Meant to Be (36 page)

Onstage, the actors are shouting at each other: one lovers’ quarrel after another, layering over the audience like a big quilt of angry noise. I lower my head to try to block out some of the chaos, but as soon as I close my eyes, I get a flash behind my eyelids. Sounds: inside my head, inside my memory.

I hear the yelling, two distinct voices, muffled as if coming from behind a door. I close my eyes tighter, and then I can see it. I’m sitting on the floor of my room, lights out, my pink flowered nightgown pooled around my ankles. I’ve got my ear pressed against the door to hear the sounds coming from down the hall. I know I should be in bed, but I can’t sleep. I can’t stop hearing the shouting, and I want to know what it is.

I snap my eyes open. The memory makes me feel all off-kilter, and I don’t know why. Everyone fights, right?

And like another zap to the brain, I know why I feel so off.
Because I’ve always thought my parents never fought
. Sure, everyone’s parents fight, but not
mine
. Because they were perfect. Weren’t they? As soon as the thought occurs to me, I realize how ridiculous it sounds.

I can’t focus on the rest of the play. The actors finish their lines; the story wraps up; the audience applauds; the lights go up. Suddenly, the crowd is flowing toward the door. I follow Jason out of the theater. I keep my eyes focused on his back. He’s wearing his North Face fleece, and I notice a short brown hair stuck to the back. It looks like a dog hair. Does Jason have a dog? I want to reach out and pluck it off, but I don’t. I’m too busy forcing one foot in front of the other.

“I have to say, Book Licker,” Jason says when we’re in the lobby, “that was actually pretty awesome.” His smile is so big it touches his eyes with sparkling color.

“Yeah, great,” I say, and that’s all I can muster. Talking produces a strange echo in my skull that I can actually
feel
. It only makes my headache worse.

“Hey, are you okay? You don’t look so great,” he says. He reaches out like he’s going to rub my back or put an arm around my shoulders, but after a second, he thinks better of it and drops his arm.

“Gee, thanks,” I reply, still staring at my shoes.

“That’s not what I meant and you know it,” Jason says. “Why do you always take everything I say the wrong way?”

Before I can respond, he turns and heads over to Ryan. I’m too tired and distracted to chase after him. I can’t focus on anything at all; the only thing I can hear is the muffled yelling from behind a shut door echoing through my head. Over and over and over.

@ the Spice of Life pub if ur free
Will wait all night if I have to —C

“D
ude, she looks sort of pale. Is she gonna ralph?” Ryan’s voice barely registers.

Jason ducks so his face is directly in front of mine.

“Julia? Yo, Julia!” he says. He snaps his fingers in front of my face, but his expression is concerned. “Seriously. Are you okay?”

I blink a few times and then shake my head. I didn’t even notice that we’d emerged onto the sidewalk in front of the Globe and were waiting for cabs to take us back to the hotel. A whole line of them, shiny and black, are about to pull up, and we’ll group up and distribute ourselves into them. In my pocket, my phone vibrates. I jump, then pull out my phone and flip it open.

“Of course
that’s
what gets you to stop being a zombie, Julia,” Jason mutters. “You have to be on the other end of a freakin’ phone.”

“It’s Chris,” I reply as I scan the text message. “He’s at a pub and wants to know if I want to come by.”

“Well, sounds like it’s finally time, then,” he says. I’m still feeling a little foggy, so I barely register the edge to his voice.

“Do you think I should go?” The words are swimming on the screen, forming and re-forming.

“Why not?” he says neutrally. “Time to man up, I guess.”

“Alone?” I mumble, my mind racing.

“Why don’t you take Mark with you? He’s a real gentleman, from what I hear.”

At the mention of Mark, I look up. Jason is giving me a dirty look.

“What are you talking about?” I ask. I feel a slight tremor starting in my fingers, and I have to grip the phone tight not to send it clattering onto the pavement.

“Forget it,” he says.

