Love and Other Secrets

by Christina Mandelski

  “Well, maybe she does like him,” he says, “but the thing about you is that you’re stubborn. I have never seen you give up when you want something. I’ve never seen you quit.”

  “That’s in lacrosse, man. Not this.”

  He sucks in a breath and grins. “Like I said, you need to take your own advice, Kov. It’s the same. It’s all the same. You want to forfeit this one, go ahead, but don’t blame me when you’re old and bald and always wondering what if you’d asked this girl to the prom. How would things have been different if you’d gotten off your ass and made it happen?”

  I touch my hair. Still nice and thick. My head feels like death, though. I still feel spaced out and like I might hurl. “You think I’m gonna go bald?”

  “Definitely.”

  I inhale. Life totally sucks. “I don’t think I can take this.”

  “Take what?”

  “This. Whatever this is. This shitty feeling. We were just friends. I don’t know what happened.”

  He chuckles.

  I’m gonna kill him if he laughs one more time. “What?”

  “You fell for her, that’s what.”

  I crush the pillow around my skull.

  He stands up and smacks my calf with the rubber tip of his crutch. “It’s okay to want more, you know. It’s okay to feel the shit you’re feeling. It’s okay to fall in love.”

  This makes me straight up laugh out loud, which kills my head. “Love? Costas, please.” I move the pillow. “Damn, you date a girl for a few weeks, you think you got it all figured out?”

  “Yeah, I do.” He makes his way toward the door. “I gotta go to school. I’m assuming you’ll be taking a sick day, but I’ll put the word out to the team that your dumb ass needs help putting this place back together, okay? After practice?”

  I stare at the ceiling. “Is it that bad?”

  “Scale of one to ten, I’d give it a ninety-seven?”

  “Shit. Thanks.”

  Eli leaves, and I contemplate my next move. I feel like I’m walking in a minefield and every step I take detonates another disaster—leaving craters of destruction everywhere. The biggest crater is where Bailey used to be.

  Between that kiss and the promposal, I obliterated us, our friendship, or whatever it was, and I have no idea how to put it back together or if it’s even possible. She made it pretty clear that she doesn’t think a whole lot of me, but maybe I can prove to her that I’m better than that.

  All I know is that life without her seems pretty damn bleak.

  Love, though?

  It’s a word I use a lot. I love lacrosse. I love Miriam’s pot pie. I love my parents, too, even though I also sort of hate them.

  What I feel for Bailey, it’s different. It feels risky, and it hurts like hell. But when I’m with her, I swear I don’t give a shit about pain or risk or anything.

  Something pulls me toward her, and I think it might be the end of me, if the bourbon-beer combo or Miriam doesn’t kill me first, but maybe Eli’s not all wrong. He’s no Love Guru, that’s for sure, but he might have a point.

  A text buzzes on my phone. I reach for it and see a text from Dad on the screen. I close my eyes and know that it’s about to hit the fan.

  Don’t you dare skip school. We’ll talk tonight. On way home now.

  Perfect. Just perfect.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Bailey

  I saw the proof. I didn’t have to imagine him drunk at his party with all his friends, having a great time and totally oblivious to his ex-friend Bailey. I literally went to bed fuming over all the pictures of him with Devon and those Table Three girls. I finally forced myself to put down the phone and go to sleep, even though I barely slept.

  This morning, I am very confident in my decision to walk away from Alex and pretend that stupid promposal never happened, even if the internet will always remember. I don’t care. My days at EHS are numbered, and I’m counting every last one down, like a prisoner trying to get out on good behavior.

  At school, I spend a good amount of time racking my brain for a fresh angle for my new short film topic. I go through my interviews one more time, tweak my storyboard, and take notes on ideas that come to me. When I look over all my work at the end of class, I want to bang my head on the desk.

  I thought there was a way to make college entrance exams funny or at the very least thought-provoking, but now I’m doubtful, or maybe my brain is too stressed out to come up with a solution. It’s all boring, lame, and none of it is going to win me any contests. There’s no way.

