by Judy Corry
“Try not to forget about us non-Ivy League people,” I said when we stood on the doorstep under the yellow glow of the porch light. I wanted to say more, something funny that might lighten the mood, but I couldn’t think of anything.
“I’ll be back for fall break before you know it.” He pulled me into a tight hug.
I leaned into him and breathed in his cologne, committing his scent to memory. Jess was a great hugger, and it was comforting being so close to him. He just felt…good.
When Jess pulled back, I thought I saw tears in his eyes.
“I’ll see you soon.” He hesitated a moment before pulling me in for one more hug.
“I’ll be here,” I said, my voice breaking along with my heart. Don’t forget me.
He turned and headed down the path back to his car. I shivered, feeling cold all over as I watched him walk away. Jess was the sun in my life, and I wondered if I would ever make it out of the darkness now that he was gone.
Chapter Nine
Going back to school without my best friend stunk. Jess and I still texted, but it wasn’t the same when I didn’t get to see him every couple of days. He was loving college life, though, and all the freedom that came from being away from home, so I tried to be happy for him at least. But I couldn’t seem to manage being happy for myself. I was a senior, so I should have been excited about my final year of high school. But I wasn’t. Even though most of the rumors about my dad had died down, I still couldn’t shake the feeling that everyone saw me as the girl who was left behind. And not just by my dad. Now by my best friend, too. So many days I worried my mom would leave me completely behind too.
When I was younger, her problem with alcoholism had happened more slowly. She’d been able to hide it from us for years, seeming normal in public. But now she didn’t seem to care. Most days I worried she’d smash up her car on her way home from work after a stop at the liquor store, or that I’d come home from school to find she’d died from alcohol poisoning.
Just to cope with my fear on the days I didn’t have work, I would head to the library to finish my homework. Then, I’d lose myself in a novel so I could pretend to be the main character, and that the life I was living now was actually the one that was pretend.
A few weeks into the school year, I was delivering a stack of papers to the school office for my math teacher, Mrs. Carver, when I heard a familiar voice sound behind me.
“Is that Eliana Costa?”
I slowly turned my head and almost dropped what I was carrying. “Ryan?” I furrowed my brow. “What are you doing here?”
Ryan Miller, the boy who had lived across the street from sixth through tenth grade—also known as the guy I’d been ridiculously infatuated with during those years—was sitting on one of the green chairs in the waiting area.
“I just moved back,” he said, his legs crossed and stretched out like it was the most natural thing for him to be back at our school.
“Moved back? Didn’t your dad get a pretty good job in Manhattan?”
“New job, and new boss…who turned out to be his new girlfriend.” He sighed as he pulled his legs in and shrugged one of his broad, linebacker shoulders. “My mom and I moved in with my grandparents for a while. Divorce sucks!”
“Wow, that stinks.” A pit formed in my stomach. “I’m sad to say that I sorta know what you’re going through.”
He raised his dark eyebrows. “Your parents got divorced?”
I shook my head. “Not a divorce, exactly. My dad screwed over a bunch of clients and ran off before he was caught.”
“Seriously?” His eyebrows shot up further. “When did that happen?”
“Last February.” I shifted the stack of papers nervously in my hands. “We haven’t heard from him since.”
“Wow.” His mouth fell open.
“It happens.” I shrugged, and looked at his chest…a very well-defined chest. He was huge. They’d probably beg him to be on the football team, even though they were well into the season.
“Can I help you?” The secretary, Ms. Haslam, came from behind the desk. I whirled around. “Yeah, um, Mrs. Carver wanted me to bring these to you. She said you’d know what they were for.”
The woman reached her hand across the counter. “Yes, I’ll take those. Thank you.” She smiled my dismissal and looked behind me to Ryan. “Mr. Miller, your schedule is ready if you want to take a look.”
I tucked some hair behind my ear and turned back to Ryan who was approaching the counter.
“Well, it was good to see you again.” I had to crane my neck way back to see his face. “I hope you enjoy your first day back.”
