The Do-Over

by Georgia Beers

  “Izzy Hunt.”

  “Yes! Dizzy the Runt, Tara called her.”

  “Among worse things.”

  “Yeah.” The regret in Connor’s voice was apparent now. “We were not nice to that poor girl. Tara was brutal. And us guys weren’t much better.”

  “We all went along with whatever Tara said. God, we were such followers.” Easton shook her head now, because on her drive home from Bella’s office—she’d bailed on the conflict resolution class—she’d started having sudden recollections of things that were done and said to “Izzy” back in school. By Tara. By her. It was as if finding out Bella’s real identity had opened a floodgate of long-forgotten memories that now came washing through Easton’s brain like water through a broken dam. None of them made her proud.

  “We were kids,” Connor said. “Kids are assholes to each other.”

  “True. But we were bad. Remember when Tara made her drop all her books and then snatched up her journal and started reading it out loud to the class?” That had been a particularly horrifying memory when Easton’s mind conjured it up. She’d been in her car at a red light when she remembered Tara gleefully reciting all Izzy’s confusion about her sexuality. The horrified expression on Izzy’s face as she tried to grab the notebook back.

  “Oh, God. Yeah, I do. Ugh.” Connor sounded as mortified by their behavior as Easton felt, and she was grateful he didn’t just brush it off as the poor decisions of teenagers. “That poor girl. If I remember correctly, she’d had a dream about you, right? A sex dream?”

  Oh, my God. Easton had forgotten that part.

  “And Tara never let anybody forget it. She brought it up all the time and you’d wink at her or blow her a kiss.”

  Easton closed her eyes against the guilt that washed over her. “Oh, God,” she said quietly. “I did, didn’t I?”

  “I mean, you weren’t Tara…” Connor let his voice trail off, the unspoken but you were kind of awful hanging between them.

  Bella’s voice replayed in Easton’s head then, something she’d said earlier. I was the poorly dressed chick in high school with a major crush on you that you and your friends bullied and teased relentlessly… “She had a crush on me,” Easton said quietly, not sure if she was talking to Connor or herself.

  “Tara sure thought so.”

  “No, she did. She told me.”

  “Wait.” Connor’s confusion was apparent. “Who told you?”

  “Bella.” Easton shook her head. “Izzy.”

  There was a beat before he said, “I’m so lost.”

  Easton sighed. “Bella. Remember her? At the park with the dog?”

  “The pit bull that scared the shit out of us but ended up in love with Emma? And vice versa?”

  “Yeah. Her. That’s Izzy.” She could almost hear the gears turning in Connor’s head as he tried to understand what she was saying. “Bella Hunt is teaching my conflict resolution class. Her full name is Isabella Hunt. In high school, she went by Izzy.”

  “Holy shit. Really?”

  “Really.”

  “You’ve kind of…been seeing her. Haven’t you?”

  Easton inhaled, let it out slowly. “I have.”

  “But you didn’t know she went to high school with us? You didn’t recognize her?”

  “Did you?” Easton tried not to snap the two words.

  “No,” Connor admitted. “She looks completely different, but…I honestly didn’t really pay a lot of attention to her in school, so it’s not surprising I didn’t recognize her.”

  “Yeah, neither did I.”

  A second or two of silence went by. “You mean she didn’t tell you?”

  “No. My yearbooks were in one of those boxes you sent home last weekend, and Emma got them out. We were looking through them last night, finding pictures of you and me, when we got to the senior pictures. And there she was.”

  “Wow.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And you talked to her about it?” Connor’s voice was soft now. Gentle. As if he knew how hard this was on Easton, though he couldn’t possibly.

  “I stomped right into her office today, all full of righteous indignation, and I let her have it.”

  “What did she say?”

  Easton felt her entire body deflate like a pool toy being put away for the winter as she recalled Bella’s reaction, her face, her pain. “She told me how awful high school had been for her, how hard we all made it on her, how she’d never expected to ever see me again, and when she did, and it was obvious I didn’t recognize her, how she didn’t plan to tell me who she was at all. But then we got close…and then closer, and she meant to tell me last Friday…” She went on to tell Connor about Bella’s client’s suicide and how she’d shown up to Easton’s house, utterly distraught. Her voice got quieter and quieter as she told him how they’d just curled up on the couch, how Bella said she needed to feel alive.

