A Week of Mondays (8 page)

I have every intention of staying in here for the rest of my days. Or until I shrivel up and die. There's no way I can go back to school. There's no way I can show my face in this town ever again. Not after what happened tonight. Not after what everyone witnessed at that carnival.

I'll never survive it. I'll never be able to see Tristan without bursting into tears. And how long will it take before he moves on? How long will it take before one of those hundreds of adoring girls sinks her teeth into him? How long did it take him to move on from Colby to me?

Less than a week.

The idea of seeing Tristan with another girl—
kissing
another girl in the hallway the way he used to kiss me—it's too much. My stomach feels like it's going to eat itself just thinking about it.

How could he do this to us? How could he throw us away so quickly? I don't understand. Nothing he said made any sense. We're broken? We can't be fixed? Those are cop-out lines if I ever heard one. Why didn't I push him for a real reason? Why didn't I speak up and demand an explanation?

Is this because of our fight last night? Because I threw a garden gnome at his head? He can't break up with me for that! It's not fair. He has to give us—give
me
—another shot.

I hear a tapping at my window and nearly let out a startled scream. Then my heart catapults into my throat. It's him. It's Tristan! He's changed his mind. He's driven all the way over here to tell me that he's made a huge mistake. He's climbed up the tree outside my window just like they do in the movies to confess his love for me. It's wildly romantic! And so Tristan!

I brush the tears from my face, leap off the bed, and scurry to the window. I thrust it open and my heart sinks back into my chest.

It's Owen.

Of course it's Owen.

He's been climbing that tree in our front yard since we were nine. He's been entering and exiting through my bedroom window for as long as we've been friends.

“Hi,” I mumble, and step away from the window to allow Owen to tumble inside. He never manages to enter gracefully. It's always more of an awkward face-plant than anything. You would think after all this time he'd learn how to squeeze through the window without nearly killing himself.

I plop back down on the bed with my face buried between pillows. I can feel Owen's weight shift the mattress as he sits.

“I suppose I don't have to guess why you left the carnival in tears,” he says.

“You mean, you haven't
heard
?” I murmur into the pillows before propping myself onto my elbows. “I thought they'd announce it over the carnival loudspeaker.”

He winces. “That bad?”

“I just don't understand! I apologized for the fight last night. I acted normal—”

“Wait, wait,” Owen stops me. “Since when is
you
apologizing the equivalent of acting normal?”

I pick up Hippo and throw it at his head. He catches it deftly and brings it up to his ear, as though the stuffed animal is whispering to him. “Hippo says you're better off without him.”

I grunt. “Hippo doesn't know anything.”

“What's that?” Owen returns the plush toy to his ear. “Oh, right. Hippo also says he wants a real name. He deserves a real name after all the stuff he's been through with you.”

“He
has
a real name,” I defend.

“Calling something by its literal genus is not a real name.”

“I named him when I was six. What did I know?”

Owen places Hippo in his lap. “Well, you're older now. So give him a new name.”

“That'd be like you giving yourself a new name after sixteen years.”

“Watson,” he says without hesitation.

“What?”

“My new name would be Watson.”

I crack a smile. “So you could solve crimes alongside Sherlock?”

“What would you pick?”

I sigh. “How about Piggy?”

He scrunches his face in disgust. “You would name yourself
Piggy?
”

I slug him in the arm. “For Hippo! Not me!”

“You can't call him Piggy.”

“But he looks like a piggy!”

“Well, now you're just going to give him an identity crisis. Not to mention an eating disorder.”

I cross my arms over my chest. “Fine. How about Rick?”

“Why are you asking me? It's your hippo!”

I groan. “You're impossible.”

“I disagree. I am completely possible. Like one hundred and ten percent possible.” He stops. “What about you? What would you rename yourself if you could?”

I sigh. “Right now, anything but Ellison.”

“What's wrong with Ellison?”

“Ellison is the girl who gets dumped by Tristan Wheeler at the town carnival.”

“You think he dumped you because of your name?”

“No. I think he dumped me because I'm me.”

And just like that, the misery washes back over me and I collapse onto my pillows, staring at the ceiling. The tears well up and run down the sides of my cheeks. I don't even attempt to brush them away. Owen has seen me cry a thousand times. What's one more?

He's fallen silent beside me. I know he's trying to find a way to cheer me up. Like he always does. But it's not that simple this time. I'm beyond cheering up. Beyond fixing.

“I have a secret to tell you,” he says after a long while. His voice isn't light and playful like it usually is when he's on one of his “Cheer Up Ellison” missions. It's quiet and serious. Almost hesitant. The shift snags my attention and I sit up.

“What?” There are traces of concern in my voice. Owen and I don't keep secrets from each other. We never have. So what has he been hiding from me?

He sighs and stares down at my comforter. “I wasn't going to tell you because, well, it's kind of humiliating.”

I swallow. “Now you
have
to tell me.”

“Blimey, okay. You have to swear you won't laugh.”

I laugh at this. He shoots me a look. I settle down.

“Seriously,” I tell him. “Why would I laugh?”

“Like I said, it's embarrassing.”

“I won't laugh,” I swear, keeping my voice steady and sincere.

He exhales loudly and hugs Hippo tighter, like he's trying to pull strength from the inanimate object. “Okay, here it goes.”

I'm not sure why, but suddenly I feel like the air has been sucked out of the room. My stomach clenches in anticipation. Am I actually nervous? Why would I be nervous? Maybe because I've never heard Owen's voice quite so grave before. What if it's bad? I'm not sure I can handle any more bad news today.

“Last night I dreamed I went skinny-dipping in the school pool with Principal Yates.”

I stare at him openmouthed for a long time and then burst into uncontrollable giggles.

