She went to the backyard, where Trent and Ryan were playing lacrosse one-on-one. “Marcus wants to go to the coffee shop.”
Both boys lowered their sticks. “Marcus wants to go?” Ryan asked.
“Got a reprieve. Jackson’s gracing us with his presence, so you’re both coming. I need a buffer.”
“This should be interesting,” said Trent.
Now here they all were—Ryan and Gwen sharing a beat-up recliner, Fi and Marcus tucked together in the middle of the ratty futon, Trent on her side and Jackson on his. Their first ever group outing.
Bringing along backup was a good idea. The Doyle side outnumbered the King side, and Jackson was acting—gasp—the slightest bit friendly. Like he’d gotten caught up in this “big night out” as much as she had.
Curling up even closer to Marcus, getting all snuggly under his arm, Fi looked up at him. Always fair, Marcus looked healthy nonetheless, with a little flush in his cheeks, a crisp look in his eyes. For possibly the eleventh time that night, she said, “You look so good.”
He kissed her forehead. “I feel good.”
“Dude, you have crazy allergies,” Trent said. “There’s this girl on the lacrosse team who’s allergic to everything, but she still comes to school.”
“It’s different,” Fi said, shooting him a shut up glare.
“I tried her gluten-free potato snack sticks once,” Trent continued. “Tasted like salted cardboard.”
Fi wanted no allergy—intolerance, sensitivity, whatever—talk tonight. “So why the sudden freedom?” she asked, nuzzling more deeply into her cute, cute boyfriend.
“Maybe they just wanted us out of the house,” Marcus said, laughing.
Jackson made a gagging noise and put his mug on the table. “Ugh. Gross.” Gwen’s eyes darted between his mug and him. “Not the coffee,” he said. “My parents’ sex life.”
Marcus did a spit take into his green tea.
“I walked in on my parents when I was ten,” Trent said. “Dad said they were wrestling. It scarred me for life.”
“I can top it,” Gwen said. “Hippie neighbors, in their sixties. Two a.m. naked time in the backyard hot tub every Tuesday.”
“Please. Mine’s worse,” Trent said.
“There are four of them.”
And so it went, each person telling a story that had the slightest thing in common with the other’s and on and on and on so that no one really knew how they ended up on Marcus’s story about the guy who went to Europe with four hundred dollars and still managed to backpack six whole months.
“Another thing for the bucket list,” he said, nudging Fi and Jackson at the same time.
Jackson shook his head, his eyes focused on the ceiling.
Fi was about to smack him when Gwen said, “I want to do junior year abroad in Italy. Florence. See Botticelli’s Birth of Venus. Michelangelo’s David. Paint there.”
Ryan pivoted, brows drawn. “Since when?”
“All my life,” she said. “I’ve told you that.”
“Uh, no.”
“Uh, yes. It’s on the spreadsheet.”
“What spreadsheet?” Trent asked.
“All the schools we’re applying to.” Gwen ticked off her fingers with each item she listed. “We’ve got columns for art programs, athletic division, scholarship potential, ranking of the business school. Stuff like that.”
Ryan’s girlfriend must be the only spreadsheet-making painter in existence. Weren’t the creative types supposed to be clueless and flighty, always losing their phones and forgetting to put gas in their car?
“It’s sorted by distance,” Gwen said. “Since we’re probably not going to the same place.” She nudged Ryan with a small smile. “Not many business-painting-lacrosse schools.”
“How does Italy affect the distance tabulations?” Ryan asked her.
“It’s probably a wash against all the pre- and postseason training,” she said, with a look. “Not to mention the travel games.”
“O-kay,” Fi said. No public displays of issues tonight. “Who wants something?”
“My break’s over, anyway,” Gwen said. “I’ll get the refills. You two stay here,” she added, smiling warmly at Fi and Marcus.
Fi curled back into Marcus. “Looks like my family’s not the only one that’s crazy,” he whispered.
“They really excel at it, though,” she said. “Like, maybe the top ten.”
He laughed and kissed her on the head.
