by Sarah Dessen
When we pulled into the lot five minutes later, for the first time I beat Gervais out of the car, pushing my door open before we were even at a full stop. I was already a row of cars away when Nate yelled after me. “Ruby,” he said. “Wait up.”
But I didn’t, not this time. I just kept going, walking faster. By the time I reached the green, the first bell hadn’t yet rung, and people were everywhere, pressing on all sides. When I saw the door to the bathroom, I just headed straight for it.
Inside, there were girls at the sinks checking their makeup and talking on the phone, but the stalls were all empty as I walked past them, sliding into the one by the wall and locking the door. Then I leaned against it, closing my eyes.
All those years I’d given up Cora for lost, hated her for leaving me. What if I had been wrong? What if, somehow, my mother had managed to keep her away, the only other person I’d ever had? And if she had, why?
She left you, Cora had said, and it was these three words, then and now, that I heard most clearly of all, slicing through the roaring in my head like someone speaking right into my ear. I didn’t want this to make sense, for her to be right in any way. But even I could not deny the logic of it. My mother had been abandoned by a husband and one daughter; she’d had enough of being left. So she’d done what she had to do to make sure it didn’t happen again. And this, above all else, I could understand. It was the same thing I’d been planning to do myself.
The bell rang overhead, and the bathroom slowly cleared out, the door banging open and shut as people headed off to class. Then, finally, it was quiet, the hallways empty, the only sound the flapping of the flag out on the green, which I could hear from the high half-open windows that ran along the nearby wall.
When I was sure I was alone, I left the stall and walked over to the sinks, dropping my bag at my feet. In the mirror overhead, I realized Gervais had been right: I looked terrible, my face blotchy and red. I reached down, watching my fingers as they picked up the key at my neck, then closed themselves tightly around it.
“I told you, I had to get a pass and sign out,” I heard a voice say suddenly from outside. “Because this place is like a prison, okay? Look, just hold tight. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
I looked outside, just in time to see Olivia passing by, phone to her ear, walking down the breezeway to the parking lot. As soon as I saw her take her keys out of her backpack, I grabbed my bag and bolted.
I caught up with her by a row of lockers just as she was folding her phone into her back pocket. “Hey,” I called out, my voice bouncing off the empty corridor all around us. “Where are you going?”
When she turned around and saw me, her expression was wary, at best. Then again, with my blotchy face, not to mention being completely out of breath, I couldn’t exactly blame her. “I have to go pick up my cousin. Why?”
I came closer, taking a breath. “I need a ride.”
“Where? ”
“Anywhere.”
She raised her eyebrows. “I’m going to Jackson, then home. Nowhere else. I have to be back here by third.”
“That’s fine,” I told her. “Perfect, in fact.”
“You have a pass?”
I shook my head.
“So you want me to just take you off campus anyway, risking my ass, even though it’s totally against the rules.”
“Yes,” I said.
She shook her head, no deal.
“But we’ll be square,” I added. “You won’t owe me anymore. ”
“This is way more than what I owe you,” she said. She studied my face for a moment, and I stood there, waiting for her verdict. She was right, this was probably stupid of me. But I was tired of playing it smart. Tired of everything.
“All right,” she said finally. “But I’m not taking you from here. Get yourself to the Quik Zip, and I’ll pick you up.”
“Done,” I told her, pulling my bag over my shoulder. “See you there.”
Chapter Eight
When I slid into Olivia’s front seat ten minutes later, my foot immediately hit something, then crunched it flat. Looking down, I saw it was a popcorn tub, the kind you buy at the movies, and it wasn’t alone: there were at least four more rolling across the floorboards.
“I work at the Vista Ten,” she explained, her engine puttering as she switched into reverse. “It pays crap, but we get all the free popcorn we can eat.”
“Right,” I said. Now that I thought of it, that did explain the butter smell.