“Thanks.” Ryan smiled, displaying the dimple in his right cheek that I had always wanted to poke. “Despite everything, it’s actually good to be back.”
I walked out the door, proud that for the first time in my life, I’d been able to talk to Ryan Miller without blushing and losing my train of thought.
When I got to lunch, I told Ashlyn all about running into Ryan. I was telling her what he’d said about why they had moved back when I felt someone walk up behind us.
I turned around and almost choked on my chocolate milk. Ryan was standing a foot away. I swiped at my mouth with a napkin, hoping I didn’t have spaghetti sauce smeared all over my face, and turned in my chair to face him. All six-foot-three inches of him.
“Hey, Rapunzel.” Ryan whispered his old nickname for Ashlyn.
“Ryan!” Ashlyn jumped up and gave him a hug. “I can’t believe you’re back!” She stepped back and punched his arm. “Eliana told me she saw you! If you hadn’t come over I would have kicked your butt!”
“You couldn’t hurt me if you tried.” Ryan grabbed a chair from the table behind us and sat so we were the three points of a triangle.
“Whatever.” Ashlyn folded her arms. While I could hardly utter a complete sentence to Ryan in the past, Ashlyn was the exact opposite. She and Ryan had carried on like you’d expect a brother and sister to do. “How have you been?”
“I’ve been all right,” he said, showing us his confident smile.
“Been busy stealing all the hearts of the girls in Manhattan?” Ashlyn asked.
He shrugged and tilted his head to the side. “It’s not something I can turn off.”
And I had to agree with him, since I was one of the girls who had her heart stolen away years ago. Some guys attracted girls without even trying, and Ryan’s personality was magnetic.
“How’s your family doing? What’s my buddy Jess up to these days?”
“They’re great,” Ashlyn said. “And Jess moved up to Ithaca last month to attend Cornell.”
Ryan raised his eyebrows, impressed. “Cornell? That’s Ivy League, right?”
“Yeah, nothing but the best for Jess,” I said, more than happy to brag about my best friend. “He even got a full-ride scholarship.” Though, unlike me, he could have attended it without the scholarship.
“Impressive,” Ryan said. “Will he be back in town anytime soon? I’d love to catch up with that guy again.”
“He’ll be here for fall break,” I answered.
“When’s that?”
“The same weekend as homecoming,” Ashlyn said, since that’s how her brain worked. She measured time by events that were happening in her life, while I measured in days, weeks, and months.
“And when exactly is that?” He held up his hands. “Sorry. New guy.”
“Under two weeks from now. It’s on October twelfth,” I said. Even though I was pretty sure I’d be sitting this dance out, like I had all the others, I’d been counting down to it. There was a certain time frame that guys usually asked girls to dances at our school. Ranging from three weeks in advance to a week before. If a girl hadn’t been asked by the Saturday before the dance, it was pretty certain she wouldn’t be going. That gave the guys at school a week to realize I existed.
Ryan pointed a finger in my direction. “I forgot how quick you were.”
“Is
that a bad thing?” I hadn’t meant to sound like a know-it-all.
“No. It’s great. Being smart is cool.” Ryan glanced at the clock on the wall. “Well, I’ll let you get back to your lunch. I just wanted to catch up real quick.” He stood and tucked his chair under the table beside us. But then he suddenly turned around again. “Hey, Eliana, are you still as good at math as you used to be?”
“I guess so. Why?”
“I was wondering if you could help me go over some of the stuff from Stats. Mrs. Carver said you used to tutor? We weren’t quite this far along at my old school.”
Ryan Miller was asking me to help him? If only my twelve-year-old self could see me now.
I nodded. “I could probably do that.”
His smile broadened. “Awesome! Is Wednesday before school too soon?”
I pretended to think about it before answering. I didn’t want to appear like I had nothing else going on in my life. “Yeah, I can do that.”
“Cool.” He took a step back. “I’ll see you then.”
