She's the Worst

by Lauren Spieller

  I almost choke on my surprise. They’ve never spoken to me like this before. To April? Yes. But to me? Never. “Mom, the thing is—”

  “Do you understand?” she repeats.

  I nod and sink back into the couch. This is already not going well.

  “We have been calling you for hours,” she says. “We have left text messages. We even called Tom’s parents. Do you have any idea how worried we were?”

  My cheeks flush. They probably told the Alberts everything—not just that I wasn’t answering my phone, but about college, too.

  I bet Tom’s parents are relieved he dumped me. Who wants their son dating a liar?

  “Explain yourself,” Dad says. “Explain all of this. Right now.”

  I look back and forth between them. I’ve been picturing this moment for months—I knew I’d have to tell them the truth, and then somehow find a way to ask them to cover the rest of my college expenses—but I never once actually planned what I was going to say. “I’m not sure where to start.”

  Mom glares at me. “How about you start with deciding to go to a college we agreed you weren’t attending? Or maybe with how you forced your grandmother to lie on your behalf and pay the down payment?”

  I wince at the mention of Grandma. She must be so disappointed in me.

  “Well?” Dad prompts.

  “Technically,” I say, struggling to keep my voice calm, “I didn’t agree to anything. You and Dad talked privately, then informed me that I wasn’t going to Stanford. And for the record,” I continue, my voice growing stronger, “I didn’t force Grandma. She thought I should go too.”

  “But why?” Dad asks. “There are plenty of good schools here. I don’t understand what it is about Stanford that’s so important to you.”

  I take a long, slow breath. I can practically hear Tom’s voice in my head, urging me to tell the truth—that I need to get away from their fighting, from the store. From them. That living in this house hurts me. But it’ll just make this situation worse.

  “I don’t get it,” Dad says. “You’re usually such a good kid.”

  “Usually?” I say, my temper flaring. “I’m always a good kid, Dad. In fact, I’m a great kid.”

  “A great kid wouldn’t do this,” Mom says. “A great kid wouldn’t put us in this position.”

  “What position?” I demand. “I got into Stanford. You should be proud of me!”

  “We are proud,” Mom says. “That isn’t even a question. But you know we need you at the store.”

  “You could hire someone—”

  “We can’t afford to do that,” Mom snaps, “not with sales the way they are.” She takes a deep breath, then sits next to me on the couch and takes my hands in hers. “Listen. We know college is important to you. We really do. But we need you here. At least for now.”

  I try to pull my hand away, but she holds firm.

  “We know you’ll have to cut back on your hours now that you’re going to community college. That’s why we plan to ask your sister to pick up a little of the slack.”

  “A few hours isn’t going to make a difference,” I say through gritted teeth. “What I need is—”

  “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Dad says, holding up a hand. “I understand you’d like to cut back more than that, but you know how April is. She’s too disorganized to be trusted with the store for more than a few hours. She’d probably get distracted and forget about the customers.”

  I’m still upset with April, but it irks me to hear them say that about her, especially since that’s exactly what they do at the store—get distracted by their endless fights and forget what they’re supposed to be doing.

  “That’s not really fair,” I say. “She’s not that unorganized. She put together an entire itinerary for us today, and it went almost perfectly.”

  “That was very nice of her,” Dad says. “But even if she’s up to the challenge, she can’t handle taking over all your shifts. She can’t come in until almost three, when school’s over.”

  “Actually, she can’t come in then, either. She has soccer practice.”

  Mom gives Dad a look, then turns back to me. “April’s going to have to miss some practice, then, because we’re short staffed even with you and Nate working in the store. She won’t like it at first, but eventually she’ll understand.”

  She’ll understand. I remember April’s face in the boat when I told her the same thing. At the time, I thought she was being immature. But hearing Mom say it now, like April’s life and her interests are so obviously second to what she and Dad want that it’s barely even worth discussing? I suddenly understand exactly why she was so angry with me in the car.

