I just…can’t. I take it, like the drug that it is. But I just can’t give it back.
I really am a terrible person.
“So, are you ready for Brazil yet? Puh-lease tell me I get to come too.”
It’s a joke, of course. Shama is trying to be nice, trying to elevate the mood after Quinn’s and my icy exchange. But I just sit there, staring at the mess of papers on my desk.
“Lay?” she asks. She gets up from the bed and comes to sit on the edge of the desk. “What’s wrong?”
I huff. “It doesn’t matter. It’s nothing.” I look up at her. “My dad, um, canceled the trip.”
Shama covers her mouth in surprise. “What? Oh no!”
I nod, then get up and go to the bed. Shama follows, and I curl into a corner, hugging a pillow into my chest.
“He’s mad about my grades. He thinks I need to stay in Pasadena and take an LSAT class.”
Saying the words deflates me even further. I badly need a change of pace this summer. LA just spells out pain for me, and I have absolutely no desire to spend my summer being picked at by my mother and grandmother over white wine. The energy of New York, which used to be so invigorating and addictive, just feels oppressive.
“He’s right.”
Quinn enters the room, dressed in yoga pants and a t-shirt, a towel wrapped around her wet hair.
I look up. “Right about what?”
“You need to get out of here. Get your head right.”
I roll my eyes. Here we go again.
“Quinn, I don’t really think she needs to hear this right now…” Shama starts as she pats my shoulder.
“You haven’t even been here for most of this conversation,” I cut in. “And here’s the truth: if I want your advice, I’ll ask for it.”
Quinn rolls her eyes as she pulls off her towel and hangs it on the closet door rack. “Surprise, surprise. Little Miss Angst is pushing everyone away. How’re those grades, kid? Still failing your history class?”
“It’s a B minus, not an F, for Christ’s sake. Why is everyone freaking out about this?”
“Because we know you’re better than this.” Quinn pauses, one hand still in her hair, then marches over to where I’m sitting.
“I don’t need a fucking lecture, right now, Quinn.” I turn into my pillow.
“I beg to differ.” She opens her mouth, like she’s about to go on yet another tirade about my life choices. But then she rubs a hand across her face. “I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but I honestly think you need to go home to your mommy. You need a break, Lay. And I really think that if you just put some space between you and South American Snape, you’ll figure out that he’s no good for you.”
Beside me, Shama groans to herself.
“Honestly,” I say, a lot more evenly than I feel, “what the fuck do you know about it?”
Quinn frowns slightly, clearly taken aback by my directness. “What-what do you mean?”
“I mean…what the fuck would you know about being in a relationship? You talk to me like I’m a little kid, but who’s the twenty-one-year-old virgin in this apartment, huh? Who’s the one who, in three years of college, has been on maybe two or three dates max with anyone?”
“Lay…” Shama tries to calm me, but I fling her hand aside.
“Oh, I see,” Quinn says, stomping back to her desk. She picks up a hairbrush and starts yanking it through her wet hair. “Because I care more about my grades than screwing abusive randos all over Manhattan, I’m an idiot. I make smart choices, so I’m the bad guy. Sure, that makes total sense.”
“If you call living like a nun a smart choice, sure,” I retort. “At least my life isn’t fucking G-rated. At least I’m trying to have real fucking experiences in New York instead of living my life wearing a virtual chastity belt.”
The hairbrush sails across the room and smacks the wall above my head, landing innocuously on the bed between Shama and me.
“Whoa,” Shama mutters.
I glare at Quinn. “What the fuck?”
“What the fuck yourself!” Quinn’s face is red, and her voice is shaking with anger. “That was a low blow, even for you!”
I open my mouth with another retort ready, but Quinn just keeps going.
“I don’t care what you’re doing with your sorry fucking summer!” she shouts. “Knowing you, you’re just going to be miserable and pathetic anyway. I’m actually glad you’ll be gone. All year, all we’ve listened to is you moaning and groaning about your parents, about Nico!”