  When I get to my shift at Java Infusion after school, Jax is in the back room, whistling. That’s a very un-Jax-like thing to do.

  “You okay?” I ask.

  He keeps his eyes trained on the computer monitor and smiles. “I am sublime,” he says. His southern accent is thick this morning. I reach for a purple apron on the hook and grab my nametag. He’s still whistling.

  “Well, that’s good.”

  “Had me a date after work last night.” His smile grows.

  “Oh.” Great. Jax got some. Eww. “Good for you,” I say. Even though I really don’t want to know, I’m tempted to ask him for details. It’s hard to imagine what kind of person would go for him, but there’s a lid to every pot, I guess.

  Before I can ask, he turns to me. “So it looks like your views are dying down. Definitely getting fewer comments.”

  “Come on, Jax. Please. I do not want to talk about it.”

  He stands up, freeing the computer so I can clock in. “Have you watched it yet?”

  I lean over the keyboard and enter my password. He’s still hovering.

  “Well, have you?”

  I just got here, and already he’s making me crazy. “No,” I say over my shoulder. “And I’m not going to. Ever.”

  I check that we’ve got enough milk and cream. I check that we have enough sprinkles for the middle school kids who will appear soon. I eyeball the pastry case. Jax leans against the back counter and crosses his arms.

  “You should watch it.” He pulls out his phone. “Here, I’ll pull it up.”

  “No, Jax. You’re usually the one yelling at me to get to work.”

  He pays zero attention to my plea. “You should watch this one. It shows the whole thing in slo-mo.”

  “Slo-mo? Seriously, people have that much time on their hands?”

  “Come on.”

  “No!” I shout at him, and he flinches. “I’m serious. I’m trying to put it behind me. I know it’s out there, trust me. I don’t need any reminders.”

  He grudgingly pockets his phone. “Fine, but you should watch it and read the comments. They’re not all rude. There’s a whole slew of people who are rooting for you to get together with that boy. They’ve even got a couple name for you.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Girl, you’ve been shipped. Y’all’s couple name is Cow-lax.”

  I stare at him, confused.

  “Cowgirl and lacrosse boy? I think it’s cute.”

  I feel my face get hot. I can’t take this. “I’m going to get cups,” I say. Back in the storeroom, I sit on a tall cardboard box and close my eyes. I try to breathe from my toes, but I can’t seem to get all the way there.

  Clearly Jax’s one good date has filled his head with stupid romantic ideas that are completely misguided.

  Cow-lax? That sounds like something you give a constipated farm animal.

  I give myself another minute and pull it together. I’ve got a shift to work, and it’s going to be busy.

  It was a long night, but I’m finally home. I’m alone, of course, and once again completely frustrated by my film project.

  I think of Jax, telling me to watch the ruined promposal clip, and I start to reconsider ditching prom as a topic. I do have some really good footage. I wonder if I could still make it work. I’d have to go to prom, but I could go alone. I could maybe hide on the fringes, get what I need, and leave. I wouldn’t even h
ave to dress up.

  Thinking of dressing up makes me think of the dress, which makes me think of that closet, which makes me think of Alex, singing in my ear.

  I should have pushed him away. I should have laughed him off and told him that his stupid “dress test” idea was not even a little bit necessary.

  There’s a knot in my chest. It’s been there since we kissed, but it keeps getting tighter. Maybe it’s that broken heart, or maybe I’m giving myself an ulcer. I don’t know.

  What I do know is that to get out of Edinburgh, I need to win this contest. So I download the file that Ashley sent me, clench my fists, and press play.

  The opening scene is so cringe-worthy that I have to look away. Me, sitting there cluelessly waiting for my ultimate humiliation. Suck it up, woman. This is for NYU. I force myself to watch. There I am, a dummy sitting on a cow, trying to manage the poster board, trying not to flip out over all the people with their cell phones.

  The tightness in my chest pulls at me. I want to cry. Also, scream. And die.

