Kissing Ted Callahan (and Other Guys)
Page 17
“I need advice,” I say. “I had all this stuff happen, and it was bad, maybe, I don’t even know, but I have to talk to someone about it, and Reid is pissed at me and—”
“So because Reid won’t talk to you, I’m good enough to talk to again?” Lucy says it in such a sweet, calm manner I don’t even take it the way I should at first.
“I never thought you weren’t good enough to talk to,” I say, because that’s crazy. Lucy, that’s crazy! “You were the one—”
“I was the one who what?” She stares at me, very direct eye contact, and I break away because it’s horrible.
“You didn’t tell me anything,” I say.
“No,” she says. “I didn’t tell you that Nathan and I were going out. That was it. And it’s not like you’ve told me anything that’s going on with you lately.”
I guess I always knew she knew that I cut her off. So I’m not expecting to feel worse hearing it.
But my heart pounds and my stomach tightens and this is definitely worse.
“We’ve been best friends for almost ten years, Riley. I can’t believe you let a boy come between us.”
“It wasn’t like that! It’s because you never told me, and if we didn’t walk in on you guys, maybe you never would have.”
“I would have,” she says quickly. “Eventually.”
“It made me feel so bad,” I say. “Like I meant nothing to you and didn’t deserve to know anything actually important.”
“You should have just said you felt like that before,” she says. “Instead of hating me forever.”
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I was a jerk. And I get it now. Like, sometimes you just need something to be for yourself only. And not because other people don’t deserve to know, just… stuff’s private.”
“For me it wasn’t even that!” she says. “I was just sorting out this big new thing, and I was afraid to let it out of my head. I kept imagining how I’d tell you, and you would point out the reasons it was a bad idea—and I knew all those reasons! So I thought, okay, I’ll figure out what I want to do first, and then it’ll make sense, and Riley will get it and be happy for me.”
“I’m happy for you,” I say. “Sorry it took me so freaking long.”
“Eh, don’t be now,” she says. “Nathan and I broke up. A couple of weeks ago, actually.”
“What? Why? When? Wait, you said when. Why? What? Really?”
“Really.” She doesn’t answer my other questions. I don’t blame her. I’m so annoying sometimes.
“I couldn’t even tell!” I say like I just tried I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter! and can’t believe it’s not butter. “Sorry, just, I couldn’t.”
“We don’t hate each other or anything, it’s just…” She rolls her eyes. “Nathan’s kind of annoying and bossy.”
“Duh,” I say.
“Shut up, I know! He’s also really cute.”
“Duh,” I say again, and she laughs. “I’m seriously really sorry, Lucy. I’ve missed you so much.”
Her smile fades, and I wonder if I’ve finally said too much somehow.
“Hang on,” she says. She jumps up to root around on her desk, and when she turns around, something is in her hands.
The Passenger Manifest is in her hands.
THE PASSENGER MANIFEST IS IN HER HANDS.
“Here.” She sets it in my lap. “I found it in the garage after practice the other week.”
“Oh my god.” I try to think of something to say, to explain, to make this way less horrifying. “OH MY GOD.”
I hope that however she responds makes things less awkward, but she doesn’t say anything.
“Did you tell anyone?” I ask.
“No.”
I flip through the book like it’s new, and I’m reading it through Lucy’s eyes. It’s a terrible experience, so I quit pretty quickly and shove it into my bag.
“I should have told you I had it,” she says. “Right away. I’m sorry, Riley.”
I’m not expecting her to apologize. I accidentally just stare at her.
“It’s just been so long,” she continues. “I know I hurt your feelings by not telling you about Nathan, but… it was like it was so easy for you to cut me off.”
“It wasn’t easy at all.” I ram my hands into my eyes like I can hide that I’m getting a little emotional having this conversation. “It was the worst.”
“You and Reid had all these…”
I expect her to say something about what creeps we are.
“… adventures! You told him everything.”
I accidentally laugh. “Not everything, trust me.”
“More than you told me. I missed you so much,” she says. “I needed you to talk to all the time.”
“I was SO STUPID. I thought because you and Nathan were doing it, you’d think I was lame and immature and my boy problems were pathetic. I mean, my boy problems were pathetic, but still.”
“God,” she says, “doing it is not exactly the person-changing event you think it is. It’s just one thing that happens.”
“No, totally, I know what you mean,” I say. “Now I do. Then I was stupid and unfair. And I’m sorry. I missed you so much, too.”
Lucy grins. “Do you know what I mean because something happened? Or did you just become wise and mature?”
“Ugh, yes. Something happened, but I don’t want to talk about it. I’m all heartbroken now, and I’ll just sound emo and start applying eyeliner or something.”
“Anything but that.” She sips her cider. “You can talk about it, though, really. The heartbroken emo part if you want, or just the good parts.”
Ted still hates me, and I am probably doomed to a guy-free, kiss-free, doing-it-free life, but I already Just Know that the Gold Diggers are back together and opening for Murphy-Gomez at the Smell next week. I’d gotten used to feeling like some evil hand was clenching my heart and lungs and pushing down on my shoulders all the time, but right now I am sitting up straight and tall and feeling completely like myself.
