151 Days (22 page)

No matter how much we loved each other, we weren’t going to last once we
graduated.

What was I going to do? Hitch a ride in his luggage if he got a scholarship to play baseball somewhere? And if he didn’t, what was he going to do? Just crash on my couch while I tried to get a degree? This whole relationship had been a no-win situation from the start, and all Brad and I had been doing was putting Band-Aids over the wound. This was the excuse I needed to pull the Band-Aid off and get it over with once and for all.

So he could go on with his life and be happy somewhere, and I could go off and be miserable alone. I mean, how else was this supposed to end?

By the time it was midnight, I had steeled myself for what I had to do. I needed to break up with him and then just stick to my guns. That was better for both of us in the long run, and I needed to keep that thought in my mind at all times. I threw on some clothes and made my way to school to meet the bus when they got back. I waited by Brad’s car and kept reminding myself no matter how miserable I felt, it was for the better. It was for the better.

After a while I began to believe it.

I checked my phone and saw a dozen missed texts from Brad. I texted him back that we needed to talk when he got back and nothing else. I wasn’t surprised he didn’t text back. I don’t know how much time passed, but my thoughts went into a daze as I played mental chess with myself about the situation. It was stunning that I hadn’t realized we were doomed earlier. It was so obvious now that we never had a chance, and all it had been was hormones that prevented me from seeing it. Brad was everything I had wanted in a guy, and I let that confuse me from the truth.

But not anymore.

The bus pulled in, and I felt a little nauseous, I just kept chanting “It’s for the best” in my head over and over. He came over to his car and froze when he saw me. He looked like he was about to hurl as well.

“Hey,” he said, surprised. “What are you doing out here so late?”

I pushed myself off the car and asked him, “Did you tell Jennifer about our sex life?”

Like a five-year-old, he instantly said, “No!”

That just made me madder. “So you didn’t tell her you disliked having sex with me?”

His voice sounded like he was denying a murder. “I didn’t say I disliked it.”

“So then you
did
talk to her about our sex life?” I knew the answer. I was just leading him to say it out loud.

“I was just telling her that…,” he began to explain.

That was what I needed to hear.

“Why would you tell her anything? What we do in the bedroom is between us only. Why would you think that was okay? Wait, let me guess. You didn’t think.” I could feel my emotions getting crazy, and I could feel tears starting to form. “Do you know how embarrassed I was? How horrible it is to find out your boyfriend doesn’t like sex with you from someone else?”

“I didn’t say I didn’t like it!” He broke in with. “I just said I was sore.”

My mind went red with rage. “
Why would you say that to her
?”

“Can we talk about this somewhere else?” he asked me quietly.

I looked over and saw most of the team standing by their cars looking at us. And once again he was more concerned about being embarrassed than how he made me feel. “Why? You don’t want them to know? You would hate to have your private business told to others without your permission?” I looked over to the guys like I was going to tell them everything.

“Please don’t,” he pleaded with me. “I know I fucked up, Kyle, but please… don’t do this.”

The tears were falling now as I realized everything I had been thinking was true. He really had no idea how he had made me feel.

So I decided to explain it to him. “You know, that was exactly what I was thinking when Jennifer started to tell me. Please don’t do this.” I took off his ring and tossed it to him. “Well, now you don’t have to be sore at all.”

The pain on his face was like emotional acid, and all I wanted to do was hug him and wish we could do this day over again. But it wouldn’t make any difference, because no matter how many times we tried to change it, it would end the same every time. So instead, I walked away and forced myself not to look back at him.

It was the hardest thing I ever had to do.

T
HE
NEXT
day, I was not going to school.

I don’t care if storm troopers came charging in my room to carry me down the street to class. There was no way I could face Brad without caving instantly. It felt like something had been punched inside my chest, and every time I thought about him, it ached like a bruise. A bruise that was never going to get better. My mom was still asleep, so I left a note on my door that I was sick and staying home.

Then I texted Jennifer so someone knew I was all right. I knew how this would go: Brad would tell her we had broken up, she would say she hadn’t heard from me at all, and images of me swinging from a rope would fill her mind, and she would rush right over. And talking about it was the last thing I wanted to do.

She almost instantly texted me back.
Do u hate me?

I sighed and wished I could explain to her how so little of this was actually her fault.
No, not at all. We broke up and I cant face him.

Her response was predictable.
OMG u broke up?

Yes
I responded.
will call u l8r

I turned off my phone before she could respond.

I buried myself under the covers and fell back asleep. All I could dream about was Brad.

W
HEN
I
woke up, it was afternoon, and I could hear sounds coming from the living room.

My mom was on the couch watching TV. She looked over and smiled when she saw me walk out. “So it lives,” she commented.

“Why are you home?” I asked, confused. She usually worked Friday afternoons.

“It’s nice to see you too, son, and I switched with Sharon for the day off.” She gestured toward the kitchen. “There’s some McDonalds on the counter for you.”

My stomach made a sound in response.

I grabbed the bag and pulled a Coke out of the fridge and sat in the chair. “So what’s all this about?” I asked as I shoved some fries in my mouth.

“What, I can’t take a day off and make sure my son is okay?” I gave her a look, and she shook her head. “You take a day off from school and Brad isn’t here hovering, I worry.” I must have made a face because she leaned forward and asked, “You want to talk about it?”

I began to cry as I shook my head.

All in all, it was a lousy day all around.

T
HE
NEXT
day, the impossible happened.

I went to get the mail from the large bank of mailboxes the apartment complex used, and there was a letter waiting for me. An impossible letter. A letter that in no way could exist. I sat there staring at it for what must have been ten minutes with the mailbox open and my mouth agape in shock.

I slammed the mailbox shut and ran back to the apartment.

