Speechless (27 page)

“Like shit,” Noah says, but he’s smiling.

“Yeah, I bet. Giving the nurses a hard time?”

“No. They’re all in love with me.”

“Sucks for them, huh?”

They both laugh; Noah’s all wheezy and gasping. He stops and takes deep, pained breaths, squirming uncomfortably, and then his eyes lock with mine, and I feel all light-headed with nerves.

“Easy on the ribs, there, kid,” Sam says.

Noah ignores him. “Chelsea?”

This was such a mistake. I shouldn’t have come, but it’s too late to back out now, isn’t it?

“Hi,” I say timidly. He just stares at me like my presence isn’t fully registering, so I glance toward the door and say, “I can go, if you want. I didn’t mean—”

“No.” He wheezes for a few breaths. “Stay.”

Sam looks from me to Noah. “I’m going to wait outside, okay?”

Noah nods, and when Sam passes me, I want to latch on to his arm and say,
don’t leave me,
but I know I really shouldn’t. I know I have to do this, because no matter how painful it is for me, it’s ten times worse for Noah, and he stills wants to talk, for whatever reason. He deserves the opportunity to tell me how much he hates me to my face.

My eyes are still on Sam walking through the door when Noah says, “I thought you were taking a vow of silence?”

The question startles me. How did he know about that? “I am. Well, I was,” I begin to explain, but of everything there is to say, that seems so unimportant. I can’t sit here and pretend to make small talk with him. “I know you hate me,” I blurt out, all in a rush, and then stop because I don’t know what comes next.

Noah blinks at me, surprised. “I don’t—” he starts, before dissolving into a racking coughing fit. The sound is like someone stabbing me in the heart. Repeatedly. “I don’t…hate you,” he says between harsh breaths.

“What do you mean?” Tears spring to my eyes, hot and fierce, and my voice is shaking, my whole body is shaking. “Don’t you know? I was the one who told Warren, and I—I ruined
everything,
and I’m—” I collapse onto the edge of his mattress, my hands over my face. “I’m so sorry, Noah. There’s no excuse.”

“No,” he agrees after a minute. “There’s not. It was a shitty thing to do.”

“I didn’t know what would happen,” I say. “But I know that doesn’t change anything.”

“It changes some things,” he says. “You…you know what you did wrong. You don’t need me…to point that out.” He’s still breathing a little hard, but his voice is steady, calm. “Asha’s talked a lot about you.”

I peek at him through my fingers. “She has?”

“At first I thought you kind of deserved what was happening to you,” he admits. “Some days I still do. I mean, I woke up and first thing got to have a very awkward one-sided conversation with my mother. ‘Hi, Noah, so happy you’re not going to die. By the way, everyone knows you’re gay now.’” He pauses, a slight smile touching his lips. “That’s a joke. You can laugh.”

Except I don’t find it funny at all. “I took something important away from you. I had no right.”

“Would it make you happier if I told you to go to hell?” he asks. “Look. I’ve spent the past month with nothing to do but think. Try to figure out what’s worth being angry about. It’s a long list. I could be angry about all of it and I’d probably be justified. I don’t know if I’ll ever stop being mad about what happened. About what Warren and Joey did. I don’t even know if I
should
stop being mad. But I’m trying not to hate them, even if it’s what they deserve, even if no one would blame me for it. I don’t want to live like that. I’m not going to spend my life hating you, either. You’re apologizing, I’m accepting.”

“But
why?
”

I don’t understand. I need for him to make me understand.

“Chelsea. Look at me.”

I lower my hands into my lap and look up at him through my blurry vision.

“Hate is…it’s too easy,” he says. His face is calm, calmer than it has any right to be, his eyes not wavering from mine, like he’s so completely sure of what he’s saying. “Love. Love takes courage.”

day thirty-four

The mirror in my bedroom isn’t big enough for two people to use, so Asha takes her dress—carefully concealed in white plastic—and holes up in my bathroom. We have one hour before we’re supposed to meet everyone at Rosie’s. One hour is just enough time to get ready.

I pull my dress out from the closet and slip into it, sliding the thinned-down straps over my shoulders, smoothing out the wrinkles. The deep emerald fabric looks amazing with my red hair; I’m wearing it in loose, long curls that spiral down my back. The gauzy chiffon skirt is just long enough to trail when I walk, even when I try it on with my black heels.

