by Erica Hobbs
Rebecca laughed. “You’re so boring,” she said. “Other people would kill to have what you have.”
Wasn’t that the truth? I could think of at least one person who had turned out to be a resenting idiot. Damien was at the bottom of my list of favorite people right now.
We did just what I’d suggested. I went through Slice’s drive through where we could each get a whole pizza and drove a couple of blocks further to the park. We walked to a bench and sat down with our boxes.
“We look like bums,” Rebecca said, opening her box.
I nodded, biting into my own slice. “Yeah, but doing the same thing all the time is boring.”
She smiled around the pizza in her mouth.
“So, how’s school going?” I asked. “You’re so close to finishing it scares.”
“Aunt Maurine says that too.”
I nodded. “It’s because it’s true. Anything more on what you want to do with your life?”
She shook her head. “It’s confusing. I don’t know how I’m supposed to decide what I want to be for the rest of my life if I don’t even know who I am now.”
I studied the slice of pizza, looking for my next bite. “That’s a very mature outlook on things.”
“I’ve got more where that came from.”
She glanced at me.
“And cheeky, too,” I said with a smile. Rebecca was becoming a beautiful person.
“Oh, you have to be cheeky if you want to survive in my world,” she said. “But the mature thing… I have more where that came from.”
“Oh really? It thought it was just a spark.”
She nudged me. “You’re funny. But seriously, hit me.”
I took a deep breath. It was hard to make jokes about things when I felt this down. I felt her eyes burning into the side of my face. When I looked at her, her face was serious.
“I know you’re not doing too great,” she said. “If you want to talk about it, you know I’ll listen.”
I took a bite of my pizza and digested what she said along with my food. She would listen, I was sure of that. Rebecca was a lot younger than I was, but she was the only friend I’ve ever really had.
“It’s just stupid grown-up stuff,” I said.
“It’s about your girlfriend, isn’t it?”
I froze when she said that. “Ex,” I said tightly.
“Yeah, I thought as much. What happened?”
I groaned, feeling like I was winding up so tight I would snap.
“Do you remember Amanda?” I asked. I looked at Rebecca. She frowned.
“The one who was so serious about dating you?”
I nodded. “That’s the one. Well, Alyssa and I were pretty much dating…”
Rebecca pinned me with a hard stare.
“Okay, okay, we were officially dating. I asked her. And Amanda came to the lobby and kissed me on the cheek, but the paparazzi were there, and in the photos, it looks like we’re kissing. I don’t know why this woman keeps popping up in my life, but she’s ruined it now. Alyssa won’t even give me a chance to explain myself.”
“Have you gone to talk to her?”
I shook my head. “I don’t think it’s going to help.”
Rebecca put her pizza down, looking at me like there was something wrong with my face.
“You found this woman you actually want to be with, and you haven’t even tried to talk to her face to face?”
I sighed. I was a coward, I was aware of it.
“It’s not that easy,” I said. “She knows Amanda. She was at her house when I tried to call Amanda, and she answered the phone.”
“Why would you want to call Amanda?” Rebecca asked. “Isn’t she the one you’re trying to get away from? What kind of message does that send her?”
I’d put my pizza slice down, too. I didn’t have an appetite anymore.
“I wanted to tell her to stay away from me. I wanted to… I don’t know. I wanted her to do something about it.” I realized how stupid it sounded now that I said it out loud.
Rebecca narrowed her eyes at me. “Okay, let me see if I’ve got this. Amanda is a stalker bitch, and you lost your girlfriend because of a misunderstanding, but instead of talking to Alyssa face to face, you call the stalker bitch back.”
It sounded pathetic when she put it like that. Rebecca shook her head and picked up her half-eaten slice again, biting into it.
“I know men suck at this kind of thing, but you really didn’t have to let it go as far as it did,” she said.
“That’s not fair! This isn’t my fault.”
Rebecca nodded. “It’s not,” she said talking around the pizza, “but it’s not like you’ve done your very best to stop it from happening. You’ve been hoping Amanda would go away, but she hasn’t. You’ve been hoping Alyssa would stop and think about what’s going on, but she hasn’t. You haven’t tried to fix anything.”
I shook my head, closing the pizza box and putting it next to me. I felt hollow and numb and pissed off at the same time. I didn’t even know what I was angry at. Myself? Rebecca was right.
“So, now that you’ve been pointing where I’ve messed up my own life,” I said in a tight voice, “how do you suggest I fix it?”
