by Beth Reekles
We’ve calmed down a little by the time we’re walking through the doors. Todd turns to me, his mouth open as if he’s about to say something, but then he stops, and his expression softens.
‘What?’
‘You didn’t put any cover-up on your freckles.’
I gasp, and cover my face with my hands, splaying my fingers just enough so I can see him. ‘Oh my God. Oh, crap. How? How did I forget that?’
Todd, still smiling, chuckles and pries my hands away from my face. I’m blushing furiously, and looking around with wide eyes, waiting for someone to point and laugh.
‘I have to go to the bathroom. I have some make-up in my bag . . .’
‘Don’t.’
‘Todd, let go of my hands. I need to—’
‘Why do you always cover them up?’
First bell rings, and lockers start slamming and the volume of chatter increases, the noise of footfall joining it. I look at Todd, who seems genuinely confused.
‘I hate them. They’re so ugly.’
‘I think they’re cute.’
I roll my eyes, even though it makes me feel warm and fuzzy. ‘You also think my hair is red, so shows how much you know.’
‘It is red, and they are cute. I don’t know why you always hide them.’
I put a hand over my cheek, which is still hot from blushing. ‘I’m self-conscious. I’m a teenage girl, it’s not exactly unusual.’
‘Yeah, well, maybe you shouldn’t be. There’s a reason you forgot the make-up this morning, right? You didn’t care. If you did, deep down, then you would’ve remembered to cover them up. Do I need to embrace my sassy inner self and tell you to embrace how you look?’
I laugh. ‘Okay, okay.’
‘If you make it to lunch without putting on makeup, I’ll buy you a milkshake.’ He holds out a hand, arching his eyebrows, daring me to take him up on the challenge.
I narrow my eyes. ‘And a candy bar.’
The tardy bell rings as we clasp hands.
‘Deal.’
As much as I keep wanting to run to the girls’ bathroom between classes and cover my entire face in make-up to hide my freckles, I don’t. I tell myself it’s so I can prove something to Todd (even though I’m not totally sure what I’m trying to prove), but then I realize that I need to do this for me, too.
Plenty of people in my classes glance my way a few times – probably because they heard about me and Josh, but I’m terrified it’s because they’re laughing at my stupid freckles.
And as much as I want to duck my head and pull my hair over my face, I meet their eyes until they look away again.
It’s kind of empowering, in a weird way. Acting like I don’t care what they think.
Well, if I can’t suck it up to sit with Todd and his friends at lunch, maybe I can suck it up and be myself for a change.
The bell finally sounds for lunch, and I head to my locker first to dump my textbooks. The hallway is mostly empty, and the sound of my locker door clanging against the one next to it as it bounces open echoes.
I get rid of my books, and put a hand on the locker door to shut it, and hesitate. There’s a mirror taped to the inside, just a little one, and I pause to look at my freckles. My green eyes pop with my eyeliner (which I’m pleased to see is still perfectly intact from this morning), and I don’t look as pale as usual, with all of my freckles on full display. Usually they’re covered up enough that you can’t really see them unless you’re right up close to my face, but now . . . I look totally different.
And maybe it’s not exactly a bad different.
I smile at my reflection.
There are some photos tacked to the inside of my locker door. Some family ones, from Christmases and Thanksgivings, and one from my sixteenth birthday; a couple more recently of me and Todd, and some of me and Josh.
I take a deep breath and lift my head higher.
Out with the old . . .
I rip one of the photos of Josh and me from last Christmas down, and it tears slightly. It’s a satisfying sound. Grinning, I pluck away the rest of them, leaving the big one of us at the Sadie Hawkins dance last year until last.
I let the handful of photos flutter to the floor, my grip on them slipping when I realize what the big Sadie Hawkins photo was covering.
My smile falls away at the sight of the old, slightly torn and crinkled photo strip tacked to the top of my locker. It’s from the junior high prom. They had a photo booth in the gym, and Allie and I paid the three dollars between us to take five photos. One of them was serious, with us trying to look cool, but the other four are us falling around laughing and looking so happy.