Great. On top of everything else, it sounds like gossip about Mark and me has made the rounds. The potato that has been sitting in my stomach all afternoon becomes a five-hundred-pound anvil. I guess that settles that. Mark was a stupid childhood fantasy, and my absolutely insane feelings for Jason are clearly unrequited. I’ve spent this entire trip talking about, thinking about, and chasing romance, and I am
not
leaving this country without actually finding some. I
won’t
spend another minute pining for someone who isn’t available, not when there’s a perfectly sweet guy who’s been pursuing
me
all week. And I’ve been blowing him off. For what? For Mark? For Jason?

For nothing.

But Jason obviously isn’t done with me yet.

“Last time we talked, it was Mark. Now we’re back to Chris,” he says. He throws his hands up in the air. “Jesus, Julia, you could get whiplash following your stupid love life.”

“It’s not even like that,” I reply with a touch of venom in my voice. If he’s going to dish it out, he’d better be able to take it. “I spent some time with Mark, and I realized that maybe he’s not who I thought he was.”

The cabs have begun to arrive. Our classmates swarm them, until only Jason and I are left standing on the curb. We have to take the last car by ourselves. Together. Jason jumps in first, shouting through the window. “Didn’t I already say that?”

“No, what you said was that Mark was too good for me,” I reply, sliding in after him.

“I
never
said that. You hear what you want to hear, don’t you?” He turns toward the window so I can’t see his face. The cab jerks into motion.

“Whatever, Jason,” I sigh. I turn away to look out my own window. Our cab races across the Thames by way of a narrow stone bridge, then dips into a dark tunnel. There’s nothing to look at to distract me from my anger at him.

“Exactly, whatever. Brush me off, just like you brush off everyone else.”

“What are you even talking about?” I struggle to keep my voice from trembling.

“If you would pull your head out of your guidebooks for point two seconds, maybe you’d see that you’re not the lonely victim you’re always pretending to be. There are people who actually care about you.”

“What, like you?”

I hear him draw a quick breath; then there’s a long pause.

“Maybe,” he says finally.

“Oh please,” I sputter. “What a great friend you’ve been. You ignore me when it suits you, throw me in the pond, ditch me to buy ‘soccer jerseys’ and who knows what else, embarrass me twenty-four seven, and practically get me booted off the trip.”

“If it wasn’t for me, you would have spent the entire trip
alone
, too busy looking up facts and dates to have any
fun
, and spending all of your time daydreaming about your stupid MTB,
Mark
. You should really be
thanking
me.”

“Thanking you? Thanking you?” I slam my hand down on the leather seat in frustration. The muffled thwack is hardly satisfying, and now my hand sort of stings. “You’re delusional, do you know that? You’re delusional, and … and immature, and—”

“And selfish, and a child, and an ass,” he finishes for me, practically spitting. “I know, you’ve said it before. You’ve said it many times, in fact.” He turns to face me. His eyes are half-narrowed, and he’s staring at me with such intensity I draw backward. “You know what your problem is? Nobody’s good enough for you. You live in a fantasy world. And if you don’t wake up, you’ll end up alone, with your books and four million number-two pencils.”

My vision flashes red. I can’t even believe what I’m hearing. I want to pinch myself to see if I can wake up from this nightmare.

“How
dare you
say that to me,” I choke out.

“What,
dare
to tell you the truth?” Jason is laughing now, but it’s an angry laugh, harsh and cutting. “See? You can dish it, but you can’t take it. You act like you’re the only one with feelings.”

“The day
you
show feelings is the day I—” I mutter, but he cuts me off.

“What? Put down your guidebook? Use a pen? Break the rules?”

“I’ve been doing nothing
but
breaking rules since I got here,” I shout, nearly lunging out of my seat at him.

“Yeah, and you seem to have had more fun than you’ve had in your whole life.”

“No, I’ve been stressed and miserable! I’ve had more trouble than I’ve ever had in my entire life
combined
since I started breaking rules.”

