In Real Life (27 page)

Panic floods my system. My heart beats out of control, my stomach bottoms out, I'm sweating like I'm sitting in a sauna, and we haven't even made a move to get in the car yet.

I take a deep breath. Then I take another one.

“You guys,” I say. But I don't even know if I can finish my thought. The sign says the Desperado is one of the tallest and fastest coasters in the country, and I suddenly regret not having this revelation about taking charge of my life back home when I could try one of the kiddie rides at Disneyland instead.

Grace grips my hand. “You can do this,” she says. “Don't think of the out-of-control feeling, okay? Focus on the feeling of freedom. Like you're flying. It's not scary. It's liberating.”

Lo straightens herself up. “Take a deep breath.”

I do.

“Are you guys going on this, or what?” the guy asks. For someone who is bored out of his mind, he sure is rushing us along.

“It's not like you have anything better to do than wait for us,” Grace snaps. I smile. My sister is getting back on my good side.

She looks at me, and I suck down yet another deep breath as I picture Nick's face last night. He bared it all to me, told me all his feelings. How would things have gone differently if, instead of running away, I'd taken control and done the same? I picture how his face would have looked different, how things would have been different, and I hold on to that image as hard as I can.

“Okay,” I say. “Let's do this.”

I lower myself into the car. I pull the bar down across my lap, and I turn around to see Lo and Grace doing the same thing behind me.

“You can do it.” Grace reaches forward and ruffles my hair with her hand. “Remember. It's possible for life to be scary and fun at the same time. The scariness is the fun.”

I turn around and keep my breathing going. In. Out. In. Out. I can lose control. It's not going to kill me. It's not going to make me puke.

The roller coaster makes a noise, and before I can panic more, it jerks forward and we are moving. We creep out of the casino through the wall and we're outside, on the yellow track we saw from the freeway. The car speeds up, and before I even know what's happening, we are at full speed, climbing up the huge hill of track in front of us.

“You guys!”
I scream. I've taken AP Physics, so I know what going up this big track means. It means we're about to go down it.

The car clicks as we climb higher and higher and my stomach jerks and my palms sweat on the bar in front of me.

Grace yells, “You can do this!” while Lo groans sadly.

Then we're at the top of the track hill. I take a second and look around me. I see the freeway, cars zooming by. There's the parking lot and the other casinos and the outlet mall and miles and miles of desert ahead. It's desolate, but it's also pretty in a strange way. And before I have another second to think about what I'm looking at, we're falling.

I scream.

The coaster is fast. We drop into a dark tunnel, my hair blowing in my face and behind me, and I feel like my cheeks are going to pull right off my skull. My butt leaves the seat just slightly as we fall, and I hold on to the bar in front of me as tight as I can.

Behind me, Grace screams, too, but it's a scream of delight, not one of terror. And I realize, as the velocity from our fall brings us up another hill, that I'm not all that terrified myself.

I'm actually having fun.

“Woooo!”
I scream.

“Put your hands in the air!” Grace yells at me, and as we go down the next drop, which twists into an insane spiral, I try it. I lift one hand off the bar and then the other, and as we fall, I look out at the vast expanse of desert and I feel like I'm flying. I feel like I'm free.

It's amazing.

Our ride on the roller coaster is much too short. Before I even realize it, the car pulls back into the casino, and the ride is over. I lift the bar off me and jump back on the platform. Lo crawls out of the car and runs over to the trash can in the corner, where she pukes.

“Well?” Grace asks.

I don't know how to explain it to her. The feeling of letting go. The feeling of falling and freedom and not worrying about the drop and letting it take me.

I try to figure out how to put all of it into words, but when nothing comes to me, I just say, “I want to do it again.”

 

CHAPTER

28

We ride the Desperado three more times, putting the remainder of my slot machine winnings to excellent use. Well, Grace and I ride it. Lo heads off to the bathroom while we go back for more. I have more fun each time, screaming through the drops, hands up on the spiral. Laughing and shouting and almost crying, I'm having so much fun.