  “No,” I say. “She won’t understand, and her team won’t either. You can’t do that to her. You can’t make her give it up.”

  Dad throws his hands up. “Then that leaves us back where we started, Jenn. We need your help at the store. It’s the only way to keep it open.” He takes a seat in a chair by the window and clasps his hands together. I’ve seen him sit like this a million times when he worked at the bank. It never boded well for the other guy. “I’m sorry,” he says, “but there’s nothing else to be done. We need you here.”

  I look back and forth between my parents. “So that’s it? You’re not going to let me go? We’ve barely even talked about it!”

  Mom squeezes my hand. “Honey, you were never supposed to go in the first place.”

  “But—but I have to go. I’ve worked so hard for this.” I turn to face Mom on the couch. “I’m supposed to get on a plane tomorrow morning!”

  She shakes her head, and my heart plummets into my stomach.

  “Fine,” I say, standing. “Fine. I didn’t want to do this, but you’re not giving me any choice.” I smooth my clothes, and take a deep breath. Here goes nothing. “I’m eighteen years old, which means I’m an adult. It also means I don’t actually need your permission. I’m going to Stanford tomorrow, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

  Dad leans back in his chair and crosses his arms. “You’re right. We can’t stop you. But that doesn’t mean we have to help you either, and if what your grandma tells me is correct, you can’t afford to go on your own. You need help covering room and board, among other things.”

  I sink back down onto the couch. “I can’t believe this,” I say.

  Mom reaches for my hand. “You’ve worked hard,” Mom says. “We know that. And we want you to get a good education at a good school. But we need you to stay in LA, at least for now.”

  The numb realization that I’ve failed slowly dawns on me. For the last six months, I’ve tried to imagine every possible snag in my plan, every tiny little road bump I might encounter along the way. I planned everything so perfectly, from which schools Tom and I applied to, to how I’d intercept my admissions packet when it came in the mail, to how I’d pack my clothes in the days leading up to the move without my parents noticing I was doing it.

  The only thing I never prepared for was the one thing I should have seen coming: that in the end, my parents would do what they always do.

  They’d put themselves first.

  CHAPTER 25

  APRIL

  Where to?” Nate asks the second we’re back in the car. He’s gripping the steering wheel so hard you’d think he was navigating a twisting mountain road, not sitting motionless in the parking lot. “The beach? Or maybe Johnnie’s Pastrami? We can go wherever you want.” He hits the steering wheel. “Actually, let’s go to his house. We’ll wait till he gets home, and then beat the shit out of him.”

  I slide down in my seat, and cover my face with my hands. I can’t believe this. Of all the places in LA we could have gone . . .

  “I’m sorry,” Nate says. “It’s just, you guys are dating! What the hell is he doing out with another girl?”

  “We’re not,” I say.

  “Not what?”

  I drop my hands. “Dating. We’re not dating. He’s not my boyfriend, a
nd I’m not his girlfriend, so technically he didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “Bullshit,” Nate says, so viciously that I flinch. “You were seeing each other exclusively, right?”

  “I thought so. But he never actually said that—”

  “It doesn’t matter! He was having sex with you and didn’t tell you he was also having sex with other people. Right?”

  I blush and look away. Nate and I talk about who’s hooking up with who at school, but we’ve never talked about who we’re sleeping with before. Like when he was seeing Rachel from band at the beginning of last year—I knew they were hanging out, but I never asked him what else they were doing. Partly because I didn’t want to know, and partly because it made me irrationally angry to picture him hooking up with someone who so clearly wasn’t right for him.

  “Right,” I say. “But I probably should have just assumed he was screwing around. Everyone wants to hook up with him.”

  “That’s beside the point,” Nate says. “If you’re having sex with multiple people, they should know.” He cracks his knuckles and mumbles, “You deserve better than that. Better than him.”

