Wide Awake (24 page)

Everyone could see that I was a different girl. That didn't stop my friends from shooting their pleading, pathetic looks at me. I thought avoidance and ignoring would be the best course of action with those three, but it seemed like...maybe not. I hated it. I didn't want them to feel so tied to me. They thought I needed to be their leader, to help them function in high school, but I needed to set them free.

Useless Fact Number Fifteen

An octopus' testicles are located in its head.

I headed outside to eat lunch in the grass, and saw them intercepting me. I knew the needed showdown was inevitable. I held my little box of chicken strips in my hand and smiled as the trio approached. "Good, just who I wanted to see."

"Really?" Kali scoffed. "We thought you hated us. Did I do something wrong?"
"Something wrong? Like what?"

"We didn't come see you in the hospital." She looked at them and back to me. "We wanted to, but thought you'd be mad at us."

"For the life of me, I can't imagine why I would be," I said, exasperated.

"Look, Emmie...you're a little exhausting." I felt my eyebrows rise. "Well, the old you was. You always called the shots and without you here to tell us what to do, we were scared of making it worse. We called to check on you and your mom said you were just sleeping. That's all she would ever say. We didn't think it was right to go and see you when you didn't even know that we were there."

I nodded. I understood that. "I'm not mad at you, I'm just not...who I was. I'm not interested in being anyone's leader." She opened her mouth, but I stopped her. "Or anything else. I just want to focus on school, graduate, and then see what this world has to offer someone who can't remember her life."

They didn't laugh at my joke. They just looked dejected. "It's not our fault that you don't remember us. Everyone in school expects you to still be our friend. It looks like you're rejecting us."

"Sorry," I spouted and pushed through them for the second time that day. "I'm just here because I have to be."

"Don't be like that, Emmie!" Cookie yelled, causing eyes to jerk to our location. "You need us just as much as we need you."

"You don't need me!" I yelled back and smiled. "You have brains in your heads! Use them. Don't peak in high school. Do something with your lives. High school's almost over anyway."

Their mouths fell open, but I just rolled my eyes and took my spot in the grass. I floated the rest of the day until I walked home. I walked past Andy's car, and he reached over and threw the door open. When I didn't come, he revved the engine and glared at me over the steering wheel. I shook my head and kept going. When I came in, I could hear voices in the kitchen. It sounded like Rhett was home. He and Isabella were in there and they were going back and forth about my college applications. Apparently, Isabella had sent them off without my knowledge while I was in a coma and had gotten back a couple of packages today.

She had also opened them and planned to enroll me in Brown without asking me. She was going to surprise me with it later and surprisingly, Rhett was on my side about it. That doing something that extreme without talking to the person was going too far. I agreed. I wanted to burst in and ask, 'How dare you?' But I didn't.

When I heard her huff and leave through the other doors, I went in. "Hey, there."

He turned and looked drained. At seeing me? At dealing with Isabella? "Hey, Emma. How was school?"

I hopped up on the counter and took a peach from the basket. "Oh, you know. It sucked royally."

"Is that right?" he said and watched my every move as I took a knife from the block and sliced a piece off the peach, sticking it in my mouth and licking my finger. "What sucked about it?"

"I just want to graduate, but everyone else wants me to..." I shrugged. "I don't know. They just think my priorities are off or something. Like wanting to graduate and refocusing after everything that happened to me is wrong."

He glared at the peach in my hand.

"What's the matter?"

"My daughter hates peaches."

We stared at each other. My daughter, he said. My daughter... Not, you hate peaches...

He turned and walked out without another word. It stung more than I cared to admit, but hadn't I kept them at arm's length? Hadn't I done everything but spit on the memory of their daughter? So, I guess I deserved that.

I tossed the peach into the trash and once again, made the walk to Mason's. My stamina was getting better by the day. I didn't cry, in fact, I didn't do anything. I was numb in a strange way about it.

When I arrived, Mason was just getting in the car. "Hey," he said in surprise. "I thought I was coming to get you."

"I couldn't wait," I heard myself say.

"Uhoh," he muttered and beckoned me to him. He wrapped his arm around my side and pulled me to his shop. He shut the door and sat on the couch, pulling me into his lap. He took my face in his hands slowly, as if testing my mood, and kissed me before settling back. "So…what happened today? And you never did tell me what happened the other day, either. Whose face needs rearranging?"

I tried to laugh, but failed. I sighed and said, "It was just…everything. An avalanche."

And I told him
everything
. About Andy taking me to school every day, about him trying to kiss me and me telling him we were just friends, about the note in my locker, about the horrible retaliation of my friends, about how Isabella was so awkward and almost mad at my inability and want to be just like her daughter. And then I told him what Andy had told me, what had set me off, and what those girls had said about karma. That the trio had begged me to come back and be their leader because they didn't know how to function...Andy coming to my window...and how Rhett had said his daughter hated peaches.

I was so ashamed. It was the first time that I felt like a teenager, spilling my guts about high school problems to my…boyfriend. I rolled my eyes and scoffed at myself for that one.

Mason was angry, that I could tell, and I knew it mostly had to do with Andy. "So, anyway," I finished, "that's why I was coming over. To tell you all about the crappy week I'd had, and about my epiphany."