“Quinn, that’s unfair,” Shama puts in. “Layla barely talks about any of that stuff.”
“Well, she’s been moping around since September––same fucking thing!” Quinn crosses her arms and glares at me. “I’m sick of it. I didn’t come to college to be your therapist. You’re pissed because I refuse to enable your shitty life choices; well, tough. Maybe we don’t need to be friends, then.”
My mouth drops. I’m not sure I just heard that correctly. This is Quinn. We fight, we make up. There’s always been a certain degree of push and pull in our friendship, but it’s mostly been productive. We challenge each other, I thought. Like all good relationships do…right? We’ve just been in a rough patch…
Beside me, Shama’s shaking her head, but she says nothing more. Quinn doesn’t say anything either, just pops her hip out and waits for my response.
She means it. She really means that we shouldn’t be friends. I didn’t know people even did that––actually cut people off cold turkey. Slowly, I uncurl myself from my pillow and shuffle off the bed.
“All right,” I say more to myself than anyone else. “Fine. You want me gone, I’m gone.”
Like a zombie, I get up and start packing the things I need for class next week. My roommates are in for the night, studying through the weekend for finals. But Quinn is basically telling me to leave. She hasn’t spoken the words, but everything in her posture, her words, says just that.
When I’m done shoving everything into my messenger bag, I find my coat and shoes, all under Quinn’s nasty gaze. I have enough clothes at Giancarlo’s to last me through the week. Toothbrush, hairbrush, and I can get out of here.
Jamie pops in with her phone to her ear. “Hey, I’m thinking of ordering pizza. You guys wanna split––oh. Hey, what’s going on?”
I finish tying my shoes and stand up with my bag. “I’m leaving.” I give Jamie a weak smile, but I can’t even look at the other two. I have never in my life felt more like a pariah.
“Later,” Jamie says as I pass, and on my way out the door, I can hear her asking, “What was that about?”
“Drama,” Quinn answers as the door shuts behind me. “Her usual fucking drama.”
I take the stairs all the way down to the main floor and walk out into the late spring sunshine. It’s May in New York, which is usually my favorite time of year. A bunch of vendors are setting up booths for a craft bazaar in Union Square, where they’ll have local artists showing off their work before Memorial Day. It’s the kind of thing I usually love about New York, but right now I hate it. The sunniness of all of it makes me want to kick down all the stands.
I pull out my phone and call the only person I can think of. The only person who ever seems to care about me these days.
He answers on the first ring. “Layla?”
“Giancarlo. I––” I can’t even get the words out before I start to cry. Of course, it’s here on the street where I start to blubber. Not in the privacy of the apartment upstairs. Not even in the vacant stairwell where no one would see me. It’s here, on one of the busiest streets in the city, with my classmates and other strangers looking at me, the strange girl breaking down on the sidewalk.
I wipe my eyes and turn toward the windows. Inside, the security guard looks up, but does nothing.
“It’s Quinn, she…” I hiccup back my tears, and my throat hurts with the effort.
“Come here,” Giancarlo orders. “Come now.”
&
nbsp; I wait a few seconds, for what, I don’t know. A few words of kindness? Some comfort? I know that’s what he’s offering, but I don’t feel it.
“You don’t need them. They’re bitches, all of them. You don’t need to be around girls who treat you like this. I told you this for weeks, months. Why don’t you listen to me?”
The ground under my feet rumbles with a train’s passing through the massive Union Square station below. It’s a slow vibration that seeps into my bones, and for a second, I think of another voice that makes my insides shake in the same way. I close my eyes and will the feeling away. He’s not going to help me now.
“Amor?”
Love. He only says it after he’s snapped at me. But he still says it.
“You don’t need them,” he says again. “Only we matter. Just you and me.”
I exhale. “I’m coming. See you soon.”
~
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Nico
I start awake on K.C.’s couch, my cheek sticky against the black leather. Everyone thinks that leather couches are nice because they’re expensive, but they kind of suck to sleep on, especially when it’s hot. K.C. has a really great apartment in West Hollywood, but it’s still just a one-bedroom. And the walls are fuckin’ thin.
