by Lynn Painter
I was counting the minutes until I could be warm in my bed, dwelling on my mistakes while Fitz attacked my feet under the blanket. Jocelyn and Noah, however, decided as we got closer to my house that they wanted to go to post-prom at the school gym. They’d both been planning to blow it off, but now that Noah was convinced he could make more free throws than Jocelyn, my uber-competitive best friend just had to go.
And she would totally beat him.
“You sure you don’t want to join?” Jocelyn pulled into my driveway and put her car in park. “I promise we’ll make it fun.”
“No, thanks.” I got out and slammed the door, then came around to her window and gave her a half hug. “But call me when you get home. Whenever that is.”
“Bennett won’t be there.” Noah gave me a pitying look and said, “He told me this morning that post-prom is a waste of time and he needs a good weekend of sleep before the big game Monday, so he’s coming home at midnight like a grandma.”
I appreciated his attempt to cheer me up. It was kind of sweet. I said, “I have a date with a movie and some ice cream. Nothing tops that, but thanks.”
“Let me guess.” Joss rolled her eyes. “Bridget Jones?”
I shrugged. “I think I’m feeling a little more Joe Fox and Kathleen Kelly tonight, but either one will do.”
They said goodbye and pulled away, but instead of going inside I sat down on the porch swing and stared over at Wes’s house. The light was on in the living room, making me think of our late-night telephone calls and watching for him out the window.
I missed him so much.
I’d spent most of my life wishing he wasn’t always there, aggravating me with his Wes-ness, yet now, everything felt empty when he was absent. I reached into my pocket and pulled out my phone. I went into our messages and typed Hey, you, but quickly deleted it because—of course—Wes wasn’t home yet. Normal people stayed until the end of prom. Normal people weren’t home at—I checked the clock on my phone—nine thirty.
Wes Bennett was probably being crowned prom king at that very second. He was probably about to dance with his beautiful date, and once he finished staring into her eyes, he’d forget about baseball responsibilities and sweep her away for a fantastical night of firelight and kisses that curled her toes.
Even when I closed my eyes tight, I could still picture them kissing.
“Screw this.” I opened my eyes, stood, and fished my key out of my pocket.
It was time to go inside and gouge my eyes out.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“When you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.”
—When Harry Met Sally
I lay on the couch like a lump, still wearing my prom dress but wrapped in a blanket. I’d just dropped onto the sofa when I came into the house and was mindlessly watching You’ve Got Mail in the dark while trying not to think about what was going on with Wes and Alex.
Kathleen Kelly was talking about Joni Mitchell’s “River,” and I was feeling every melancholy note of that masterpiece.
I’m selfish and I’m sad
Now I’ve gone and lost the best baby—
“Liz?” Helena stopped short of walking into the living room from the kitchen when she saw me, and put her hand on her chest. “Geez, you scared the crap out of me.”
“Sorry.”
She tucked her hair behind her ears, a tube of Pringles under her arm. “No worries. Why are you sitting in the dark?”
I shrugged. “Too lazy to turn on the light.”
“I see.” She cleared her throat and put her hands in the pocket of her hoodie, where I could see two cans of soda. “And prom?”
I waved a hand. “It was fine.”
She looked like she wanted to ask about it, but then she said, “Well, okay, then. I’ll leave you to your movie. G’night.”
I usually felt defensive when she asked about things in my life, but it felt empty not having her ask. I was embarrassed by the way I’d acted at the cemetery, and if I was honest with myself, I’d missed her today.
I didn’t deserve it, but I wanted her to stay up with me. I was a little scared to ask, afraid of a rejection that I wholeheartedly deserved, but when she was almost to the stairs, I blurted out, “Do you want to watch it with me?”
I heard her steps stop before she came back into the room. “Oh my God, yes. I love this movie. Praise Jesus for the saviors that are Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks.”
“I thought you hated rom-coms.”
“I hate cheesy, unrealistic romantic movies. But bouquets of newly sharpened pencils?” She plopped down beside me and sat crisscross applesauce, pulling the top off the Pringles. “Be still my heart.”
We watched for a few more minutes before she said, “So prom.”
“Ah, prom.” I kicked my feet out onto the coffee table and snagged a chip. “Prom was like having your biggest mistake dressed up in pretty clothes and paraded in front of you with someone else.”
“English, please. I don’t get how that gibberish pertains to the pretty Mr. Michael.”
I sighed. “It doesn’t. It’s… I don’t know, just forget it. I don’t want to think about it anymore.”
“Done.” She bit into a chip and said, gesturing at the TV, “This is the best love triangle.”
“Um—it’s more of a love square, if it’s a love shape at all.” I chomped on a Pringle and said, “They’re just a foursome who fall apart on their own. None of them have to choose between the others.”
“I’m not talking about the two couples.” Helena pulled the sodas out of her pocket, handed me one, and opened hers. She slurped off the can’s edge and said, “I’m talking about the triangle between Kathleen, her idea of who NY152 is online, and Joe Fox.”
“Wait—what?”