“I’ll tell you all the parts,” I say. “But I should warn you that a lot of it is insanely stupid.”
“Yay! I love insanely stupid!”
“So there was this guy—” I stop myself. “Well, you know there were guys. But, specifically, there was Ted Callahan.”
“I knew it,” she says. “Even before I read your book. Especially once he showed up at the Andrew Mothereffing Jackson show.”
“Don’t get excited! He hates me now.”
I tell her the whole story. It takes forever because I include all the details I didn’t see fit for the Passenger Manifest. I finally break down and demand my own mug of cider. We play a Beach Fossils album while Foley the cat purrs on the bed next to us, and it’s like old days. I’m crying by the time I’m finished talking. It’s not that I screwed up and made Ted rightfully hate me—well, it’s that, but it’s more that I had, like, a perfect life. I had amazing friends and a kick-ass band, and then I fell for a guy who fell for me. And I’d been dwelling a lot on the sad parts, but right now I’m flooded with memories of getting candy from Ted and going to shows with Ted and being all tangled together in bed with Ted.
And I miss all of it.
“Well,” Lucy says once the talking is over and most of the crying is, too, “there’s only one way I know how to deal when I’m sad or I messed up.”
“Read about cults?”
“Okay, two things! No, I write songs.”
“Ugh, you know I can’t write songs! It’s one of my failings in life.”
“No, I have an idea,” she says, her eyes getting anime-round, the way they do when she’s excited about something. It hits me that I haven’t seen her look this way in a long time. “I’ll write a song for you for him. And we can play it at our show, and you can tell him to be there.”
“There’s no way he’ll come,” I say.
“Let’s worry about that later.” She grabs her notepad off her desk. “Okay, tell me what you
’d say to him if you could.”
“It’s weird,” I say. “Like, it’s a song from you to him.”
“It won’t seem like it. I’ll make it sound like you’re the one writing it.”
“You can do that?”
“Riley, yes!” She flings her pen at me and gets another off her desk. “I’m a writer! Not every song I write is about me!”
I had no idea. This might make me an idiot. But I trust Lucy. So I tell her everything.
* * *
I’m still mad at Reid, and I know he’s still mad at me, but he deserves to know. I text him once I’m home from Lucy’s.
fyi lucy had the book. it must have fallen out at practice. i got it back.
He responds immediately. Thanks. And, crap.
Okay, he doesn’t sound superfriendly, but we’re talking again. Well, we’re “talking” again. And that’s much better than I expected today.
* * *
Reid marches right up to me at school on Monday morning. “Where is it?”
“At home in my nightstand drawer,” I say. “What should we do with it?”
“Burn it? My therapist says it should be symbolic.” He shrugs. “My mom made me start therapy after I told her everything.”
“YOU TOLD YOUR MOM EVERYTHING?”
“Yeah, my therapist says that’s weird, too.”
It feels sort of normal, I realize.
“Everything got really stupid,” I say.
“I know. Sorry I blamed you.”
“Sorry I lied to you.”
Since we’re not huggers, we nod at each other. It feels like a hug!
“There’s a cute receptionist at my therapist’s office,” Reid says, and I laugh really hard.
“I missed you so much.” It’s not the kind of thing I’m used to saying to him, but he doesn’t give me a look like I’ve gone Hallmark card sentimental on him.
“Yeah, Ri, you too.”
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
Reid and I buy a big metal trash can and lighter fluid, and we play CeeLo’s “Fuck You” through my iPod over Reid’s portable speakers, and we totally burn the book. Then we high-five and go out for waffles.
CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
Within a few days, the plan has been made for me—literally, Lucy has told me what I have to do—but instead of approaching Ted, I stare at him from behind my open locker door.
“Does he look heartbroken?” I ask. “Like that he could cry?”
“He looks how he always looks,” Lucy says. “Just go over.”
“He looks a little heartbroken,” Reid says, and I punch his arm.
“He always looks like that,” Nathan says.
I punch him, too. Nathan’s a lot stronger than Reid, so it’s less satisfying, except for that I have long dreamed of punching Nathan. We didn’t officially make up or talk, but it turns out Nathan and I can just kind of get along when it’s called for.
“Seriously, I can’t believe you’re stressing over that guy,” Nathan says.
“I am in love with that guy,” I say. “And he deserves better than me.”
“Don’t wimp out now,” Lucy says sternly.
Ted has to walk past us, and Lucy takes that opportunity to LITERALLY SHOVE ME in his direction. I smile at him, but he doesn’t respond in any manner, so I turn back to look at Lucy.
Follow the plan! she mouths.
“Hi,” I try. Step 1!
“Hi, Riley,” he says.
It worked!
“I, um, I wrote you a note,” I say. Step 2! “I know you might not want to read it, and you totally have every right. But I wanted to explain some stuff, so, anyway.”
