Yep, I’d heard right.
Okay. Obviously, I was losing my mind and hearing things that weren’t really said. First that whole “Rach, we need to talk” voicemail last month. Now this? Being back in San Francisco was giving me daytime nightmares about the subject, that’s all.
I collapsed into my chair, fumbling for the king-sized lavender oil I kept beside my pencil holder. I rubbed a drop into my palm, dabbed my index fingertip into the pool, and massaged the sweet-smelling oil into both temples. Then I rubbed my palms together, cupped my hands, and breathed in. My nostrils burned and tingled, making my eyes water.
But Roger’s phone message still played in my head.
Looks like you need something stronger, Rach.
When my phone bleeped with a text, I jumped a mile. I could not talk to Roger. I just couldn’t. I peeked at my cell. Shew. It was Meghan wanting to meet for dinner. I stared at my phone, wondering when I should tell her about Oliver. I mean, if I was hallucinating that Roger was talking about him, why not come clean to her? Maybe then, all my nightmares could go ahead and come true.
Chapter Nine
April, Freshman Year
Roger brushed past me, waved at my dormmate who’d poked her head out of her bedroom when she heard voices, then he sat in the middle of my couch like he owned the place.
“Come on.” He patted the spot next to him. “Let’s talk.”
“It’s early, Rog.” I took a sip from the to-go cup he’d handed me. “Can’t this wait?”
“I don’t think so.” His tone sounded remorseful. He set down his cup, rested his elbows on his knees, and laced his fingers. “You know it can’t.”
He didn’t have to explain what he meant. It could only be one thing. My latest gulp of latte tasted bitter in my mouth. I struggled to swallow it down.
“Oliver and I aren’t your business,” I said, cutting to the chase. “You wanted to meet him, to check him out, and you did last night. It’s done.”
“Rachel, sit down, please.” He was trying to be calm—which always pissed me off. “I’m not happy about this, that you’ve been lying to me all year.” He looked pointedly at me but I only stared back. “I was thinking about you, about this, all night. I want to make sure you know what you’re doing.”
“You don’t approve of Oliver because he’s not just like you. How can he be? He’s nineteen.”
“Exactly.” He wiped a hand over his mouth and blew out a loud exhale. “He has no idea what he wants.”
“He wants me.”
Roger’s face drained of color and he shifted on the couch. “That’s not what I meant. Just calm the hell down.” He glanced toward my roommate’s door. “You’re worked up over nothing.”
Was I? I crossed my arms and tried to control my breathing. What had Roger said so far that wasn’t true? Actually, I hadn’t given him a chance to say much of anything yet. But I knew what was coming, the churning in my gut knew, too, because I’d dreamed about it all night.
He pushed both hands through his hair. “Look, Rachel. I know you dropped a class.”
My stomach fell. “And how exactly did you acquire that personal information?” I said, going for insulted, but even I heard my voice shake.
“I know a lot of people at this school. I hear things.”
I threw my hands in the air and huffed, ready to go on the defensive. But it wasn’t Roger’s fault that he found out I’d been slacking off, worse than slacking off.
Right after midterms, I’d had to drop chemistry because I was failing. Oliver never pressured me to hang at his place instead of going to class. But once I was there and we were together, sometimes the thought of leaving him for one hour was unbearable. It was my responsibility to control my hormones and be mature enough to put school before sex, yet I’d let our relationship knock everything in my life off balance.
If I didn’t get my act together pronto, my ten-year plan would go straight down the crapper. Was I really willing to trade the future I’d been planning for years to be with the boy I loved right now?
The glaring, final answer terrified the hell out of me, though it had been there all along. Once I was still and calm enough to think for two seconds, it wasn’t even a matter of talking myself into it—it was going to happen. I clutched the kitchen counter, feeling like I was about to be sick.
“Rachel?”
My eyes were shut tight, but I felt Roger come to my side. “You don’t….” I held out my hand to push him back. “You don’t have to say anything else.”
“I knew something wasn’t right with you,” he said. “I’ve seen it coming, but I didn’t know it was because of him.”
