by Marissa Lete
“Bathroom’s in there,” a bored voice says from the counter, and I pause to look at her. A woman, probably mid-twenties. Dark hair, thumb pointed at the back corner of the room. “But you gotta buy something.”
I nod, realizing that I better move quickly or else the guy might catch up, look through the window, and find me. I half jog to the bathroom, where I lock myself in and stand against the door, panting. A mirror across from me reveals a disheveled, anxious girl that I barely recognize. I walk over to the sink and splash water onto my face, trying desperately to catch my breath.
After spending a longer amount of time than is socially acceptable in the bathroom, I push open the door and step into the shop. For the first time, I notice the strong smell of coffee. The walls are painted bright pink, bearing a logo that says “Coffee and Cream.” It’s a small shop, but there’s enough room for a few tables and chairs. I recognize it suddenly, remembering that this is where Grace and I went for ice cream the day she and Andy broke up. I remember that their cookie dough ice cream was exceptionally good, too.
The place is empty except for the two of us and seems to have the same amount of business during previous years based on the low level of noise I hear. I walk up to the front counter, angling my body so that I can keep an eye on the front of the shop in case the guy decides to make another appearance. The woman looks up as I walk over, then smiles warmly.
“Rough day?” she asks.
I sigh, feeling my body slowly returning to a non-panicked state. “You wouldn’t believe it if I told you.”
“Trust me. I understand,” she says. But I don’t think anyone can understand what’s been happening to me lately. I peer up at the menu. The “Coffee” side has a bunch of different drinks listed, and the “Cream” side has ice cream flavors. “Let me guess, you’ll have a single scoop of cookie dough in a waffle cone?”
I blink, surprised that she remembers my order from last time. “Yeah, actually,” I tell the woman.
“It seems to be your usual.” She winks, then turns to the back counter where the ice cream tubs are.
“Usual?” I repeat, confused because I’ve only been here once, but she doesn’t hear me. Wasn’t it someone else at the counter when Grace and I stopped in here that day, too? An older man?
“How’s your… friend doing?” she asks, back turned, oblivious to my confusion.
I think of the day Grace and I stopped here. Grace had just broken up with Andy, but she hadn’t seemed off at the time, so it seems like an odd question to ask.
“Um…” I start to reply, and the woman turns around, holding a delicious-looking ice cream cone in her hands.
She takes two steps, then looks up and pauses for a second, searching my face. “Oh no, you didn’t… did you?” Her eyes widen in horror.
“I—” I start, eyebrows cinching up in confusion, but she cuts me off.
“Oh my gosh. I’m so sorry. Forget I even said anything,” she says in a rush. She shoves the ice cream into my hands. “I should have known since y’all haven’t been here in months. I didn’t mean to bring it up. I’m so sorry. This one’s on the house. Please, stay as long as you want. I’ll leave you alone.” The words tumble out of her mouth, panicked. Before I have time to process anything that she said, she turns around and rushes into a back room, the door banging shut behind her.
My heart rate escalates. Y’all haven’t been here in months. Y’all, as in me and Maverick?
Just then, I hear an echo of the door opening last year. I turn my head as if I will see someone standing there and listen, hoping to get some type of answer for the questions swirling in my head. But my hope dies a second later when I hear the voice of a young girl say, “Mom, can I please get the big one this time? Pleeeease?”
I stand there for a minute, tuning out the rest of the echo, both wanting to barge into the back room to fire a million questions at the ice cream girl and get out of this shop as quickly as possible. Instead, I walk to the back corner of the shop and sit down at a table facing the window. I stare out of it, the cookie dough ice cream slowly melting in my hand as I wonder who the hooded figure chasing me was, and what he wanted from me. Wonder if the ice cream girl simply mistook me for someone else, or if she somehow recognized me because I’ve been here before… with Maverick. The guy I have no memory of and I’m still not sure exists. It’s all enough to make my head spin.
Eventually, after I feel confident that the hooded guy has lost me and is probably long gone, I peel myself out of the chair and make my way to the front of the shop. The ice cream girl is still nowhere to be seen, and I’m too freaked out to want to question her more, so I open the door and step out of the store, a blast of cold air hitting me.
Earlier, before I was chased, the sun was still hanging slightly above the horizon. Now, however, the only evidence of the sun’s existence is the pale pink hue of the sky. I pull out my phone, checking the time. Seven-thirty. I wonder where my past self was right now. Was I still on a date with Maverick? I’m not sure if I even know where to look anymore, so I decide I should just go home.
I walk towards where I parked, my head whipping around every few seconds to make sure there’s no sign of the hooded guy. The area is pretty empty right now, and the past is quiet, too. So I should know if someone is following me.
When I get to the parking garage, I take my time, peeking around corners and cars before I walk farther. As I’m checking the perimeter, I spot the black Suburban parked discreetly behind a pillar, a few hundred yards away from my car. I stop in my tracks, realizing they might be waiting for me to leave so they can follow me home—to my actual home this time. I wonder if seeing a car nearby a few times is enough grounds for the cops to do anything. I wonder if they would believe me if I told them someone from the Suburban tried to chase me. I don’t remember seeing any other people around, so there wouldn’t be any witnesses.
