Last Year's Mistake

by Gina Ciocca

  “Don’t you think it looks worse if we don’t talk at all? We either need to come up with a reason why we’re not, or we should at least be civil.”

  David looked like he didn’t quite buy my logic, and honestly, I didn’t even know where that had come from. If Ryan had noticed the wall between David and me, he hadn’t said anything either. Probably because he wanted nothing more than for David and me to loathe the other’s existence, and he’d have no problem with our relationship staying on a never-ending bad spell. Eventually he’d want to know why, though, and Violet would too.

  “Civil, huh?” David said. “I guess. Especially since we’ll be in the same limo for prom and everything.”

  “Right. Venomous hatred becomes kind of obvious in small, enclosed spaces. So let’s work on keeping that in check.” I forced a smile, but David’s mouth stayed settled in a solemn line.

  “I don’t hate you, Kelse.”

  My insides seized. Definitely hadn’t expected that.

  A nervous laugh bubbled in my throat. “I’ll bet I’m off the hook for that dance, though.”

  “What dance?”

  Heat crept up my neck and I waved him off, embarrassed that he didn’t remember asking me to save him a dance for another time the night he’d gone to the Swirl without me. “Nothing. I don’t hate you either, David. And . . . I’m happy for you and Violet.”

  The corner of his mouth twitched and he nodded almost imperceptibly. As we went our separate ways, I couldn’t feel the satisfaction I should’ve. The conversation had more or less been a success: He wasn’t using Violet as a pawn, and we’d established that we didn’t hate each other. Yet I felt gutted. I almost wished we hadn’t talked at all.

  Because knowing he hated me would have been a thousand times easier than knowing he didn’t love me anymore.

  Twenty-Nine

  Rhode Island

  Senior Year

  “You look gorgeous!” my mother squealed as she stepped back from a cloud of hair spray. It was prom night, and she’d arranged my hair half up, swirling and curling around sparkling silver clips, with the rest cascading down my back in loose curls. And she’d applied enough product to ensure it would stay put for at least a week.

  “You did a great job, Mom.”

  My mother’s brow furrowed. “Then why do you look so sad? Is everything all right with you and Ryan?”

  “Ryan is fine. But Dad’s not here.”

  “I know, baby. He felt so bad that this was the only night they could reschedule his book signing. But he told me to take lots of pictures and video so he can see them when he gets back.”

  “Don’t you ever miss the way things used to be?” I asked as I fiddled with a hairpin on my vanity. “When Dad was around more often? Everything seemed so much simpler back then.”

  My mother knelt down next to me. “What’s this about, Kelsey? Are you starting to get nervous about going away to college? Because you’ll be close enough to come home whenever you want. Daddy and I hope you will, actually.”

  “I guess.” I couldn’t quite put my finger on the source of my melancholy, but separation anxiety probably had at least something to do with it.

  “And just because Ryan will be in North Carolina doesn’t mean you’ll never see him,” my mother continued. Ryan had finally given up on holding out for the schools he’d wanted in South Carolina or Florida. He’d enrolled at North ­Carolina by the skin of his teeth, four days before the cutoff. And two days after his parents had threatened not to pay for any school but that one.

  “I know. And Candy and I will be roommates, so at least I’ll have her.”

  “Exactly. Sometimes change is for the best.”

  Ha. I’d thought that once too.

  I stared at the floor and she patted my leg again, smiling. “No more sad faces tonight, baby. It’s your prom. I want you to go and have a great time.” Her grin widened. “After I take pictures of you and your sister, of course.”

  Once Mom had snapped some pictures of me with Miranda, they walked me out to my car. The plan was to meet at Ryan’s, where the limo would pick us up, and then my friends and I would all sleep there afterward. Unlike Saint Patrick’s Day, I had my mother’s permission, because his parents would be home.

  “See you in a few!” she called as she and Miranda piled into her car. When we pulled up in front of the Murphys’ house ten minutes later, the lawn buzzed with color and people. Violet in her pink dress, Candy in her red one, Steve Koenig and his date having their picture snapped by various sets of parents. Finally, my heart fluttered with excitement.