Once he was gone, I turned back to my food. Did Ryan Miller just ask me to spend time with him…without Ashlyn or Jess? That had never happened before.
I tried not to read too much into it. Crushing on Ryan Miller was a bad habit I’d never been able to break in the past. But maybe this could be a good thing. I needed a distraction, and maybe a good old crush on Ryan would get me to move past the impossible feelings I had for Jess. Plus, it would be fun to have something, or someone, to look forward to seeing again. Who knows, maybe I’d found a guy to trick into being my homecoming date.
Two days later, Ryan and I sat in the west corner of the school library, hunched over our notes as I helped him figure out one of the math problems he was having trouble with. I was wearing my favorite shirt today, which also happened to be red—Ryan’s favorite color—so I hoped he’d notice it and maybe also notice what a great date I could be for homecoming. It might not be true love or anything like that—I wasn’t ready for that anyway—but it could be fun.
“Have you and your mom found a house yet?” I asked when we’d finished the assignment that was due today. If I was going to get him to ask me to the dance, I needed to show him that I cared about his life, right?
Ryan leaned back in his chair and rolled a pencil around his fingers. “We looked at a bunch of places last night, but so far, no bueno. If our old house was available, it would be perfect. My mom wants to move into the old neighborhood.”
I nodded. “It was a nice place to live.”
His eyebrows squished together. “Was? You don’t live there anymore?”
“No. We rented the house out after my dad left.”
“Dang. Where do you live now?”
I stared at a spot on the table. Did he mind going out with girls whose families couldn’t afford a mortgage payment anymore? “My uncle let us move in with him for now. He lives in Westside.”
“I didn’t know that was in our school district.”
“It’s not. But they let me stay since I’ve already gone here two years.” Okay, enough about me. We needed to talk about him. Guys loved talking about things they were good at. “I heard they got you to join the football team.”
Ryan folded his arms across his chest. “Yeah. Coach Hobbs called me into his office my first day back. I was happy they wanted me. It would have sucked to miss playing my senior year.”
Next step: compliment him. “You must be pretty good.” Well, try to compliment him. Wow, I’m horrible at this flirting thing.
“I do okay. What about you? Do you still play soccer?”
I shook my head. “I didn’t have time for it this year. I’m taking a lot of honors classes.”
He nodded like that was cool. Did he prefer sporty girls over bookish girls? “Still getting straight A’s, I assume?”
“I’m trying to get a scholarship somewhere, so I’m keeping my grades up.”
“Good for you. I hope you get one.”
Hmm, was that a neutral reaction?
I sighed. Ryan was hard to read.
I looked out the library window before us. There were a lot more kids in the halls now. He’d probably want to leave soon to hang out with his buddies before the bell rang. My time was almost up.
“So, who are you going to homecoming with?” he asked.
I almost choked. Did he read my mind? I cleared my throat. “Actually, I’m not going yet.”
He leaned his head forward, baffled. “That’s crazy. I figured someone asked you already.”
“Nope. Not yet anyway.” I won’t turn you down if you ask. The sad fact was that I probably wouldn’t turn anyone down. Maybe I should have Luke make one of his famous “Boyfriend Wanted” posters. It sure had created some excitement for Ashlyn last fall. “What about you? Who are you taking?”
“No one yet. Being gone for a year kind of took me out of the dating scene at our school.”
Oh no, he’d realized I wanted him to ask me and now he was backing off.
His friend Mark appeared and interrupted us, saving me from making an even bigger fool of myself.
“Hey, Ry,” Mark said. “I gotta tell you something real quick.”
Ryan looked at me apologetically before getting up and walking over to one of the bookcases behind us.
Mark spoke in a low voice, but I could still hear him. “I heard Bridgett and Ashton broke up last night. She’s totally free for you to ask to homecoming.”
My heart, which had inflated with hope throughout the morning, shriveled inside me like a popped balloon. Bridgett had been Ryan’s girlfriend before his family moved away. I should have known he’d want to date her when he got back. He’d probably been hoping something like this would happen all along.
