexively touched her eyes.
“But I’m pretty sure I’ve got a tube of brown-black lengthening mascara with your name on it.” Jolie pulled her petite legs up onto the glass coffee table and sat cross-legged across from us. She touched Carly’s hand. “I know, honey, it’s so hard when someone crushes you. I’ve spent half my life trying to figure out why someone doesn’t like me or what I could do to makesomeone like me.” She looked toward me. “Your mom—she was amazing. She never let other people’s opinions faze her. She just strove to be herself—be her best. I remember one day I cried to her about a guy who was particularly critical. She asked me, was I looking for happiness with myself or acceptance from others? Because if I spent a lifetime looking for acceptance, I’d never be happy.”
Carly nodded, then turned toward me. “Your mom sounds like she was pretty amazing.”
A lump formed in the back of my throat. “She was.” I sniffed, the anger I’d been carrying around about the apology melting just a little. “She was.”
chapter thirty
I SPENT THE NEXT WEEK avoiding Owen at all costs. Andi and Lindsey helped, even getting passes to take me out to lunch off-campus on Thursday. I just couldn’t deal with talking to him. I wasn’t sure if we’d ever really been a couple at all, if I was right to expect anything better. All I knew was that it hurt to even look at him. So most of the week went by in a blur of tiles as I stared at the hall floors hurrying from class to class, trying to focus for once on schoolwork. The semester was almost over and people were starting to cram for finals anyway.
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