  Ryan came out of the house looking like a dream, all blond curls and blue eyes and dimples. “You look so pretty, babe,” he said as he took my hands in his. “Ready to party?”

  I smiled and gave him a quick peck, not wanting to smudge my lipstick. That’s when I saw David and his father emerge from their car. My breath caught in my throat as I watched him walk toward the house in his tux, his hair freshly cut, his face clean shaven, and a plastic box in one hand. Just like the first day of school, and just like that night in the rain, it felt like time had melted away and nothing had changed. He looked every bit as handsome as he had in my hospital room, and I had to fight the knee-jerk instinct to go running to him.

  Violet did instead.

  With everyone finally accounted for, we took pictures and pictures and more pictures. When we’d finally snapped photos in every possible configuration, the limo pulled up and our parents retreated to their cars. Just as I was about to disappear into the cave of LED lights and black leather, a hand touched my wrist.

  “Kelsey, honey,” Mr. Kerrigan said. “I want you to take a picture with my boy, if you don’t mind. For old times.”

  I looked over his shoulder at David to make sure it was all right with him. When David held his arm out to me, I stepped into the spot at his side where I’d always fit so well, and we smiled like we hadn’t spent the past two years finding every possible way to hurt each other.

  Prom was perfect, right up until it wasn’t.

  It was held in a renovated Civil War–era hotel, in a banquet room that overlooked the Cliff Walk and the Atlantic. I would’ve been perfectly happy to dance with Ryan on the veranda all night, listen to the waves lap the shore, and fall in love with Newport all over again. But Steve had smuggled in a flask of some ungodly smelling booze, and the moment Ryan knew about it, he had a hard time focusing on anything else. I started to get irritated at the way they kept sneaking out to the Cliff Walk, coming back a little more off balance each time.

  When I found my table mysteriously empty yet again, I headed toward the bathroom to touch up my makeup. I made it only halfway there when I felt a tap on my shoulder.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” David said. “I’m here to collect my dance.”

  “David.” I sighed. “If you’re drunk again—”

  “I’m not drunk. Your date keeps leaving you alone and you owe me a dance. So?” He gave me an expectant look and I raised an eyebrow, wondering if he really remembered or if this was a shot in the dark. As if he’d read my mind, he smirked and said, “I figured out what you were talking about.”

  “You don’t have to do this. That was a long time ago and I know I’m not exactly your favorite —”

  “Enough of the martyr crap. Come on, let’s go.”

  “But-but where’s Violet?” I stuttered as he led me toward the dance floor.

  “Outside with everyone else.” He stopped so fast that I almost smacked into him as he turned to me. “I won’t make you dance with me if you don’t want to.” His hand dropped from my arm. “We’re supposed to be civil, but if it’s too much. . . .”

  It wasn’t until he said it that I realized how much I didn’t want to go back to my table. I hoped I didn’t look as terrified as I felt. “It’s one dance. No big deal
.”

  That’s what I told myself anyway. But I was hyperaware of the slow music vibrating through my body as he put his hand on my waist, and of the familiar mix of mint and citrus in the way he smelled, and of the fact that even if my tongue hadn’t felt like a dry wad of cotton, I still would’ve had no idea what to say to him.

  “So this is what it’s like to dance with you,” I said when I couldn’t think of anything else.

  He smiled down at me. “Not so bad, right?”

  “No.” We swayed together for a few more beats and then, as if I had no control over my own mouth, I blurted, “I would’ve gone to the Swirl with you if you’d asked me.”

  David pulled back and looked at me. “Where did that come from?”

  “Because you said I never considered going with you. But you never asked.”

  “True. I guess not knowing when to open my mouth is kind of my MO, huh?”

  “Just sayin’,” I replied with a laugh.