There’s a loud thump on the drywall just above my head. And another. And another. Followed by the low moan of a woman’s voice.
Oh, so that’s what woke me up.
“Ummmmmmeeeeeeeeee!”
The moan sounds again, followed by a high squeal. I pull a pillow over my face, and try to block out the sound of my best friend fucking whatever random girl he picked up at Venom tonight, but no such luck. Jesus Christ, this girl sounds like the pig from the movie Babe. K.C. is basically fucking a CGI pig.
I have got to find my own place.
I sit up and flip on the TV, knowing there’s no way I’m going to be able to sleep while they’re going at it. But, of course, late-night television isn’t much better––it’s either infomercials or reruns of the shit they can’t play during primetime. Showgirls is just going to make this situation that much more awkward.
I yank a pair of jogging pants out of the duffel bag that’s spilling clothes all over K.C.’s living room floor and get dressed, trying my best to block out the noises still shouting from the bedroom. The sky out of K.C.’s windows is turning lighter. I pull on my sneakers and lace them tight. I might as well use the time now that I’m up––it’ll be better than working out mid-afternoon anyway before I have to be at work.
A jog around the neighborhood turns into a full-on run. A little over an hour later, I’m flopping on the sand at the Santa Monica Pier, breathing hard after pounding the pavement for nine miles. It’s longer than my usual run, but I’m in good enough shape to take it.
I strip off my t-shirt, which is damp with sweat anyway, and use it to mop off my face and neck. Fuck. That felt good. I’ve been pushing myself harder than I probably should lately, like I have all this pent-up tension to release. New York feels like a magnet, pulling me back with everything there, but keeping me at arm’s length too.
My family. Ma is driving Gabe and Maggie crazy, and he said a few weeks ago that the landlord started asking who she is. It’s not the worst thing in the world, of course––he can’t legally require her to provide proof of residency, but if he asks for ID from all his tenants, he could ask for hers too. ID that she doesn’t have.
Something has to be done there, but I don’t know what. I really don’t know what the fuck we could do to help her. All I know is that I could do it better if I were there.
And then there’s the job. It’s been almost three months since I had my interview at the FDNY headquarters. Finished the background check, took the physical, kicked its ass, then sat through a psych interview that I was told would take fifteen minutes but ended up taking an hour. Since then, they picked at my record a little, but there’s been no official news since March. No email. No phone call. No, hey, sorry, we went with a dude who isn’t a criminal, you fuckin’ asshole. Anything would be better than this strange limbo. I’ve been literally homeless for months, waiting around to see if I should sign a lease on a new place out here or keep saving my money for the move back to New York.
And the anxiety, of course, only makes me want to call one person––the only person whose blind faith calms me down and makes me fly all at once. I wouldn’t have been able to go through the whole application in the first place if she hadn’t said, over and over again, how much she believed in me. How much she knew I could do it, even if she didn’t know what “it” really was. Who knew that having my own personal cheerleader, even from three thousand miles away, could be so effective?
But we haven’t talked since March, since I begged her to leave that guy and be with me, and she told me to fuck off. I’ve sent texts. No answer. Tried to call a few times. No answer. I can’t stand the not knowing. Is she still with that motherfucker? Did she break it off and make things right with her friends? Most of all, it’s driving me crazy that I don’t know if she’s safe.
But she told me to stop calling. She told me we were done. I hurt her––I know I did––for not believing in us the way she did. For not taking that leap with her, and letting her fall on her own.
Fuck. I’ll never regret anything more than that. Never.
I stare at the ocean, watching the slow glimmer of the sun rising across the white-blue waves. This early in the morning, it’s still clean and smooth, without the winds that chop it up later in the day. A row of surfers rides a wave breaking off the pier.