“Think about it. She finds his online persona charming. She likes that he knows about ‘going to the mattresses.’ She envies his ability to verbally slay.” She leaned forward and set her can on the table. “The idea of this man is beautiful, but in practice she thinks Joe Fox’s verbal slaying is mean, and when he goes to the mattresses and puts her out of business, she hates him.”
I blinked and opened my pop. “Holy crap—you’re right.”
“I know.” She grinned and did a little half-bow thing. “Sometimes we get so tied up in our idea of what we think we want that we miss out on the amazingness of what we could actually have.”
She was talking about the movie, but I felt seen. Wes had been right about one thing when he’d talked about my mom issues. It wasn’t intentional, but I had been living my life like I was one of her characters, like I was trying to act out the parts I thought she would’ve written for me.
I’d pushed him away and gone for the “good guy,” when in reality there weren’t only solid, dependable people and players with questionable intentions in the world. There were Weses out there, guys who broke the mold and blew both of those stereotypes out of the water.
He was so much more than a Mark Darcy or a Daniel Cleaver.
And then there were Helenas—smart, irreverent women who had no idea how to play the piano or tend to a rose garden, but they were always there, just waiting for you to realize you needed them.
“I mean,” Helena said, “she nearly let 152 pock marks go—can you even imagine?”
“Helena.” I blinked fast but it was impossible to clear my eyes. My voice sounded constricted when I said, “I’m so sorry for what I said to you before. For everything. I don’t want to miss out on what we could have. I didn’t mean it when I told you to butt out.”
“Oh.” Her eyes widened a little bit and she tilted her head. “It’s totally okay.”
“It’s not.”
She gave me a hug and sniffled. “Just know that I don’t want to take your mom’s place. I only want to be here for you.”
I closed my eyes and felt something as I let her hug surround me.
I
felt loved.
And I knew at that moment that my mother would want this. Badly. She would want—above all else—for me to be loved. I said, “I want that too, Helena.”
We were both sniffling, which made us laugh. The moment melted and we returned to our spots, side by side on the couch. I decided as she wolfed down chips and got crumbs all over her stained hoodie that I was glad she was so different from my mom. It was nice that the lines between them could never be blurred.
I cleared my throat. “Do you think it would be okay for me to call you my stepmom now?”
“As long as you don’t add ‘evil’ as a prefix.”
“Why else would I want to say it, though? You have to admit that it’s a powerful title.”
“I suppose it is. And I do love power.”
“See? I knew it.” I glanced toward the sliding glass door by the kitchen, and my mind went to the Secret Area. I turned toward Helena on the couch and said, “So prom. Basically, the bottom line is that I went with the wrong guy.”
“Are you coming with my pop?” I heard my dad run down the stairs before he stepped into the room wearing Peanuts pajama pants and a T-shirt, smiling. Then he looked concerned and said, “Hey, hon, I didn’t know you were home already.”
“Yeah—I just got back.”
Helena pointed at my dad and gave me a look before saying to him, “Shh—she was about to tell me about prom.”
“Pretend I’m not here.” My dad plopped down in the small space between Helena and the sofa’s armrest, and he took a sip of her soda.
I rolled my eyes and told them about Laney and the realization that I had no interest in the guy that I’d thought fate had sent me. Then I had to tell them what a jerk I’d been to Wes after our kiss (except I said “date” so my dad didn’t freak), just so they understood how badly I’d screwed everything up. I pictured Wes’s face at prom, glaring at me, and I said, “So now it’s too late. He’s with a girl who adores him and doesn’t treat him like crap. Why would he ever want to look back from that?”
They listened to all of it before my dad smiled at me like I was unbelievably dense. “Because you’re you, Liz.”
“I don’t know what—”
“Oh, you don’t know, do you?” Helena dusted off the front of her shirt and said, “That boy has been into you since you were little kids.”
“No, he hasn’t.” Her words made a hopeful buzzing start in my ears and fingertips, even though I knew she was wrong. “He’s been into messing with me since we were little kids.”
“Oh, you are so wrong. Tell her, hon.” Helena nudged my dad with her elbow. “Tell her about the piano.”
My dad put his arm around Helena and propped his feet on the coffee table. “Did you ever know, Liz, that Wes used to sit on the back porch and listen to you practice the piano? We pretended not to see him, but he was always there. And we’re talking way back when he was a little pain in the ass and you were awful at piano.”
“No way.” I struggled to remember how old we’d been when the piano had sat in the back room. “He did?”
“He did. And do you really think he cared about that parking spot you guys have fought over for the past year?”
“He definitely cared. He still does. That was what made him agree to help me.”
I thought about the rainy day in his living room when I’d first suggested the plan. He’d seemed like a stranger that day, when I’d had to beg him to let me in. Cookies and milk, Wes’s cartwheels—it seemed like a lifetime ago.
“Liz.” Helena’s smile was obscenely large. “His mom lets him park behind her car. He always pulled in his driveway, but then out of nowhere, right about the time you got your car, he started parking in the street.”
My mouth fell open. “What are you saying?”
She smacked my arm and said, “And I’m not saying anything other than I think he was after that spot because he wanted a reason to talk to you. Do with that what you will.”
