I’m relieved when my bedroom door swings open and Avery marches in.
“It’s called knocking,” I tell her. I try to sound cross, but I’m happy for an excuse not to think about the tangled mess of Harris and Seb.
“Whatever.” She throws herself onto my bed, burying her face in my comforter.
Me: I g2g
Harris: you’re kidding, right?
Me: I’m sorry!
Me: Family stuff
Me: I promise we’ll talk about this later
Harris: ok
I don’t know how to say good-bye to him now that we’re in this new, weird stage of our relationship. Do I send him a heart emoji? It doesn’t seem right. My relationship with Harris has thus far consisted of slaying monsters and calling each other “dude.”
Me: Bye, H
Harris: bye, analee
I turn to deal with my latest problem, the one unmoving in my bed. I walk over to Avery and give her a poke on the shoulder.
“Ow,” she whines into the comforter.
“What’s your deal?”
“Nothing.”
“Avery,” I say, “I’m not in the mood for your dramatics. I have enough drama in my life right now.”
“I’m not being dramatic.”
“Right. Because barging into my room and throwing yourself onto my bed is totally normal behavior.”
“It is.”
Ugh. I always forget that little kids don’t understand sarcasm.
“Is everything okay?” I ask.
She raises her shoulders.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
More shoulders. This is new. I’ve never known Avery to turn shy.
“It’d be a lot easier to talk to you if I could see your face,” I say.
She lifts her head up slightly, then rolls over onto her back and immediately covers her face with her hands.
“For Christ’s sake—” I start as I pull her hands away. Then she looks up at me with teary eyes, bluish-green, just like Harlow’s. I soften. Even at Avery’s young age, I’ve never seen her cry. I’ve seen her roll her eyes, yell, and throw tantrums, but never cry.
“What’s wrong?” I ask. “And don’t shrug at me again.”
She stares up at my ceiling and rubs her nose. “Are Mom and Dad still getting married?”
“Yes,” I say.
“How do you know?”
“I just know.”
“But they’re mad at each other.”
I am so not equipped to handle this. How do you talk to an eight-year-old about this crap? Isn’t this the kind of thing guidance counselors are for? I’m not sure what the appropriate thing to say is. I could make something up and reassure her that Dad and Harlow are totally fine, even though our dinners are spent in careful silence and shifty glances. You’re supposed to lie to kids, aren’t you? Isn’t that what Santa and the Tooth Fairy have taught us?
It’s strange to think that in less than a month I’ll technically be considered a big sister. Big sisters are supposed to be cool and wise and a bunch of other adjectives I’m not. I have nothing to offer Avery. I don’t know what the hell I’m doing.
I decide to go with the honest approach and hope for the best.
“Yeah,” I say. “They’re mad at each other.”
“But what if they decide not to get married?”
A couple of months ago I would have been thrilled at this development. But somewhere along the line a shift took place. I no longer dread the idea of Dad and Harlow locking it down. I don’t want Avery to cry, and I don’t want Dad to go back to who he was right after Mom died. I want everyone to be . . . happy. I mean, I don’t think I’ll be happy either way. I can’t figure out what the hell will make me happy.
“They’re going to get married,” I tell Avery with a surprising amount of certainty.
“They’re fighting.”
“Here’s the thing,” I say. I sit next to her on the bed. “People who love each other a lot are going to fight once in a while.”
She stares back at me.
“I know it sounds weird, but it’s true. It’s a good thing to fight sometimes. That means you’re really comfortable with a person and you can tell them what you think and feel.”
As I speak, it occurs to me that I’ve never, ever fought with Harris. Sure, we’ve had different opinions. We’ve argued over the best way to complete a quest. But for the most part Harris and I live in a fantasy world, where the only fights to be held are with monsters instead of people. How much do I actually know about him?
I know that he hates brussels sprouts, that his favorite movie is Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, that his first and only kiss took place at an ice-skating party in the sixth grade. I know that the girl ignored him the next day and the rest of the year and then transferred schools in seventh grade. What I know about Harris is a collection of anecdotes, scraps of conversation. I’ve never heard his voice, or felt his lips, or even seen what he looks like.
“Do you and Seb fight?” Avery asks.
“We have,” I say. “I didn’t like him very much at first.”
“Why not?”
“Well . . .” I lie down next to her on the bed. I have a lot to say about this. “I thought he was conceited, lazy, selfish, rude, shallow, vapid . . .”
Avery lets out a giggle. “I think he’s nice.”
“Of course you do. No girl is immune to his brainwashing tactics, even the young ones like you.”
“But you like him now, right?”
“I guess,” I say. And I say it very reluctantly. I feel like I’m betraying my former self when I say it, because I can still see the Seb from sixth grade. I can picture the open mouth full of braces, laughing at me, whispering about me with Matt McKinley. There once existed a version of Seb who treated me like I was nothing, and I can’t forget about that. I’m not sure I can ever forgive him for having been that Seb. Even if he happens to be really good at making out.
“You should tell him you like him,” Avery urges. She flips onto her side to face me. “Don’t be like Mom and Dad.”
“He knows I like him,” I insist.