  I know what that girl is thinking. Her heart is racing. She’s watching, waiting, for a lacrosse player. When she sees him, something happens to her. Her tense face muscles relax. She smiles. Not at Caleb, no. That would make too much sense. No, that happy, carefree smile was for Alex Koviak.

  I watch as he runs to the side of the cow, or tries to, but it’s already acting squirrely. Bessie gives him crazy eyes as he attempts to move closer. By the time I finally understand what he’s saying to me, the cow has completely lost it and is trotting toward the field and then swoop, there I am, falling sideways onto the ground.

  Glorious day!

  The rest of the scene I watch with one eye closed. The tiny defeated me stands up and moves toward Ashley. Not on purpose. I didn’t even see her. Alex is talking to me, but I keep my gaze forward. Somewhere over the audio I hear the unmistakable drone of a Table Three girl. She says, “Oh my God, how embarrassing,” and is laughing, laughing, laughing.

  Even here in the privacy of my own home I can feel the heat of shame and anger crawl up my neck. I almost press stop as on-screen me moves past the camera. Ashley doesn’t follow me, though, but pans slowly over my left shoulder. To Alex, trailing slowly after me. His brow is furrowed, and he looks—sorry? Sad? Like he’s going to cry?

  She keeps the camera on Alex. There are people talking to him, laughing at him, calling his name—he doesn’t respond to any of them. He never takes his eyes off me as I go.

  The heat of my humiliation cools. I’m still angry at him, furious actually, but who looks at someone like that? I’ve never looked at someone like that. The only word I can think to describe his face is—heartbroken?

  I rewind and watch again, only this time I watch to the very end of the shot, when Devon McGill walks over to him and does her loud talking thing. She literally never shuts up.

  He doesn’t pay attention to her at all. He’s still watching me.

  The video cuts off. I put down my phone and lean my head in my hands. What was that face? What was he thinking? I know it doesn’t really make a difference. What really matters isn’t what you think, it’s what you do, and he did nothing except ruin the promposal and let me walk away. Then he celebrated with a house party.

  I sit up and take a deep breath, all that air directly from my toes. Things are happening in my brain, and I’m thinking about my short film. If I look at this footage objectively, if I didn’t know the people in it, I would fight to get it in my project. All of a sudden, I have a new vision for the film—a tragic-comic take on promposals and how they don’t always come off and how sometimes they are just plain disastrous. Mine being the most disastrous, obviously.

  A smile curves my lips up, something that hasn’t happened in a while. My life sucks to the millionth power right now—it’s confusing and frustrating, and I hate it—but I’m going to make that movie, and I’m going to win.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Alex

  The team showed up to help me put the house back together. It took a while, but we did a decent job. There’s something wrong with the pool filter, and the toilet in the powder room downstairs is totally jacked, clogged beyond my plumbing skills. There’s a stain on one of the sofa cushions, so I flipped it, and maybe no one will notice.

  That’s totally wishful thinking. Miriam will notice.

  All things considered, I’m feeling a little lucky, considering the amount of people who were here last night. It could have been much worse. But when my parents pull into the driveway around ten that night, my luck runs out. They weren’t supposed to be home until the game this weekend, but yet, here they are. Jetlagged, too.

  I’m tired after going through school and practice with a hangover, but I can tell from the look on their faces that they don’t care. They make me go in the family room, ask me to sit down, and then show me evidence of wrongdoing in the form of screen shots of drunk me doing shots, stacking beer cans, standing on the dining room table. I don’t remember most of it.

  “I thought we addressed this problem months ago,” Dad says from the sofa, from Bailey’s spot, dammit. “We agreed no more drinking, no more parties, or there would be consequences.” He leans forward, glaring at me. “So not only did you drink, but you had a party here, in our home!” His voice is doing that thing where it gets incrementally louder and louder until he’s yelling, and then Mom steps in.

  “All right,” she says. “Alex, honey.” She clears her throat. “We’re worried that you might have a drinking problem.”

  So now this is an intervention?