“Are you serious?” Ryan whispered back. He slapped Mark on the shoulder. “You rock, dude!”
Ryan rushed back to the table and stuffed his books into his backpack. “Thanks for all your help this morning, Eliana. You’re a lifesaver.” He threw his backpack over his shoulder and pushed his chair under the table. “See you later.”
“Yep. See you.”
I sank in my chair and watched through the window as he strode down the hall, coming to a stop in front of Bridgett Maynard. I didn’t need to see the rest of what happened after. I already knew. People like Bridgett and Ryan were genetically destined to be together. I didn’t know why I even thought I had a chance.
Like I expected, Ryan and Bridgett were holding hands by lunchtime.
Chapter Ten
After failing at getting Ryan to ask me out, I pretty much gave up on going to the dance. I didn’t know why it meant so much for me to go to homecoming, but for some reason it did. It seemed like something every senior girl should experience. And for once, I wanted my life to be normal.
I didn’t necessarily have a crush on any of the guys at school, none of them were Jess, so I had no idea who to smile at more. Well, I thought smiling at guys might help my chances. I was friends with all the guys in Math Club, but half of them had already asked girls, and the other half would probably be skipping the dance to play computer games online instead. I already overheard Hayes and Brady talking about the science fiction movie marathon they were planning for that evening.
Ashlyn asked me to go dress shopping with her after school that Friday, which I agreed to do, even though it was sure to keep my pathetic-ness fresh on my mind. We drove to the Destiny mall in Syracuse, where she scoured the stores for the perfect formal. I tried to seem like I was happy for her and her luck with having a wonderful boyfriend who didn’t mind coming to a high school dance even though he’d graduated.
“What do you think about this one?” Ashlyn asked, holding a pink, knee-length dress in front of her.
“It’s beautiful.” I moved to examine the dress more closely. It was gorgeous, with a layer of lace over satin. I moved my hand to check the price tag and quietly gasped. I could buy three months’ worth of groceries for the cost of the dress
.
Ashlyn noticed me eyeing the price tag and forced an embarrassed smile. “I know it’s pricey, but my dad said I could charge it to the credit card.”
This reminded me of how different our situations were now. I dropped my hand from the dress. “I’m sure Luke will love it. Now go try it on.” I pushed her toward the dressing room. “I bet it fits you perfectly.”
“It better.” She closed the door behind her. A couple of minutes later, she emerged with the dress on. “What do you think?” she asked, twirling around.
I sat up in the chair. She looked amazing—the pink color brought out the glow of her tanned skin. No wonder Luke could never keep his eyes off her. “I think this could be the one. What do you think?”
She sighed and ran her hands down her dress. “I’m in love.”
I laughed. “Good.”
I pulled off my heels and rubbed my aching feet, regretting my dumb idea to wear them today. I’d figured maybe guys never noticed me because I was so short. But like all my other attempts—curling my hair yesterday and wearing lipstick the week before—the added inches hadn’t given me any more luck. Just blisters. I was running out of ideas and time.
“You should try on a dress, Eliana,” Ashlyn said as she studied her reflection in the mirror beside us. “You could still get asked, and you don’t wanna be rushed at the last minute.”
I shook my head. “No, that’s okay. I’m pretty sure I’ll be sitting this dance out too.”
“Come on.” She turned to look at me, hands on her hips. “Grab a few and try them on. It’ll be fun.”
It would be fun to try one on. I glanced back at the rack with the teal-blue chiffon dress I’d eyed earlier, my fingers itching to touch the soft fabric. I hadn’t worn a fancy dress in a long time. “Okay. But just one.” I turned on my heel and strode toward the rack, taking the dress with me to the dressing rooms.
A couple of minutes later, I examined myself in the mirror. The dress fit like it was custom-made for me. And miraculously, it gave me some curves. Maybe I should wear this dress to school on Monday as a last-ditch effort. I shook my head at the ridiculousness of that thought. That would put me in the do-not-ask-the-crazy-girl zone for sure.