Forever for a Year

by B. T. Gottfred

  71

  Carolina texts the unknown

  When I woke up on my birthday, there was a text waiting for me:

  ALEXANDER TAYLOR

  happy birthday, freshman

  Alexander Taylor. He had never sent a text after I told him not to. Until this one. I didn’t know if I liked that he stopped or didn’t like that he stopped. I almost texted him back “thanks” or something else, but then the doorbell rang and it was flowers from Trevor. I hate to say this—hate it!—but I was more excited about the text from Alexander than the million flowers from Trevor. It’s not Trevor’s fault. I expected the flowers. But the text was a surprise. It’s nice to not know something’s going to happen before it happens.

  I had two finals on my birthday. How terrible is it to have to take tests on your birthday? When I got home that night, my parents took me out to a birthday dinner at Cheesecake Factory. It was my favorite restaurant so it’s where we went every year. I was always allowed to bring a friend to my birthday dinner and I had always brought Peggy. But we hadn’t talked in years. Not literally, obviously, but it felt like it. I thought about bringing Trevor. My mom expected me to. But I asked Kendra instead and told my mom Trevor had basketball. Which was true, but he would have been done in time to go to dinner. So I guess I lied. But I don’t even feel bad about it. Am I becoming a worse person or a better person? I don’t even know.

  At dinner, my mom asked Kendra, “Do you have a boyfriend?”

  And Kendra said, “My dad said I can’t have a boyfriend until I’m a sophomore.”

  “That’s probably smart,” my mom said, which made me feel like such a slut.

  My dad said, because he always knows when my mom says stuff that hurts me, “Ellie—we love Trevor. I think Carolina having Trevor will be one of the most important things to ever happen in her life.” Which was true. So true. The truest thing ever. But because something’s important, does that mean it’s good? Yes. Right? I didn’t know. I was so tired.

  Kendra and I talked about soccer season and the new semester and other stuff. I didn’t talk about Trevor much. I hadn’t told Kendra or anyone that we had had sex. Maybe I should tell someone. No way I could tell my parents. But maybe Kendra. But later. I don’t know. Kendra was amazing. But her not dating boys made her hard to relate to when it came to boys and sex things. She always said such smart things and always sounded so wise, but it’s easy to be smart and wise about boys if you aren’t in love with one.

  So that night, after I got into bed, I texted Shannon Shunton. I hadn’t texted her since a month after she disappeared. This is what I wrote:

  ME

  I had sex with Trevor

  I was ninety-nine percent sure she wouldn’t respond, but I figured it would make me feel better. You know, like writing to Santa Claus or saying a prayer. You knew no one would respond, but it felt better doing it just because.

  But then someone DID respond. OH MY GOSH. Shannon Shunton was alive! Except the text was:

  SHANNON SHUNTON

  Who is this?

  Could Shannon Shunton have forgotten about me? How could she forget about me? I would never forget about her. I didn’t know what to think, so I just texted back:

  ME

  It’s Carolina

  And then I waited. So long. And then finally, another text came:

  SHANNON SHUNTON’S PHONE

  I don’t know you. You have the wrong

  number. Know who you are you texting

  before you tell people your business.

  My whole face burst into fire and I died. Not really. But gosh, did I feel like the stupidest person ever. I wanted to throw up. I couldn’t sleep because I felt so sick and silly. But you know what else? Shannon Shunton’s phone number had been taken over by someone else. Maybe that meant she really was dead. Maybe that meant not all stories had happy endings.

  72

  Trevor sends a secret note

  I needed to stop my mom from seeing “Midnight Dog” again without telling her I knew. Or telling my dad. Or telling Carolina. So I typed up a letter that said:

  STOP CHEATING ON YOUR WIFE

  Then I wrote the address in block letters to hide my handwriting, took a long walk after dinner Thursday night to find a mailbox that was as far from my house as possible, and dropped it into the mail. Then I texted Carolina that I loved her because that’s why I was doing all this secretive stuff. To protect her from the horrible crap adults do to their kids.

