A Week of Mondays (31 page)

As I pack up my schoolbag, my gaze falls to the reading chair by the window. That's where I put the stuffed poodle Owen won for me at the carnival last night. The chair is now empty. The whole night has been erased, including our fight. Part of me feels relief, part of me wants to cry.

8:20 a.m.

When I get downstairs, Hadley is already gone and my parents are in the midst of their heated argument, obviously the culmination of my mother's cabinet door slamming earlier.

I catch a glimpse of the clock on the microwave. School starts in ten minutes. Owen is going to kill me.

“If you would just tell me what's wrong, I can fix it!” my dad is saying to my mom, trying to put his arm around her.

She pulls away. “If you paid any attention to anything, I wouldn't have to tell you!”

She opens her briefcase and starts loading it up with files. “Just forget it. I'm fine.” She slams her briefcase closed.

“Obviously you're not fine,” he tries. “And I'm sorry if I've been preoccupied lately with—”

“With Scrabble!” my mom shouts. “Preoccupied with playing board games with strangers on the other side of the world.”

I roll my eyes. I really don't have the patience for this.

“You forgot your anniversary!” I yell, causing both my parents to stop and stare at me openmouthed. “That's why she's pissed!” I push my bag farther up my shoulder and storm through the garage door. “Sheesh! Grow up, you two!”

 

Good Golly, Miss Molly

It's raining. Again. Of course. It's always raining. My life is one big rain cloud that I can't ever escape. I consider running back inside the house to grab my umbrella but then I think,
Screw it. What does it even matter?

I slam the car door closed, rev the engine, and back out of the garage, tires screeching and squealing on the slick pavement.

When I pull into Owen's driveway a few minutes later, he comes running out from the cover of his front porch where he's been waiting for me.

“Yeah, yeah, it's really chucking it down out there,” I grumble as soon as he opens the car door. “Get in.”

Owen scowls and drops into the front seat. “Well, someone woke up on the wrong side of the universe today.”

I slam the shifter into reverse. “You can say that again.”

As I speed down his street, Owen starts searching for something in my car. Finally, when he can't find it, he asks, “Where's your phone? Someone needs her ‘Psych Me Up Buttercup' playlist stat.”

“I threw it against the mirror this morning and it broke.”

Owen sits in stunned silence for a moment. “What happened to you?” His voice takes on a cautious tone, as if I'm a serial killer and he's just now noticing after seven years of friendship. “Did you and the rock star break up or something?”

“Nope. Not yet.”

I turn left onto the main road without even pausing to check for oncoming traffic. Owen braces against the window as a car swerves around us, laying on the horn.

“Are you crazy?”

I ignore him and step on the accelerator until I've caught up to the car that honked at us. I pull up beside him, matching his speed, and press down on my horn until the driver looks over at me. Then I flip him the middle finger.

Owen grabs my hand and yanks it back down. “Do you
want
to lose your license? Or get shot?”

“Relax. Nothing's going to happen. I'm invincible.”

“Invincible?” he echoes dubiously.

“Yup. I'm done playing by the rules. I'm done being the goody-goody sugar-and-spice girl that everyone can rely on. Do you know why I've always played by the rules?”

“No,” Owen says uneasily. “But I have a feeling you're going to tell me.”

“Because I've always been terrified of consequences. If I fail a test, I won't get into a good college. If I ditch class, I'll get detention. If I say the wrong thing, or act the wrong way, or fail to be the cool, no-drama, easy-breezy, cucumber girl that Tristan wants, he'll break up with me. But you know what? I was wrong. All this time. I've been worried about consequences my whole freaking life, when in reality there
are
no consequences. None. Nothing I do matters. So why should I bother following the rules?”

Owen looks terrified. I eye the fateful red light up ahead at the intersection of Providence Boulevard and Avenue de Liberation. It's just starting to turn yellow and I'm still a good two hundred yards away.

“Uh, Ellie. That's a yellow light.
Aaaand
now it's a red light.”

I floor the accelerator.

Owen grips the door handle. “Ellie!”

As we race through the intersection, I let go of the steering wheel and yank up on the bottom of my hoodie, giving the cameras a nice clear shot of my bra. “Eat your heart out!” I shout.

Flash! Flash! Flash!

I feel like a Victoria's Secret runway model.

With
slightly
less cleavage.

When I lower my sweatshirt and return my hands to the wheel, I notice Owen is staring openmouthed at me.

But not at my face.

At my …

“What are you looking at?” I ask. My tone is not accusatory. It's amused.

He quickly averts his eyes, turning the color of a fire truck. “Uh … nothing.”

I let out a cackle. “You act like you've never seen boobs before.”

His face turns an even deeper shade of red. “I've … um … just never seen … you know,
your
boobs before.”

“Wait,” I say, suddenly overwhelmed with curiosity, “whose boobs
have
you seen?”

No response.

“Interesting,” I muse.

“What's interesting?”

“Nothing.” I shake my head, a playful smile dancing on my lips. “Now, where's my bloody fortune cookie?”

8:35 a.m.

“So, are you going to tell me why you're acting like a suicidal maniac?” Owen asks as he crumples up his fortune and tosses it into my backseat.

Once again, his said the same thing, while mine changed to:

You make your own happiness.

Not helpful.

I tried to make my own happiness. I've tried for more than four days now and nada. So needless to say, mine got crumpled up and tossed into the backseat as well.

“Do you want the long version or the short version?” I ask, replying to Owen's question.

He glances out the window. “Well, seeing that we're about twenty seconds from the school and first period started five minutes ago, the short version.”

“This is the fifth time I've lived this exact same day.”

Owen's face scrunches up. “Okay, maybe I need the long version.”

I turn in to the parking lot and find a spot in the back. When I park the car, Owen makes no move to get out. He crosses his arms expectantly over his chest. “I'm waiting.”