I don’t have any more time to think, because just then, I hear the Suburban crank up, and the headlights come on. I back away, realizing I’m standing near the parking garage’s exit, and if they leave, I’ll be in plain sight. I dart around the building, spotting a couple of bushes that I quickly crouch behind. Ten seconds later, the black Suburban comes rolling out of the parking garage. It stops at the edge of the road, and I strain to get a glimpse of anything that might set it apart from other vehicles. But it’s just a black Suburban with tinted windows. There are no bumper stickers or anything that makes it unique. It turns down the road, and I’m unable to make out any of the characters on the license plate.
After waiting for a few minutes to make sure it’s gone, I rush to my car, then peel out of the parking garage as fast as I can. The entire drive home, I check and double-check the rearview mirror and scan the roads around me for any sign of the Suburban. At home, I pull my car into the garage next to my mom’s car. Usually, I just leave it in the driveway, but I don’t want to risk anything since my follower seems to know what my car looks like.
And that night, as I’m laying in bed going over everything that’s happened in my head, I hear an echo of my bedroom door opening and then closing. It’s ten o’clock now, four hours after I heard Maverick and I leave on our date. It makes me wonder where we went, what we did. What kinds of things we talked about, what Maverick was like. But more than anything, I wonder how it would be possible for me to go on a date with someone, and then a year later have no memory of it at all.
Chapter 9
Over the next couple of days, I don’t hear any more echoes that involve Maverick, but there is an increase in the number of times I hear echoes of my phone buzzing in my room while I’m trying to sleep. It makes me wonder if the texts are between me and Maverick, leading me to the question of why those texts aren’t in my phone still if they ever existed at all.
Luckily, the Halloween-themed dance is getting close, meaning I have Grace to distract me both at school and after it since she still hasn’t completed her costume and insists on me going shop
ping with her.
“You have to see this, now.” Grace calls to me as I’m sifting through the used shirts, once again at the thrift store we’ve now been to a total of three times to look for costume pieces. I step around the rack, my eyes shifting to the garment she’s holding up.
“Uhh, I didn’t know you were getting married,” I tell her. It’s a wedding dress straight from the ‘80s, complete with extremely poofy shoulders and copious layers of fabric.
She ignores me. “Two words: Zombie. Bride.”
“I thought you were going to be a scarecrow?”
“A girl can change her mind. Come on, I need your help trying it on.”
She needs my help carrying it, too, because when she tries to walk towards the dressing room, half of the dress drags on the floor. I laugh to myself but help her anyway.
“It’s perfect,” she tells me once she has it on.
“Maybe for our moms,” I reply. “But I’d never be caught dead in that dress—even if I was a zombie.”
“Oh don’t worry. I’m going to be making a few alterations,” she assures me. “Tomorrow, when I come over to get ready, you won’t even recognize the dress.”
Except, the next morning, Grace doesn’t show up when she’s supposed to. And an hour later, when I try to call her, she doesn’t answer her phone. I wonder if she’s just caught up trying to figure out how to de-ugly the dress, so I let it go. But as the day drags on, and the hours tick by bringing the time closer and closer to the dance, I start to lose hope. I’ve called four times and sent seven texts, but there’s still no sign of Grace.
I’m in the bathroom, drawing a nose and whiskers on my face with eyeliner when the doorbell rings.
“Finally, I thought—” I begin to say as I open the door, but stop when I realize it’s just Leo. He’s wearing a green turtleneck and pants, a red belt, yellow leg warmers, and what look like ace bandages up and down his arms. I give him a puzzled look.
“Rock Lee? Naruto?” he says with an undertone of “duh.”
I nod, though I have no clue what he’s talking about. “Sorry, the red hair threw me off.”
“Don’t even bring it up. My wig was supposed to arrive yesterday, but that obviously didn’t happen,” he says, frustrated. He steps into the entranceway, closing the door behind him. “Where’s Grace?”
Now it’s my turn to be frustrated. “I don’t know,” I tell him. “I’ve been calling her all day.”
He drops his eyes. “She better not be ditching us.”
A twinge of anger hits as I remember seeing her with Andy in the parking lot a few days ago. I push it down. “Should we wait for her?”
“Maybe for a little bit. She does like to show up fashionably late.”
So we do, and five minutes before the dance is supposed to start, I finally get a text. I hold my phone out so Leo can read it with me.
I’m so sorry. Got caught up trying to fix this dress. Meet you at the dance?
I let out a sigh.
“Typical,” Leo says, then gets up from the couch. “I’ll drive myself, in case you want to ditch early.”
“You’re a saint,” I tell him, pulling out my keys.
When we get to the dance, Grace’s car is nowhere to be found. The parking lot is filling up quickly, groups of people in various colorful costumes making their way into the school’s gym. Reluctantly, I force myself to follow Leo towards it all.
