First There Was Forever (9 page)

“A
re you going to invite Hailey over for Thanksgiving?” Mom asked on the way to school a few days later.

Hearing Mom mention Hailey’s name punctured my sense of calm.

“She’s seeing her dad,” I lied. I stared out the window at a thin, sharp streak of white cloud. It looked like a crack in the smooth, glossy blue sky.

The truth was that I had no idea what Hailey was doing for Thanksgiving because we had barely spoken since Halloween. The past two Saturday nights I’d gone to Meredith’s house and hadn’t even checked in with Hailey.

I liked Meredith. She always invited me over with a plan. “Teach me to bake a pie this weekend,” she said one Friday. And the following week, she said she wanted me to help her write lyrics to a song. But Meredith was easily distracted, and both times we just ended up listening to music and playing with her cat. Still, it was more fun than trying to tag along with Hailey and Skyler.

“Really?” Mom exclaimed. “That’s good to hear. I feel bad for her that they don’t have much of a relationship. I know what it’s like to not have a dad around when you’re young.”

Mom’s dad died when she was ten. I never knew what to say when she brought it up.

“Does Hailey talk about her dad a lot?” she asked.

“Not really,” I said.

Someone in the car behind us honked. I bit my nails.

“Stop that,” Mom said, reaching across the center console and lightly pushing my hand back into my lap.

• • •

That afternoon was Clean the Bay. I sat in the second row of the bus and pretended to study my chem notes.

“Hey,” Hailey said. “Can I sit here?”

I looked up at her. It was weird that she even had to ask. Our whole lives she had never once asked if she could sit next to me. It was like we were becoming half strangers, half friends. It’s one thing, I thought, to get to know someone. It’s another to get to un-know them.

“Of course,” I said.

As soon as she sat down, she rested her head on my shoulder.

I stiffened.

“You’re the best,” she said, out of nowhere.

I stalled, trying to figure out what to say, how to angle myself in response to Hailey’s sudden affection. I felt stingy for not wanting to reciprocate.

Hailey’s hand shot up to her face, and I heard her snivel as she wiped her nose with the palm of her hand. It was a really disgusting habit that she’d had since she was a kid.

“Are you crying?” I asked, pulling away from her so I could see her face.

She opened her eyes really wide, looking not at me but past the window, and two fresh tears pooled in her eyes.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” she said, wiping her face. She let her eyes meet mine. “I’m just getting my period. I’m bloated. And stupid.”

I rolled my eyes. “No, you’re not.”

“I’m gonna grow up and be fat and single, just like my mean, single, evil mom,” she said. “You’re so lucky that your mom is so cool.”

“She’s still a mom,” I said, not sure what to say. “She still, like, nags me about cleaning my room.”

Her eyes suddenly focused on me. “How are you? I haven’t seen you in forever, and I seriously miss you.”

I wanted to say that she hadn’t seen me because she had been avoiding me, but all that came out was, “I’m okay.” I had the sensation that everything that had been on my mind for the last few weeks about the problems with our friendship was being erased by Hailey right that second.

“What are you doing for Thanksgiving?” she asked. “I love Thanksgiving with your family, and my mom doesn’t want to do a whole thing this year. Can I tag along with you?”

I hesitated, looking at the people still filing on to the bus.

“It’s okay,” Hailey said. “I don’t know why I’m inviting myself; that’s rude.”

“No,” I said quickly, “of course you can come. We’re having it at our house. My mom already asked me if you were coming.”

Nate appeared on the bus behind a girl with a yellow backpack.

“I love
your mom,” Hailey said, not smiling. “Let’s make something really awesome and fattening like pumpkin pie. I’m fucking tired of yogurt.”

The flow of traffic down the aisle of the bus had come to a halt with Nate standing right next to the seat that Hailey and I were in. He stared straight ahead, either not seeing us or pretending not to. His hand rested on the cracking leather of the seat in front of Hailey’s face. I stared at his hands. His fingertips were chapped.

Hailey followed my gaze and realized that Nate was standing right next to her. She brightened immediately and flicked his thigh.