I take it down, looking more closely at the photos. Her hair is brown in them, not black, and longer. Her big sister helped her straighten it for the prom. We have our arms around each other and I want to screw the photos up in my fist, but I can’t bring myself to do it.
I bend down and pick up the photos of me and Josh, and walk toward the trash can near the water fountain at the end of the hallway.
‘Ashley?’ a familiar voice behind me says.
I stop, the photos hovering over the trash can. Footsteps come closer, and I sigh before turning around. ‘Josh. Hi.’
‘Um . . .’ He clears his throat and rubs the back of his neck. ‘How – how are you?’
‘Great. And you?’
‘I miss you.’
I should’ve been expecting that. But I really, really wasn’t. I was expecting an ‘I’m fine’, not an honest answer. So my response of, ‘Good,’ dies on my lips and my mouth hangs open for too long before I remember to close it.
This time it’s my turn to say, ‘Um.’
‘Ashley,’ he says, stepping closer and giving me a pitiful look, ‘what happened with us? I just – I don’t understand.’
‘I told you, when you called the other night. I don’t feel the same way about you any more. I haven’t for a long time. It just took me a while to realize it. Maybe it’s my fault – maybe I should’ve told you sooner. And before you ask, it has nothing to do with “that O’Connor kid”,’ I add, glaring and putting a hand on my hip as I say it. ‘And by the way, I need to speak to you about that.’
Josh at least has the good grace to look a little ashamed about it. ‘If this is about Friday—’
‘Hell yes, this is about Friday. You beat him up, and accused him of sleeping with me – which, by the way, is not true, and I’m offended you think I’d cheat on you, or jump into some guy’s bed just after we broke up when we haven’t even done anything like that in almost two years of dating.’
‘I just—’
‘Stop, okay? Just stop! You can’t talk your way out of this, Josh – or back into a relationship with me. I’m sorry that things didn’t work out. I’m sorry that this upset you so much and that I hurt you. But I’m not sorry for ending things with us. I did what was right for me. And it wasn’t a selfish decision, it wasn’t intended to hurt you. It was what I needed to do.’
I’m breathless after my little speech, but feeling distinctly proud of myself.
I guess the haircut and shopping trip did give me some kind of confidence boost.
I turn away from Josh, and look at the photos of us. My fingers tighten around them a little; I could always keep them, maybe in a shoebox on the top of my closet, or something, as a memento of our relationship, but . . .
Out with the old . . .
I toss them in the garbage, and it’s like a weight off my shoulders.
‘Were those photos of us?’
‘Yeah, they were. And now they’re in the trash can.’
I breeze past him, my new Mary Janes clacking loudly on the floor. I hold the strip of photos of Allie and me tighter, glad I didn’t toss them out, too. I put them back in their place in my locker, smiling as I shut the door.
Josh is walking away, hands buried deep in his jean pockets, and my smile falls away again. As comfortable as I am with my decision, it hurts to see him looking
so dejected.
But he’ll get over it, right?
‘Tough love, huh?’
I spin around so fast I make myself dizzy.
‘Allie?’
Chapter Twenty-one
She gives me an awkward, half-hearted smile, and an equally awkward wave. ‘Hi.’
‘What . . . what are you doing here?’
‘This might come as a surprise to you, given that we haven’t acknowledged each other in a while, but I actually do go to school here.’
‘No, I – I mean . . .’
‘I know what you meant.’ The awkward smile twitches again, and she walks closer, very slowly, and stops a short distance away. I’m glad the hallway is empty. This is the kind of thing anyone would feel second-hand discomfort over. My heart is pounding so hard and fast that my breath is a little shallow.
‘I, uh, I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, or anything, I just, sort of, heard you guys talking, on my way to my locker, and didn’t want to interrupt.’
‘Well, thanks. I . . . appreciate it.’
There’s a long pause, and I gulp. God, I hate this. We haven’t spoken in almost two years, haven’t so much as met eyes and smiled at each other, and all of a sudden she’s talking to me again?