When I step inside, the noise hits me like a train. The deep thumping of the music and voices of people trying to talk to each other over the music fills my ears in a way the echoes of the past never have. It’s loud. Today, right here, right now loud. So loud that it drowns out the possibility of me ever being able to distinguish what sounds are from today and which ones are from the past.
“The best part about these school dances,” Leo practically has to yell over to me, “is that everyone is so caught up trying to keep track of their crush, or their ex or whoever, that no one actually eats the food. So we can pretty much eat whatever we want.”
I smile at his comment, still trying to decide if I’m okay with this new level of noise or if I despise it. I follow him to the food table, watching as he piles the appetizers on a tiny plate. As we stand off to the side, munching on our food, more and more people pile into the room, costumes and bodies pressed tighter and tighter together. I search the room for Grace, but I don’t see a trace of her. I don’t see Andy, either, and I’m starting to wonder if she has a reason other than the poofy dress to be late when Leo takes the plate out of my hands, drops it in the trash, and grabs my arm.
“This is my jam, come on, you’ve got to dance to this one.” A new song has just started, and I can see people on the dance floor cheering at the DJ.
I resist, backing further away from the crowd. “No, I can’t. I don’t even know how to!”
“It doesn’t matter!” Leo replies, voice loud above the music.
“But I—” I try to protest, but another hand grabs my other arm.
“Just one song?” Grace asks from beside me. I sigh, both relieved that she’s finally here and sad because I know there’s no point in trying to argue when it’s two against one.
“I thought you’d never show,” I comment as she drags me into the crowd behind Leo. In the dim lights, I can barely recognize the wedding dress she bought from the thrift store. She has cut the shoulders out, torn it in places, and shortened it so that strips of cloth only hang down to her knees. She’s added a short veil and done her hair in such a way that it looks both frazzled and perfectly placed all at once. It suits her perfectly.
We make our way into the center of the crowd, pushing past warm bodies and big costumes. Some of the faces are recognizable, and others are so heavily covered in makeup that you’d never know who is underneath. Grace and Leo immediately start bouncing to the beat of the music, moving with the deep, vibrating bass, blending in with the crowd. I stand there, watching, unsure of what to do.
“Come on!” Grace calls over the music.
“I don’t know how!” I call back.
“Just move!” she replies.
So I do, starting with a little bit of head nodding and foot tapping. And then, slowly, I start to loosen up, more and more of my body moving with the music. The volume of the music and the crowded room makes me feel trapped, and I can’t hear myself think over the sound. But as the songs beat by, I start to embrace the feel of it. The stifling noise becomes a welcome distraction from all of the crazy occurrences lately, and I lose myself in the music.
I’m not sure how much time has passed before I realize that neither Grace nor Leo is nearby anymore. I snap out of the strange trance the music has put me in, straining my neck to see through the crowd. From the corner of my eye, I see Leo standing by the food table and start to make my way toward him.
“Woah. Where did you guys even go?” I ask him.
“Take a look for yourself,” Leo replies, a twinge of bitterness in his voice as he points across the room.
It takes me a second to find Grace, still amid the crowd, thumping to the music. Two hands are on her waist, and a tall figure is behind her. Just then, she turns to face him and I watch as Andy leans in, kissing her on the mouth.
I turn back to Leo. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“They’ve been doing that for a while now,” Leo says.
I sigh. “Guess it was bound to happen eventually.”
“I guess,” Leo replies, disappointed. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s the reason she didn’t show up earlier.”
Anger flashes through me, then, as I think about Grace hanging out with Andy all day, completely forgetting about Leo and me. Not even bothering to let us know where she was until right before the dance.
“Hey, Laura, can I talk to you for a second?” Grace comes up beside me a few minutes later, flashing a grin.
“Yeah, I think that would be good,” I reply, not even bothering to try and hide my irritation.
; Grace doesn’t seem to notice, just grabs my arm and pulls me over to the back door of the gym, stepping outside into the bus parking lot behind the school. Leo trails behind us. The brisk air hits my warm, sweating body and sends chills down my spine. I fear that a small breeze might give me hypothermia. As soon as the door closes behind us, it’s like I’ve put earplugs in. All that’s left is the distant thrum of the bass vibrating through the dark.
“Look, I need you to do me a solid,” she says. When she finally looks at me, her expression shifts from excited to concerned. “Everything okay?”
I hold in an outburst, barely. “What’s going on in there?” She looks confused until I add, “You and Andy?”
She gives me a sheepish grin. “I think we’re getting back together.”
“Oh really? I never would have guessed, with the mouth on mouth action and all.”
“What’s your problem?” Grace bristles.
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe the fact that you completely ditched me today, instead of coming over like we planned?”
“I didn’t mean to—”
“And for what? So you could go screw around with your ex-boyfriend?” I burst.
Grace looks taken aback for a moment, but then she shakes her head. “It had nothing to do with Andy. I promise. Please, I’m really sorry. It took me forever to create this look.”
“Which you said you were going to do at my house.”
“Look, I’m really sorry. I screwed up. Please forgive me?”