“Why do feet bleed so much?” Hayden asks.
“Blood vessels closer to the skin.”
“Oh.”
When I’m satisfied that there isn’t any more glass in there, I wash it with the wet cloth and bandage my foot. I pack everything back up, and throw away anything with blood on it. I pull the sheets off the bed. There’s probably no saving them, but I’ll give it a try.
Hayden stands against the wall and I sit on the edge of the mattress.
“Are we going to talk about it?” he asks.
I feel tired. A dull ache starts to fill my head, my heart. I might have wrapped my foot too tightly because it feels like my heart is throbbing in my sole.
“Do you remember the ex I talked about? From Boston?”
“That was him?”
I nod. “He’s been calling and texting, which is why I have my phone turned off most of the time.”
“Sky, why didn’t you say anything?”
“Because!” I shout defensively. “I didn’t think he was going to show up here.”
He’s quiet for a little while. I want to be alone. No, I need to be alone.
“What did you mean…about Xandro?”
I sigh. “When I went to look for the cake toppers my mom forced me to go with him. He pulled me into a restaurant. I felt trapped. What was I supposed to do? Scream that he wanted to take me to lunch?”
“Yes,” Hayden says. “You should have. No one should make you do anything that you don’t want to do.”
“Well, after hearing a lecture about how I have no right to reject him, I threw my wine in his face and put him in his place. He’s not going to bother me anymore.”
“You promised me, Sky. You promised that if he got out of hand you would tell me about it or get help. Now there are guys coming out of the woodwork.”
I stand up to face him, but I hobble. He helps me stand, but I don’t want to be touched. I don’t want anything. “You make it sound like there’s a fucking army knocking on my door. I didn’t ask for Xandro, okay? I didn’t ask Bradley to come here. I just want to be alone.”
Hayden stands up straight. He doesn’t know what to do with his hands so he keeps one holding up his towel and one over his chest where my bite marks have left an imprint. My heart is racing in my chest and my thoughts are zooming all over the place. I need time to think. This house is so big, and yet, it feels so small.
“This is my fault,” I say. “I should’ve been concentrating on the wedding, not fooling around.”
“Fooling around?” he asks. “Is that what I am to you? Just fooling around with the help?”
My heart breaks again. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Yes, you did.”
“Don’t tell me what I meant, Hayden. You just storm into my life saying all of these things that make me feel like there’s nothing wrong with me. Then you get jealous—”
“I told you why.”
“Yes, and I’ve been there. I know what it’s like.”
“I’m sorry, Sky. Should I not treat you the way I have? Have I been
too
good to you? That’s what you’re complaining about, right? That there must be something wrong with me because I’m not your cheating ex-boyfriend or some jerk who forces himself on you. Maybe if I were more like that you’d find it in your heart to love me.”
“I…”
I do love you
. It’s on the tip of my tongue. Looking at Hayden, hurting him, it tears me up inside. I want to take all of my words back. I didn’t mean anything. I want to tell him that I love him. That beyond time or reason, he’s made a place for himself in my heart. Not because he forced his way there, but because he earned it.
“Hayden.”
He picks up his clothes from the floor. He’s going to go. He’s going to go and I know that if I let him, he won’t come back.
My words are lodged in my throat. I can’t really breathe. Maybe it’s best. Maybe I haven’t given myself enough time to be alone. I might be over Bradley, but seeing him again made all of that hurt resurface. I never want to feel that way again.
Hayden stands at the door. He’s giving me a chance to ask him to stay. When I don’t, he shakes his head and turns around.
He says, “Goodbye, Sky.”
For the next two days, I don’t hear from Hayden.
When Steven and Yunior think it’d be funny to skateboard off the roof and into the pool, only to dislodge a couple of shingles and sprain a pinky and ankle respectively, Robertson Roofers sends two guys we’ve never seen before.
I sit by the pool with my cellphone in hand and a stack of purchase orders. Leti keeps avoiding me about the DJ.
“He’ll be there. I promise.” She kisses me on the cheek.
“So it’s booked?”
“Yep! Uncle Tony wrote a check already.”
“Yeah, you have no faith in your family,” Yunior tells me.