“Ugh, stop kissing my sister,” Ryan grumbled.
Grabbing Marcus’s jaw, Fiona brought her boyfriend’s face to hers for an inappropriately long and public kiss—that she never got to finish. Jackson groaned, “Good Lord,” while Ryan and Trent threw pillows at them.
They pulled away from each other, and Marcus shifted down, propping his feet on the table. He winked at his brother. Fi stuck her tongue out at hers.
“That was a disturbing display of germ-swapping,” Trent said.
“You use your sleeve as a Kleenex,” Fi said, but regretted it immediately, as Jackson started eyeing Trent’s shirt suspiciously.
“So, Jackson,” she said, quickly changing the subject. “Have you heard from Northwestern?”
She knew the answer. Marcus told her he’d gotten the letter a few weeks ago.
“I have,” he said, like a normal person might. “But I’m deferring a year.”
“Why?”
Jackson took a long sip of coffee. “It’s just not a great time.”
“I thought we talked about this,” Marcus said, looking straight ahead, not at his brother.
“I heard your opinion,” Jackson said. “I just have a different one.”
“It’s as good a time as any, Jackson,” Marcus answered.
“So then later will work, too.”
Fi had been thrilled when Marcus said Jackson was going off to school. Even so, she understood Jackson’s position. Or what she guessed was his position, since he sure as hell wasn’t going to tell her about it.
He didn’t want to leave Marcus.
Neither did she.
“You can do that?” she asked. “They don’t mind?”
Jackson studied her with an expression she couldn’t read. “I don’t know if they mind. But yes, you can do that.”
Marcus nudged her. “You can also transfer in—either in the second semester or sophomore year.”
“You can only transfer in if they accept you,” she said.
“Yes, but they can’t accept you when you never apply.”
Fi curled in on herself when Marcus said that last bit, making a point of not looking at Ryan or Trent.
“What?” both yelled at the same time.
“You never applied?” Ryan barked.
“Freaking unbelievable,” Trent said.
“I’m sorry,” said Marcus. “I thought they knew.”
“They do now,” she muttered against his chest.
For the next five minutes, Trent and Ryan alternated the rant. Was she crazy? She’d wanted to play for Northwestern since she was fourteen! She took the SATs three times to get the right score. What was all the rehab for? What was all the work for? That coach wanted her, which was a stroke of luck right there. Girls from Virginia and Maryland and New England got those spots, not girls from Memphis. Did she have any idea what kind of opportunity that was? It was the best program in the country!
“Okay, y’all,” Marcus finally said. “I think she got the point.”
“You could have interrupted them earlier,” she said.
Trent stormed off dramatically. Ryan shook his head in disappointment and followed. “I’m going to get some food,” Jackson said, and left as well.
“You okay?” Marcus asked.
She shook her head, not able to talk past the golf-ball-sized lump in her throat. Crying in Otherlands—with Trent and her obnoxious brother and his obnoxious brother all nearby—was unacceptable.
“I’m sorry,” he said again.
She wanted t
o yell at him, but that would ruin their one night out. “You shouldn’t have said anything,” she said.
“They’re not wrong,” he said. “I saw that email. The coach wants you.”
“It’s too late now. The team’s set.”
“Maybe not. Maybe whoever else she had in mind for your spot said no. Or got a better offer. You could at least check.”
“Are you trying to get rid of me?” Good Lord, now she really was going to cry.
“You sound like Jackson,” he said. “And I’ll tell you the same thing I’ve told him. I feel horrible that you’re changing your life for me.”
“Maybe I’m the girl with the better offer.”
“It’s not a one-or-the-other, babe.” He pointed to the table where they first met. “The first time I saw you, you had an awful pink cast over a horrid compound break, and you still couldn’t shut up about lacrosse. And Northwestern. You said it was your dream, Fi. How can you not go after it?”
“Because my dream changed.”
It wasn’t like choosing between the two things she loved more than anything had been easy. The night she’d finally tossed all her NU brochures into the trash, she’d clutched Panda for dear life, like she was a little kid. She’d never cried so hard.