“It’s not his fault, it’s mine.” I opened my gummy eyes. “I screwed up my grades because I want to be with him…all the time, Rog.” My lungs shook when I inhaled. “What if they kick me out of school?”
My brother put a hand on my shoulder. “They won’t. We’ll go talk to your counselor tomorrow.”
“You’ll go with me?”
He nodded. “But first, you know what you have to do.”
It took one text to get him to meet me an hour later, at the bench outside my dorm. The scene of our first kiss. I’d been crying while waiting for him, but when he appeared, I was determined to keep every tear at bay.
“I can’t come over anymore and you can’t call me.” It was like my words were coming from someone else’s mouth. “It’s over. This has to be over.” I moved my index finger an inch to point at him. “Us.”
Oliver’s head flinched back, and he stared at me in silence, for a long time. It made my stomach twist with pain to know I’d blindsided the boy I claimed to love.
“I’m not an idiot, Rach,” he finally said. “I know it’s been bothering you for a while, and you’re freaked out that I haven’t decided on a major. I’ll get around to it; it’s not a big deal.”
But it was a big deal—to me. A huge deal. If he couldn’t see that, what did that mean about his future? Our future? If I couldn’t get myself back on track, I had no chance of helping him. There were some things in life worth taking a risk over, but right now, my future wasn’t one of them.
“If this is about school, I can’t believe it,” he said.
“It is, but it isn’t.”
“Meaning?”
My eyelids felt dry and tacky as I stared down at my empty hands. “It’s a symptom.”
“Of what?” He reached for my hand but I pulled away. If he touched me, kissed me, I would lose all my resolve and be back at square one: completely unbalanced and completely petrified, maybe even resenting him. The thought made me sick.
I turned into the wind, smelling salt and sea in the air—or maybe it was the salty tears I was trying so hard to hold in.
“I know how important your family’s opinion is to you,” he said in a quieter voice. “Tell me the truth, did Roger say something?”
I stared at him, about to say no. Though Roger had put the bug in my ear, this was my decision. Oliver was looking at me with those big, beautiful gray eyes, worry and doubt but still hope swimming in their depths. My mouth could not admit the cowardly words…that because I was with him, I couldn’t keep my priorities straight, I couldn’t do what my parents expected me to do, what I expected me to do. I couldn’t admit that if we stayed together, I had no faith that I would get the kind of future I wanted—healthy and positive and balanced.
I lowered my head. “Um…yeah.” Making Roger my scapegoat was complete chicken shit, but maybe that was what I was turning into. Spineless. Pain from holding in another sob radiated behind my eyes. “My parents are overseas, so he’s basically my legal guardian. He told me we can’t see each other anymore. He made me swear.”
Wow. So I’m a liar now? I turned my face away, not wanting him to see what his girlfriend had become.
“It’ll be fine.” He shifted to stand. “I’ll talk to him.”
“No!” I grabbed his arm. “That’ll make it worse. Trust me.”
Trust me.
His metallic eyes searched my face for the answers I was too gutless to give. “You’re saying it’s because of Roger.” His voice was slow and toneless. “And you have no choice.”
I nodded.
“But you don’t want me to talk to him about it.”
I shook my head.
He sat back and exhaled in frustration, raking a hand through his hair. “Rachel, I…that doesn’t make any sense, unless…” He blinked and stared at me like he was seeing a person he didn’t know. His jaw muscles clenched and unclenched as his gaze slid from mine to the space over my shoulder. “Then I guess it really is over.”
Oliver—who knew me so well he could finish my sentences—did not try to talk me out of it. He didn’t beg or yell or remind me about the thousands of midnight kisses we’d shared. He simply picked up his black notebook and walked away without a backward glance.
If the breakup truly upset him, I didn’t see it, though debilitating grief choked me breathless the second he was out of sight.
I saw him one other time before the end of the school year. He was sitting on a bench at a BART stop, wearing a purple Colorado Rockies baseball cap, the one he always wore when he felt self-conscious about his hair. A bus came, stopped, waited, then departed, all without Oliver lifting his eyes from the ground.