I look in the mirror and feel…good. Sexy. Sexy like I do when I solve a geometry problem right on the first try, or when I flipped over the tuna melt at the grill. This is even better because I did this—I made the dress look this way.

Asha emerges from the bathroom, and I’m honestly stunned when she appears in my doorway. She’s dressed in a traditional Indian gown, ruby-red and embroidered with gold, matching gold bracelets all up and down her wrists.

“Oh. My. God,” I breathe, and Asha smiles shyly.

“You like it?” she says.

“Are you kidding? It’s
amazing,
Ash. Where did you get that dress?”

“It’s my mom’s.” She comes into the room, bracelets jangling as she walks, and beckons to my cosmetics bag. “Could you do my makeup? I tried doing eyeliner and almost poked out my eye.”

I sit her down on my bed and get to work. Asha may know geometry, but I am the resident cosmetics expert. Smoky-black eyeliner, mascara to extend her lashes, a touch of gold glittery eye shadow, some dark dramatic lipstick—I explain everything as I put it on her.

She pauses to blot her lips on a napkin and says, “So, Lowell and Derek.”

“Yes?” I prod, wanting to see where she goes with this.

“Rumor has it they’ve both quit the basketball team.”

My heart jumps. “Shut up. No way!”

“According to the girl who sits in front of me in chemistry, there was a last-minute scheduled mandatory drug test, and this time they actually made everyone on the team leave the stall door open so they couldn’t dupe anyone. Four guys walked off the team instead of doing the test—including Lowell and Derek.”

Oh, my God. The plan worked? The plan
worked.
I have no idea how Ms. Kinsey worked her magic and talked the administration into that; all she’d told me was that she would express my concerns anonymously and try to make it happen. I really need to send her some kind of fruit basket. Or maybe bring her a plate of Dex’s special-recipe brownies.

“What a shame,” I say, doing my best to keep a straight face.

“You can drop the innocent act, Andy told me all about your plan,” she says. “For the record, I approve.” Asha rubs more gloss on her lips. “Do you think they’ll figure out it was you?”

I grin. “They can’t prove shit.”

I kind of doubt they have that much combined brainpower between them, but it’s possible. If it is, and they try to get me back…I’ll deal with it then. I’m not worried. They don’t hold that power over me anymore.

I’m feeling amazing, lighter and more
free
than I have in weeks, as Asha and I descend the stairs to get our jackets and leave for Rosie’s. I’m blocked from the door by Dad, who is armed with a digital camera. The flash blinds me as he snaps a picture.

“Daaaaaaaaad.”
I roll my eyes at him.

“Indulge me,” he says.

“It’s our official duty to embarrass you at every given opportunity,” Mom adds from behind him.

They’re both thrilled that I’m talking again. I sat down at dinner Friday and spilled everything over tofurkey sandwiches (yes, we’ve upgraded again, to my combined delight and dismay): the fact that I’d broken the vow, my job at Rosie’s, my friendship with Asha and Sam, visiting Noah in the hospital, my plans to attend Winter Formal. I figured if I threw enough curveballs at them, they wouldn’t be able to freak out about each individual one.

To my utter shock, they took all of it alarmingly well. I guess the fact that I’m speaking again was enough of a relief to overlook everything else.

Asha throws her arm around me, and we pose for more pictures on the staircase, making ridiculous faces. Finally Dad’s satisfied and lets us go, but not without smacking kisses on top of my head until Mom pulls him off me.

“All right, Frank, I think you’ve embarrassed her enough for one night,” she says with a laugh. “You girls look beautiful. I want you to have a good time, but be safe, okay? Oh, and Chelsea, check in with us if you’re going to be out past one.”

“I will.”

“I mean it. If it’s one minute past one and that phone doesn’t ring—”

“I
will,
I promise!” I hug her quickly. “Love you guys.”

“Have fun!” she calls as we scoot out the door to escape their smothering.

Asha says, “Your parents are so cool,” as we load into the Beetle.

I almost say
smothering,
but then think better of it. Asha’s right. My parents are pretty amazing, all things considered. I have
nothing
to complain about tonight.

When we waltz into Rosie’s, Dex leans over the counter and whistles.

“My, my,” he says, “look at you ladies.”

Lou comes out with a tray of drinks and stops dead in her tracks. “Okay, seriously? You two look fucking fantastic.”

“I have to agree.”