“You're already late.”

“Precisely. I'm
already
late. So spill.”

I let out a sigh and push back the hood of my sweatshirt.

Owen's eyes widen when he sees what I've done to my hair. “Holy crap! Ells, what did you do?”

I don't answer the question. It will all become clear soon enough. “Maybe this time I should start with the proof. It might speed things along.”

“What proof?”

“Did you by chance have a dream about skinny-dipping with Principal Yates last night?”

8:55 a.m.

By the time I get to my first-period class twenty minutes later, I'm soaking wet and the class has already returned from school pictures.

“Do you have a pass?” Mr. Briggs asks as I waltz through the door and drop into my chair.

“Nope.”

“Then I hope you have a very good excuse.”

I shake my head. “Nope. Don't have one of those either.”

He flashes me an aggravated look. “Well, then I have no choice but to write you up.”

I nod. “I would expect nothing less.”

“Ellie?” he asks, like he doesn't even recognize me.

I reach into my bag and pop a piece of gum into my mouth. Chewing gum isn't allowed in class. “Yeah?”

“What's gotten into you?”

I shrug. “What's gotten into
you
?”

Mr. Briggs's face turns a faint shade of purple. “You better watch it. Any more lip from you and I'll send you to see Principal Yates, and
that
will go on your permanent record.”

I pop my gum. “I wouldn't bet on that.”

The entire class snickers. Mr. Briggs stomps back to his desk, pulling a thick pad of pink slips from the top drawer and scribbling furiously. He rips off the top sheet. “Ellison Sparks. Out of my class. Now.”

I release a heavy sigh, scoop up my bag, and walk to the front of the room to accept my fate.

“Well, it's been fun, boys and girls,” I say to everyone. “Stay in school. Don't do drugs.”

Then, with a salute, I disappear out the door.

 

There's a Bad Moon on the Rise

I make the long walk down to the principal's office. Normally, I would be freaking out right about now. In my sixteen years of life, I've never actually been sent to the principal's office. My only real exchanges with Principal Yates have been when she hands me another award for making the dean's list or having perfect attendance. (Well, if you don't count the run-ins I had with her this week, which I obviously don't.)

Past Ellie would be mortified right now. For her, this would be the equivalent of a walk of shame. But not me. Not anymore. That old Ellie is gone. She's been gobbled up by the universe and spit out like undigested food.

Now I couldn't care less what the principal thinks of me.

When I open the door to the main office, I'm surprised to see a familiar face waiting in one of the chairs outside of Principal Yates's door. His body is hunched over, his hands clasped between his knees.

“Owen?” I say in disbelief.

He picks up his head, a faint smile fighting its way to his lips. “Hey.”

“What are you doing here?”

“I thought about what you said. About how there are no consequences. How nothing we do or say matters. And I figured, why not? So I gave the teacher a little taste of O-Town Filly.”

O-Town Filly is the rapper name Owen gave himself in middle school when we were bored one night and stumbled upon an online Rapper Name generator.

Mine was Luscious E-Freeze.

Now he uses that name when he wants to think of himself as hard-core.

I shoot him a dubious look. “You told off Mrs. Leach?”

“Yes.” His lips say the words, but his eyes give him away.

“Let the record show that the witness is lying.”

He bows his head again, his voice losing all the bravado it had only a second ago. “Okay, okay. She sent me here for being more than thirty minutes late to class and I didn't have a pass.”

I bite my lip. “I'm sorry, O.”

He shrugs. “It won't matter tomorrow, right?”

“Nope. Not in the slightest.”

He rubs anxiously at his chin. I can tell he's still trying to process what I told him in the car. Make sense of it. Basically the same thing I've been doing for the past five days. “So. Let me get this straight. You and”—he won't say his name; he never says his name—“
blondie
had a fight yesterday.”

“Sunday. Which was four days ago for me.”

“Right. And today he's going to break up with you. But yesterday—or yesterday for you—you were able to stop him from breaking up with you because you dressed up like a stripper?”

Okay, when he puts it that way, it does sound kind of ridiculous. “In a nutshell, yes.”

“But today you woke up and it was still the same day.”

I nod. “And I have no idea why.”

“But,” Owen argues, biting his lip, “wouldn't he have just broken up with you anyway?”

“What? Why?”

“Because that wasn't
you.
You were playing a part. You said so yourself. You would never have been able to keep that act up forever and eventually he would have ended it anyway.”

“You don't know that,” I say quickly.

He shrugs. “No, but…”

“But what?”

“Never mind.”

“No. Finish your statement, counselor.”

I sense another fight coming on and I really really don't want to argue with Owen again.

“What happened
after
he didn't break up with you?”

I have a feeling that's not what he started to say only a minute ago but I don't object. “I left the carnival, Tristan went to hang out with the band, and then…”

Tell him,
I urge myself.
Tell him the truth. We hung out. We had a blast. He hustled a carnival employee at the ring toss game. And then we got into the worst fight of our friendship.

“And then?” he prompts.

“And then … nothing,” I finish.

Why did I say that? Why can't I just tell him? He deserves to know the truth.

He gets very quiet, staring at his hands. Then finally he says, “Ellie. Can I ask you something?”

I have no idea where this is going, but for some reason I feel a lump form in my stomach.

“Sure” is what I say, but it's a big fat lie. I'm most certainly
not
sure about anything anymore. If anything, I'm one hundred percent unsure about everything.

He runs a hand through his hair. It's not a casual gesture. It's a conflicted one. He looks like he wants to tug the strands out by the roots. “Do you think you could ever—”

The door to Principal Yates's office swings open and her large frame fills up the entire doorway. She looks at each of us in turn, seemingly deciding which one she wants to deal with first.