“He might not. You always walk around like this.” Avery wiggles around in the bed with her hands on her hips and scrunches her eyebrows together. She looks like Oscar the Grouch.
“You are such a brat,” I say, but she’s too busy laughing at herself to hear me. When she finally calms down, she lets out a self-satisfied sigh and rolls onto her back again.
We both stare up at the ceiling.
“Do I really look angry all the time?” I ask. I immediately hate myself for asking a third grader this question. Especially one like Avery, who has the sensitivity of a toaster.
“Yeah. You do. You should look at Seb like this instead. . . . Look, Analee. . . . Are you looking, Analee?”
I turn my head. She is, of course, being ridiculous. Big fluttery eyes and her hand over her heart.
“You finished?” I ask her.
She bats her eyes for a few more seconds, then drops her hand to her side. “Yes.”
“Great.”
She sticks her tongue out at me, then asks, “Can I sleep in here tonight?”
“What?” I sit up. “No.”
“Please?”
“Aren’t you too old for this?”
“It would just be for tonight,” she says. “I promise. I’ll sleep on the floor if you want! You don’t even have to share your bed.”
“Why do you want to sleep in here?”
“I don’t know.”
“Not happening. Sorry.”
“Come on.”
“Avery, my sleep is precious. I like to sleep in the middle of the bed with my body sprawled out, and I toss and turn a lot during the night. Plus, you snore.”
“Fiiiine,” she says. She drags herself off my bed and shuffles toward the door, head down, shoulders drawn. I know she’s being dramatic, and yet . . .
“Avery,” I say.
<
br /> She pauses.
“Only for tonight,” I warn.
“Yay!” She sprints out of the room, only to return seconds later, armed with a pillow, blanket, and a pink teddy bear.
I have no idea when I turned so soft.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
USUALLY I HATE TALKING TO anyone on the phone, but every day after Mom’s funeral I waited for Lily to call me. The feeling of dread that usually accompanied my ringtone was replaced with hope, then crushing disappointment when I checked the caller ID and it was only Abuela or a telemarketer.
For days I waited, and for days she didn’t call.
I gave her the benefit of the doubt. Maybe she was busy with school. She sent emails, mostly homework assignments, tidbits of school gossip, a perfunctory closing line like Let me know if you need anything else! The exclamation point felt painful, like a stinger through the chest.
The anger stirred inside me, but I couldn’t release it. Not at Lily. She was one of the few people left in my life, and I couldn’t afford to lose anyone else.
When I got back to school, I thought I wanted people to treat me like they usually did. That is, I thought I wanted to be ignored, unseen, left alone. But when I was, I was disappointed. It was one of the first times that being alone felt lonely.
Lily and I sat together at lunch, and everything was normal, which was by default wrong. Because life shouldn’t be normal after your mom dies.
“Okay,” she said. “Let’s see what else you missed. . . . Dalia and Liam possibly hooked up at Sierra’s party, even though Liam just asked Sierra out the day before.”
What I’d missed. Like I had just come back from vacation.
I didn’t care. I so didn’t care. Lily knew me well enough to tell, but she kept going anyway.
“Oh, and I started bingeing this show that I overheard Lena talking about. I think you’d really like it . . .”
I let her talk while I took in everything happening around me. I felt unfocused, like I was trying to make out the scenery through a heavy fog.
Mom is gone, Mom is gone, Mom is gone.
I looked at Lily, who was deliberately not looking at me, who was still talking like nothing significant—beyond Dalia and Liam and this new TV show she was watching—had happened in our lives. I squeezed my plastic fork so hard, I thought it would break in half.
For the first time ever, I wanted to shake my best friend. I wanted to scream at her for moving too fast, jumping from one topic of conversation to another without standing still long enough to acknowledge how horrible everything was. For making me feel stuck while she could move forward.
In the middle of talking, she gave someone across the room a tiny wave.
“Who are you waving at?” I interrupted.
Lily lowered her hand, the smile fading from her lips. “Chloe.”
“Since when are you friends with Chloe?” It sounded accusatory. Maybe it was. I was having trouble breathing, walking, talking, and Lily was waving to people we used to observe from a distance.
“We’re not exactly friends. We were partners on an English project last week. I like her a lot, though.”
I frowned.
“Anyway,” Lily went on, “you really should check out that show. There’s another one I started watching last night, but—”
Lily dove headfirst into normalcy, while I became more determined to avoid it.
“Can you stop?” I asked finally when she paused to take a breath.
“Stop what?”
I wasn’t sure how to answer, because I wasn’t sure what I was asking. Stop talking? Stop living your life?
“I just don’t want to hear about a TV show right now,” I muttered.
Lily sank into her seat. “Sorry.”
“You don’t have to apologize.”
“Sorry,” she said again. “I mean . . .”
I’d made it weird between us, and it still wasn’t right. It didn’t feel right for things to be normal, either. Where did that leave us? I wanted to tell Lily that I missed Mom, and that I didn’t know how to act with people anymore, and I wanted to ask her if she was still sad too or if the tears I’d seen during the funeral had been a fluke.