He looked at her, not smiling.

“Nate Reed. In the flesh,” she said drily.

He took a deep breath.

“You never talk to me anymore, Nate,” she said, beaming up at him. “Do you even know my name?”

“Hailey,” he replied, and then put his hand on the shoulder of the yellow backpack girl. “Go.”

“I love it when he says my name!” Hailey whispered to me, smiling from ear to ear. “How is he so hot?!”

I frowned.

“Do you think he could tell I was crying, like, two minutes ago?” she asked.

I certainly couldn’t.

“It’s okay if he can,” she said. “Maybe it’s even good. I mean, maybe it’ll make him wonder about me.”

I craned my neck up and backward over the sea of heads. Nate was still standing, waiting to sit in the back of the bus, his backpack draped languidly over his right shoulder. Somehow I just didn’t really think he was wondering anything whatsoever about Hailey.

“W
hy aren’t you guys doing Thanksgiving in Santa Barbara this year?” Hailey asked, dipping a piece of turkey in her cranberry sauce and taking a bite.

“I’m in the middle of a big case,” Dad said, and he and Mom exchanged a look.

“I told him to let himself off the hook and stay here and rest,” Mom said, beaming at Dad.

“Nana’s gonna miss you, Jim!” Hailey said, wagging her fork at Dad in mock disapproval.

Dad chuckled a little.

“Are you not eating your marshmallows?” Hailey asked, glancing at my plate.

I had eaten the sweet potato bottom out of my casserole, leaving a glistening pile of burned white marshmallow on my plate. “It’s too sweet for me.”

“I hate you,” Hailey said affectionately, reaching over and scooping up the marshmallows with her fork.

Mom and Dad laughed.

“I guess that’s what friends are for,” Mom said, a teasing gleam in her eye. “To hate each other.”

Dad laughed.

I could tell they were happy to see Hailey back in my life.

• • •

After dinner, Hailey and I watched an eighties movie on my laptop, lying side by side on my bed. It felt like old times, the way our bodies just intertwined with each other, as if the other person was neutral space, or an extension of ourselves.

“I’m not tired,” Hailey said in that strange, hollow quiet that comes right after you turn off the TV or end a movie.

“Me neither,” I said.

We put on fleece jackets and sweatpants, grabbed the extra blanket that I kept stuffed in the back of my closet, and padded silently out through the house to the beach.

The wind was howling, raking across the darkness with ragged edges. The ocean looked like a black desert. Hailey and I lay on the blanket and looked up at the sky. The stars were bright. The waves were loud. I felt a million feelings storm through me and then a sharp emptiness. That’s how the stars always made me feel.

“What are you thinking about?” Hailey asked.

“Nothing,” I said. “Just the stars. They’re so crazy. They’re so far away. We’re so tiny.”

I kind of expected Hailey to laugh at me or tease me for trying to be deep, but instead she reached for my hand in the dark and wove her fingers into mine.

“I know,” she said. “It’s almost scary.”

We lay listening to the waves for what seemed like forever.

“I feel bad that my mom is alone tonight,” Hailey said after a while.

I didn’t speak. When Hailey really opened up about stuff, I got kind of frozen, like I didn’t want to scare her and make her be all sarcastic again.

“I know I make fun of her a lot,” she continued, “but the truth is I just feel bad for her. And I’m mad at her, too, I think. I’m mad at her for being so locked up.”

“Locked up?” I said.

“Not locked up,” Hailey corrected. “Buried
.
”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Like, I don’t know. I just feel like she’s buried beneath all this stuff. Like even literally. She’s literally buried in hair dye and makeup.”

“That’s really intense,” I said.

“I know.” Hailey’s voice was calm. “And she’s totally obsessed with online dating. She just sits there eating hummus and drinking Diet Coke and sending e-mails to gross old guys. And I just wonder—is this what it means to grow up? Is that what adulthood is? Online dating has got to be the most unromantic thing in the world. I wish I could have known her when she was happy. I feel like the person I know now isn’t even her.”