  “Did you sleep with her?” His tone held the tiniest sliver of accusation—because how could it not; he was her ex and he still loved her—but Easton could tell he was trying to be gentle, to be there for her.

  “Yes,” she answered on a whisper.

  “And then you found out she’s actually known you for, what? Fifteen years? That she’s from the same town? That she waited on you when you went out for ice cream?”

  “Oh, my God, I forgot about that.” The full weight of it all hit Easton then. The realization that she’d paid so little attention to the small girl called Izzy back then. That she was barely a blip on eighteen-year-old Easton’s radar in school, but that Bella remembered every detail of every interaction they’d had.

  I was the poorly dressed chick in high school with a major crush on you that you and your friends bullied and teased relentlessly…

  “It must have been so awful for her, Connor.” Regret and guilt and sadness all rolled together to sit in Easton’s throat, and her eyes welled up.

  Connor must have sensed her emotion. “E, listen. Kids are rotten to each other. It sucks, but it’s true. And most of us grow up to be decent people. We can’t change high school. We can’t change how we treated others. But we were kids.” He stressed the last words gently.

  It was like a vault in her memory banks suddenly flew open and added to the flood from earlier. In the blink of an eye, Easton could see all the different images of Izzy Hunt back then. The pain in her eyes—how had Easton never seen their unique color?—the shame on her face. The way she always walked: very quickly, head bent down, probably hoping to pass by without being noticed. Not that Tara ever let that happen.

  “You can’t beat yourself up.” Again, Connor’s voice was gentle, but it didn’t make the visuals of young Izzy fade away.

  You can’t beat yourself up.

  No? Couldn’t she?

  Shouldn’t she?

  ***

  “Wow.”

  Heather had said the word three times now, and they sat quietly as the waitress cleared their dinner plates and asked Bella if she’d like a box for her barely touched burger and fries. She nodded in defeat.

  “I don’t know, Bells.” It was the first time Amy had spoken since Bella launched into the story. She hadn’t wanted to tell her friends what had happened with Easton over a text, so she’d called an emergency meeting and waited until the three of them were together, face-to-face, having dinner at a local sports bar. Then she’d spilled it all. Every detail. How indignant Easton had been. How angry that had made Bella. The things they’d said. How Easton had walked out slowly, like an extra hundred pounds had been added to her shoulders. How she’d skipped the conflict resolution class—which, in all honesty, was probably best for both of them at the time.

  And how very badly she wanted to talk to Easton now.

  “I don’t know,” Amy said again, shaking her head slowly from side to side, toying with the cocktail straw in her vodka tonic.

  “What don’t you know?” Bella asked, though she was pretty sure she knew the answer.


  “I think you should just let this go. It’s caused you both a lot of pain, you know? Let it all go.”

  “Like, don’t call her, don’t text her, the end?” Bella asked. “We have one more class, but I don’t know if she’ll come.” If Easton didn’t show, Bella would credit her for the class anyway. She hadn’t really needed it, and they both knew it.

  “Yeah. Just move on. I think, just chalk it up to one of those weird things life throws your way. And hey, you got laid, at least. Ow!” Amy flinched as Heather slapped her arm. “What?”

  Heather just closed her eyes and shook her head as if she was at a complete loss over how to deal with somebody like Amy. The what the hell is the matter with you? went unspoken but hung in the air in the center of the table.

  Bella shifted her gaze to Heather. “What are your thoughts?”

  Heather picked up her glass, sipped her Cosmo, her face pensive. After a moment, she sighed, long and slow. “I wish you guys could have a do-over. Like, see each other for the first time again and do things differently.”

  “Yeah, like tell her you went to school together,” Amy said, one eyebrow arched as she emphasized her main point. “I told you not to wait, and you kept waiting.”