“But you can have both,” he said.
She’d spent eight months trying to figure out how to do just that. It was impossible. “It’s too late. I missed the deadline, and I already said yes to Milton.”
“Just email her and check. One more time.” He touched her cheek. “Let me live vicariously through you.”
Fi’s heart broke a little when he said that. “Would you apply, too?”
He paused a moment before nodding. “Sure.”
She figured he was humoring her. But still, he looked sad when he should be happy. “Okay,” she said. “I’ll email the coach.”
Marcus bloomed into one of his full-face smiles. And without the brothers and best friends to mock them, they got to finish that kiss.
APRIL
FIONA
“Oh, that looks nice. I think it’s my favorite so far.”
Fiona twisted side to side to get the full angle of this, the fifth dress she’d tried, and looked at her mother through the mirror. Her mom pointed to the dress’s hemline and waist. “It shows off your figure.”
The dress hit mid-thigh, showing more leg than made her comfortable. But her mother was right about the waist, how it cinched in then flared out. She looked curvier than she really was.
Fiona felt down toward the hem. “You don’t think it’s too short?”
“Not at all. Might as well show off what you can.”
And there it is. Fiona’s eyes flicked away from the legs she always covered to the face she never could.
She reached behind her to find the zipper. The dress dropped to the ground, puddling around her ankles. She hopped back into her worn, comfortable jeans and pulled on her hoodie. “I’m not going.”
“Why not?” her mother asked with a sigh. The fluorescent lights overhead cast her in an unattractive, orange light.
Fiona shrugged and laced up her Chucks. She couldn’t believe David wanted to go to prom. Prom.
“I’m not a prom kind of girl,” she’d told him. Many times.
“If you go to prom,” he’d replied, “you’ll be a prom kind of girl.”
They’d gone round and round about it for weeks. She felt sort of bad—he hardly ever pushed for anything. But then he should have picked his battle more carefully.
Checking the mirror, she pulled her hair as far forward as possible before walking out of the dressing room. Her mother plucked the dress off the floor.
“I’m buying it,” she said, passing the dress to the cashier. “You need to go.”
The cashier handed her mom the receipt and the bag, and, with a saccharine smile, turned to Fiona. “That sure is a pretty dress. I bet it looks real nice on you.” She spoke slow and clear, like Fiona might have a mental disability.
“It does,” her mom said, clueless to the condescension. “She looks lovely in it.”
Fiona rolled her eyes and walked through the door. Her mother caught up with her in the parking lot.
“Give me a reason,” her mother said. In the natural light, she looked her usual, beautiful self. “A good reason why you won’t go.”
“I don’t want to.”
“Not good enough.”
Fiona collapsed into the car, pulling her legs up against her chest. She fiddled with the radio, which her mom promptly turned down.
“What about David?” her mother asked, pulling out of the parking lot.
“David will be fine.”
“It’s his prom, too, Fiona.”
Curse her, she was right. David should get prom if he wanted it—it was just that she didn’t want it more.
“I’m putting my foot down on this. It’s your senior prom.”
Fiona slumped further into her seat, hoping this latest attempt to “improve her” would fizzle away if she ignored it long enough.
“So you’re going. No discussion.”
“What?” Fiona nearly yelled. “You’re going to make me go to prom?”
“Yes.” Her mom pulled into their driveway, turned the car off, and looked at her daughter. “Consider it a favor—I’ve taken the decision out of your hands, so you might as well go and enjoy yourself.”
Too furious with her meddling mother to respond, Fiona slammed the car door and stormed inside, passing Ryan in the upstairs hallway.
“What’s wrong with you?”
Fiona flung herself on her bed. “Mom.”
He followed her. “She’s not that bad.”
Fiona had long given up trying to explain her mother’s evil powers to Ryan. Testosterone probably blocked his ability to detect it. She’d just wait until he got married—his wife could fill him in. “She’s making me go to prom.”
