Summer Apart (5 page)

“No it’s fine, seriously. We don’t need to talk. I’m here for you.”

She rolls her eyes and even though I can’t see her face well in the darkness, I know she’s giving me this
hint hint nudge nudge
look that only I would recognize as her best friend. “He wouldn’t have been calling you if you didn’t need to talk.”

“She’s right,” Park says, breaking his bout of silence.

My heart clenches up inside my chest as I watch Bayleigh give me a tiny wave and then disappear into her living room, closing the door behind her and leaving me all alone with Nolan Park. I don’t say a word though, because in spite of it all, she’s right.

We definitely need to talk.

“So what’s up?” I ask, all but bouncing on my heels.
Ugh!
My fake cheerful voice came out sounding entirely too fake and entirely too cheerful and now I just look like an idiot who is trying too hard to look like she’s not super uncomfortable.

Park slides his hands into the pockets of his jeans and leans his butt against the railing on the balcony. It makes me a little uneasy because just one slip of balance would send him tumbling backward down two stories. I guess I make a face that shows what I’m thinking because Park lifts up his hands and wobbles them, pretending to be a tightrope walker.

“I’m fine, Becca. Stop worrying.”

“It’d be safer if you got off the railing like that,” I mutter as I fold my arms and step backward, pressing my back against the safety of the wall behind me.

“Maybe I’ll just stand by you,” he says in this quiet voice that sends a shiver down my spine. He leaves the railing and walks over to me, turning to press his back against the wall, too. Our arms are touching, my shoulder to his upper arm. The urge to rest my head on his shoulder is so strong it makes my toes tingle. But I hold strong. I keep my head on top of my own neck, supporting itself, just like it was meant to do.

I am a big girl and I can deal with this.

“So why did you call me?” As I ask this, I take out my phone and swipe away the missed call notification. Park grabs my hand just when I’m about to put my phone in my pocket again.

“You changed your wallpaper,” he says, frowning in a way that makes his eyebrow ring look sad too.

Suddenly I have power. He’s upset that I changed my phone’s wallpaper to a picture of some puppies I found online instead of what it used to be: a picture of Park and me at the BMX track. I want to smile and jump and throw my hands in the air to celebrate that he is sad and I am strong, that he’s still upset over us and that I’m not (at least not on the outside) because I changed my phone screen. Of course I don’t do any of that…I even stifle the smile that tugs at my lips.

“It was time for a change,” I say with a casual shrug, right before I put my phone back in my pocket, pretend that my skin isn’t still tingling from where he had touched me.

“I guess it’s time for me to change, too?” he says, taking out his phone. Instead of turning on the screen, he just hands it to me. Confused, I reach up and press the button myself, lighting up his phone’s home screen. I’ve never held his phone before, I think as I mentally look back at all the times we’ve spent together. He’s never really had his phone out around me. I always thought it was because he was too much of a gentleman of text other people when we were together. But lately, I thought it was because he probably had tons of other girls texting him and he didn’t want me to know.

Whatever the case, his wallpaper makes my mouth fall open. It’s a picture of me. It’s not a selfie and it’s not one from my Facebook page. It’s me, with my hair down and falling in front of my shoulders. I’m sitting at an outdoor table on the patio of Magic Mark’s Pizza. I’m wearing the friendship bracelet that Park had bought me from the craft fair we walked through on the way to get pizza. That bracelet had ripped off not two weeks later, when it caught on a bike chain while I was working.

I never knew he took this picture of me, and that’s probably because I wasn’t looking at the camera. I’m looking to the right, with one hand on my chin and I’m smiling as if I am deeply involved in whatever conversation was happening at the time. It’s a good photo, I have to admit.

I bite my lip and hand the phone back. “When did you take that picture?”

“We were with Jace and Bayleigh and Jace was telling you that story about how he ran out of gas on top of the finish line jump.”

“Ah, I remember that day,” I say, looking off into the parking lot as I recall Jace’s crazy story. “That was a good day.” It was the day Park held my hand in front of my friends and the entire world. It was also, as I can tell from his picture, an excellent hair day for me. My hair hasn’t looked that silky smooth in ages, probably because I quit caring about it once I had to start studying for finals.

“It was a good day,” he says. “It was right about that day that I realized I was in love with you.”

In the very next moment, time stands still. My heart quits beating and my body freezes. The only thing that works is my memory and that works in overdrive. I remember the time I first met Park, when we cuddled on Bayleigh’s couch and I knew I was falling hard for him. I remember when he pushed me away—when he said I shouldn’t trust guys like him. I remember Jace telling me the exact same thing.