We pulled out onto the main road, then merged into traffic and headed for the highway. I’d spent so much time riding with Jamie and Nate that I’d almost forgotten what it was like to be in a regular car, i.e., one that was not new and loaded with every possible gadget and extra. Olivia’s Toyota was battered, the fabric of the seats nubby, with several stains visible, and there was one of those prisms hanging on a cord dangling from the rearview. It reminded me of my mother’s Subaru, the thought of which gave me a pang I quickly pushed away, focusing instead on the entrance to the highway, rising up in the distance.
“So what’s the deal?” Olivia asked as we merged into traffic, her muffler rattling.
“With what?”
“You.”
“No deal,” I said, sitting back and propping my feet on the dashboard.
She eyed my feet pointedly. I dropped them back down again. “So you just decided to cut school for the hell of it,” she said.
“Pretty much.”
We were getting closer, passing another exit. The one to Jackson was next. “You know,” she said, “you can’t just show up and hang out on campus. They’re not as organized as Perkins, but they will kick you off.”
“I’m not going to campus,” I told her.
When we came over the hill five minutes later and Jackson came into view—big, sprawling, trailers lined up behind—I felt myself relax. After so many weeks of being out of place, it was nice to finally see something familiar. Olivia pulled up in front, where there was a row of faded plastic benches. Sitting on the last one was a heavyset black girl with short hair and glasses. When she saw us, she slowly got to her feet and began to shuffle in our direction.
“Oh, look at this,” Olivia said loudly, rolling down her window. “Seems like someone should have listened to someone else who said maybe running a mile wasn’t such a smart idea.”
“It’s not because of the running,” the girl grumbled, pulling open the back door and sliding gingerly onto the seat. “I think I have the flu.”
“All the books say you should start slow,” Olivia continued. “But not you. You have to sprint the first day.”
“Just shut up and give me some Advil, would you please?”
Olivia rolled her eyes, then reached across me and popped the glove compartment. She pulled out a bottle of pills, then chucked it over her shoulder. “This is Laney, by the way,” Olivia said, banging the glove compartment shut again. “She thinks she can run a marathon.”
“It’s a five-K,” Laney said. “And some support would be nice.”
“I’m supportive,” Olivia told her, turning around in her seat. “I support you so much that I’m the only one telling you this isn’t a good idea. That maybe, just maybe, you could hurt yourself.”
Laney just looked at her as she downed two Advils, then popped the cap back on. “Pain is part of running,” she said. “That’s why it’s an endurance sport.”
“You don’t know anything about endurance!” Olivia turned to me. “One night she sees that crazy woman Kiki Sparks in one of those infomercials, talking about caterpillars and butterflies and potential and setting fitness goals. Next think you know, she thinks she’s Lance Armstrong.”
“Lance Armstrong is a cyclist,” Laney pointed out, wincing as she shifted her weight. “That’s not even a valid analogy.”
Olivia harrumphed but withheld further comment as we pulled forward out of the turnaround. As she put on her blinker to turn left, I said, “Do you mind going the other way? It’
s not far.”
“There’s nothing up there but woods,” she said.
“It’ll only take a minute.”
I saw her glance back at Laney in the rearview, but then she was turning, slowly, the engine chugging as we headed up the hill. The parking lots gave way to more parking lots, which then turned into scrub brush. About half a mile later, I told her to slow down.
“This is good,” I said as we came up on the clearing. Sure enough, there were two cars parked there, and I could see Aaron, Peyton’s ex—a chubby guy with a baby face he tried to counter by dressing in all black and scowling a lot—sitting on one of them, smoking a cigarette. “Thanks for the ride.”
Olivia looked over at them, then back at me. “You want to get out here?”
“Yeah,” I said.
She was clearly skeptical. “How are you planning to get back? ”
“I’ll find a way,” I said. I got out of the car and picked up my bag. She was still watching me, so I added, “Look, don’t worry.”
“I’m not worried,” she said. “I don’t even know you.”
Still, she kept her eyes on me while Laney opened the back door and slid out slowly, taking her time as she made her way into the front seat. As she pulled the door shut, Olivia said, “You know, I can take you home, if you want. I mean, I’m missing third by now, anyway, thanks to Laney.”