I thought she hated me.
‘So, you, uh, you guys . . . broke up,’ she says hesitantly, and clears her throat. At least this is just as awkward for her as it is for me. I stop biting my lips and gulp again, trying to come up with a coherent answer.
‘Yeah.’
Oh, God, come on, you can do better than that!
‘I mean, we – we just . . . I didn’t feel the same way. Any more.’
‘I heard. It was a nice little speech you gave.’
‘Oh, well, thanks.’
‘It must’ve been difficult for you to break up with him.’ She steps a little bit closer again, and then scuffs the toe of her pink Converse against the floor, peeking up at me from under her hair. It’s more of a dark brown now – she must’ve dyed it again. ‘You guys were together for so long, and even if you didn’t want to be with him, it can’t have been easy to do.’
‘It wasn’t, but . . . you know, had to be done. Actually, it wasn’t all that bad. Making myself tell him was the hard part, but once I was really doing it and talking to him, it was pretty easy.’
‘So what changed things?’
‘I changed, I guess.’
‘In a good way.’
I smile. ‘Yeah. In a good way.’
She gives me a tentative smile, and then moves to her locker, taking some books out of her backpack to leave in there. ‘So how have you been?’
Allie sounds so normal saying that, like nothing’s changed, like we’re back in freshman year before I started dating Josh and we stopped being friends. Her tone is breezy, amicable, and she sends me an easy smile that reaches her eyes and makes them crinkle a little in the corners.
I stare at her for a second. She raises an eyebrow at me as if to say, ‘What?’
‘We don’t talk for nearly two years and now it’s “How have you been?”. What’s going on? Why are you talking to me all of a sudden?’
She shrugs. ‘Why not?’
‘Well we aren’t friends. And you’re acting like we are.’
‘You’re the one who stopped being my friend.’
I gasp in disbelief. ‘You stopped talking to me after we had that fight about me dating Josh.’
‘Yeah, because you acted like I didn’t exist any more. Everything was all Josh, Josh, Josh. I put up with it for a while, but I couldn’t take it any more. I wanted my best friend back, but you thought I wanted you to stop seeing Josh.’
‘Of course I did, because that’s how it sounded! And then you didn’t speak to me again, and after that . . . You know. Suddenly we just weren’t friends.’
She shuts her locker. ‘It was never up to me who you dated. I was a little harsh on you. But listen – people change. They drift apart. It happens. That’s just high school for you.’ She bites her lip for a second before carrying on. ‘I wanted to try and fix things, but I didn’t know how. I was mad at you for ages, and then it seemed like it was too late to fix things. I bought you a birthday present a few months later, but I chickened out of bringing it over. I was scared you’d just laugh at me and slam the door in my face.’
My shoulders sag a little. ‘That’s why I never tried to talk to you. Assuming you hated me and wanted nothing more to do with me was easier than you shutting me out completely.’
‘We always thought alike.’ She smiles, and I manage a half-hearted laugh. ‘So do we need to argue over who should apologize to whom, or can we just . . .’
‘Go back to how it was?’
She nods, looking down at her feet and glancing up at me with a hopeful smile tugging at her lips.
‘Can we do that?’
She shrugs. ‘I don’t see why not.’
‘Really?’ I shake my head, and almost pinch myself. She’s crazy, right? This is all some humiliating prank and as soon as I say yes she’s going to laugh in my face and leave. That, or I’m dreaming.
‘This is a joke, right?’
‘I know, I know, I’m really pathetic, but I can’t help it. Todd told me that you and Josh were going through a rough patch, and I wanted to be there for you. I wanted to have girly nights in eating Ben and Jerry’s and watching Mean Girls and talking about all the little things you were stressing about – like we did when you had a crush on Bobby Harper in seventh grade – and I just missed you a lot.’