I remember this last year while I was in college. Park’s visits—Park’s lips on mine—Park being my favorite part of every day.

And then I remember the photo of him and that other girl. His cruel words when he said that he’s the kind of person who dates around.

Why should I trust a person like that?

Anger fills me from my toes to my head. My car keys wait in my pocket, ready to take me away from what will only be heartbreak if I stay any longer.

“I’m leaving,” I say, before I can talk myself out of it.

“What? You can’t go.” Park steps toward me but I back away and grab my keys. “Becca, please don’t go. Let’s talk.”

“There’s nothing to talk about,” I say, clenching my jaw to avoid crying. “You can’t tell me that you date around back at home and then, in the same day, say you’re in love with me. You just can’t do it, Park.”

“Becca, it’s not like that.” He reaches for me but I jerk away and walk toward the stairs.

“Oh it is like that,” I snap. “It became like that the moment you dated another girl. You wouldn’t date other people if you truly felt that way about me.”

He draws in a deep breath and his eyes go wide and I can tell he’s trying not to yell or freak out or something. “It’s not like that, Becca. Please let me explain.”

“There’s nothing to explain. Look, I liked you a lot. You liked me. But this thing we have now,” I say, gesturing to the air between us, “This is toxic. I can’t let you hurt me anymore. Tell Bayleigh I’m sorry but I have to leave.”

“Becca, please.” His words are a pleading and I have to look down at the stairs to avoid meeting his gaze. I know if I look up at him, see his gorgeous eyes and the way he stares at me as if I’m the only important thing in the world—I’ll crack. I’ll come running back up the stairs and collapse into his arms.

And that would be great for just tonight. But then he would go back home and it would all end in heartbreak.

I stop four steps down and turn back, but I don’t look at him, not as his face. I stare at the motocross logo printed on his jacket and say, “I should have listened to Jace a year ago when he told me to stay away from you.”

And then I fly down the remaining stairs as fast as I can, walk across the scary parking lot to my car and never once look back.

An entire week passes and I don’t drop dead from a broken heart. It’s kind of crazy because I spend most of my nights lying in bed with my chest hurting so badly I fear that I’ll never fall asleep and even if I do, I worry that I won’t wake up the next morning.

But then somehow I do fall asleep and I do wake up and start my day all over again. I’m starting to wonder if people even need a heart to survive.

When the second, and then third week since that night with Park passes by and I’m still not fully recovered from the constant pain in my chest, I start to wonder if should write into a medical journal and tell them of my findings.

Woman with severe case of heart break has somehow survived three weeks without talking to the man who broke her heart.

Doctors have better things to worry about than my pathetic love life, but still. Why hasn’t the pain gone away yet?

I keep telling myself that I’m over it. That I’ll find a new guy and he will actually live here in Lawson and we’ll be able to hang out all the time and he won’t be famous and he won’t be a player. That could totally happen, you know. It happens to girls all the time.

When it’s been four weeks since that night with Park, I’m starting to believe some of the things I tell myself. I start thinking that yeah…maybe I could be happy one day. Maybe I could meet someone new and have a fun life with him. I think I’ve finally spent enough time away from him, that I might actually be in the healing process now.

Of course it helps that Park hasn’t sent me a single text since that very night, nearly an entire month ago.

But I won’t dwell on that.

Who am I kidding? Of course I’m dwelling on that.

I walk into work for the third day in a row without my cell phone. Yep. I left it at home,
on purpose
, so that I would be able to live my life with a clear head and so I wouldn’t be stuck constantly looking over at it, wondering if I’ll get a text from him. My obsessive phone checking has become embarrassingly pathetic, so to remedy the situation, I’ve just completely cut myself off of it.

“You’re being an exceptionally great employee,” Ollie says this morning after delivering my donut holes and coffee. He had walked in to me not only sweeping the floor of the lobby, but mopping it as well. “Are you working hard to avoid some kind of life problem?” he asks.

I roll my eyes. “Stop being so intuitive, boss.”

He nods as if I’ve just told him everything he needs to know. “Well I’m here if you need to talk, but if not, I’m totally on board with your newfound love for your job.” He snorts to himself, probably thinking it’s hilarious that I’ve finally started working hard instead of hardly working these last few weeks.