Ryan closed the door behind him. Nudging Fiona over, he stretched out beside her on the bed. Lately he’d resumed this little tradition. “Why don’t you want to go? Should be fun.”
“Ugh. Wearing high heels and acting all couple-y?” The dancing. The pictures. The other girls closely inspecting each other’s dresses and hair. “It sounds awful.”
Ryan turned sideways. It put Fiona in that too-close, wincing position, so he pulled back a little. “You have to come. Gwen doesn’t know a lot of people.”
Fiona sighed, cursing the private pledge she’d made to be nicer about Gwen. Then again, she had a suspicion that Fiona-being-nicer-to-Gwen had some correlation with Ryan-being-nicer-to-Fiona, so she kept at it.
“Besides,” her brother continued, “you’ve got to take the chance to get out now, while you still can. Once we get the call, you’re out of commission for months.”
Once we get the call everything changes. She dragged a pillow over her head and groaned. She wasn’t sure when she’d made the transition from, “I’m on an organ transplant list!” to “When the hell is it going to be my turn already?”
“We’re never going to get that call,” she said.
“Sure we will.”
She tossed the pillow at him, which he easily deflected. It plopped to the floor, a single feather lighter. The little white wisp of down took its time floating into Ryan’s hair.
She reached over and plucked it out. “I’m cosmetic. I’ll never be at the top of the list.”
He shrugged, unconcerned. “How many people could possibly need skin?”
In the end, Fiona was not strong enough to fight all the battles. Her parents, Ryan, Gwen, even Lucy—whose opinion, Fiona argued, shouldn’t count since she wasn’t going to prom herself—bugged her so much that she caved. “Fine. I’ll go,” she said. “But I’m not going to have fun.”
David was not brought into the debate.
Since Fiona didn’t have the slightest idea how to make herself cute, Ryan was banished to the first floor while she and Gwen got ready together. Lucy
came over for moral support—and to mock them.
“Can I do your hair?” Gwen asked. “Mine’s too short for anything fun.”
“When did you dye it pink?”
“Last night. With all the work I put into resewing that dress, I figured my hair should match it.” The dress she’d bought thrifting hung on Fiona’s closet door. With its asymmetrical hemline and off-the-shoulder sleeves, it looked nothing like the boring, poufy thing she’d shown them at the coffee shop a few weeks ago.
“That’s the coolest dress ever,” Lucy said.
Gwen curtsied and pointed Fiona to a chair. “What about like this?” she asked, pulling Fiona’s long wavy hair all the way back.
“Uh, I like the bangs down. On the right.”
“Oh. Yeah, sorry.” Gwen dropped the hair, and it fell over Fiona’s face like a curtain. “I always forget.”
“Forget?”
“About the scars.”
“Don’t even bother,” Lucy said, rolling her eyes. She sat at Fiona’s feet, opening a bottle of sparkly blue nail polish. “She won’t believe you.”
“Well, it’s true,” Gwen said, pulling and twisting all the while. “They just go away, once you get used to them.”
They just go away, do they?
“Hey! Easy,” Lucy said, poking Fiona’s hand where it now clenched the armrest.
Lucy caught Fiona’s eye and held it. Through her stare, Fiona communicated the injustice of Gwen’s thoughtless comment. Lucy just gave a slow, warning shake of her head. “You mess up my first and only manicure,” she told Fiona, “and I’ll kill you.”
“Um,” Gwen said, looking back and forth between Fiona and Lucy. “What I meant was, I don’t see them, you know? I just see Fiona.”
“I totally agree,” Lucy said.
“I can do something like this instead,” Gwen said. She held Fiona’s hair in messy sections, so the side bangs covered all the bits they were meant to.
Fiona took in a breath and released her death grip on the chair. A fight with Gwen would mean a fight with Ryan, which she didn’t want. “Sure, whatever.”
Gwen improved her by curling iron, while Lucy painted her nails—fingers and toes. It was like a montage from a bad movie—here’s where the ugly girl bonds with her friends and learns that everyone has beauty in them somewhere.
Everything That Makes You Page 9