“Why are you saying that like it’s my fault?”

“
Because it is!
From the moment we left Boston, you’ve been picking at me and pushing me. And I’m sick of it—sick of your jokes and your smirk and your dimples and your immaturity.” I’m breathing hard and raggedly and I can feel my cheeks turning red. The driver flicks his eyes in the rearview mirror, unable to ignore me.

“Immaturity? Is that the best you can do?” He finally turns to face me. “C’mon, Julia. You can do better than that. Go crazy. Use a bad word.” He narrows his eyes, and all I can notice are his eyebrows, which are as fiery red as his hair. Suddenly, I’m distracted by them; they’re all I can look at. I focus on them instead of the pain and anger and frustration in his eyes. I ignore the fact that he appears on the verge of tears.

“You want me to do better?” Steely anger is bubbling inside me, hot and molten. “You’re not immature. You know exactly what you’re doing. You
choose
to be a jerk. And what’s sick is you’re so good at it. You’ve lied and manipulated my feelings all through this trip, and you enjoyed it, didn’t you? You’ve probably been off with Ryan just cracking up over how much you screwed me up. Tease me, comfort me, mock me, kiss me, blow me off for some supermodel. Was that fun for you, to screw with my head? Did no one ever teach you it’s not okay to treat people like that? Oh wait, probably not. Your mom ditched you before she could get to
that
lesson.”

I regret the words as soon as they leave my mouth. His whole body tenses up, like he might pounce on me or break into a sprint and run away. If his eyes were laser beams, he would have bored two perfect holes straight through to the back of my skull.

For a quick moment I actually feel a little scared. I instinctively scoot back against the door of the cab. But his body loosens, really quick, like someone plucked the tension right out of him from above. He leans back against the seat and raises his hands in a slow, labored clap.

“Wow. Really great, Julia. A-plus for that rant. That’s all you really want, isn’t it? A good grade? That’s real life to you—books and school and grades. Your dad would be so proud.”

Our cab screeches to a halt in front of our hotel. I fling the door open and bound out, then turn and duck my head back into the cab.

“Fuck. You,” I say, my voice even. “There’s your bad word.”

I can barely see as I march through the door of the hotel, shoulder-checking
anyone in the lobby who gets in my way. I don’t even apologize. My fight with Jason keeps replaying in my head like it’s the only song on my iPod and the device is set to repeat.

When I get back to my room, I slam the door hard and the photos of London rattle in their frames. I go to the sink and splash some cold water on my face. The icy water breaks through my rage, and all that’s left is confusion and pain. I start to shake. I don’t know if it’s from the cold water or what, but I wrap my arms around me to try to steady myself. I can’t stop. My teeth chatter. I wait for the tears to come, but they don’t. My eyes are dry and itchy, and I rub my face hard.

I want my mom.

I pull out my wallet and unzip the front pocket with such force that the zipper comes off in my hand. I yelp and fling the broken zipper at the floor. I take out the red calling card Mom gave me for emergencies. And this is
definitely
an emergency. I can’t shake the repeating thought:
I want my mom
.

I punch the numbers in on the cordless phone in my hotel room, carefully following the instructions on the back of the card. I’m so anxious that I mistype and have to dial three times. Finally, though, the line starts ringing, the sound slightly crackly as my distress signal travels over the ocean.

“Hello?”

“Mom!” I cry, clutching the phone with both hands.

“Julia? Are you okay?” Her voice is thick with worry.

“Everything’s fine,” I say, trying to swallow back a lump. “I just missed you and … I really needed to talk to you.”

“Oh good,” my mom says, letting out a long sigh. “I was so nervous when I heard you on the line! I miss you, too, honey. How are things?”

“They’re okay,” I reply. Suddenly, I don’t know what to say. How do I even begin?

“You don’t
sound
okay,” she replies gently. Mom can always read the tones in my voice. She’s always telling me I should never play poker.