  We’d started dancing in the middle of a song, and when it ended a few seconds later, I felt a twinge of disappointment as a faster beat replaced it. I stepped away from David, ready to head back to my seat. Or out to the veranda for some air.

  He caught my hands as they dropped from his neck. “Hey, where are you going?”

  “The song is over.”

  A wicked grin spread across his face. “That was only half a dance. We’re not done here.” Before I could protest, he lifted my hand above my head and spun me around. The squeal of laughter that peeled from my throat took me completely by surprise, but I went with it. I loved the song playing, and maybe it possessed me, but I smiled more in that three and a half minutes of spinning and shaking and laughing with David than I had the whole night.

  By the end of the song, I had the lapels of his jacket twisted in my hands and his hands had found their way back to my waist. We were breathing hard and laughing, and everything felt a thousand pounds lighter. Which had to be why Steve Koenig chose that moment to come up and put his drunken arm around David.

  “Kerrigan,” he bellowed. “Better watch it. Murphy’s looking at you like you’re about to get another scar to match the one he already gave you.”

  My smile dissolved slowly, but David’s fell right off his face. “What? What’s he talking about?” I asked.

  David stood up as straight as he could with Steve’s two-ton arm clamped around his shoulder. “His scar,” Steve said, chucking David’s chin with his free hand. “Ain’t it cute?”

  My whole body felt limp. I looked David dead in the eye. “Tell me what he’s talking about.” As the words left my lips, someone came up behind me. I didn’t have to look to know it was Ryan.

  David glared over my shoulder at him. “Let him tell you,” he said. With that, he shoved Steve’s arm off him and walked off the dance floor. Violet must have been standing next to Ryan, because she was scampering after David by the time I turned to face my boyfriend.

  I folded my arms across my chest. “Do you want to tell me what, exactly, Steve means about David’s scar?”

  A drowsy smile floated on Ryan’s lips. “It’s nothing, babe.” He put his hands on my arms and tried to pull me closer. “Koenig’s too wasted to know what he’s saying.”

  I yanked my arm away from him. “He may be drunk, but he knows exactly what he’s saying. And you have about two seconds to fill me in, Ryan, or you won’t be smiling anymore.”

  My tone alone wiped the smirk off his face, and a mixture of panic and defeat flashed in his eyes. “Not here,” he mumbled. “Come outside with me.”

  Ryan turned in the direction of the veranda, and I stormed off behind him. Neither of us spoke when we got outside, even when the glass door clicked shut and muted the music to a dull, vibrating bass.

  “Well?” I said.

  Ryan sat in one of the whitewashed chairs and raked his hand through his hair. “I’m sorry, babe.”

  “What are you sorry for?”

  He leaned back and let out a frustrated breath. “Here it is. So over the summer, Coach B. told Steve and me about this kid who might be transferring over for senior year, and he asked if we wanted to go to Connecticut with him to watch him play one day, so we did. You remember?”

  “No. Where was I?”

  Ryan shrugged. “Touring a school, I think. Anyway, we went, and halfway through the game, we knew we were fucking screwed if he joined the team. It’s one thing to be good, but to be good and have an in with the coach? Why not just sign our scholarship money over to charity?”

  A cold feeling started in the pit of my stomach and spread throughout my body. “So what did you do?”

  Ryan fidgeted and rubbed his temples. “The more we thought about it, the more wired we got. By the time we got back to Steve’s house, we were off-the-wall pissed. Neither of us wanted him on the team, and Coach was acting like he fell face-first into the Fountain of Youth or something, already treating this kid like a fucking god.” He paused, pressing his lips together as if trying to keep his anger from boiling over. “Steve’s brother overheard us and he told us we should do ourselves a favor and make it harder for this kid to play.”

  I stood frozen to the spot, not believing what I’d heard and not sure I wanted to hear more.

  “We knew he was moving over the summer because of everything he told Coach,” Ryan continued. “So when he got here, we watched him for a while. We’d sit in the car, parked outside his house, and have a few beers. We joked about breaking his hand or his arm and then taking his glove for a trophy or something, but I didn’t think we’d ever actually do anything.”

