But I Love Him (12 page)

My mom had something to do in Seattle today, almost three hours away, so I’m in my room, lying on the plush carpet and staring at the glowing stars I put up years ago. It’s hard to know who I was then. When stickers and coloring books ruled the day.

I like my room. It is my Eden. Even though the door is just some fake hollow-core one, it seems like a fortress in here and nothing can get in.

When my phone rings, I almost don’t recognize it. Those big red lips make a funny shrill sound. I haven’t been home to hear this ring in a long time. I’m always slipping through that door past eleven o’clock, hoping today isn’t the day my mom cracks down on my curfew.

I get up and grab it. It must be Connor. I wonder how his first day is going.

But it is not.

It’s Abby.

“Ann?”

I freeze. Her voice is so familiar and so … foreign at the same time.

“H-Hi,” I say.

“I can’t believe you answered.”

“Yeah. I’m home today.”

“Do you want to do something?”

Her question hangs in the air for a long time. All I can hear is the buzzing in the receiver. I think she might have hung up. “Yes,” I finally answer. And it is the truth.

“I’ll be there in twenty.”

And she hangs up before I can change my mind.

Twenty minutes later, we’re racing down the back roads in her yellow Mustang. Abby and I used to be completely obsessed with Christina Aguilera, even though she’s kind of lame now and it’s totally embarrassing. But we like Classic Christina, like “Genie in a Bottle” classic. And we shout it at the top of our lungs as the wind whips through her car. Even though it’s a cold February day, we leave the windows down as the chill tangles our hair and makes our throats sore.

Freedom. That is what I feel today. That is all I feel right now.

Abby and I end up at Red Robin, where we order overpriced fruity drinks and bottomless baskets of fries.

We will eat until we want to explode.

“Did you hear that Jan Nichols is dating Mike Fenser?” Abby holds out the shaker of seasoning salt and I douse my French fries in it and pass it back.

“Eww!”

“I know.” She grins, her eyes sparkling. Abby has always loved gossip, and it’s been so long since we’ve had time to talk like this. “He’s, like, totally gross and sweaty.” She sticks out her tongue, as if the idea of making out with Mike Fenser is the most disgusting thing she’s ever heard.

“And huge,” I say. I puff up my chest and scrunch my shoulders up. “He doesn’t even have a neck. His chin just blends right into his pecs.”

Abby’s eyes flare and she laughs, this amazing, loud, totally Abby way to laugh. “And she’s, like, tiny. Can you imagine them …” Abby says as she mimes a hip thrust.

“Eww!” I say again, faking a dry heave.

Abby takes a bite of her burger, but it all falls apart in her basket. She doesn’t seem to mind, and she picks up the pieces with her fingers and pops them in her mouth. “I guess they hooked up at Winter Formal or something.”

Winter Formal. I try not to let those two words hit me like they do, but I can’t keep that twinge of bitterness away as I think of the emerald dress hanging in the closet where no one has ever seen it. I set my burger back down in the basket because it’s suddenly very hard to swallow.

I take a long, slow drink of my strawberry lemonade, but it doesn’t taste as good as it did three minutes ago.

Abby seems to know she shouldn’t have said those two words because she changes the subject. Too quickly. “Do you want to go see that new Jennifer Garner movie? It’s supposed to be really funny.”

I glance at my watch. Connor will be off in two hours, which isn’t enough time to see the movie and get home. He said he would call me on his way there, and I know he will.

But even with the awkward Winter Formal moment, I’m having too much fun to stop now. Connor won’t mind about a movie. He knows I never see Abby.

“Yes. Absolutely. Let’s do it.”

Abby grins excitedly. Twenty minutes later we leave Red Robin and walk across the mall parking lot to the theater, where she buys us two tickets and a tub of popcorn big enough to feed six people.

For two hours I lose myself in a romantic comedy that makes me think of Connor at all the right moments and makes me forget life at the same time. By the time we leave, I feel lighter than air. I think I float to the car.

Today was exactly what I needed. Why have I been avoiding Abby so much? Why don’t I just balance my life instead of giving it all to Connor? He loves me, and I love him, but we should do other things with other people sometimes too. We don’t have to be so wrapped up in our relationship.

I’m excited to see Connor, so I have Abby take me directly there. I’ll have him drop me off at my house later. I want to see how his day went.

When we pull up and I see Connor sitting on the porch, my heart jams into my throat. Why is he sitting out here in the dead of winter? It’s cold enough to see your breath.

He stands up and walks toward us, and I can tell just by the way he’s walking that he’s angry. His feet fall in a heavy rhythm, his strides so long his legs are stretching to eat up the ground.

My heart sinks. I shouldn’t have turned off my phone in the theater. I shouldn’t have watched the movie at all. Not when I promised him I’d be waiting for him when he got home. I’m over an hour late. He might have had things he wanted to tell me about his first day.

Or he might just have been worried about me—

“Where have you been?”

He’s at the door as I get out of the car. “Abby and I saw a movie—”

“You said you’d be here when I got home. My whole day was crazy, and then I get here—”

I don’t even realize that Abby has gotten out of the car until she is next to me. “God, relax. We went and saw a movie. I think you can survive without her for one damn afternoon.”

I open my mouth to tell Abby to let me handle it, but I can’t get a word out before he does.

“Stay out of it,” he says, turning his attention to Abby. I grab his arm. I don’t need this confrontation.

Abby stands directly in front of him. “She’s my best friend. I don’t need to stay out of it. In fact, maybe I’ve stayed out of it too long. Maybe I should have told her what I really thought the day I met you, huh?”

Connor’s eyes narrow and he pulls his arm away from me. “Maybe I should have told her what I thought of you.”