A month later, I flew to Santa Barbara to a parentless house and a summer internship that I couldn’t remember signing up for. Ashamed by my actions, I swore I would never broach the subject with a living soul.
Chapter Ten
Meghan’s cell sat on the edge of her bed between a stack of glossy magazines we were flipping through and the plate of leftover pizza crusts from dinner. Since I was the closest when it started to ring, I grabbed it.
“Hello, Meghan’s phone.”
“Hello?” a voice replied. Male. Oops.
“So sorry. One moment, please.” I lowered the phone and cringed with my bottom teeth. “I think it’s for you.”
Meghan tossed her last piece of crust onto the plate and grabbed her phone from me. “Hello? Hey, Rad.” She was beaming now, even I could hear it in her voice. “Oh, did I?” She snapped the air in front of my face and grinned, wanting me to hear this next part. “I can’t believe I left my sweater in your car last night.” She listened for a moment then winked, and I gave her the thumbs-up. “That’s so sweet. You’ll be at Tim’s on Friday? Perfect.”
She leaned against the wall beside her framed print of La Belle Dame Sans Merci, looking much like that angelic, belle strawberry blonde in the painting. “Oh, nothing much right now,” she continued into the phone. “Making room on the bookshelf for all my awards. Emmy season’s right around the corner. Right? Ha ha!” She slid to the floor and laughed hard at whatever he’d just said. “No, no, Rachel’s here.” She winked at me again. “Rachel Daughtry, my best friend in all the world. You met her brother the other—” Meg’s eyebrows came together, like she was struggling to make out what he’d said. “Are you still…?” She listened intently. “Oh, okay. Yeah, see you later.”
After she hung up, I flopped down on her bed. “That was Mr. Totally Awesome, I presume?”
“Yep. Can’t believe he called about my sweater. That almost never works.” She chewed her thumbnail, a wistful smile on her mouth.
I perched my head on an elbow. “Meghan, you should be more careful. What if by some unforeseen and tragic occurrence, I couldn’t find you when he called and we talked for hours and fell in love like Sleepless in Seattle?”
“You’re thinking of the wrong movie.”
I bit my lip. “Pretty Woman?”
“Errr…no.” She grimaced then laughed. “I would kill you, by the way. Rad is mine. Good thing he isn’t your type or I wouldn’t let you or your perfect little face near him.”
“Perfect face,” I repeated with a snort.
“You act all supportive, Rach, but you might be a man-stealer in disguise. If you pilfer Rad…” She pointed her index finger at me then ran it across her throat.
“Oy. Duly noted.” I slid to the floor with a magazine. “So, why isn’t this guy my type?”
“He just isn’t. I don’t know, maybe you don’t have a type.” She frowned, looking thoughtful. “Or maybe you do but I forget because I haven’t seen you on an actual date in a hundred years.”
“We double-dated all the time in high school,” I said, not quite meeting her eyes.
“That doesn’t count. You hardly dated in college. All you did was study and work on that damn ten-year plan. Unless…” She cackled and twirled some hair around a finger. “Unless you had a secret boy toy you met every night behind the stacks—like freshman year.”
While she went on chortling, I fixed my expression into a breezy smile. Shit.
“What were you laughing at?” Giovanna asked, poking her head into the room.
“Remember how Rach was always hiding out freshman year?” Meghan said, jerking her thumb in my direction. “She had an undercover lover.”
“When did I admit to that?”
“Scandalous.” Gio sat on the bed and bounced. “‘Cause we never actually saw her date, right?”
I stood and walked to Meghan’s bookshelf, annoyed at the direction the conversation had turned. Not my favorite subject. Plus, I might start blushing and be forced to tell them both everything about Oliver right here and now.
“Whatever happened to that Jason guy in Dallas?” Meghan asked me. “I thought things were going well with him last year.”
“He just wasn’t”—I paused to shrug—“the guy.”
Meghan shook her head. “You’re too hard on men. You need to rein in your intimidating chi.”
“Sure, Megs.” I snorted. “I’m as intimidating as a lost puppy in the rain.”