“I’m sorry if I don’t take life advice from a guy who sprained his ankle skating off a roof. You’re lucky you can still walk in the ceremony.”
Yunior presses a finger on my shoulder and hisses. “Yeesh! Ice cold. Stay away from that one.”
“Will you kids quiet down?” Pepe asks. “I can’t hear myself think.”
Pepe paces around the pool, biting his thumbnail. His silk robe is like a tail following him as he spins in circles.
“Relax, Pepe,” I tell him.
Over on the lawn, Uncle Tony is directing the delivery guys where to put the rented tables and chairs.
“Elena, Juliet,” I say. “Be useful and go help Uncle Tony unfold some chairs.”
“But we just applied sunscreen,” Juliet says.
“Oh, good, you won’t get sunburned while you’re helping.” I shoo them away.
Maria makes it clear she’s not lifting a finger. She unfolds her magazine and looks over the edge at me.
“What?” I snap.
She shrugs. “I just haven’t seen your little roofer boy since he finished his work. He must’ve gotten what he needed.”
At the mention of Hayden, I try to hide my sadness by giving her the finger. When my phone beeps, my entire being is on alert hoping for his name to pop up on my screen. It’s Lucky.
“Hey,” I say.
“Can I come over? James and Chris are in cooking mode and I pretty much don’t exist.”
“If you want to help arrange seashells, then be my guest.”
• • •
“You are extra pensive, Sky,” Lucky says. Her long black hair is up in a ponytail and she’s wearing a David Bowie t-shirt. River and Leti are also on centerpiece duty, but mostly gluing their fingers to shells instead of the candles.
“Yeah, she’s been extra secretive,” River says. “Even for her.”
Looking at their eyes, I can’t hide it anymore.
“I have to tell you guys something.” So I tell them about Bradley’s surprise visit. How Hayden was there. How I cut my foot. How I told Hayden we were just fooling around.
“You’re an idiot,” River tells me. That hurts.
“You big liar who lies!” Leti shouts. “You said you stepped on a nail by the pool.”
I shrug. “I’m sorry.”
Lucky stands, holding a glue gun, looking very much like she’s going to seal my lips shut so I stop making mistakes. “Why didn’t you tell me? I could talk to him. I’m sure he’s staying at his frat brother’s place. It’s not too far.”
“No,” I say. “We’re not going after Bradley. I made it clear.”
“Some guys don’t know how to take no for an answer,” River says, pressing a large conch shell around the base of the candle.
I hate the way she says that. Like she knows firsthand. I stare at her, willing her to look me in the eye, but she keeps hot gluing shells.
“I’m going to tell you firsthand,” Lucky says, pointing a finger at me. “Guys like Hayden, like James, they don’t come around often. You have to dig through so many scumbags.”
“Preach,” Leti says.
“But I don’t know where I’m going to be at the end of the summer. I don’t know if I should stay in New York. I’m pretty certain I don’t want to keep nursing. I just feel like there’s something missing from my life, and it has nothing to do with a boyfriend. I want to do something that I love, and I love helping people. But I became a nurse because my mother told me to.”
“You have to stop living life by your mom,” Leti tells me. “I do it, and my mom doesn’t like it, but she still wants me to be happy.”
“Yeah, but you’ve always done whatever you wanted.” I hold a blue seashell, the special one that Hayden picked out. I keep it in my palm. This one isn’t going on a centerpiece. There’s a natural hole at the top. I take off my bracelet and it slides right on. A perfect fit.
“I just met him,” I say. “Maybe it’s one of those things where you’re still in the honeymoon phase. Maybe I can’t see that it’s just hormonal.”
“You’re being an idiot,” River says. “Didn’t I tell her she was being an idiot? Sky, I’m a world-class fuck-up. Right now, I can’t even deal with my own shit, so I’m going to focus on yours. If you never want to see Hayden again, then don’t. But believe me, I haven’t seen you this happy or smile as hard as you have since he showed up. If that boy wasn’t a miracle sent from the gods, then I don’t know what he is.”
Looking at the three of them, I know that I can’t lie to myself. Everything I felt with Hayden was real. “I should have told him when I had the chance.”
“Told him what?”
“That I love him.”
Leti squeals. “Girl, I told you. Didn’t I tell you?”