  I close my eyes and open them slowly. I want to go to bed. “No. I don’t. I haven’t had a drink since the last time.”

  “Then why now?” she asks.

  Dad’s face is bright red. He wants to let loose, ground me for life, and take away everything that’s important to me, not that he would know what those things are.

  “Yes, why now?” He chokes out the words.

  I close my eyes. “We lost. I wanted to cheer the guys up, and people got word of it. It got out of hand. I’m sorry. It was a mistake.” I stare straight at my dad. “I don’t have a drinking problem. I had some drinks, that’s all.”

  He’s so disappointed I can read it on his face.

  “Why should I believe anything you say? I don’t know how you expect us to trust you.” He stands up. “You don’t respect your home, or Miriam, or yourself.”

  I clench both hands into fists, squeezing so hard my fingernails hurt my palms.

  He’s getting loud again, and this time Mom doesn’t stop him. “I have to have the chief of police call me when I’m in the middle of a meeting to tell me that my son had a ‘bit of a rager’ and it’s lucky you’re not in jail?”

  I sputter out a laugh at the word “rager.” I can’t help it. My father has a giant stick up his ass and he just said rager. It’s funny.

  Dad scratches his beard and shakes his head. “You think this is funny.” It’s not a question, but I answer it anyway.

  I stand up. “No. I don’t think this is funny. I don’t think it’s funny that the party got out of control. I don’t think it’s funny that I’m in trouble. I don’t think it’s funny that the only time you’re guaranteed to come home is when the police chief calls and embarrasses you.”

  “Alex, that’s not true!” Now Mom is shouting, so this is going well.

  I unclench my fists. “Right. Not true at all. No, I know, you’re out doing important work for humankind, and it’s Important. I get it. You think cookies make up for not being at a game all year? Every kid should want what I’ve got. I’ve got fucking everything!”

  I stare at Dad, daring him to strike back. He wants to. I can see it, but he says nothing. I walk out of the family room and grab a banana from the bowl on the kitchen table.

  Dad’s voice follows me out of the room. “Don’t think you’re leaving this house. We have more talking to do. And you’re grounded.”

  “Grea
t.” I wave the banana and walk away, leaving them to reflect on what a good-for-nothing kid they made.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Bailey

  I haven’t seen Alex all week, but as I’m leaving the library at the end of lunch, I catch a glimpse of his back going out the door. He never comes to the library if he can help it, so I wonder what he was doing. I don’t care what he’s doing; I just wonder what he’s doing.

  I wait a minute to make sure he’s gone.

  “Hey,” a deep voice calls from behind me as I open the door.

  Shit. Shit. Shit.

  “Bailey?”

  I twist around and plaster a practiced customer service smile on my face. “Hi, hey, Caleb.”

  He’s just leaving, too, and falls in step with me.

  “How’s it going?” he asks.

  I press my lips together and nod. “Good, good,” I lie, having flashbacks to that video and seeing Alex’s face, after. I wonder if I will ever stop seeing his face.

  We walk into the hall, and he stops. “Hey, can I ask you a question?”

  A buzzing starts in my ears—the noise of the class period change mixed with the racing of my heart. I’m terrified. “Yeah?”

  He half-smiles. He’s really so cute. “That YouTube of you, on that cow? I heard a rumor.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah,” he says. “Not to sound arrogant, but I heard that whole set up might have been for me.”

  Oh God. I can’t lie to him. “Yeah. Um. That had maybe been my intention.” Great. Now what? “But Alex told me you already had a date.”

  “Yeah, I heard that, too.”

  “But you didn’t.” There’s an ache growing in my chest.

  He shakes his head. “No, I didn’t.”

  We stare at each other for a long minute. “No,” I say.

  “Yeah,” he says. “Well, I don’t know what happened there, but I wanted you to know, I thought about asking you, after Kov confirmed the rumor.”

  “Oh?” No. I can’t go. I have to work. I have to do anything but be at that dance. Of course, I sort of need to go, for the film. Still—I’m done with promposals.