I shook my head. “No, I’m good. I’ll see you at school, okay? ”
She nodded slowly as I patted the roof of the car, then turned around and headed for the clearing. Aaron squinted at me, then sat up straighter. “Hey, Ruby,” he called out as I approached. “Welcome back.”
“Thanks,” I said, hopping up on the hood beside him. Olivia had stayed where I left her, watching me from behind the wheel, but now she moved forward, turning around in the dead end, her engine put-putting. The prism hanging from her rearview caught the light for a moment, throwing sparks, and then she was sliding past, over the hill and out of sight. “It’s good to be here.”
I’d actually come looking for Peyton, who had a free second period and often skipped third to boot, spending both at the clearing. But Aaron, whose schedule was flexible due to a recent expulsion, claimed he hadn’t seen her, so I settled in to wait. That had been a couple of hours ago.
“Hey.”
I felt something nudge my foot. Then again, harder. When I opened my eyes, Aaron was holding out a joint, the tip smoldering. I tried to focus on it, but it kept blurring, slightly to one side, then the other. “I’m okay,” I said.
“Oh, yeah,” he said flatly, putting it to his own lips and taking a big drag. In his black shirt and jeans, his white skin seemed so pale, almost glowing. “You’re just fine.”
I leaned back, then felt my head bonk hard against something behind me. Turning slightly, I saw thick treads, sloping metal, and I could smell rubber. It took me another minute, though, to realize I was sitting against a car. There was grass beneath me and trees all around; looking up, I could see a bright blue sky. I was still at the clearing, although how I got on the ground I wasn’t exactly sure.
This was because I was also drunk, the result of the pint of vodka we’d shared soon after I’d arrived. That I remembered at least partially—him pulling out the bottle from his pocket, along with a couple of orange-juice cartons someone had nicked from the cafeteria during breakfast. We’d poured some of each into an empty Zip cup, then shook them up, cocktail style, and toasted each other in his front seat, the radio blasting. And repeat, until the orange juice was gone. Then we’d switched to straight shots, each burning a little less as they went down.
“Damn,” he’d said, wiping his mouth as he passed the bottle back to me. The wind had been blowing, all the trees swaying, and everything felt distant and close all at once, just right. “Since when are you such a lush, Cooper?”
“Always,” I remembered telling him. “It’s in my genes.”
Now he took another deep drag, sputtering slightly as he held it in. My head felt heavy, fluid, as he exhaled, the smoke blowing across me. I closed my eyes, trying to lose myself in it. That morning, all I’d wanted was to feel oblivious, block out everything I’d heard about my mom from Cora. And for a while, sitting with him and singing along to the radio, I had. Now, though, I could feel it hovering again, crouching just out of sight.
“Hey,” I said, forcing my eyes open and turning my head. “Let me get a hit off that.”
He held it out. As I took it, my fingers fumbled and it fell to the ground between us, disappearing into the grass. “Shit,” I said, digging around until I felt heat—pricking, sudden—against my skin. As I came up with it, I had to concentrate on guiding it to my mouth slowly, easing my lips around it before pulling in a big drag.
The smoke was thick, sinking down into my lungs, and feeling it I sat back again, my head hitting the fender behind me. God, this was good. Just floating and distant, every worry receding like a wave rushing out and then pulling back, wiping the sand clean behind it. I had a flash of myself, walking through these same woods not so long ago, feeling this same way: loose and easy, everything still ahead. Then I hadn’t been alone, either. I’d been with Marshall.
Marshall. I opened my eyes, squinting down at my watch until it came into focus. That was what I needed right now— just any kind of closeness, even if it was only for a little while. Sandpiper Arms was only a short walk from here, via a path through the woods; we’d done it tons of times.
“Where you going?” Aaron asked, his voice heavy as I pushed myself to my feet, stumbling slightly before regaining my footing. “I thought we were hanging out.”