  “I know, I know,” Bella said, then took a slug of her rum and Coke.

  “Leave her alone about that,” Heather said to Amy. “She heard you.”

  Amy’s frustration was obvious. “Yeah, but, this could’ve been something awesome. It really could have.”

  “And I blew it. Believe me, I’m aware.” Bella wanted to be annoyed with Amy. With her insistence on reminding Bella that she should’ve spoken up, should’ve come clean. “But, you know, this hasn’t been easy on me. Seeing Easton again conjured up a lot of memories for me. A lot of really bad, really painful ones. I wasn’t popular in school like you guys. My parents had no money. A lot of my clothes were from Goodwill and sometimes, it was obvious. I got bullied before bullying was a thing.”

  “We know,” Heather said quietly, and closed her hand over Bella’s. “We do. I’m sorry you had such a rough time in high school.”

  “When I got the Facebook invite to our ten-year reunion? I laughed. Out loud. Like, cracked the hell up. Why the fuck would I ever go back there? There isn’t enough money in the world. I never wanted to see that place or those people ever again. In my life.”

  “We know,” Heather said again. And they did. None of this was news. Bella had come out with all of it the first month of sophomore year in college when the three of them had gotten drunk together in their suite and all the secrets came out, solidifying their friendship forever. But Heather didn’t prod her. Didn’t hurry her along or stop her mid-sentence. She just let her go on.

  “And then, out of the blue, there she is. In my fucking class. Looking all gorgeous and friendly and the best / worst part is, she doesn’t even recognize me. When this all came out on Wednesday, it was pretty clear that Easton Evans had barely noticed me in school, while simultaneously making me miserable. Isn’t that ridiculous?”

  Okay, she might have been a tiny bit tipsy at this point—it was her second drink, and she hadn’t eaten more than two bites of her dinner—and she was getting a bit maudlin, not to mention she was dropping way more F-bombs than usual for her. She pushed the cocktail aside and grabbed her water glass instead. “Sorry,” she muttered.

  “Don’t be,” Heather said. “Don’t you dare be sorry with us. We love you.” She glanced at Amy, who nodded and shot Bella one of her cocky half-grins that was a combination of “I love you” and “I’m sorry for being an asshole.”

  Bella returned it with a small smile of her own. She had her friends, and for that, she’d be forever grateful. Nobody got her through life’s crap like Amy and Heather. Bella turned her hand over, grasped Heather’s, and squeezed. “Can we talk about something else now?”

  ***

  Easton didn’t think she’d ever get used to having Friday nights to herself. Sometimes she went out to a movie. Sometimes she’d meet up with Shondra or, more likely, go to her place. She and Connor had made this schedule intentionally, so that each of them would have one night of the weekend free to go out, to date, to…whatever might come up.

  Last week at this time, I was naked. Right here on this couch. With a beautiful woman touching me, doing things to my body that I haven’t felt in…ever.

  She lay there, eyes closed, and let herself remember what it was like to have Bella above her. That gorgeous face, those expressive eyes, her alarmingly knowledgeable hands. The heat. The desire. The sounds. God…

  Easton’s eyes snapped open and she shook herself. No. She couldn’t go there again. She’d spent way too much time there over the past couple of nights, reliving what was one of the most intimate experiences of her life. But now she was sad, a little battered, and couldn’t go there again.

  The television was on for company, its volume low. Easton wasn’t really watching it. An old episode of The Simpsons was on, but she didn’t pay attention, instead focusing on the laptop propped on a throw pillow on her thighs. She had a few reports to look through that she hadn’t gotten to that day because she’d spent way too much time gazing out the window, unable to concentrate, visions of Bella filling her head.

  Obviously, the same thing was happening now, as she tried to recall anything on the report she’d just read and failed spectacularly. With an irritated scoff, she clicked out of her work app and opened Facebook. Before she could stop herself, she typed Tara Carlson’s name into the search bar and hit Enter.