  * * *

  Licker was becoming my best friend at school because of basketball. He was the best player on the team and I was the best rebounder—rebounding is just about being crazy and relentless, which I guess I was—so the two of us together played almost every minute of every game. Even though I’d rather have sex with Carolina than play basketball, if I couldn’t have sex with her all the time I guess basketball was better than masturbating or studying or even playing video games. Maybe not better than video games.

  Aaron and Tor were still cool, but we didn’t have any classes together and I didn’t see them at cross-country practice anymore. Maybe when track started in the spring we’d be closer again.

  We got our first-semester grades back and I got four Bs and two Cs, which is about as good at school as I had ever done. It was because Carolina and I had spent so much time studying on Sundays through the fall, even if I would have rather been hooking up. So I owed all my good grades to her, except she had gotten two Bs, when she had always gotten straight As in junior high, and even though she didn’t say it, I knew she blamed me. I felt like shit. I’m poison. Carolina was perfect and could accomplish anything she wanted, but I was this destructive meteorite with all my demons and my mom’s demons and I was going to ruin her life. If I was a selfless person, I would have broken up with her so she could be free of my crap. But I loved her too much to let her go.

  * * *

  My dad was in town through the rest of January and the beginning of February, so I don’t think my mom was seeing Midnight Dog anymore. Also, I think my note worked. I hope so. I wished I could tell Carolina how my plan had succeeded in saving our love and both our parents’ marriages but the whole point of stopping their sicko affair was so Carolina would never find out. So I couldn’t tell her or anyone. You start to go crazy when you don’t tell people stuff. But I think I’ve always been crazy. I’m just more aware of it now. For a while, Carolina made me forget it. But now not even she could fool me into thinking I was anything but deranged.

  For instance, I started walking through the halls between classes as if I were an alien. An alien with a computer in my head. I was here on earth studying humans. Downloading all this information so I could take it back to my home planet and report on whether we should take over the world or leave it alone or just blow it up. I was a goddamn brilliant alien spy. I was the James Bond of alien spies.

  Yeah.

  See?

  Deranged.

  73

  Carolina has a talk with her mom

  So, gosh. I mean. Really? Okay. B-minus in biology. Fine. My worst subject. Okay. I mean … but a B in history? I LOVED history. I was GOOD at history! But it was my other class with Trevor. (Well, and health. But everyone got an A in health. Except Trevor. He was smart. But not book smart. How could I marry someone not book smart? Never mind. That’s mean. Trevor was brilliant. No one knew it. But I did. I think.)

  My mom was right. I let a boy distract me. Yes, I loved him and he was my first of everything and my life was so much better with him—all that!—but shouldn’t I be able to still get straight As even when I’m in love? I mean, if it was a PERFECT love I would have gotten PERFECT grades. That sounds dumb. I’d never say that out loud.

  Forget it. Forget it. I just was not going to see Trevor as much this semester. I was going to make sure all my grades were perfect. I know I said I’d be happy being married to Trevor and living in the suburbs and not being a famous CEO and just being with him and having kids, but now I t
hought I should have both. I wanted Trevor and I wanted to be a famous CEO of a huge company that all sorts of girls like me—and boys too!—looked up to as a role model. But I would never tell anyone I had sex so young. I couldn’t believe I’d had sex already. I wished I could go back in time and just wait a week until after my birthday. WHY COULDN’T I HAVE WAITED A WEEK?

  I was one of those girls. I was so smart and then I met a boy and I became so dumb. That had to stop. When I was a famous CEO and someone asked when I lost my virginity, I was going to say eighteen. That sounds so much better. Trevor would be the only other person who knew the truth, and we’d be married so he would lie for me. My gosh, I was going to be a role model who lies. It didn’t matter. They don’t ask CEOs when they lost their virginity. I couldn’t believe I was thinking about this.