Instead we ate the rest of our lunch in silence. I thought about how much happier Lily would be to sit at a table with Chloe instead of me.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
SEB ISN’T AT SCHOOL TODAY. He texted me this morning that he had a fever and almost fainted when he got out of bed. He said he’ll miss me, which, whatever. I think he was joking.
When I walk to my locker, everything is suddenly bare. It’s like when you remove a piece of furniture from your house and the entire room looks empty and wrong. I realize that I’ve accidentally gotten used to Seb waiting for me here. He’s my trusty old sofa.
I don’t have him as a protective shield when I walk to homeroom either. Before Seb and I started this whole thing, I didn’t exactly need one, because no one looked at me. But now I’m seen. That’s the only way I can describe it. It’s like “dating” Seb has allowed me to take up space in the world. People smile at me. In a crowded hallway they scoot over to let me walk by. One small freshman girl with glasses even waves to me.
It’s weirding me out. The power of Seb exceeds his presence. It’s like he has imbued me with it.
In the cafeteria I’m planning to stockpile some food and escape to one of my secluded pre-Seb lunch spots, but Elliott comes up behind me and tugs at my hair.
“Where’s your other half?” he asks.
For a quick second I think of Lily, who for years was known as my other half. Then I realize who he means.
“Out sick,” I say.
“Ooo.” Elliott waggles his eyebrows. “You gonna go over to his house after school and play nurse?”
“Ew, no, you perv.” I pause. “Wait, am I supposed to? Is that a girlfriendy thing to do?”
“Nah.” Elliott stacks three slices of pizza on his tray. I grab two. We move down the line. “Normally I avoid sick people. However, Seb Matias is the exception. I would take him covered in boils and sores.”
“I should probably do something,” I say. “Something nurturing. I’ve never been the nurturing type.”
“Sponge bath?”
“Elliott!”
“Just wanted to make you blush.”
“Silly Elliott. I’m not white enough to blush.” But my skin feels warm and tingly at the thought of giving Seb a sponge bath. Seb’s toned arms . . . Seb’s toned legs . . . Seriously, there is something wrong with me.
“Bring him some chicken soup,” Elliott says, and I snap back to the din of the cafeteria. We pile more food onto our trays, and somehow I find myself walking with Elliott to a nearby table. Elliott motions for me to sit down, and all my plans for a secluded lunch away from society fly out the window.
“Analee, this is my friend Jared,” he says, nodding his head toward a boy with chin-length black hair.
I say hi, and Jared goes, “I’ve heard a lot about you. The school won’t shut up about Sebalee.”
I almost fall out of my chair. “Seb and I have a couple nickname?”
“Duh,” Elliott says. “The shipper wars are in full effect.”
Aaaand cue the anxiety.
“Don’t worry. I think you’re winning,” Jared says to me.
“Not possible,” I reply. Seb and Chloe fit together seamlessly, each one so perfectly skinny and attractive. They are the couple in those stock photos that come with a picture frame.
“It’s true,” Elliott assures me. “Everyone thinks you’re, like, authentic.”
“Isn’t that just a nice way of saying I look like crap?”
“It’s a compliment,” he says, punching me on the shoulder.
“Oh!” Jared dabs at his lips with a napkin. “Did you guys hear about Lily and Colton?”
I jolt.
“Um, no,” says Elliott.
I look around the cafeteria and notice that neither Lily nor
Colton is anywhere to be found.
“She dumped him,” Jared says.
“No!” Elliott cries.
I stay silent. I’m not sure I believe it. Lily has worshipped at the altar of Colton for so long that if anyone were getting dumped, it’d be her.
Jared and Elliott dissect the news from every angle, hypothesizing what went wrong and when. I sit there and try to decipher my feelings, or lack thereof. I thought I would be ecstatic if this day ever arrived. Instead I feel . . . well, I can’t exactly tell what I feel.
I always thought that on the long-awaited day when Lily and Colton broke up, Lily and I would finally resume our friendship. I guess it was a stupid assumption to make. The day is here, and I haven’t gotten anything from Lily. Not a text, not an email, not even a smile to show me that everything between us will go back to normal.
“Analee? What’s wrong?” Elliott pauses in the middle of his new theory that Lily is dating an older man who goes to the nearby university.
“Nothing,” I say, but a lot about this is wrong. It’s wrong that someone I used to share everything with has gone through a monumental life event and I had to hear about it through the East Bay grapevine.
I get up, leave my tray on the table, and apologize to Jared and Elliott, who look totally confused. I don’t want to listen to any of this anymore. If Lily wants to permanently cut me out of her life, I can do the same to her.
When I ring the doorbell at Seb’s house, a petite woman with a pierced lip answers the door. She doesn’t say hi, just looks me up and down in a way that makes me feel idiotic. I don’t say anything either. I stand there with my stupid plastic bag of chicken soup and stare at her.
“Who are you?” she finally demands.
This is the scariest woman I’ve ever met in my entire life.
“Um . . . is this Seb’s house?” I ask.
She rolls her eyes. “He’s upstairs.”
It almost sounds like an invitation, but she doesn’t budge to let me in.
Analee, in Real Life Page 23