“Nice try, babe.” She circled me slowly, tapping her chin. “You’re tall, you walk fast, and you always act like your mind is made up. Like no one can persuade you into anything, or out of it.”
“Is that why Roger can still talk me into doing his laundry and how Krikit manages to make me feel guilty for not living in the house next door to her? Intimidating,” I muttered. “Damn straight, I am.”
“I’m telling you, if you’d be a little more forgiving of human frailties, you’ll have better luck with guys. I’ve set you up on three lunch dates since you’ve been back and you blew all three off.”
“I did not. We went to lunch, but I didn’t connect with any of them. It just wasn’t…they weren’t…”
“See.” Gio pointed at me. “You’re not investing. You’re not even trying.”
Before I could open my mouth to argue, I bit my tongue. Maybe they were right. Maybe I wasn’t doing everything I could to invest in someone new. The thing was, I didn’t think I wanted to. My heart was still broken from a million years ago.
Meghan leaned a hip against her dresser. “You’re a tricky one, Rachel. I can’t imagine you with any kind of guy in the long run.”
“Great.” I moaned, toying with a piece of pizza crust. “I hope you’re not using your mystical powers to foresee my future. Please tell me you don’t see me in a rundown shack with twenty cats.”
“You’re the one having the mystical dreams lately.”
I tried to laugh while rubbing the back of my neck. I didn’t want to relive those memories, either. I still couldn’t get the image of that rusty can out of my mind. Just the thought of my recent dreams made my stomach roll, wondering what kind of dream I would have tonight.
“Don’t worry, Rach.” Megs gave me a wink. “I won’t rest until I figure out the perfect man for you.”
Chapter Eleven
I turned to a fresh page in my notebook and tapped my pen. Evidently, I was being too loud because Claire gave me the stink-eye. I hadn’t had a run-in with her for ten whole days. My longest stretch to date. Time to reset the clock, Rach.
“Does anyone else have a thought?” Claire asked, making it a point to hold scary eye
contact with each of us gathered around the conference table. I tried to inconspicuously slink down in my chair. “Rachel? Input?”
Damn. I consulted my clean, blank page. “Not yet, um.” I hadn’t written it down, but I did have an idea—a pretty good one, in fact. But Claire and Moron Bruce were about to leave for another meeting, and I’d much rather wait and bounce the idea off the smaller group of copywriters. While Claire talked for a few minutes about the direction the project should go, I scribbled down a few lines, crossed out three, circled one. I even sketched what I thought the photo art might look like. Yeah, this could be really cool.
Moron Bruce and Claire finally stood to leave. “Prepare to stay late tonight,” Claire said. “I’ll take any and all ideas for this one, so get creative.”
I inwardly groaned at the prospect of working late, but if I could be part of the creative leadership this time, it would be worth it. “Want me to order in dinner later?” I asked as they were leaving. Claire had an assistant to do this kind of thing, but I was trying to be a team player, drink the Kool-Aid and all that. “You guys like the takeout from Pakwan, right?”
“Actually, Rachel.” Claire dabbed a fingertip at the lip gloss on the corner of her mouth. “You won’t be staying tonight.”
Oh, shit. Please don’t say I’m fired.
“You’re a USF alum, correct?”
I cleared my throat. “Yes.”
Claire leaned toward Bruce and whispered. Bruce glanced at me and smirked. “Somewhere on my desk,” Claire said to him. “Rachel, you’ll meet her for dinner—it’s purely routine since she’s already hired, but there’s no way I can make it.”
“Meet who?”
“The intern.” Claire actually rolled her eyes. “The address is on my calendar, you’ll have to look it up yourself.”
“Tonight?”
“Yes, tonight.” She sighed impatiently. “In two hours.” She glanced at the red client folder beside my notebook. “Turn that into Bruce, you won’t be needing it.”
“I’m off the project?”
She sighed again. Girlfriend was a master at the impatient sighs. “Naturally. Since you won’t be here tonight—we won’t need you. There are plenty of other assignments to keep you occupied, aren’t there? Are we not keeping you busy enough?”
Someday Maybe Page 6