  Whenever I wasn’t with Trevor, I thought we should not have sex again for a long time. Like a year. Like really wait. But then when we were alone, I’d just want to be close to him and so I didn’t stop. I wanted him to do it. It was starting to feel good. Not amazing. I mean, it felt amazing to be so close. But it was still not making me go crazy like girls in porn videos. We were wearing condoms every time now because we only hooked up in his basement again and that’s where he kept them. It made me feel better. My period was one day late in January, and it almost gave me a heart attack. So maybe as long as we wore condoms it’d be okay that we were having sex so young. Maybe. I don’t know.

  It felt so right when I was with him and so wrong when I wasn’t. It was very confusing.

  * * *

  My dad was spending more and more nights out at campus. My mom looked depressed again. But I didn’t think he was cheating. I knew he wasn’t. He would never hurt us again like that. He’d been so amazing since freshman year started. He would never want to ruin that. So I thought my mom just wanted to be depressed. On a Sunday night when it was just the two of us, I said, “Did you know Trevor’s mom tried to commit suicide?”

  “Carrie! You shouldn’t say things like that,” my mom said. She still called me Carrie whenever she talked without thinking first.

  “It’s true.”

  “Even if it is, it’s not our business.”

  “Don’t you think we should talk about things?”

  “Not about other people’s things,” she said.

  “Do you ever think about killing yourself, Mom?”

  “Of course not, Carrie! How can you say that?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I would never do that.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s wrong.”

  “Why’s it wrong?” I asked.

  “Oh my gosh!” she screamed, and sounded just like me. “Are you sad? Is something wrong with Trevor?”

  “No, Mom! I’m fine. I’m worried about you!”

  “I’m fine.”

  “You’re sad again now that Dad’s not around as much.”

  “I like having him here. It’s okay for me to be sad when he’s gone.”

  “He’s not cheating again, Mom. I know it.”

  But my mom didn’t say anything. She just nodded. Her face lost color.

  “He loves you, Mom.”

  “I know. But I want you to know I would never, ever hurt myself. And that it’s okay to be sad, Carolina. Because if you know it’s okay to be sad, then you know being sad is not a reason to hurt yourself.” My mom never talked like that. I liked it. I wanted her to keep talking like that. Except we just sat there for a bit in silence, her reading and me studying. But ten minutes later, maybe more, she turned to me again and said, with this very calm voice that made me calm even though I didn’t even know I wasn’t calm, “Carolina, I haven’t always done a great job of communicating what I am feeling with you. Especially when things first came to light with your dad last year. I know you think you have to take care of me, and while I really do appreciate how much you care about me, I want you to know that above anything else—above my job, above your dad, anything—being here for you, being your mom, is by far the most important and greatest thing in my life.”

  I scooted over on the couch and curled up and laid my head on her lap like I was just a kid. I wasn’t just a kid anymore, I know. But my mom saying that made me feel it would be okay to be a kid again for at least tonight.

  * * *

  Valentine’s Day was on a Thursday, a school night, and Trevor had a basketball game on the 15th so we were going to celebrate on Saturday the 16th. We were going downtown on the train and back to the Metropolitan Club. It was our favorite date, and I think we wanted to go back in time. We were so young then. And virgins. And young.

  74

  Trevor buys two sweaters

  My parents went out on Valentine’s Day. Dressed up, all that crap. Lily and I stayed home, ate sandwiches and cookies, watched cartoons. My parents came home looking so happy. Like they were in love. Like they were the perfect couple. It annoyed me—because of course they were a total sham—but it also made me smile, and it made Lily smile, which made me smile even more. Because I wanted my parents to think they could be the perfect couple even if they couldn’t be.

  Then my mom sat down next to us, hugged Lily, and starting watching TV.

  My dad said, “Lily, time for bed. Ashley, why don’t we go to bed too?”

  “I want to watch cartoons with the kids for a bit. You go. I’ll be there soon,” she said.

  My dad almost argued. You could see he was sad. He wanted sex, didn’t he? Holy crap. I could tell my dad wanted sex. And he was sad his wife didn’t want to have it with him. Now that I had had sex, I could see stuff like this. He turned around, disappeared up the stairs.