On our third ride, as we click our way up the track hill, Grace reaches behind her neck and unclasps her key necklace. She holds it in her hand as we pause at the highest point; then as the car tips down to rush down the track at full speed, she throws her arms up and uncurls her fingers, letting the necklace fly out into the air behind us.

After we climb out of the car, I lean over, my hands on my knees, catching my breath. “I can't believe you did that,” I say. “That necklace was expensive, Grace.”

Grace shrugs. “You didn't want to go on the roller coaster, but you did, and you loved it.” She runs her hand through her hair. “So, I figured … I should have done it a long time ago.”

I don't want to say something cheesy about how proud I am of her, so I pull her into a tight hug. Then I straighten up, look at her, and say, “I need to go to that party.”

I'd be lying if I said Nick hadn't been on my mind every time we went on that roller coaster. I'm conquering my fears here, and as much as I feared losing control, I also fear losing Nick. So, he's with Frankie, and he's mad at me. That isn't enough to lose a four-year friendship over. I might not be able to be with him, but I can't leave Vegas without making things right. I can't run away. Sure, I don't know what is going to happen when I show up at this party, but it can't be any worse than the way I left things with him. If Grace can let go of Gabe, then I can face my feelings head-on. I need to fix this. Talk. Apologize. Get my best friend back.

Grace wraps her arm around my shoulder and squeezes. “Let's get Lo and get out of here.”

Lo waits for us outside the entrance to the Desperado, sucking on a soda. She looks a little less green, and she gives us a wan smile as we approach. “Four times?” she asks.

I nod. “I'm in love. You can be the maid of honor when I marry the Desperado.”

“You should do something super wild when we get home. I'll make a list of illicit activities you can try your hand at.” She gets up from her chair and puts her arm around my other shoulder.

“Let's not go crazy now,” I say, and we all laugh as we walk out to the car.

I look up the address to the party on Grace's GPS and we head back toward Vegas, in considerably better moods than we had been in only an hour earlier. My irritation with them has dissipated, and it's replaced with nervousness very similar to the butterflies I had when we drove this way yesterday. Will Nick be happy to see me? Will showing up at this party make things worse? I don't think Alex would have told me to come if Nick really didn't want me there, but who knows. Things have always been weird between them.

I'm empowered by my roller-coaster ride, but that doesn't turn off my mind, thinking about every possible thing that can go wrong.

“Are you going to tell him you're coming?” Grace asks.

“Nope. This time I'm embracing the element of surprise. Hopefully it will be on my side.” I grab my purse from the floor by my feet and dig around on the bottom of it for my clown penny. I tossed it in there along with my wallet this morning while we were packing up, but now I want it on me again. Smiling, I rub my thumb over the bumps, and then I stuff it into the side pocket of my jeans.

I turn around to face Lo, who is sitting upright now and looking slightly less pukey. “So, you don't mind helping me out?”

She leans forward in her seat, as far as her seat belt will allow, and grabs my arm. “Girl, I'm sorry about last night. I don't know what happened to me.”

Grace chuckles from the front seat. “Um, I think his name was Oscar.”

Lo rolls her eyes. “You know how I get. You had Nick and I wanted to have fun with a cute boy, too. But I didn't mean to ruin your night.”

“I wasn't having fun with a cute boy, though. I was having drama with a guy who has a girlfriend.”

“I know this.” She flops back to her seat. “But I've always been frustrated by the obvious sexual tension you have with this best friend of yours. I wanted you to do something about it, you know? I guess in my own weird way, I thought if I left you alone, you'd get this whole thing solved.”

“You and Hannah are so the best friends for each other,” Grace says, elbowing me from across the console. “She needs someone to drag her kicking and screaming out of her comfort zone every now and then. Try to get her to take some action.”

I snort. “Not too much action, though. Can you imagine if we were both trying to hook up in the hotel room?”

“Instead of you sitting in the dark, watching us?” She leans forward again and winks at me. “Why were you lying there like a creeper, you creeper?”