  She wasn’t hard to find. Still in Framerton. Her relationship status said she was married and that her two-year anniversary was coming up. So, not married very long because…this was hubby number two? Easton went scanning through Tara’s photos, noticing with a glee that made her feel the tiniest bit ashamed that Tara wasn’t aging well. She looked a good ten years older than thirty-three, her dark, leathery skin telling Easton she either spent too much time in the sun or in a tanning bed. Easton would bet on the latter. Letting her memory take her back to high school, Easton recalled how short Tara was with people she deemed not worthy of her attention. She was pretty sure Tara only kept her around because her family had money and it looked good to pal around with the child of surgeons, but Tara had never been warm to her. Or to anybody, really. After scrolling past several very conservative political posts, she wondered why Tara had been—and evidently still was—so angry at the world. She also wondered why she’d never asked her. Maybe she’d needed a friend. Then she remembered how Tara took such immense pleasure in reading Bella’s most intimate thoughts out loud to an entire classroom. That coupled with an anti-LGBTQ post was enough for Easton to shake her head and click off the page.

  She didn’t allow herself to think about it before she typed in Kristin Harrington’s name. It was a common name and a long list of possible matches came up, but Easton found her within a minute. Interesting, that.

  “I guess high school crushes never really go away,” Easton said to herself as she clicked on Kristin’s little icon.

  There she was. Her profile photo was her with two little redheaded kids. A boy and a girl, smiling widely. Just like that, Easton was transported back, because she could see Kristin’s features in both children. According to her profile, she was a fifth-grade teacher in a small town just outside of Albany. Easton studied a couple of her photos. She was still pretty, really hadn’t changed much. Red hair, kind green eyes, welcoming smile. Easton tried to think back, to remember what exactly it was that drew her so solidly toward Kristin, even though Kristin had no clue at all. It had to be the kindness. Any memories Easton could conjure up, Kristin was smiling in them. She always said hello, was nice to everybody. And she had that wholesome peaches-and-cream aura that pulled people in.

  Maybe my taste in women isn’t all bad.

  The guy in the photos that Easton deduced was Kristin’s husband looked a bit familiar, and she wondered if she’d find him in the yearboo
ks still in the box in the corner. Easton hadn’t gotten them out again since she’d seen Bella. Hadn’t wanted to revisit.

  A huge sigh hissed out of her as she thought about how awful life must’ve been for Bella. For the first time, she concentrated, really thought about what it must have been like. It was true that Easton remembered very little about Bella—she still wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing—but as she sat there looking at her former high school crush—she could admit that now—she pictured Kristin doing to her the things that she and Tara had done to Bella. What if Kristin had known Easton had a thing for her? What if she’d used that to make Easton’s life a living hell? Teased her, blew sarcastic kisses across a hallway for all to see. Winked at her just to see how long it would take before she either turned red or burst into tears. Took every opportunity she had to out Easton? Make her feel small. Worthless. Unwanted.

  It wasn’t something Easton had ever thought about. It never occurred to her back then that somebody would do something like that to her, even as she unwittingly did exactly that to tiny Izzy Hunt, who she hadn’t even really known then and had barely remembered now. What kind of person did that to another human being?

  Easton didn’t realize she’d been crying until a tear spilled down her cheek and she swiped at it. No wonder Bella didn’t tell her about their shared past. Why would she want to relive that? Easton had no business being angry about that anymore. Not now. Not after memories had begun to seep back in, reminding her that just because she wasn’t as horrible a person as Tara was, she was no better because she did nothing to stop her. Did nothing to help Izzy Hunt. Didn’t punch any of the guys when they called her Dizzy the Cunt, not even her own boyfriend, who knew—then and now—how Easton felt about that word. Fifteen years later, she flinched at the awful moniker. How could she have just let that slide?

  “We were kids. Kids are assholes to each other.”

  She heard Connor’s voice, knew he was right. But she also didn’t think that was a good enough excuse. Easton was a mother now, and the thought of somebody making Emma so sad that she couldn’t wait to get the hell out of town made her heart squeeze in her chest and her mama bear instincts begin to simmer in her gut. How must Bella’s parents have felt? Did they even know?