Rebecca shrugged. “Go find Alyssa. Make her listen to you. You love her, don’t you?”
I nodded. I really did love her.
“It should be a no-brainer, then.”
“And if she doesn’t take me back? If it all fails and I don’t have her in my life?”
“It’s not really any worse than what you have right now, right?”
God, she was right. Rebecca was almost eighteen, and she was more on top of life than I was.
“What do I do about Amanda?”
Rebecca pulled a face at me that suggested I should know the answer to it.
“When she finds you or contacts you again – you shouldn’t do any of those, by the way – you tell her to fuck off.”
“Rebecca, language!”
She pulled up one shoulder. “Sorry. That’s what you should do though.”
I nodded, leaning my elbows on my knees. I looked at the ground between my feet.
“Yeah, okay. I’ll go talk to her,” I said. “But you have to watch your mouth. You can’t talk like that in front of me again. And not in front of Aunt Maureen, ever.”
Rebecca rolled her eyes. “Yes, dad. I was just making a point. You don’t have to thank me for helping out, or anything.”
I leaned back against the bench, and we sat side by side in silence for a while. Rebecca still ate her pizza, biting off pieces and chewing. Mine was getting stale in the box next to me.
“Thank you,” I finally said.
Chapter 35
Alyssa
I tried to carry on with my life. I fell back into my normal routine. When the weekend was over, I went back to work. Tanya was already in the shop when I got there, which was a nice change.
“Usually, I’m the one to unlock, and you run in here five minutes before we open,” I said. Tanya sat on the counter, swinging her legs.
She shrugged. “I didn’t know if you were coming in today.”
I frowned. “Why wouldn’t I?”
“Because you just disappeared after Friday.”
I nodded. When I’d heard about Jake, I’d just shut down. It was easier to pretend it hadn’t happened if I ignored the rest of my life. Instead of turning to my friends, I’d turned to Amanda. It had been the worst mistake.
“I was just trying to do damage control,” I said.
Tanya nodded, looking at me with an expression I couldn’t read.
“Are you okay, though?” she asked.
I sighed. “I’m not as bad as I was with James if that’s what you’re asking.”
Tanya nodded. “I’m glad,” she said. “He doesn’t deserve that many tears from you. Neither of them does.”
I swallowed, trying to keep myself strong. “So, what did you guys do this weekend?”
“I was out with my cousin. She’s visiting, remember I told you?”
I didn’t remember it at all, but I nodded.
“And Grace?”
She frowned. “I thought she was with you.”
I shook my head. “I haven’t heard from her at all. When I tried to phone her – after trying to reach you – her phone was off.”
“That’s weird,” Tanya said. “I wonder what’s going on with her.”
I shrugged. “I have gossip,” I said.
Tanya leaned forward, all ears. I took a deep breath, steadying myself.
“James showed up at my house.”
Tanya’s eyes widened. “What?”
I nodded and told her what had happened, what he’d said.
“What did you tell him?” she asked.
“To leave me alone. Honestly, one asshole at a time is more than I can handle.”
Tanya laughed and clapped her hand over her mouth. “Sorry,” she said. “It’s not funny. It’s just that… you’re not having a very good luck right now.”
I shook my head, smiling, too.
“It’s okay. You’re right. And it is funny, in a really twisted way.”
The first customers lined up in front of the door.
“Let’s do this,” Tanya said, opening up for them.
***
By the time I got home, I was dead on my feet. I was drained and irritated. Talking to Tanya about everything that had gone wrong hadn’t helped at all. I felt down and frustrated, and I wished it would all just go away.
“Matt is here, honey,” my mom said when I walked into the kitchen. “I think he’s in your room.”
I hadn’t seen Matt in such a long time. He hadn’t been part of the picture at all, lately. I walked to my room. Matt sat in front of my computer, playing a game.
“There’s a stranger in my room,” I said. Matt paused his game and grinned at me.
“Yeah… I know.”
He got up to hug me. I collapsed on my bed and groaned.
“Long day?” he asked.
“Long life.”
“Woah.” He sat down on the edge of my bed. “That sounds very gloomy.”
“It is.”
I closed my eyes. My head throbbed dully.
“Do you want to tell me what’s been going on?” Matt asked. I sighed. So much had happened since I’d seen him last it was impossible to imagine how little time had really passed.
“In a nutshell?” I asked, lifting my head to look at him. Matt nodded.
“Jake has been cheating on me with this woman, Amanda, who pretended to be my friend. James came here yesterday asking to get back together with me.”