I picked up my phone and went to call Brad before I remembered the last forty-eight hours. Suddenly, my letter seemed less miraculous. My mom was at work, so I couldn’t call her. Last time I talked to Robbie I had bitched him out, so he wasn’t going to be sympathetic. Instead, I texted Jennifer if she could come over. I couldn’t open it by myself. In fact, I wasn’t sure if I could open it at all.

Ten minutes later she knocked on my door, a worried look on her face. “What’s wrong?”

I handed her the letter silently.

She glanced at it, not getting the significance at first. Then she saw who it was from. “Is this for real?” she asked. I nodded, not even sure if I was breathing anymore.

She tried to hand it back to me, and I shook it off. “I can’t open it. I think I’m going to have a stroke.”

“You want me to open it?” The tone in her voice made it clear she thought I had lost it. All I could do was fall back on the couch and nod. She sat across from me and carefully picked at the envelope’s seal, like she could ruin its contents if she did it wrong. She paused when it was halfway open. “You’re sure?” I nodded again. She ripped the rest of the way and opened it, revealing the piece of paper inside.

We both stared at it, half expecting it to jump up and do tricks.

She pulled it out and unfolded it. I saw her eyes scan the contents briefly, and she gasped halfway through it.

“What’s it say?” I asked her.

When she answered, I knew nothing was going to be the same.

J
ENNIFER

I
REMEMBER
the very moment I knew I wasn’t like the other girls.

Maggie Hayes had thrown a slumber party at her house, and only those of us considered cool were invited. Now, I’m unsure what criteria of cool we were using in junior high, but I am sure it had something to do with which Winchester brother was hotter and our love for Katy Perry. Either way, I was invited, and it was supposed to be one of those epic events that bonded us together as friends for years to come.

That didn’t exactly happen.

Maggie’s older sister was a cheerleader at Granada and the girl everyone our age wanted to grow up to be. She was pretty without looking like a slut, she was popular without being a tease, and I remember thinking that when I got to high school I wanted to be just like her. Maggie’s popularity really came from Penny’s rep, but none of us ever said it out loud, because just being friends with the most popular girl’s sister was better than most people were doing. So after a double feature of
Moulin Rouge!
and
Slumdog Millionaire
, the conversation turned to what it always turned to when six teenage girls got together anywhere, but especially in a room with the door closed.

Boys.

I know that guys are supposed to be the ones who think about sex, like, every ten seconds or so, but I also know junior high girls think of boys at least three times in that same ten seconds. The problem was that, in a town as small as Foster, every single boy had been scoped out and observed since he was ten. Everyone knew everybody, so there was this weird kind of pairing ritual that took place where we would claim certain boys even though none of us had ever once talked to them in a romantic setting. My dad had heard us do this once. He said it sounded a lot like a fantasy football league, where we were trading boys back and forth between each other without ever asking the boy what he wanted.

Leave it to my dad to make everything about sports.

So anyway, there we were, talking about boys, when Penny came in. She was drunk, which at the time made her seem so much cooler than being drunk actually is. The difference between a thirteen-year-old girl and a seventeen-year-old girl may seem vast to those on the outside, but when you’re the thirteen-year-old, it looks like science fiction. There was no way the thing people called my chest would ever develop into breasts that looked like Penny’s, and I was pretty sure my face was going to look chubby until the day I died. She seemed so cool and sophisticated that it hurt to know I would never, ever be that cool.

So she sat down and asked what we were talking about, and as soon as she realized it was boys, she put her hands out to quiet us down and said, “Do you guys want to know the secret to getting a guy and keeping him?” It was a stupid question, because we all sat up liked trained dogs and waited breathlessly for her to feed us treats of her hard-earned wisdom. “The secret is being hot,” she slurred, stuffing a handful of chips into her mouth. “Once you’re hot, they’ll be tripping over themselves to do anything for you. And you know how you get hot?” Again a stupid question, but since she had a captive audience, she was going to milk it for all it was worth. “Some will tell you it’s exercise, and some will tell you eating right, but that’s crap. The secret? Eat whatever you want… just afterward—” We all leaned forward, just knowing the wisdom was about to flow. “—you throw it all up.” No one said a word; they just gazed at her like she had hung the sun and moon. “I carry around a toothbrush, and before class… I just stick it down my throat and… lunch is gone.”

The silence in the room was palpable as we all absorbed her words.

“Now I bring some mouthwash, ’cause no one wants nasty puke breath, but others use gum….”

And I burst out laughing.

I mean, not just a chuckle or a giggle but a loud, sidesplitting laugh that was the equivalent of a record scratching to silence in a movie. Everyone looked over at me, wondering what exactly I had found so funny. Penny specifically looked like she wanted to hit me. When I became aware that no one could figure out what I was going on about, I blurted out, “Are you fucking kidding me? Puking? That’s your secret to getting boys?” More silent stares. “Have you just tried, I don’t know, being nice to them or something?”

In a tone of voice that could have kept meat chilled, Penny said, “It’s not that easy, little girl.” I’m sure the “little girl” part was supposed to be an insult, but honestly, this girl had lost any power she had over me the second she brought up the mouthwash.

“Seriously? You all are buying this? There’s not a boy alive who is worth blowing chunks for. I can tell you that now.”

“Get the wrong guy, and you’ll be stuck in this one-horse town forever,” Penny argued. “Trust me, when you’re older you’ll do whatever to get the right guy. Anything.”

That confused the heck out of me, and I asked with all honesty, “Why do you need a boy to leave? It’s not like we can’t leave by ourselves.” Less than five minutes later, I was on the phone asking my dad to come pick me up. It was the last slumber party I’d ever attend. Not that I wasn’t invited; I just never bothered to go because I had learned everything I needed to from Penny. There was what girls in this town thought they were supposed to want, and there was what I wanted.