In Real Life (9 page)

“About three months,” he mumbles. He shoves his hands in his pockets and looks at the ground.

Three months. For three months, he has had this girlfriend and he never mentioned her. Three months, he's kept this secret. He's lied. I told him about Josh the night we made it official. I told him about every boyfriend I've ever had. I can't even imagine keeping a secret like this from him.

“Wow. Three—”

I need more information, but he turns to the stage—where Frankie is still busy setting up the drum kit—cutting me off. “She's great.”

“I, uh…” I don't know what to say. Of everything I'd been expecting when we met, I never thought we'd have trouble talking. Talking is the thing we do best, the thing we can't stop ourselves from doing. Somewhere in the back of my head, I thought maybe our meeting in real life would be uncomfortable, but I never, never imagined not being able to talk to him.

The startling distance stings in a dark place deep inside me. I catch him looking at the stage again. Frankie. This is her fault. This stupid girlfriend.

I decide to hate her.

“Well, I guess I'll let you get ready for your show.” Leaving isn't what I want to do, but I have to get away. This isn't how it's supposed to be, not at all, and I'm irritated with both of us. “I'm over there.” I wave my hand toward our corner, where I know Grace and Lo are watching all this go down like it's some trashy reality show. “If you want to talk afterwards or have anything else you want to tell me.”

As soon as I turn around to walk back to them, I feel my face crumple. I want to go back to five minutes ago and do this over. Or go back to six minutes ago and not walk up to the stage. Back to yesterday and never make this awful decision to ruin our friendship—or three months ago and take back what I said to Nick that time he drunk-dialed me.

Damn you, time travel. Why can't you be possible?

“What's he doing?” I say as soon as I get back to them.

“What the hell happened?” Grace asks.

“What is he doing?” I hiss through my teeth.

“He was staring at you with his mouth open when you walked over here,” Lo says. “Then he went back on the stage, and now he's talking to that Oscar guy. Oooh. It looks like they're fighting or something.”

“What—the hell—happened?” Grace asks again. “Who is that girl?”

I let out a long, pained sigh and cover my face with my hands. “That's his girlfriend. The chick with the red hair and the huge boobs. Her name is Frankie and they've been together for three months and she's like an Easter Peep on speed and she's his girlfriend.”

“Oh shit,” Grace says. She's on her second drink, and she sucks it down like she's on a deserted island and it's the thing standing between life and death. “That's unexpected.”

“It's awful.” I uncover my face to look at them. “It was so good for a minute. He hugged me and it was amazing. But then it got all weird and neither one of us knew what to say and he probably doesn't even want me here so I freaked out and left and now he's probably never going to talk to me and I ruined everything.”

Grace frowns. “First of all, you ruined nothing. You're not the one with the secret girlfriend, so don't blame yourself. Second—here. You need this.” Grace hands me her drink.

I consider waving it off, but I change my mind and take a big sip. Drinking wasn't on the to-do list today, but neither was Nick's having a girlfriend, and Grace is always telling me I need to be more flexible. The taste of lemon-lime soda mixed with rubbing alcohol fills my mouth, and my whole body shakes as I force it down.

Fake IDs and booze in one night. I don't even recognize myself right now.

“I don't feel better yet,” I say as I hand the glass back to her.

“Okay, don't turn around,” Lo says. I turn my head back toward the stage, but Lo grabs my arm and yanks me forward. “I said don't turn around. Jeez, follow directions.”

“What's happening?” I can't keep the panic out of my voice as I imagine every worst-case scenario—which, apparently, had all been lurking in the shadows of the sunshiny best-case scenarios I daydreamed for the past few years. “Is the band packing up and running away before I notice? Or is he kissing that girl right there onstage?”

“No.” She leans into us, like there's some chance Nick and the people onstage might hear her. “He's still arguing with that Oscar guy. And Oscar was totally looking over here and pointing.” She chews the side of her mouth. “Oscar is super hot, by the way.”

“Can I turn around now?” I look at the stage without waiting for an answer. Nick's back is to me as he waves his arms around; his posture and body language scream upset or annoyed or wanting to be anywhere but here. Oscar laughs. My heart sinks to the basement of House of Blues.