“I was trying to wallow in my self-pity over this Nick situation! You interrupted my ennui!”

“We really are a pair, aren't we?”

I try to turn around in my seat to hug her, but since there's no way I'm taking my seat belt off in a moving vehicle, I end up patting her shoulder instead. “Are you going to talk to Oscar again?”

She shrugs and gives me a sly grin. “Maybe I will, if you can fix things with his best friend.”

I turn back around, staring at the long stretch of freeway spilling out in front of us. “That's the plan.”

 

CHAPTER

29

We exit the freeway in Henderson, and now we're only a few minutes from Nick and Alex's house, according to the GPS. I pull down the mirror on the sun visor and try desperately to fix my hair and makeup. We left the hotel in such a huff this morning that none of us are looking even close to our best. Even though I know there is no hope for Nick and me in any sort of romantic way, I still want his last memory of me in real life to be a good one. He's heard me on the phone at my worst, but he doesn't need to see me looking like ass. The last thing I want is my beat-down face distracting him from my apology.

“Here we are,” Grace says, turning onto a street of older tract homes, each one a copy of the one next to it. I texted Alex to let him know we're on our way, but other than the fact that the guys in the band are going to be there, I have no idea what to expect. This unknown element would usually freak me out to the point of inaction, but it doesn't faze me right now. All that matters is fixing things with Nick.

We find the house, but we can't park too close, because there are cars in the driveway and parked all along the street. “Okay, girls,” I say. “This is it.”

“You got this,” Lo says. Grace pats my leg reassuringly.

“I hope so.” I smile at them. “Thanks.”

We walk toward the house, where music pounds from the backyard. We're almost to the party when I hear my name, and Alex hops out from the bed of the truck parked at the edge of the driveway.

I wave to him, and I see a huge grin spread over Grace's face out of the corner of my eye.

The whole time we've been in Vegas, I haven't paid much attention to Alex. My focus was on Nick, and honestly, Nick has never painted a flattering picture of his brother. It was pretty natural for me to try to avoid him since we got here yesterday, and he made it easier by taking off with my sister at every opportunity. Now that I look at him, though, I can see why Grace picked him out in a concert crowd all those years ago. He's an older, more outgoing, more punk rock version of Nick, with colorful birds tattooed up his right arm and some mysterious saying peeking out of his V-neck. And when my sister smiles at him, he grins back, a carbon copy of Nick's adorable smile, but with a little more attitude.

“I'm glad you guys came by.” He shoves his hands in the front pockets of his hoodie, and he looks back and forth between Grace and the crack in the driveway, never once glancing at me. “Hannah, can I talk to you alone for a minute?” he mumbles to the ground.

I catch my sister's face fall for a fleeting second, but she turns it into a small smile. “We'll be over here,” she says, and she leads Lo on a walk down the sidewalk.

Alex sits back down in the bed of the truck, swinging his feet like a little boy at the playground, and he pats the empty spot next to him. I hop up.

“So, uh, thanks for coming,” he says.

“Yeah, sure.” I'm trying to keep it out of my voice, but this is Code Red awkward. He's focused intently on his shoes as his feet swing back and forth, and I figure I should say something because this situation is too weird for me to handle right now. “So, is this about Grace?” I ask. “Or is it Nick? I just want to know what to prepare myself for.”

He lets out a nervous laugh. “Dude, I think your sister is unbelievable, but that's no secret. I don't need your help there.”

I want to smile because, man, that's super cute, but it's impossible when my insides are dropping down to my shoes. It takes all my focus to try to sound nonchalant as I squeak out, “So it's Nick, then?” The Cooper brothers aren't close. Nick has told me many times that I know way more about him than his brother does, and Alex never seems to pass up an opportunity to torment Nick in some way. Why is he getting involved with our friendship now?

Alex stops swinging his feet and pulls one leg up under himself on the truck bed, angling himself so he is facing me. “Look, Hannah. I know I haven't always been the best brother to Nick, okay? It's just how we are. It's just the two of us here with our dad, you know? You have a sister. You know how it is.”