“He was so hurt,” I shake my head.
“Then unhurt him,” River says.
I think of Bradley begging me to take him back. Nothing he said would ever change my mind. What would make Hayden change his?
“Even if he says no,” Lucky says, “at least you know you made an effort.”
River takes out a cigarette and leans back. She lights it, blows a trail of smoke upward. “You already know what I’m going to say.”
“That I’m an idiot?”
“No,” she smiles dryly. “That I love you and I want you to be happy.”
“Be happy.” Lucky says it like happiness is a thing to be examined and dissected. “Once you take away the games and the drama, could it really be that simple?”
I don’t know, but I’m going to have to give it a try.
Me:
I miss you. Can we talk?
That night, Hayden never answers, so I busy myself with things that have to get done. The wedding is in two days and the house is louder than ever. I manage to overnight a simple wedding topper that I think Pepe and Tony won’t hate.
It’s hard not to think about Hayden when the bridesmaids’ “suite” is the same room where he fell through. Our dresses are hung and tagged in the closet. I make sure the steamer works. Check the bathroom for toiletries and makeup bags. I stack the boxes of centerpieces on top of each other.
I make a mental checklist:
String lights and lanterns all around the yard.
Finish centerpieces.
Finalize arrival time with DJ and photographer.
New topper.
James and his staff will arrive as early as humanly possible, as promised by Lucky.
The tuxes are all in the opposite end of the house.
The pool and pool house are clean and ready.
Table and chairs are laid out and decorated with garland.
The gazebo…
The ceremony is going to take place in the gazebo that Hayden built. I have to go to the store in the morning and pick up an extra string of lights to decorate it.
I check my phone for the zillionth time and still nothing. I wanted to be left alone and I got my wish. Leti did warn me about what I put out to the Universe.
I unzip the dress with my name on it and try it on one more time. Sure, it’s not my wedding, but it’s definitely a white dress. I let my hair down from the tangled bun at the top of my head. I’ve been planning my wedding since I was five and I decided to marry John Smith from Disney’s Pocahontas. She’s the Disney princess who looks the most like me, after all. Back then I didn’t know that the real Pocahontas was a teenager and John Smith wasn’t a blond. And also was a horrible human. But for a little while, that was my fantasy.
Little girls spend so much time fantasizing that no one remembers to tell us that there will come a day when you can’t separate the princes from the frogs. That even when you do everything right and follow the right steps, you can end up starting over. They tell us so often that we shouldn’t make mistakes. Mistakes ruin your life, from accidental pregnancy to kissing too many boys to getting the wrong grade to wearing the wrong clothes.
More than anything, I want to tell these girls that it’s okay to fuck up. It’s okay to start over. And I have a better understanding of what I want to do with my life.
“You look beautiful.”
I jump when I hear my mother, and turn to see her standing at the door. She’s in her pajamas, her hair in rollers.
“Your dress is here, too.”
“Pshh. He’s made me try that thing on a hundred times.”
“He’s just nervous. He wants everything to be perfect.”
“We all do. As perfect as we can get, with this family…you never know,
nena
.”
“I’m just going to change and go to bed.”
“Sky, wait.” She stands in front of me. My mom is so small. So was my dad. I don’t know where I got my height from. She holds my face in her hands. “I’m sorry,
mija
.”
“Why?”
“I wasn’t happy when you told me you quit your job.”
I roll my eyes.
“Listen to me, Sky. I wasn’t happy. But it has nothing to do with me. I was afraid for you. I don’t want you to have the kind of life I had. I don’t want you to come home every night with your hands cracked and bleeding because the factory is so dry. I don’t want you staying up late, wondering where your husband is. I thought Xandro was a good boy, a family boy.”
“What made you change your mind?”
“He told me you spilled a drink in his face.”
I nod. “He’s not wrong.”
“I don’t always agree with you,” she says. “But I know I raised you right. You would never have done that in public unless he was being fresh.
Descarado
.”
“It’s okay, Ma.”
She makes a face, like she’s still not pleased. “Does this mean you’re going back to work soon?”
“Actually,” I say. “I was going to join the circus. I’m halfway there being around you people.”
“Be careful now,” she says, pursing her lips. “Go to the pool. Something just arrived for you.”