“Look, he's trying to figure out how to get rid of me.” I turn back to the girls. “Should we go? God, I've made such an ass of myself already, it's obvious he doesn't want me here.”

“No way, man,” Grace says. “We came all the way out here. We listened to you go on and on about this guy for four hours in the car. And, hell, we've been hearing about him for years now. We are staying for this show.”

“But—”

“No buts, Hannah. So things didn't go the way you expected. Deal with it. You aren't throwing away four years of friendship because of one uncomfortable conversation.”

“And a girlfriend,” I say.

“So he has a girlfriend,” Lo says, patting my shoulder. “Whatever. I'm sure he's had other girlfriends since eighth grade, right?”

He has had several girlfriends, like I've had several boyfriends. But those girlfriends of his never bothered me. Partly because he never told me much about them until after it was over, so the focus was on why they didn't work out, and partly because I didn't think of Nick that way. They were just girls; they weren't competition.

But this girl? I don't know anything about Frankie yet. He's never mentioned her, not even once, so I have no idea if they're serious. If she's actually competition.

And he was mine first.

“Yeah, but—”

“Good,” Grace says. “You dealt with it then and you're going to deal with it now. Put on your big-girl panties, watch this show, cheer for your friend, and talk to him again when they're done playing. I bet things will be a lot better then, and you can figure out WTF he's doing with a girlfriend then.”

I hate when my wild sister is the voice of reason. But she's right—I can't leave. Not like this.

“You know you want to hear him play those songs,” Lo says.

And that's what keeps me here. I do, more than anything. I want to see if he looks at me when he plays. I know Jordy is the one who writes the songs, and sings them, but I feel such a connection to the lyrics, I do need to hear them live, just to settle something in my soul.

“Fine,” I say, covering my face with my hands again. “One song.”

 

CHAPTER

9

THREE MONTHS AGO

There's a Nick story I didn't share with Grace or Lo. I've kept it to myself because I've never been sure what it meant, and I know I'll never share it with them because I realize, after Frankie, after the weirdness, that it doesn't matter.

About three months ago, I was in the middle of a dream about going to Berkeley, but Berkeley was on a tropical island and I went to all my classes in a coconut bra that kept slipping down, when something jolted me back to reality.

My phone.

Nick's ringtone.

I shot up in bed and felt around my bedside table until my fingers landed on my phone. I didn't know what time it was, but I had been well into my dream and it was still pitch-black outside, so it must have been the middle of the night.

“Nick? What's wrong? Are you okay?” I figured the only reason he would be calling so late was because he was dead on the side of the road or something.

Loud noises blasted through the phone. “Ghost!” he yelled over the din. “I'm going outside so I can hear you. Hold on.” Shuffle, shuffle, loud bang, and then the background noise faded away.

“Where are you? What's going on?”

“I'm at a party. I'm at Jeff's party.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I'm fine. I'm fine.” His voice sounded all mushy. Drunk. “I texted you before. I texted you. Did you see my text?”

I looked at my phone and saw a notification for three new texts in the corner of my screen. “I must've slept through them,” I said, yawning. “What did you want?”

“I just wanted to talk to you,” he said. “Let me sit down, hold on.” More shuffling on his end, then a loud thump. “I dropped you! I dropped you in the grass!” His voice was distant. “I can't find you. Say something so I can find you!”

“Nick,” I said as loudly as I could. My parents aren't the deepest sleepers, and explaining this middle-of-the-night phone call would not be fun. “Nick, I fell in the grass. Pick me up!”

“I'm coming,” he said, sounding closer. “Here you are! I got you!” His voice was clear in my ear again. “Why are you trying to run away from me, Ghost?”

“You know how clumsy I am. Can't take me anywhere.”

He was silent for a few seconds, so I tried again. “Is everything okay, Nick? Do you need something? Do you have a ride? I don't want you driving home like this.”