“I’ll be back,” I told him, and started for the path.
By the time I reached the bottom of Marshall’s stairs, I felt slightly more coherent, although I was sweating from the walk, and I could feel a headache setting in. I took a moment to smooth down my hair and make myself slightly more presentable, then pushed on up to the door and knocked hard. A moment later, the door creaked open, and Rogerson peered out at me.
“Hey,” I said. My voice sounded low, liquidy. “Is Marshall home? ”
“Uh,” he replied, looking over his shoulder. “I don’t know.”
“It’s cool if he’s not,” I told him. “I can wait in his room.”
He looked at me for a long moment, during which I felt myself sway, slightly. Then he stepped aside.
The apartment was dark, as usual, as I moved down the hallway to the living room. “You know,” Rogerson said from behind me, his voice flat, “he probably won’t be back for a while.”
But at that point, I didn’t care. All I wanted was to collapse onto the bed, pulling the sheets around me, and sleep, finally able to block out everything that had happened since I’d woken up in my own room that morning. Just to be someplace safe, someplace I knew, with someone, anyone, familiar nearby.
When I pushed open the door, the first thing I saw was that Whitman’s sampler. It caught my eye even before I recognized Peyton, who was sitting beside it, a chocolate in her hand. I watched, frozen, as she reached it out to Marshall, who was lying beside her, hands folded over his chest, and dropped it into his open mouth. This was just the simplest gesture, taking mere seconds, but at the same time there was something so intimate about it—the way his lips closed over her fingers, how she giggled, her cheeks pink, before drawing them back—that I felt sick, even before Marshall turned his head and saw me.
I don’t know what I was expecting him to do or say, if anything. To be surprised, or sorry, or even sad. In the end, though, his expression said it all: I Could Care Less.
“Oh, shit,” Peyton gasped. “Ruby, I’m so—”
“Oh my God,” I said, stumbling backward out of the door frame. I put my hand to my mouth as I turned, bumping the wall as I ran back down the hallway to the front door. Vaguely, I could hear her calling after me, but I ignored this as I burst out into the daylight again, gripping the banister as I ran down to the parking lot.
<
br /> “Ruby, wait,” Peyton was yelling, her own steps loud on the stairs as she followed me. “Jesus! Just let me explain!”
“Explain? ” I said, whirling to face her. “How in the world do you explain this?”
She stopped by the banister, hand to her heart, to catch her breath. “I tried to tell you,” she gasped. “That night, at your house. But it was so hard, and then you kept saying how things had changed, anyway, so—”
Suddenly, something clicked in my brain, and I had a flash of her that night, in the foyer with Roscoe and Jamie, then of Marshall handing me back my key that last time I’d seen him. You told me you lived in Wildflower Ridge, she’d said, but I was sure I hadn’t. I was right. He had.
“That’s why you came over?” I asked. “To tell me you were sleeping with my boyfriend?”
“You never called him that!” she shot back, pointing at me. “Not even once. You just said you had a thing, an arrangement . I thought I was being nice, wanting to tell you.”
“I don’t need you to be nice to me,” I snapped.
“Of course you don’t,” she replied. At the top of the stairs, I could see Rogerson just past the open door, looking down at us. We were making a scene, the last thing he wanted. “You don’t need anything. Not a boyfriend, not a friend. You were always so clear about that. And that’s what you got. So why are you surprised now?”
I just stood there, looking at her. My head was spinning, my mouth dry, and all I could think about was that I wanted to go someplace safe, someplace I could be alone and okay, and that this was impossible. My old life had changed and my new one was still in progress, altering by the second. There was nothing, nothing to depend on. And why was I surprised?
I walked away from her, back to the path, but as I entered the woods I was having trouble keeping on it, roots catching my feet, branches scratching me from all sides. I was so tired—of this day, of everything—even as it all came rushing back: Cora’s face in the foyer that morning, Olivia’s prism glinting in the sun, stepping into the familiar dimness of the apartment, so sure of what I was there for.