Owen huffs indignantly. “You said you wouldn't laugh.”

I laugh harder. “How can I not? Are you kidding?”

He flinches. “No. See? This is why I didn't want to tell you!”

“I'm sorry,” I say, trying to regain control. “But why
did
you tell me if you knew I would laugh?”

As soon as the question is out of my mouth, the answer is obvious to me.

He knew I would laugh. That's why he told me. Another mission accomplished. Owen managed to momentarily make me forget about the worst night (correction,
day
) of my life.

“I swear though,” Owen warns, “if you tell a living soul, I will murder you in your sleep and make it look like a mafia hit.”

“So…” I say, nudging his shoulder. “How was she? Was she good? Did she have a rockin' bod?” I crack up again.

Owen shudders. “Eew! Bugger off! I really don't want to talk about this. I shouldn't have told you.”

I shake my head. “No, you're right. You shouldn't have. Because I'm going to hold this against you for the rest of your life.”

9:12 p.m.

Owen leaves a half hour later. I swallow an ibuprofen to help with the massive headache I'm surely going to have in the morning, turn off the light, and climb under the covers. In the darkness, everything about my day becomes magnified. Like my agony feeds off the shadows and grows darker and more sinister in my head. Then the questions start. The debilitating regret. The “if onlys.”

If only I hadn't eaten that stupid banana bread.

If only I hadn't made a fool of myself in front of the whole school.

If only I had been more apologetic to Tristan.

If only I had been
less
apologetic.

If only I had worn a different outfit, styled my hair up instead of down, brought an umbrella.

If only I knew how to fix this.

If only I had another chance.

These are the kinds of thoughts that lead to destruction. That do nothing but harm. Because in the end, there are no second chances. We all know that. There are no do-overs in life. You make mistakes, you live with them, you move on. I know all of this. I do.

And yet, as I drift to sleep, through the blur of tears and heartache, under the heavy weight of remorse that's pressing down on my chest, I find myself thinking the same thing over and over again.

Please just let me do it over.

Please give me another chance.

I swear I'll get it right.

 

The Way We Were (Part 1)

Five months ago …

The very first time I ever spoke to Tristan Wheeler, he accused me of stealing.

Before you go thinking this is another one of those kleptomaniac romances that are all the rage these days, let me set the record straight. I was completely innocent. I didn't steal a thing.

Tristan, on the other hand, stole everything.

My breath, my common sense, my ability to form coherent sentences. He was the ultimate thief. A shoplifter of hearts. A pickpocket of dreams.

He just didn't know it. That was what made him so dang good at it. He had no idea of the things he walked away with in his pocket. The things girls were so willing to simply hand over to him at the flash of one lonely dimple. At the flick of his windswept dark blond hair. At a single chord strummed on his electric blue Fender guitar.

War treaties have been signed for less.

Colonies have been emancipated for
much
less.

Before that fateful night of Daphne Gray's party, Tristan Wheeler was just another high school cliché to me. The cute boy in your yearbook who you show to your future kids and say, “I wonder if he's on Facebook.” The seventeen-year-old rock god who exists for the sole purpose of giving teenage girls someone to fight over.

Before that fateful night, Tristan Wheeler was about as viable an option for me as a member of One Direction.

I wasn't even supposed to be at the party. I had gone looking for Owen. He had told me earlier in the day that he was thinking about going. I didn't realize until much later that he was saying this facetiously. Owen likes to attend things facetiously.

Parties had never really been our thing. Owen and I were always perfectly content spending our weekend nights watching reruns of
Law and Order
or trying to beat our high scores at the bowling alley (me: 145, him: 142. Ha!).

As soon as I walked into Daphne's house, I remembered why I didn't go to parties. I felt like a sober zebra in a wild pack of drunk horses.

The noise alone was enough to make me want to walk out. And I almost did. And I almost would have. Had I not bumped into
him
.

I had already done a full lap of the first floor, and having decided that Owen was most definitely not among these people, I opted to exit out the back door because the thought of trudging back through that chaos was about as appetizing as walking across hot coals.

I crept out the glass door to the backyard and slid it shut behind me. The silence was blissful. I stared at the door for a good ten seconds, wondering if it was made from the same glass they use to make the windows of the president's car, because the way it blocked out the noise of all those rowdy teenagers and their rowdy teenage music was nothing short of a miracle.

I didn't expect anyone to be out here. It was a cold night for late April, and judging by the claustrophobia of the living room, every teenager within a hundred-mile radius was packed like sardines inside the house. But there was one person sitting out in the cold.

And he wasn't about to let me slink off unnoticed.

“What did you steal?”

Those were the first words Tristan Wheeler ever said to me.

Later, I would debate whether or not I should needlepoint them onto a decorative throw pillow.

“I really hope you stole something,” he went on, “because that would be the perfect crime. Pilfering precious gems in the wake of a high school house party. Way too many suspects to narrow down.”

“Huh?”

And that was the first word
I
ever spoke to Tristan Wheeler. Definitely not throw-pillow worthy.

I turned around to see him sitting on the edge of the pool. His shoes and socks were off and his feet were dangling in water that had to be as cold as the stuff that killed fifteen hundred Titanic passengers.

“The way you left that house,” he explained. “It was very … criminalistic. You are definitely running from something.” He stopped to contemplate. “Or some
one
? Let me guess again. You cheated on your boyfriend, you're feeling horribly remorseful, and now you're disappearing into the night before he notices you're gone.”

“I've never had a boyfriend.”

That was the second thing I ever said to Tristan Wheeler.

Yup, I was on a roll. I wanted to vanish right then and there. I wanted to dive into that pool and never resurface.