I’m grateful for the work though. It’s the only thing that keeps my mind even remotely off of Park. In fact, I wore my shortest jean shorts today and my cutest purple C&C T-shirt, topped off with hair that I actually took effort to wash and flat iron and a face full of makeup.

Yep. I’m trying.
Trying
. Just like in the good old days when I decided to reinvent myself as a new Becca who was outgoing and flirty and fun. It had worked back then, and it’ll work now. I just need to put a little more effort into my looks, smile more so I don’t come off as some kind of antisocial troll, and get my flirt on with every hot guy that walks through the doors.

I will be over Park in no time.

It’s not my fault that no hot guys came into the BMX park today…

And the next day.

And the day after that.

Maybe it is my fault that there isn’t a single swoon-worthy guy in the entire town of Lawson, Texas. You’d think it’d be the guys’ fault, right? That they’re not tall enough, or their hair is stupid, or they smell like the B.O. of someone who hasn’t showered in months.

And although those guys exist, there’s usually other guys to balance them out. Hot guys, cute guys, older hot guys that you know you’d never be able to date but oogling them from afar doesn’t hurt anything.

But, as I said—those kinds of guys no longer exist and it’s all my fault. Because once you’ve fallen for Park, with his muscular chest and strong arms and his cute but sneaky smile and his hair that swoops over his eyes and makes you want to touch it…

Once you’ve fallen for Park, every other guy in the world is ugly in comparison.

I actually keep up the charade of trying to look cute for a good two weeks. I wake up early and fix my hair, paint my nails, actually shave my legs every single day, wear makeup—all of it. But all it ends up doing is leaving me exhausted before nine in the morning and making random guys hit on me throughout the day. And trust me, as much as I thought I wanted random guys to hit on me, once it actually happens, it’s just gross.

They aren’t Park and they won’t ever be.

On a Friday night that was particularly filled with terrible pickup lines from guys I wasn’t interested in, I tell all of this to Bayleigh. She listens patiently to my insane ramblings and then sighs into the phone. “Becca, maybe you should just try to settle. Stop trying to find someone better than Park, and allow a guy to get close to you. You never know, one of these new guys might be the one and you’ll miss it if you shut him out.”

I sigh back to her, louder and longer. “Settle? I can’t believe you just told me to settle. You’re supposed to tell me to follow my dreams and shoot for the moon and crap like that.”

“No, that’s what a fake best friend would do. A real one would tell you the truth. And the truth is that, well I’m sorry to say it Becca, but I think you’ve just romanticized Park so much that you only think no other guy is as good as he is. And I think you’re wrong. I think you just need to give other guys a chance.”

“Wow,” I mutter as my throat begins to feel dry. “That was harsh.”

“It really isn’t,” Bayleigh says in a softer voice. “I love you and I just want the best for you. I liked Park, but if it wasn’t going to work out with him then you have to let him go and stop comparing other guys to him.”

I roll my eyes even though I know she can’t see it. Of course, the fact that she can’t see it is the only reason why I did it. I’d never roll my eyes at her in person when we’re talking about such an important topic. It’s just…I know she’s right. But I don’t want to admit it.

“I think I’m going to go to sleep now,” I say. I fake a yawn to help prove my point, but then it ends up turning into a real yawn. I glance at the clock on my nightstand—it’s already past midnight and I have to be at work in the morning.

“Just think about it, okay? Don’t immediately shun every guy who talks to you. Sometimes you have to get to know someone to know if they’re dateable.”

“Right, because it took you
months
to figure out if you liked Jace or not,” I say sarcastically.

She laughs. “Jace was the exception to the rule. Besides, sometimes I act like he’s perfect, but his snoring right now is making me think otherwise.”

My sarcastic voice gets even more severe. “Oh, well if he snores then you should probably divorce him. What a bastard.”

She sighs into the phone in this love-struck way that makes me think she’s probably watching Jace sleep from wherever she is at her house. I would gag if it wasn’t actually the cutest thing ever that they’re so in love.

“Just think about it,” she tells me before we hang up the phone.

I lie in bed for another hour, my brain refusing to sleep despite my efforts of closing my eyes and trying to make up things to dream about once I finally do drift off. My imagination is always so much better than my dreams. It’s a shame it doesn’t carry over into dreamland. When I’m awake, I can imagine that I’m tanning on the shores of a Caribbean island with Park by my side, smiling at me. But once I fall asleep, my fantasies turn into nightmares.

Park still smiles in my dreams, but his smile is always for another girl in the dream. Even in my wildest imagination where I am free to make up anything I want, his smile is never for me.