  “I think Dad wants you to go spend the rest of Valentine’s Day night with him,” I said to my mom once my dad was out of sight.

  “I think you should mind your own business,” my mom said. Didn’t even look at me. And there was something about how she said it. Like it was about more than what I’d just said. Like she knew I had sent that note or seen her texts. Her knowing and telling me to mind my own business made me want to yell, Fuck you, Mom, but I didn’t. I would never swear like that in front of Lily. So I got up, went to my room, and debated how and when I would tell my dad his wife was having an affair. But I knew I couldn’t do it. Because if my dad knew, he’d divorce my mom and we’d probably move back to California with him (because he was the only one even remotely qualified to be a parent). And I’d rather die than go to California without Carolina. I’m not even joking.

  * * *

  My dad went on another trip early the next day. At breakfast, my mom said she was going to visit her friend Paula in Indianapolis Saturday night and wouldn’t be back until Sunday. She said we’d be fine alone for one night, that I was more than old enough to take care of Lily by myself, and we could all go grocery shopping to make sure there was plenty of food.

  I said, “I’m celebrating Valentine’s Day with Carolina tomorrow. I can’t babysit.”

  “Yes, you can. Have Carolina come here. Have her spend the night here. That will be special.”

  “Her parents would never let her spend the night here,” I said.

  “Her dad wouldn’t care,” she said.

  “How do you know her dad wouldn’t care?” I said. That shut her up. For two seconds.

  “Trevor, you used to pride yourself on not being a cliché. Well, you’ve become the cliché of a smart-ass teenager with your attitude.” Then my mom walked out of the kitchen. After she was gone, Lily came over and hugged me.

  “She’s sad Dad left,” Lily said. Yeah, right. But I couldn’t tell Lily that. I had to protect Lily from the truth just like I had to protect Carolina. Only I could handle it. Only I should have to handle it.

  * * *

  On Saturday night, I decided Carolina, Lily, and I would all go downtown. We’d make it an even more special night in spite of my mom’s lies.

  The train station was too long of a walk in the cold, so I drove us
there in my dad’s car even though I only had my permit. I knew I’d be careful. And I was. Lily kept saying, “This is very wrong, but I won’t tell.” I knew she wouldn’t. Lily was too good a person to be a tattletale.

  I couldn’t get reservations at the Metropolitan Club without telling my dad or mom what we were doing, so instead we took a cab from Union Station to Michigan Avenue. We window-shopped and I bought (using my dad’s credit card) both Lily and Carolina sweaters from the Gap. Neither of them wanted sweaters all that much, but I wanted us to buy something. Just because. Yeah, my dad might notice the charge weeks from now. But probably not. The man was goddamn blind to everything that was around him.

  If I hadn’t insisted that we go to the Gap, the night downtown might have been awesome. Because I swear, right before that, Carolina and I were feeling so close. Holding hands. Or each holding one of Lily’s hands. Like we were a family. We were adults. And it felt good to be adults. Because we were real adults, taking care of Lily like she was the most important thing in the world. Unlike our own parents, who took care of their own stuff first.

  So. Yep. As we were walking out of the Gap, me holding a bag filled with two sweaters Carolina and Lily didn’t want or need, I heard Lily yell, “Mom! Did you decide to surprise us?”

  Crap.

  Then I looked up. And I saw our mom standing there. Looking so terrified. Like she wished she had succeeded in killing herself two years ago.

  And behind her was Midnight Dog.

  Carolina’s dad.

  His longish hair and casual clothes didn’t look cool anymore. They just made him look like he didn’t know how to act his age.

  I looked toward Carolina. Her brain couldn’t or wouldn’t put together how my mom and her dad could be standing together on Michigan Avenue when Ashley Santos was supposed to be in Indianapolis with her friend Paula and Scott Fisher was supposed to be at Northern Illinois University working on a grant all weekend.