Matt raised his eyebrows. “Wow.”
I nodded.
“You have to start from the beginning now. Who’s Amanda?”
I took a deep breath. “She came to the shop asking for designs. I ended up helping her privately because the shop doesn’t do what she needed. She let me network with her friends and contacts and whatever so that I could find some new job opportunity.”
“But that seems nice.”
I nodded. “I thought so, too.”
I found my phone in my bag and opened the internet browser. I typed in the tabloid address and waited for the page to load. It was already moved to the bottom, replaced by new stories. If only I was able to move the repercussions down like that, too, and replace them with new things that happened today. It was a lot harder to deal with than it was to read new stories about new scandals.
I clicked on the image and turned the phone for Matt to see.
“That’s her,” I said.
He took the phone from me. “Yeah, that really does look bad,” he said. I sighed and pressed the menu key to close the browser without having to look at it again.
“So, I was at her house after we went out together when he called her phone. That was how I found out.”
“And you’re sure they’re together?”
I blinked at Matt. Was he being serious?
“I don’t really see how it can be anything else,” I said. “He cheated on me, Matti. He did what James did. Sort of. It was similar.”
Matt shook his head. “It doesn’t look good,” he said, but he didn’t sound like he was completely on my side and it pissed me off.
“Anyway,” I said coldly and sat up. “James wants me back.”
“And, what are you going to do?”
I shrugged. “Change my name and move to Canada?”
Matt chuckled. “Way to deal with the problem hands on. What did you tell him?”
“To leave me alone,” I said the same way I’d explained it to Tanya. I wanted nothing to do with James. He was here now, a year after we’d broken up, telling me how much he missed me and asking me back. How the hell was that supposed to work?
“It’s just really bad timing,” I added. “I don’t want him back, but I’m not exactly in a place where I’m strong. I would have liked for him to come here when I’m strong, ready to tell him exactly what I think of him. That’s every girl’s dream after a breakup, right? To have her say the way she should have had it when it happened.”
Matt lay back on the bed. “I think he gets it. You left him. And you’re telling him off, now. That should be enough.”
It should have been, but it wasn’t. I wanted to be able to show off a new boyfriend to James, someone who was rich and famous and could make me happy. Instead, I was the person who had been the second choice. Again. I didn’t know if James had been reading tabloids, but it wasn’t how I’d imagined it going down in my mind.
It was, in fact, horrible.
“At least you’re standing up for yourself,” Matt said. “And you don’t look like you’re dying the way you did before. You’re stronger. That counts for something.”
I nodded. It was true; I was stronger. And I had had a lot of feelings for Jake; it wasn’t like it was easy just because we hadn’t been together very long. I had fallen for him surprisingly fast. That was what happened when you thought someone was genuine.
“Enough about me and my drama, though,” I said. “I’m sick of talking about it and thinking about it. What’s been happening with you? You’ve been very quiet lately, missing in action.”
Matt nodded. “Yeah… I’ve been busy.”
“With what?” It’s not like you’re doing much at the moment.”
He smiled. “I know, I know. I’m not as accomplished as the printer girl.”
I rolled my eyes at him.
“But I have been busy. Remember that girl I told you about?”
I nodded. “This sounds like it could be good news.”
Matt looked down and nodded slightly. “It is… kind of.”
“Kind of?”
Matt hesitated. “Well… we are together if that’s what you mean. And she’s great. She’s just…”
“What?” I asked. He was so careful and so evasive it was just making me more and more curious. I wanted to know what was going on. Matt was never this secretive.
“What is she?” I asked. “Pregnant?”
Matt burst out laughing, breaking the tension.
“No, she’s not pregnant. It’s not like that. I mean we… you know. It’s still beginning stages.”
I chuckled. “Okay, well now that it’s not the worst-case scenario, do you want to tell me what’s up? What is she?”
Matt looked at me, his face serious.
“She’s Grace.”
I frowned. “What?” He wasn’t making any sense at all.
“The girl – woman – I’ve been seeing. It’s Grace.”
My mind spun, trying to put two and two together.
“Grace. As in my friend, Grace?”
Matt nodded. The words snapped into place. I narrowed my eyes at Matt.
“You’re dating Grace,” I said. It sounded foreign on my tongue. It wasn’t possible. Grace was quiet, shy, she never dated anyone… I thought about the conversation I had with Matt,
how he’d mentioned this girl was quiet, but she had so much more to offer when she did speak. And Grace had been distracted lately; on her phone all the time or unreachable.