  He stopped and looked at me, his eyes pleading. “Go on,” I prompted, my voice cold and hard.

  “One night he left the house while we were there, and we followed him. We wound up sitting in the parking lot at a drugstore, and the more we waited, the more this . . . thing built up inside me. I can’t even explain it, Kelse. By the time he walked out to his car, I snapped. I didn’t even tell Koenig before I got out of the car; I just did it. In my head, the plan was to slam his hand in his car door and walk away. But he fought back, and I lost it. The next thing I knew I’d smashed his face into the door and Steve was pulling me off him. I went nuts. I got loose long enough to grab the medal out of his car, and then we took off.”

  My whole body shook. “So the medal you gave me on the first day of school, the Saint Christopher medal—that was David’s?”

  Ryan looked at me with sad eyes and nodded.

  “Let me get this straight.” My words were slow and jagged with the struggle to contain the disgust roiling in my chest. “You took David’s medal as some sort of trophy after you beat him up for being better than you at baseball?”

  Ryan jumped out of his chair so quickly that I almost stumbled back. “He’s not better than me! He’s nothing, and everyone acts like the sun rises out of his ass, including you. Because wouldn’t you know it, the next time I saw him after that night was the morning you wrapped yourself around him like a fucking anaconda.”

  For a second I could only stare in bewilderment. Then, finally, I found my voice. “How could you do it, Ryan? What’s wrong with you?”

  “I told you, I don’t know. It was wrong. I was wrong, and I’m sorry.”

  “So sorry that you tried to put poison ivy in his baseball jersey?”

  “Come off it, Kelsey!” Ryan exploded. “You think I don’t know the only reason you care about any of this is because it’s him? I could’ve done it to anyone else and you would’ve been over it in five seconds. But because it’s your precious David, it’s the end of the world.”

  “Not the end of the world, Ryan.” My windpipe felt pinched shut and I struggled to get my next words out. “The end of us.”

  Ryan’s face went pale.

  “You’re joking. Kelse, you don’t mean that.” He started toward me, but
I stepped behind a chair, blocking his path.

  “I mean it, Ry,” I said as I headed down the steps toward the Cliff Walk. “It’s over. I need to go find David.”

  “Kelse, wait.” Ryan threw the chair out of his way and came after me. Given that he was faster than me on days when I didn’t have three-inch heels on, I had no hope of outrunning him. He caught my arm and spun me around to face him. “How can you say that? I love you, you know I do.”

  “Ryan, I can’t even look at you right now. Let go of me and leave me alone.”

  “But I want to talk—”

  “LET GO!” I’d yelled loudly enough to get the attention of the other people milling around the expansive lawn, some of whom were chaperones, and Ryan knew it. He dropped my arm, looking exactly the way I felt on the inside: ready to crumble.

  “Promise you’ll come find me when you’re ready to talk?”

  I nodded, fighting back tears. As much as his confession horrified me, I knew he meant it when he said he loved me. The defeated look on his face all but shattered my heart.

  I couldn’t watch him retreat, head bent, sadness in every line of his body. I turned toward the Cliff Walk and slipped off my shoes, knowing what my next step needed to be. For the second time in my life, I was about to turn my back on a boy who loved me. Except this time, I’d do it for all the right reasons.

  Thirty

  Rhode Island

  Senior Year

  I jogged toward the Cliff Walk, shoes in one hand, hem in the other, as the salt of the ocean air mingled with the salt of my tears rolling over my lips.

  In the distance I spotted David and Violet strolling toward the hotel. He’d given her his tuxedo jacket to wear, and I suddenly realized how cool the night had grown. I ignored the goose bumps that sprang up on my own arms as I got closer to the water and wiped my tears impatiently. Violet and David stopped short when they saw me barreling toward them. By the looks on their faces, I must have been the definition of a hot mess.

  “Kelse?” David said. “What happened?”