“I remember her being different,” I said, “when we were younger.”

“You do?” Hailey asked, and turned her head to face me, her eyes wide with surprise. Then she turned back up to the sky and said, “I don’t. I don’t remember her being any other way.”

“I remember this one time, I think it was after the Halloween parade in third grade, she picked us up and took us to get frozen yogurt on the way home. And she was wearing this hot pink sweater with rhinestones. And I thought it was the coolest, fanciest-looking thing I had ever seen.”

Hailey laughed. “I remember that sweater. It was pretty cool. It made her boobs look huge.”

“They are huge.” I giggled.

Hailey laughed a little. “Yeah, why didn’t I get those?”

“But she wasn’t unhappy back then,” I said. “You made her laugh all the time. Like you make everybody laugh.”

We grew quiet again, the sound of the ocean sucking up our conversation.

“Do you ever wish your parents were different? Honestly?”

I frowned. Did I? I guess I wished Mom and I shared more than just practical stuff.

Before I could answer, Hailey continued. “What I mean is, your parents are basically perfect. Does that ever get annoying? Like, how can you ever fuck up when your parents are, like, so well adjusted?”

I’d never thought about it like that.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I know this is lame, but I haven’t ever really wanted to fuck up.”

Hailey sighed. “You are so lucky.”

I glanced at Hailey. Being near her felt lucky, I wanted to say it. I could feel the words forming on my lips, the heat rising to my face. It was so true it almost felt embarrassing.

“I’m hungry,” she said, interrupting my thoughts. “Want to pick at some leftovers?”

As we brushed sand off each other’s bodies, I resolved never to think any more bad, ungrateful thoughts about Hailey ever again. She was the best friend in the world. The deepest, kindest, most interesting person I knew. It had been a rough couple of months for us, but I needed her in my life. My mind suddenly flashed on Nate, and I felt a knot of guilt in my stomach for talking to him for so long last week. I vowed I would never, ever do that again.

“H
ey.”

I looked up from my laptop and Nate was standing in front of me. It was the first day back from break, and the library was uncomfortably quiet. Nate was wearing his backpack and a gray wool sweater that looked itchy. He didn’t wait for me to say anything; he just sat down across the table from me.

“You work too hard,” he said. His cheeks were glowing next to his pale sweater. I could see the top of a button-down shirt peering out from under his sweater, and I had the impulse to reach across the table and touch it.

“I don’t think so,” I said softly, looking back at my computer screen. “I have lots of homework all of a sudden. I’m trying not to fall behind.”

He kind of half nodded. “Rule follower, right?” He joked.

I wanted to laugh with him, but I couldn’t. There was something dangerous about our friendship. We couldn’t keep getting closer. Thanksgiving had reset my priorities. Nate belonged to Hailey, and Hailey was my best friend. Nate was nobody.

I fixed my gaze on my notebook, willing myself not to get pulled in to another conversation, but I could still feel his eyes on me. Finally, I looked up at him. It made my stomach flip.

“How was your break?” he asked.

Nate’s expression, that mix of playfulness and intensity, stirred something inside me, but the feeling was coupled with guilt.
This can’t happen
, I wanted to tell him.
Leave me alone. Stop doing whatever it is that you’re doing to me. Do this to Hailey. She is in love with you.

“What about Hailey?” I whispered. As soon as I said it, I regretted it.

Nate looked surprised, and then he slumped back in his seat for a second before he placed his hands on the table and stood up to go.

“Wait,” I said, feeling suddenly desperate. I reached across the table and put my hand on top of his. The action happened so fast, I didn’t even know where it came from. It was like instinct, or reflex. We both stared in surprise at our hands and the moment seemed to expand and stretch out. Nate’s hand felt soft and cool beneath mine. And then Nate pulled his hand away and straightened up.

I was too embarrassed to look at him at first, but when I finally did, he had an apologetic, almost sad expression on his face.

“I get it,” he said softly. “It’s cool.”

As he walked away, I wanted so badly to undo everything that had just happened. I hated to see him leave.