I whirl around to see Sam behind me, grinning hugely. He’s decked out in this retro navy sports jacket with patches over the elbows. It’s totally dorky, but like most things, he pulls it off.

“Sam the stud,” Asha teases.

“You clean up nicely,” I tell him, biting back a smile.

“Likewise.” He digs in his pocket and pulls out a small white box. “Here. For you.”

I open the box. It’s a yellow rose corsage.

“I’m no Marc Jacobs—” he starts, and when I raise my eyebrows, he says “—and yes, I may have done a search for ‘famous fashion designers’ earlier solely so I could make that reference and impress you—but I figured the yellow would look okay with green. It does, right?”

“It’s perfect,” I assure him, sliding it over my wrist. I kiss him on the cheek and ignore Dex’s whistling behind us.

“So where’s Andy?” asks Asha.

“He said he’d meet us at the school. Some kind of a surprise?” Sam shrugs. “It’s Andy, so who knows what he’s up to.”

“You know,” Lou says, leaning against the counter, “I don’t remember anything about my prom, except that I woke up the next morning on someone’s bathroom floor with a tiara in my hair, my shoes on backward and the words
GLITTER WINNERS
were written on the mirror in purple lipstick.”

“And, kids, that’s the story of how Lou learned tripping on acid is bad,” Dex jokes. Lou smacks him with her empty tray.

“I see Dex is on a roll,” I say to Sam. “I think that’s our cue to leave.”

“I heard that!” Dex shouts, but then Lou wraps a hand around his neck and yanks him into a kiss, and he’s otherwise distracted from his indignation.

* * *

It seems the whole school has decided to attend Winter Formal this year. The parking lot is packed full, and we have to park in a far corner and walk over icy pavement. Asha and I clutch each other’s arms and try not to fall.

“That’s what you get for wearing insane shoes,” Sam says, and then slides over an ice patch. Ha.

Whatever. Impossibly high heels are
designed
for formals.

Around us, everyone is heading toward the school the way Muslims travel toward Mecca (metaphor courtesy of me paying attention in Comparative World Religions for once, thank you very much). Everyone is dressed up, girls in glamorous snazzy dresses, boys in clean suits, all of them looking a little uncomfortable and out of sorts but also a little giddy. The girls are probably excited-slash-nervous at the prospect of intimate slow dances and the boys are probably excited-slash-nervous at the prospect of getting laid.

I, for one, am only excited, not nervous. Or, okay, at least any nerves I have come from being around people who hate me, not about whether or not I’ll be having fun sexy times. I sneak a glance at Sam beside me and wonder if he’s worrying about that stuff—he doesn’t look like it, but really, who can tell with boys?

His cell phone rings. He smiles as he pulls it from his pocket and looks at the caller ID.

“Hey, man,” he answers, then pauses for a moment. “Okay. We’ll meet you there.” He snaps the phone shut and looks at Asha and me. “Andy says he’s waiting by an ‘old white dude statue.’ I assume he means the Covington one.”

The Covingtons are the oldest money family in Grand Lake, and somewhere way back in the family line, Gerald E. Covington donated a ton of money to the school, so in return they erected a bronze statue in his honor, complete with a fountain, in front of the main entrance. It’s pretty ugly, but tonight the fountain is lit up, so it looks less ugly than usual.

As we come closer, I spot Andy under the fountain lights. Not alone.

With Noah.

Asha shrieks and breaks into a run, insensible shoes be damned, and tackles Andy with a giant hug. Noah watches from his wheelchair. Someone cleaned him up, too—he still has the bandage, but instead of a hospital gown, he has on a nice button-down shirt and pressed slacks.

“Holy crap!” Sam puts his hands over his mouth, apparently at a loss for words. Finally he looks to Andy and says, “How the hell did you pull this off, man?”

“I pulled some
major
strings and got us a one-night pass. And Noah here has to be back before midnight or he’ll turn into a pumpkin.”

“Pumpkin.” Noah laughs. “I want pumpkin pie. Can we get pie?”

Andy says, “Maybe later.”

Sam shakes his head. “Dude, you look totally high.” It’s true. Noah looks way out of it.

He keeps smiling his loopy smile. “Only on life, Sam.”

“And a fuckton of Vicodin,” adds Andy. “He’s on some hard-core painkillers right now.” He starts rolling Noah toward the school. “We’re going to sit on the sidelines and watch you kids live it up.”