Was it possible? In a way, it was impossible to believe because he was out of my league. He was popular and athletic and ridiculously hot. I was supposed to believe that he had been into me before I’d even realized who he truly was? That he’d been into me for, like, a really long time? I dug my fingers into my hair and pulled a little. “I have no idea what to do.”
My dad went upstairs after that, but Helena and I watched the rest of the movie before going to bed. I’d just closed my door when Helena knocked on it. “Liz?”
I pulled it open. “Yeah?”
She was smirking at me in the dark hallway. “Be brave enough to go big, okay?”
“What does that mean?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. Just… if you’re gonna do it, don’t skimp, I guess.”
Be brave enough to go big.
I kept replaying her words as I lay in bed. I tried sleeping, but between listening for Wes’s car and imagining all the things he and Alex might be doing, all I did was lie there being unhappy.
Until it hit me.
Be brave enough to go big.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“Here’s the deal. I love you. I know I do. Because I’ve never been so scared in my entire life. And I once shared an elevator with Saddam Hussein. Just me and Saddam. And this is way scarier. I love you.”
—Long Shot
“I was wrong about everything. I am so incredibly glad Michael came back, but only because it allowed me to get to know the real you. All this time you were right here—next door—and I had no idea how amazing you are,” I whispered to myself. I was shaking, shivering with cold when I heard Wes’s car pull into the driveway.
“Showtime.” I shook out my cold fingers and quit practicing my speech. I inhaled slowly, through my nose, as I heard him cut his engine, and a second later I heard his car door slam shut.
I tucked my hair behind my ears and got into a supercute-yet-really-casual pose on one of the chairs and waited for him to find my note.
After Helena’s epic movie quote about going big, I decided she was right and got very busy. First, I flipped on my music computer and looked through the desk drawers until I found a blank CD. There was something about holding the tangible product of careful music curation that I still loved, technology be damned.
I took the Wes and Liz playlist that I’d made after the kiss and I burned it to the CD. It had all the songs we’d ever discussed on it, and all the music we’d experienced together. I quickly made album cover art—our initials inside a heart made of ketchup—and printed it, then carefully cut it so it fit in the case just right.
As soon as it was done, I changed into jeans and Wes’s huge hoodie, which had somehow ended up in my vomity clothes bag (and that I’d been sleeping in every night). My hair and makeup were still fairly intact, so I pulled on my freshly-bleached-and-perfectly-white-again Chucks, scribbled out the words MEET ME IN THE SECRET AREA with a Sharpie on a piece of printer paper, and filled a boot box with the necessary supplies.
I’d sprinted over to his porch to leave the note before hurrying to the Secret Area, where I’d set up the portable CD player, started a fire, organized the s’mores stuff, and gotten everything in place.
Then I’d snuggled into a blanket and waited.
And waited and waited and waited.
And dozed off a couple times.
But now he was finally home. Oh dear. Oh God, I was so nervous. And then—wait, what?—I heard the slamming of a second car door.
I sucked in my lips. Crap, crap, crap. Maybe he just grabbed something from his car. Maybe there wasn’t someone with him.
“Wes!”
I heard the giggling yell, and it might as well have been the laugh of an evil clown for what it did to my pulse. I tried peeking around the bushes, but I couldn’t see anything. The voices were getting closer, so I stepped up onto my chair to see if I could see better from a higher vantage point.
Holy balls. I could see by the light of the full moon that Wes and Alex were walking thr
ough his backyard toward where I was stationed with my pride fully exposed and a sack full of embarrassing goodies.
“Shit!” All evidence had to be erased. I kicked the box of s’mores supplies, intending to knock them into a bush and out of sight. Panic exploded inside me as the box went flying and sent the graham crackers and marshmallows spilling out into the water, so they were floating on top of the fountain.
Crap-crap-crap-crap.
I grabbed the CD player and dropped down to my knees, desperate to be hidden by the darkness. But the ancient machine slipped out of my hands and landed on the ground, causing eight D-size batteries to be ejected.
Screw it. I ditched the mess and scooted over to the big bush, crawling on my hands and knees toward the other side. If I crawled all the way around to the other end of the Secret Area, maybe I could cut through—
“Liz?”
I closed my eyes for a second before slowly straightening and climbing to my feet. I pasted a smile onto my face as Wes and Alex looked at me. “Hey, guys. What’s up? Fun prom, right?”
“Right? Oh my God.” Alex, bless her, acted like it wasn’t out of the ordinary for me to be crawling around in the darkness behind Wes’s house. “I thought I was going to have a heart attack when Ash was crowned.”
“I know,” I breathed, smiling like I knew what she was talking about while taking in the stoic, serious expression on Wes’s face. “Total heart attack moment. Like, whaaat? Ash was crowned?”
“What are you doing out here?” Wes asked, looking at me with an unreadable expression that made the tips of my ears burn hot. He was probably pissed that I was in the way of a potential seduction.
Had he brought her there for that? Were they waiting for me to leave so they could get to it? For some reason, the thought of them together was a hundred times worse when it involved the Secret Area.
“I, um, I followed my cat out here earlier and…” I pointed toward my house as words failed to make sense to me. “I dropped something and thought it might’ve rolled under this bush.”