I take it out of my pocket and hold it out toward him. Step 3! If he doesn’t take it, I promise myself very sternly I will gracefully walk away. (Step 4A!)
But Ted looks right at me and takes the note. (Step 4B!) “Okay.”
“Okay, I’m going to…” I kind of back away from him, and I turn once it seems like I’m walking backward for a weird length of time. “Bye, Ted.”
He doesn’t say anything, so I keep walking down the hallway. But at last I hear it, very softly, mixed in with the noise of the school: “Bye, Riley.”
CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE
Dear Ted,
I’m seriously so sorry for being such a liar and a weirdo. I wish I could take back all of it, but that would involve magic or time travel and I have access to neither.
Earlier this year I was so scared of losing my friends and my band, and I made some stupid decisions. I liked you before then, and then you just kind of got roped into this whole plan of mine and Reid’s.
You’re seriously the smartest, nicest, funniest guy I have ever met. I love your mix CD ability and your messenger bag. I like how when we talk I feel like I’m the most important person ever. I think it’s super kick-ass that you run the Fencing Club, and do you remember the time I called it the Fenching Club? It was only because I was so nervous to be around you because I had the biggest crush in the world on you, and I couldn’t function normally.
I want to be upfront and say I really want to get back together with you. I know I lied and hurt you, and I can’t take that back. I screwed up. I’m seriously so sorry, Ted--not just because I lost you but because I don’t want to be a bad person.
The Gold Diggers are playing at the Smell on Saturday night. There’s going to be a special song for you, so I hope you will come hear it. And if you don’t, I will understand.
Love+apologies+everything,
Riley
CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR
We’re crowded into the Smell’s tiny greenroom staring at our set list and making sure we look as cool as possible. I wish Reid wasn’t wearing A BLAZER and I can tell from Lucy’s expression she agrees, but I guess this is his thing now.
“We should look out to see if he’s here,” Reid says.
“I would bet he isn’t,” Nathan says.
“Nathan, come on,” Lucy says.
“Not because of Riley breaking his heart. Just, I can’t imagine that guy here.”
“He’s pretty rock-and-roll,” Lucy says. “He was fun at the Andrew Mothereffing Jackson show, remember? He’ll come.”
“YOU GUYS ARE WAY TOO INVESTED IN THIS,” I say in a voice I meant to be calm. “CAN WE FOCUS ON WHAT’S IMPORTANT, PLEASE.”
“He’ll come,” Lucy says again.
“This set list is solid,” Nathan says. El presidente rises again! “And I didn’t want to freak you guys out, but—well, we’re in this together. I’ll just tell you. My cousin helped me get in touch with this guy, and he’s coming tonight, and if he likes us, he’ll think about managing us.”
We stare at him, and I want to yell at him for springing this on us, but I know for Nathan this is the best he can do, and I get it. Also we are going to have a great show, and this dude is going to love us. At this very moment it seems possible, and not just because right now almost anything seems more probable than my—well, Lucy’s—plan actually working.
The club’s getting loud, and when we walk onstage, it’s like our dreams are coming true, but also we earned this. We’ve worked so hard and somehow didn’t kill each other, and standing here in a place I love makes a whole lot of sense.
We open with “Tease,” and even though I’m sure 90 percent of the crowd is here to see Murphy-Gomez, people are jumping around and dancing and acting exactly how people should act at a show. We roll right into “Longer Days,” and then Nathan introduces us and thanks the crowd for being there. But then he gives Lucy a chance to talk, too! Nathan is clearly becoming a better person, or at least pretending, which is good enough for me.
It’s a shorter set than we had at the dance, but we manage to get in a bunch of originals, plus our pretty fantastic (if I’m handing us compliments) cover of Andrew Mothereffing Jackson’s “Never Gonna (Love Me).” After that I don’t need to look at my set list to know what’s next, but I still quadruple check it to see it’s going to happen AND I D
ON’T EVEN KNOW IF TED’S HERE TO HEAR IT. But it’s okay because Lucy wrote an amazing song that sounds like it’s from me and not her, and I’m glad we’re playing it.
About that time I called you names
Or that other time when we were playing games
I know I’m young and kind of insecure
But that was dumb; I was in the wrong for sure
No, I don’t think that you should cut your hair
I like the way you always seem to care
About the world; oh hell, what do I know
I’m just a girl, a girl who wants to show you
Everything I could ever offer
Everything that you could ever want
Everything you could ever dream of
I want to show you everything
About that time I almost caused a scene
Or that other time you fed me jelly beans
I never thought that this would ever grow
I never believed that I would get to show you
Everything I could ever offer
Everything that you could ever want
Everything you could ever dream of
I want to show you everything
The reason that I couldn’t let you see
All the good and bad and ugly of me
The reason that I didn’t think this was real
Is you’re the only one who’s ever made me feel
About that time when we were in my car
Or that other time we kissed under the stars
Or that other time… we didn’t make a sound
I want to show you
Everything I could ever offer
Everything that you could ever want
Everything you could ever dream of
I want to show you
I want to know you
I want to be your
Everything