  My stomach does a little somersault, and through the haze of my sadness, I find myself wanting to ask him if he has someone specific in mind. But that’s the kind of flirtatious thing I’d say to Eric, not Nate.

  I shake the thought from my head. “Let’s just drop this, okay?”

  “Are you sure? I wasn’t serious about beating him up, but we could TP his house like in those old movies my dad watches.”

  A smile pulls at the corner of my mouth, but I shake my head. “I just want to forget he exists, at least for a few hours. Okay?”

  “Done,” Nate says. “So what do you want to do instead? What was next on your itinerary?”

  I try to picture the list in my head. “I think Rodeo Drive was up next. We were going to do some window-shopping and make fun of all the tourists ogling overpriced handbags or whatever.”

  Nate makes a noise in the back of his throat.

  “Oh, come on,” I say, “it’s not like we were actually going to say anything to them—”

  “It’s not that,” he says. “It’s just, it doesn’t really sound like something Jenn would want to do. I mean, I know she’s picky about what she wears, but she doesn’t really strike me as the window-shopping type. That’s more a you thing.”

  I groan. “You sound just like her.”

  “I highly doubt that,” Nate says. He starts the car but doesn’t make any moves to actually leave the parking lot.

  “You totally do. When we got into a fight earlier, Jenn said today was all about stuff I wanted to do. Then she called me selfish.”

  Nate frowns. “That’s a little harsh. I mean, Rodeo Drive doesn’t sound like a winner, but I’m sure there were tons of stops on that list that were perfect for her. Didn’t you go to the Ferris wheel? Everyone likes that.”

  “That’s what I thought.” I turn in my seat a little so I’m facing him. “Did you know that it’s possible to throw up all over your big sister and then completely forget it ever happened?”

  He stares at me, horrified. “Are you serious?”

  I nod.

  “You didn’t.”

  “Trust me,” I say. “I did.”

  Nate bursts out laughing. “Oh my god. I wish I could have seen her face.” He mimes staring down in horror at a puke-stained shirt, and cracks up again.

  I swat at him, but now I’m laughing too. “You’re making me feel even worse!”

  “Okay, okay,” he says, though I can tell he’s struggling not to keep laughing. “You’re right. You probably could have picked something better to start the day off.”

  “The thing is, even if I could redo the whole day, I don’t know where we should have gone instead.” I sink back in my seat. “Thank god she doesn’t actually want to meet up tonight. There’s no way I could come up with something meaningful to both of us in the next hour if I couldn’t do it yesterday, when I had all day to plan.”

  Nate looks at me funny. “Wait—meet up? What are you talking about?”

  “You know, what I said at the end of our fight about meeting at eight.”

  “Uh, no,” Nate says. “I have no clue what you’re talking about.”

  “Oh,” I say. “I guess I forgot to tell you.” I kick my boots off, and put my feet up on the dashboard. Might as well get comfortable if we’re not going anywhere. “We were fighting, and Jenn said if I really cared about her I would’ve taken her to a place that’s important to both of us, not just me. Then I said, I’ll meet you there at eight o’clock. Then she drove away.”

  “That’s it?” Nate asks. “That’s how the fight ended?”

  “Yep.” I reach for the radio. The oldies station Nate’s mom insists he keeps programmed blares out of the speakers. I change the channel. “It was stupid, obviously. We’re not actually doing it.”

  I start to sing along to the radio, but Nate turns the volume down. “Hold on . . . Are you sure Jenn knows you aren’t meeting?”

  “She must. We didn’t pick a place, and we haven’t talked since she left me in front of the store.”

  “But it’s possible, right? That she took you seriously, and thinks you’re meeting”—he checks the clock—“in just over an hour?”

  The truth of the situation hits me with a jolt. He’s right—I have no way of knowing if Jenn took me seriously or not. I mean, she probably didn’t—she never does—but if she did and she shows up at this mystery location and I’m not there? I can’t let her down like that. Especially when this was my ridiculous idea in the first place.