“I'm not driving. The band played at the party. Alex is here. He's driving me home. He's not drinking. But he's, uh, busy right now. Busy with some girl. I don't know. They're in Jeff's bedroom. Jeff is pissed. You know how Jeff gets.”

“Not really. I don't know Jeff.” I was annoyed to have been woken up, but not enough to hang up on him. Drunk Nick was entertaining.

“No, you don't, Ghost. You don't know my friends. Because you are a ghost. Why are you a ghost? Why aren't you here? Why are you so far away from me?”

I rolled over on my side, pressing the phone closer to my ear. “Because that's how it is. You live in Vegas and I live in Orange County and there's nothing we can do about that.”

“It's not that far, Ghost. It's not that far.”

“It's four hours in the car. It's across a state line. That's a long way.”

“I would do it right now, you know? I'd get in a car and drive four hours to see you. I want to see you so bad, Ghost. I would drive there right now.”

Something inside me tingled, and the hairs on my arms stood straight up. He'd never said anything like this before. When our Barstow meeting fell through, we never spoke of it again, understanding it was a distance we couldn't logistically deal with. We both agreed anything more than virtual friendship simply wasn't meant to be.

“You're not driving anywhere right now. How much did you drink?” Subject change,
stat.
This conversation was heading into dangerous territory, and there was no way I'd be able to maneuver around these land mines at dark o'clock in the morning.

“I had some beers. There's a keg here, but it's done now. The keg is done. And Alex made me take a shot or two of something because he said maybe if I'm wasted, I'll act like a normal person and stop being so freaking awkward all the time, or something. Something Alex-y like that. I don't know.”

“Asshole,” I mumbled. “Are you feeling okay?”

“Yeah, I'm fine.” He let out a sigh. “You always take such good care of me, Ghost. Even on the phone, you always look out for me. You didn't get my texts? I texted you.”

“I see them on my phone. Do you want me to read them right now? Or do you want to tell me what they said?”

“Read them later. I don't want you to hang up on me. Stay on the phone with me. Alex, he's trying to make some other girl jealous by hooking up with this girl. The other girl doesn't care, though. It's dumb. He's dumb.” He laughed. “You're the only person I can talk to. Stay with me until Alex comes out of Jeff's room to take me home.”

“Of course,” I said even though I had no idea how long that was going to be. I fluffed my pillow and curled into a ball, propping the phone up so I didn't have to hold it. He launched into a rundown of the events of Jeff's party—who was hooking up, who was having drama, and who was a hot mess. Alex and the girl he was trying to make jealous. He always talked to me like I knew all these people personally, and by the end, I felt like I was there at the party.

“You should have been here, though, Ghost. You should be here right now.”

“Mmmm.” I was getting very sleepy now, but I forced myself to stay awake because I'd promised I would stay on the phone with him. My eyes fluttered closed, but I gave my head a small shake to force them open again. “Mmm.”

“You should be with me, Ghost. We should be together, don't you think?”

My fluttering eyelids flew open. “Wait. Nick…”

“What?” He sounded genuinely confused about my reaction, as if he'd already forgotten what he just said. But I couldn't forget it.

And I didn't want him to say it again.

“Stop it.”

Nick lowered his voice to a whisper that was almost conspiratorial, like he was about to fill me in on his top-secret plan for world domination and he wanted me to help execute it. “Don't tell me you've never thought about it, Ghost. Us. You know you have.”

“No. I haven't.” I shook my head even though I knew he couldn't see me. In fact, knowing he couldn't see me made me shake it harder, like my head shake in Orange County might butterfly-effect itself into a hurricane of “no” in Vegas. “I don't think of you that way, Nick. I never have. There's just absolutely no way.”

It wasn't true. In fact, it was such a ridiculous lie. I'd been thinking of him that way more and more. But the lie was the first thing that came to my mind and my lips, and once it was out, I couldn't take it back. And that lie was an easier way to live, anyway. It made way more sense than the truth. I could never be with Nick. He lived hundreds of miles away, and it's not like I wanted some long-distance, online boyfriend. The way things were between us, friendship,
just
friendship, online, on the phone, video-chat friendship, was the only logical thing.