"I'm glad you told me," he said gruffly.

"Are you mad about Andy?" I guessed. "I only let him drive me to school because Isabella wouldn't drive me. And after that stunt at my house, I want nothing to do with him anyway."

"No, it's fine. I just want to hurt him, is all," he confessed and twiddled with my fingers. "And not because he drove you, but because he's a complete tool. And he hurt you…but so did I, so…"

"You didn't hurt me like he did. And besides, I'm thankful to him." He lifted an eyebrow in question. "If he hadn't just laid it all out there for me like that, I wouldn't know what I know now. I wouldn't know without a doubt that I want absolutely nothing to do with the old me."

His eyes squinted. He cursed softly. "What?" I asked.

"Em, I probably should have told you this before, but you had so much going on. I worried about piling too much on you. Then we were kinda…fighting or whatever, and then it just felt like I'd waited so long that it was too late to tell you without you being upset. And now…I just have to tell you. I don't want you to hate yourself, the old you." He took my other hand. "Promise that you'll listen to me and not run out until I'm done?"
Run out? "What's this about?"

"Promise me," he commanded softly.

I nodded slowly. He stared at me carefully and then closed his eyes. "There's more to my story than I told you that night, and it…kinda includes you."

My heart jumped. "Whatever it is, just tell me."

"I became a therapist to take care of Mom and worked for a while, but decided to open the tattoo shop instead, so I could work from home." He pointed around the room. "My shop. I don’t use it as much now, but I've always wanted to open it full time."

He waited so I asked, "What happened?"
"I swore off drinking and partying after the accident happened, but my brother took the opposite route. He started partying hard. One night, I heard about this party that he was going to…" He gulped and gripped my fingers tighter. I waited, completely baited. "He was there and he was so toasted. I watched and tried to be nonchalant so he wouldn’t know that I was there. I lost him once, and went upstairs to find him. While I was searching the bedrooms, I found a girl…"

I knew there was something he wanted me to grasp, but I just wasn't getting it. My lips parted and I waited for the punch-line.

"She was plastered. I asked if she was OK because she was crying. She said she broke up with her boyfriend that night because she found out he'd been cheating on her. She'd known about it for a while, but actually caught him in the act that night at the party. She said…she was done with being the girl who lived for everyone but herself. That she needed a change, and the next day, she was going to tell her friends and family that she was done with that guy. That she wanted to be a different person. That…" He smiled and rubbed my arm. "That she was spoiled and needed to be responsible for herself. I know she was drunk, but I believed her."

My heart started to beat fast. Really fast. He took my face in his hands, his thumbs rubbing across my cheeks. "Emma…I only met you once before your accident, but it was enough to make me completely adore the girl you wanted so badly to be."

I felt my lips fall open. "That girl…was me?"

"I know what you're thinking. I know it sounds…creepy or whatever, but just listen. You talked to me for hours that night." He smiled again, taking a tear from my nose with his finger. "Eventually, I said I was going to go get you a bottle of water. That I was going to help sober you up before I took you home, but…when I came back, you were gone. I looked all over for you because I knew you'd been so upset. I was worried about you, but you vanished. Later that night on the news, I heard about the accident. I don't know how I knew, but I
knew
it was you. And I felt guilty and responsible and cursed all over again."

"Why?" I breathed.

"Because I shouldn't have left you alone. I knew you were upset. I should have made sure you got home safely, but I didn't. So I called the hospital and asked them about you, telling them I was a therapist. They said you weren't going to make it, that your parents were sending you to a hospice.
My hospice
. It was like...fate. So I vowed to take care of you, because I already failed you once."

I covered my mouth with my hand to hold in the sob. He closed his eyes, still holding my face. "God, help me, Emma. You'll never know how sorry I am, for everything. I just feel like, from the start, things have been hard for you. I'm so sorry. I just wanted you to know the truth. I don't expect you to forgive me-" He stopped so quickly, as if he knew that I was barely holding on by a thread.

"Mason, no," I protested softly, more to myself than to him. "You were the one person in my life that didn't lie to me. That didn't expect anything from me."

"And I don't expect anything now," he assured. "I know that I didn't tell you, and I'm sorry, but to me, it didn't seem like a lie, it felt like...a necessary omission. Emma, I'm so sorry. I never, ever wanted to hurt you. I didn't want you to come back into your life with the last memory anyone had of you, other than the ass that ran you over, with you drunk at some party. And when you woke up, you couldn't remember anything and were upset, it just made me even more sure that you didn't need to see that last night of your life yet. You needed to accept that you weren't the same girl, Emma, and not have some memory making you doubt that you could be different, that you could be whoever the hell you wanted to be." Every time he stopped talking, he gritted his teeth so hard that I heard it. He went on. "And you're not the same. You're
you
, Em, and making sure that you saw that, even with everyone else doubting you and wanting you to be something else...I felt like I was the only one on your side. But," he gulped painfully, his face agonized, "I was wrong. I should have just told you and let you decide for yourself." Even though he looked away, he still held my face. He stared at the wall. "Good ol' Mason strikes again."