  “Can I borrow your phone?” I ask Nate.

  He pulls his cell out of his pocket but doesn’t hand it to me. “Maybe you shouldn’t.”

  “Of course I should,” I say, reaching for the phone. “I need to make sure she knows we aren’t actually meeting. Otherwise, she’s gonna show up and I’ll look like a total flake.”

  “I know,” he says. “But hear me out. She’s about to move away—”

  “Maybe,” I say. “You didn’t see how pissed our parents were.”

  “Which means you only have one more night living together in the same place.” He puts the phone face down on the dashboard. “What if this is your only chance to make things right with your sister before she moves away? If you call it off, you’re forfeiting the opportunity.”

  I look down at my lap. After what he told me about his brother and him not talking, I totally get why he’d want me to talk to Jenn before things get any worse. But it doesn’t make this easier.

  “For the sake of argument,” I say, “let’s say I meet up with her tonight. What would I tell her? Sorry I took you to a bunch of places that were apparently traumatic for you as a child, then tried to manipulate you into staying in LA. I didn’t know Mom and Dad were such assholes to you—please forgive me?”

  Nate shrugs. “Yeah, pretty much.”

  I hit my head back against the headrest.

  “Look, I get it,” Nate says. “It’s awkward talking about . . . feelings. There are tons of things I wish I could say to my brother but can’t.” He fiddles with the parking break. “It would have been so much easier to talk to him when he was still living across the hall. You and Jenn still live in the same house,” Nate says. “At least for now. You might not fix your whole relationship in one night, but if you meet her and talk things out, maybe you can fix what happened between you two today.”

  “What if she doesn’t show up?” I ask. “What if she decides she doesn’t want to waste any more time on me?”

  He reaches across the center console and gently takes my hand. At first, I don’t know what to do, but his fingers are warm against mine, and holding hands feels surprisingly normal.

  “April, trust me,” he says. “You are worth showing up for.”

  His words flood me with hope. I look down at our interlaced fingers and breathe out a long, slow breath. “You’ll go
with me?” I ask. “To meet her?”

  “Of course.” He sits back and holds out his cell phone. “Here. Find out where she wants to meet.”

  I take the phone. I expect him to let go of my hand, but he doesn’t—he keeps his fingers entwined with mine. First he says he thinks I deserve better than Eric, and now he’s holding my hand. Suddenly, it’s like I’m sitting next to a complete stranger. A cute, smells-good, actually-returns-my-calls stranger.

  “I wonder where she would have gone if you didn’t call,” Nate says absently as I start to dial.

  I look up at him. I don’t know where she’s planning to be at eight. I have absolutely no idea. But as I sit here, phone in hand, it occurs to me that calling to ask her is almost as bad as not showing up. I might as well admit I don’t care enough about our relationship to figure out the answer.

  I hand the phone back to Nate. “Let’s try to figure it out on our own. If it gets too close to eight o’clock and we still haven’t figured it out, then we’ll call her.”

  “Works for me.”

  He starts to let go of my hand so he can shift the car into drive, but I don’t let him.

  “Hold on,” I say. “If I’m gonna do this, I want you to do something too.”

  “Like what?”

  “If I look for Jenn, then you have to promise that tomorrow you’ll call Bo.”

  Nate presses his lips together. “No.”

  “Come on, you know you miss him. And it’ll make your mom feel better too.”

  Nate stares down at our hands for a long moment, then runs his thumb along mine. It sends a shiver racing up my arm.

  “Fine,” he says. “But it’s almost seven, so we better get started.”

  His fingers slip away from of mine, and for a moment I’m afraid I’ve made him angry. But that’s not Nate’s way. He doesn’t pull away or withhold when he doesn’t get what he wants.

  “Where should we start?” Nate asks as he steers us toward the parking lot exit. “What kind of place would your sister want to go that’s important to both of you?”