She draws in a deep breath, and I can see her giving herself a mental pep talk – she’s got that crazy look in her eyes and she’s scowling, like she used to before a pop quiz, and like when I saw her ask a guy to the Sadie Hawkins dance last year and pretended I hadn’t noticed her there.
When Allie starts talking again, she’s babbling so fast it’s hard to keep up, but I listen carefully to make sure I don’t miss anything.
‘Todd said that you’d broken up with Josh, and he told me earlier that you wanted to talk but you were too scared, so I thought I’d make the first move. I figure we’re way past apologizing to each other now, but maybe we can just skip past all the weirdness and hang out again? We don’t have to go back to being best friends or anything but—’
‘I’d like that.’
A muscle in her cheek twitches. ‘Which part? The hanging out and not being best friends, or—’
‘No, I mean, I – I want to be friends again, and skip past all the weirdness.’
She left out a huge, audible sigh of relief, and her frown disappears, her face brightening. ‘Really?’
‘Yeah.’
A grin spreads across her entire face, and I notice that she’s still got her gap-tooth. She always used to say she wanted braces to get rid of it, but I guess she never did get them.
‘So we’re friends again? Just like that?’
I smile as well, not able to help myself. ‘Just like that.’
Maybe not out with everything old. Some things you just can’t get rid of.
We walk to the lunch hall together, not talking much. It’s kind of awkward, and I keep trying to think of something to say, but I have so much I want to say to her that I don’t know what to say. I keep opening my mouth, but then thinking that I’ll just say the wrong thing, so I don’t bother.
It’s not a totally uncomfortable silence, though. The walk to the cafeteria seems much longer than usual, but we keep sharing clumsy smiles and then laughing when we realize how silly we’re being.
We walk side by side, and I get a waft of her perfume. It’s the Marc Jacobs one her aunt bought her for Christmas a couple of years ago. She always used to wear it, every day, so whenever I passed someone else wearing it, I automatically assumed it was Allie.
Once we’ve picked up sandwiches, we make our way to her usual table, near the left-hand side of the room. It’s crowded, and some people are playing Uno, and there’s a guy doing homework, and
another doing a Sudoku puzzle, but everyone is animated and smiling and laughing – except the guy doing homework, who is scribbling furiously and looking at his watch like he’s counting down the minutes to his impending doom.
‘Um, hi, guys,’ I mumble.
‘Hey,’ Allie says, louder than me, and shoves gently at the homework boy’s shoulder. He says hi, and scoots his chair over so that we can all fit, pulling up some empty chairs from the next table.
‘Hey, Ashley,’ someone says, and a few people look up and notice me for the first time, greeting me as well – either with a simple hi, or with a smile. I say hi back and smile, trying not grimace too much. I feel like a fish out of water, even though, really, this is just where I want to be.
I’m talking to one of the guys about the chemistry homework we have due in tomorrow, and I stop mid-sentence when hands clap over my eyes.
I pull them away, and then Todd leans over, his face upside-down in front of mine. ‘Are those freckles I see?’
I laugh. ‘They are indeed.’
‘I’ll buy you a milkshake and candy bar tomorrow. I forgot my wallet, and I only have five dollars for lunch today.’
‘Sure.’
He pulls a hand out from where I’m holding them, and then he looks over at Allie, who’s shouting across the table to one of the other girls. He straightens up and pulls a chair over, squashing it in between the two of us. ‘So you two are talking, I take it?’
Allie’s still talking and doesn’t realize that Todd’s speaking to her as well, so she doesn’t respond, but I nod. ‘Yeah. Thanks for talking to her for me.’
‘You were both being so down about missing each other, but not talking to each other. I tried to give you a push but you weren’t there yet, but Allie was.’ He shrugs. ‘It’s no big deal. I just thought I’d help you guys out. I did the right thing, didn’t I?’
I smile, and bump my shoulder into his. ‘You did. Thanks, Todd.’
He puts an arm around my shoulder, and steals a tomato slice out of my sandwich, popping it into his mouth. He gives me a wide, innocent smile, and I can’t help but feel that breaking up with Josh was the best decision I ever made.