“Oh, please. I’d love to hear it. What’s your beef with me? Am I too nice? Because you’re a pretty big ass. Or maybe I’m too smart? Because you’re pretty stupid.”

I cringe. Of all the words, why did she choose stupid ? He hates that word.

He steps toward her, closing the gap in less than a second. But she doesn’t move. She’s taller than me. Tall enough that she can almost look him in the eye.

“I’m not afraid of you. You think you’re tough but you’re not.” She stares at him, a gleam of confidence and arrogance in her eyes. She’s enjoying the confrontation, as much as she can, anyway. She’s been waiting for this moment. Now I realize it. She’s been biting her tongue all this time, waiting for her chance to tell him what she thinks.

She turns away from him and puts her hand over mine, where it rests on the car door. “Don’t stay here, Ann. Come with me. You don’t deserve this.”

All I can do is stare at her hand on mine. I’m frozen.

“I can’t. You know I can’t,” I say in a whisper, as if I hope Connor won’t hear.

“No. You can.” She whispers too, but even as she says it, her hand slides off of mine. “But you won’t.”

I look up at her and she stares at me, straight in the eyes, and no words pass between us. But she understands it. She’s not mad. I don’t know how she does it, but she’s not mad at me. She just nods and gives me a fast hug, flips Connor off, and returns to the driver’s seat.

Connor tries to pull me away but I just stand at the curb and watch her yellow Mustang disappear around the corner.

Some part of me feels like this might be the last time I ever see her.

February 5

Five months, six days

It was a half day at school today, but I forgot until second period. Connor wasn’t home when I went by his house, so I ended up back at home again.

Which is weird. More and more, I just sleep in my bed and that’s it. I don’t have dinner here, I don’t watch TV, I just come home and fall into bed.

But today I’m sitting on the couch, catching a Gossip Girl rerun and painting my toenails even though it’s winter and no one will see them. I’ve eaten half a bag of Doritos. It’s an oddly comforting afternoon.

But then I hear the garage door hum open. I know my mom has arrived, and all that tranquility floods out faster than it arrived.

I haven’t seen her in about two weeks. I know she’s going to ask where I’ve been every day, what I’m up to. How my grades are. She may not be loving, but she’s predictable.

I cap the nail polish and use a piece of newspaper to fan my nails. I hear her heels click across the Travertine-tiled kitchen and I know she hears the movie on.

“Oh, Ann! What are you doing home?” I look up to see her generic three-piece suit in forest green, and her hair pulled up in its usual no-nonsense French twist.

I shrug. “Teacher in-service or something.”

She nods. “How is school going?”

“Good. I think I got a 3.7 this semester.”

She nods. “That’s great. Are you having trouble in any of your courses? Your teachers being fair?”

I shrug. “Everything’s fine.”

“And your boyfriend? How is he?”

“Good.”

She moves and is sitting next to me on the couch before I can blink.

“Are you sure he’s not …” her voice trails off.

“Not what?”

“I just think … I think there are other fish in the sea,” she says, all in one breath, like a big woosh of words. I wonder how long she’s been saving that, looking for the right moment.

I shrug. “I’m sure there are. But I want to be with him.”

“Why, though? It’s not like—”

This time she stops abruptly.

“It’s not like what?” I ask.

“He’s not really …” her voice trails off yet again.

“Just tell me what you’re trying to say.” My voice comes out a little rougher than I’d meant it to because I just want her to spit it out already, and it’s obvious it’s not going to be good. Why beat around the bush?

“He’s not good enough,” she says. “For you. You’re better than him.”

And there it is. Her opinion, right out in the open. I knew she didn’t like him. Even when she was smiling at him that day she met him, I could see something behind it. She was trying too hard to be nice and cheerful. It wasn’t real.

“There’s more to him than you see,” I tell her.

“Enlighten me,” she says, her voice a little too terse. She’s sitting so perfectly next to me, her back ramrod straight.

“He’s not on trial, Mom. I’m not going to debate it with you.”

“I just think you need to meet other people,” she says, reaching out to pat my knee. It’s hard not to jerk it away. It’s hard not to snap right back at her, because I hate that she wants to force us apart. He’s the love of my life. I’m not leaving him. Not now, not ever. I promised him. No matter what.

“Mom, just stop, okay? Not going to happen.”

And then I reach for the nail polish but only succeed in knocking it over, and it pools over the wooden side table, a big splotch of red.

“Just think about it. Aim higher.”

And then, before I can say anything coherent in response, she’s gone and I’m left cleaning up the mess.

January 30

Five Months

My hair is piled atop my head in curls and I have a pretty necklace around my neck. A little diamond pendant Connor bought me two weeks ago.

But I’m all dressed up with nowhere to go. Just sitting on the couch near the door, waiting.

I don’t know where he is.

I’m not sure I want to know. Maybe it’s better if he never calls to tell me, and I just sit here and wonder.

His dad has been on a drinking binge for two days, and I know that is the problem. I know he’s off somewhere dealing with it, dealing with his mom, trying to sort out the problems that never leave him.

I know Abby is going to figure it out. She’s going to look everywhere for me. She’ll stand at the door to the gym and watch expectantly for me to round the corner in the beautiful green dress she helped pick out.

But I’ll just be sitting here, waiting for him, and he’ll never show up.

I don’t know why I thought this would work. Why I thought Connor could do something … teen like this.

Connor lives in a world made for people much older than his eighteen years. He lives in a world that ages him faster than is fair.

It’s why I feel as if I’ve been with him for years and not months. Because everything is accelerated and intense and real, and high school dances are childish and silly and pointless.