I watch them for a few minutes. I thought about trying surfing when I first came out here––Jessie goes sometimes––but I’m a terrible swimmer. It’s one of those things I missed out on growing up. We visited public pools a lot, especially since New York is a fuckin’ sweatbox in the summer, but the only swim lessons my mom could afford were the ones Alba’s boyfriend gave me and K.C. when we were kids, which mostly consisted of tossing us in the pool to find out if we would sink or swim. I know it’s one of those things she feels guilty about––after all, her own father died drowning––but it can’t be helped now. I’ll do my best to make sure Allie learns to swim, that’s for sure.
The surfers make it look so easy, their boards cutting across the glassy surface. But I’ve messed around in the whitewash just enough to know it’s probably really hard. When I first moved out here, K.C. and I actually rented boards. Too scared to paddle out for real, we spent most of the time pulling kelp out of our mouths and freezing our asses off because we didn’t get wetsuits. The Pacific Ocean is really fuckin’ cold, even in California, and the currents underneath those glassy waves are a fuck lot stronger than you’d think.
It makes me consider what other things might be harder than I thought. As a kid, I grew up in a city full of contrast. I shared that tiny apartment in a building full of people living the same way. People who worked hard for every scrap of food they had, who banded together to survive in a neighborhood where you were just as likely to get mugged as looked at. Everything felt so damn hard. My mother’s job. Paying the rent or the electricity or the phone bill. Sharing food between the five of us. It was like there was a ceiling, low and hard, ready to smack you down, if you tried too hard to stand up too fast. The world felt small and harsh and cold.
But three blocks away was Times Square. You’d cross Eighth Avenue, and suddenly you were in the theater district, blinded by lights, ladies in fur coats, men flipping tips around like it was nothing. I remember walking by one of those theaters with K.C., thinking about how easy everything seemed for them. I had just found out that I was hired at FedEx, and K.C. and Flaco and I were going downtown to celebrate. I was on my way to get my first tattoo––the compass on my chest.
The world was bigger that day. I was just a kid, having dropped out of community college to help my mom. But I had a job, a real job that would take me out of the crappy back room where I was living at my box
ing gym, a job that would keep food on the table for my brother and sisters, make it so we could afford things like regular dentist appointments and school supplies.
I remember walking by those rich people and feeling like nothing could touch me. I felt larger than life, even when a tall man in a black suit stared me down after I accidentally bumped into his daughter.
I start, suddenly remembering those big blue eyes.
Holy shit. Holy fucking shit. It was her. The girl I bumped into that day. The girl with eyes the color of the summer sky. How the fuck could I have forgotten that?
The memory comes flying at me like a one-two combo to the face––Layla, an awkward girl with a mouthful of braces and way too much black hair. Me, a cocky nineteen-year-old bouncing down the sidewalk with my boys. She must have been there on vacation––they were seeing a Broadway play, like so many tourists do. Phantom or Cats or one of those overpriced shows. For a second, even then, the world stopped right there, on one of the busiest streets in New York. All I could see were her eyes before her dad called her away.
Suddenly, I can’t breathe. The best moments of my life have always been with her. Right from the start. They were always meant to be with her.
I pull out my phone, ready to tell her as much. Suddenly, I’m full of decision. That no matter what news comes from the FDNY, I need to get back to where I belong. I need to be with her, whether she wants to come here or wants me there. Layla and I are meant for each other––I’ve never been surer of anything in my life. We can make it work. I’m not going to pussy out anymore.
I punch in her number and hit send. The phone rings. Three, four times, then goes to voicemail like it always does. Her voice, bright and warm, echoing through my ear, but I cut it off and dial again. I’ll dial the rest of the day if I have to. I need to tell her how I feel.
Except.
Her words come back. It hurts too much.
Yeah, baby. It does.
I love her. I do. I love her enough that I put my phone back in my pocket. I’ve been selfish, and I fucked things up––I have no one to blame but myself for the failure of this relationship. For the fact that she moved on with someone else. If he makes her happy––it’s a big if, but I’m not there, so what do I know?––if he does, I have to be okay with that. Because I love her enough to do the same thing she did for me.
Lost Ones (Bad Idea Book 2) Page 26