She ducked her head. “Yeah, my parents thought so too when they saw my exercise log.”
“They did?” I tugged the waistband of our uniform shorts—they were short and rode up.
“They’re not monsters, Merrilee. They leave me here because they think it’s best for me. And maybe monitoring my nutrition and sleep and exercise and the rest of it seems extreme to you, but science and data are the languages they communicate in. They’re never going to be the types of parents who want to cuddle and kiss and say ‘I love you’ all the time. I know they’re not your parents, but that doesn’t mean they’re not showing they care by wanting to know I’m healthy and thriving and in optimal condition.”
Like a car. But I didn’t say it out loud. “And they think you’re overexercising?”
“We had a long talk yesterday—yes, they actually called—and they sent me a couple of journal articles on compulsive exercise and its link to disordered eating and body image. I hadn’t increased my caloric intake enough and my BMI had dropped slightly. It’s still completely within the normal range, but they were concerned.” She lifted her chin. “See, they do care.”
“They have the best daughter in the world; they’d be idiots not to,” I said. “And they’ve got shelves and shelves of awards that prove they’re not idiots.”
“Thank you.” They were quiet words, but I saw the shift in her posture, her shoulders rolling back and her neck straightening.
“So you’re going to back off with the exercise?”
“And add more protein and calories to my diet.”
“Good.”
“Thank you,” she said again. “For wanting to talk about this, not Monroe.”
“Hey!” I wasn’t sure if I should be hurt or insulted. Both? “I’m your best friend. I always want to talk about what’s going on with you. Boys will never be more important. Ever. You’re stuck with me like dog hair on black pants. Like—” I searched my head for an Eliza-worthy comparison. “Like parts of an atom.”
“You’re saying it would take nuclear fission to split us?” I loved her laugh—it was loud enough to scare the squirrels in the trees. “Did you just compare us to an atomic bomb?”
“Yes. I’d destroy the world before I gave up your friendship.”
“Good to know.” She laughed again as we circled back to the field house. The rest of the team was spread out on the grass—apparently this particular patch wasn’t off-limits?—stretching and hydrating. Eliza stopped short of them. “Are you okay? With English class and everything? If you still don’t want to talk about it, we can discuss whatever book boy you’re crushing on.”
There was so much I wanted to say, but I didn’t know where to begin. Instead I scoffed. “You think I have time to read with all this?” I gestured at the campus. Though maybe I would have if I wasn’t up all night with Monroe. Hannah was still updating her blog and recommending new books, after all.
“Merri?” It was just my name, but it pushed me past some tipping point I hadn’t realized I was approaching. The country club consequences, the lack of sleep, the lecture from the headmaster, getting caught by Ms. Gregoire, the teacher I liked most. I blinked wetly and swallowed. “It’s all a mess. Like, a Gatsby-got-in-the-trash-size one.”
“Come on.” Eliza glanced at the team, then pushed me into the locker room. “Talk.”
I sat on the bench and summarized as best I could between blowing my nose and sniffling. Eliza paced and passed me tissues.
“I always said I wanted romance—something like Romeo and Juliet. And I know you think I’m delusional, but Monroe is that. He’s all about the big gestures and exaggerated compliments. . . .” I pulled my legs up on the bench. “But I want fewer declarations—more actual talking . . . I wanted to get to know him—and he just wants to put on a show. It feels like he’s never not playing a part. Like his life is method-acting Romeo.” I scrubbed at my eyes. “He’s everything I always said I wanted in a boyfriend, but it’s not enough. It’s not . . . right.”
“Merri, you’re allowed to change your mind about what you want. It’s part of growing up.” She sat down next to me and I leaned my head on her shoulder. Eliza had threaded her fingers together and was tapping her thumbs—her thinking gesture. “Remember that time you tried to make cookies with all your favorite foods?”
“Pineapple–chocolate chip–ginger–gummy bear.” I scraped my tongue against my teeth to wipe off even the memory of that taste.
“What happened when you ate them?” prompted Eliza.
“I got sick . . . but I still think maybe we underbaked them.”
“That’s not my point. You love allegories. I’m trying to give you one. Pay attention!” She shook her head. Her ponytail smacked against my cheek. “You thought you’d like all those foods in the same cookie—but you didn’t. Maybe the same is true with boyfriends? I’m not telling you what to do, but I’m here. And I’m sorry he didn’t listen to you and respect your boundaries.”
She didn’t need to tell me what to do. This decision was obvious. Sure, Romeo and Juliet had overcome harder obstacles, but they’d ended up dead; so really, what kind of role models were they? Plus, I was starting to hate that play. I tightened my shoelaces, repeating her words to myself.
I’d be borrowing that whole part about boundaries when I called to break up with him.
20
Sprinting across the lawn toward the starting line definitely counted as a warm-up. And the timing couldn’t have been better. We joined the runners as the starting gun fired—so while I caught Coach Lynn’s angry glares, she didn’t have time to back up her murderous expressions with words.
But Coach Lynn’s looks had nothing on Mom’s and Dad’s. They were standing at the top of the course’s big hill. My first thought was: Yay, they both came; then, Are they going to yell for me, or at me? And you know what makes running up a steep hill even harder? Double parent disapproval waiting at the top.
And you know what’s not super motivating on the second half of a race? The knowledge that the faster you run, the sooner you’ll be face-to-face with those parents and their lectures.
Mom began, “We’re furious with you,” before I’d found water or stopped panting like an overheated pug. Attacking when I didn’t have the breath to argue back—not fair.
“A call from the headmaster? On your first week of school? Merrilee Rose Campbell!” Mom middle-named like a boss, and it always made me cringe. “Is this supposed to convince us that you’re trustworthy and this boy isn’t a bad influence? If so, you’ve failed.”
Eliza tossed me a water bottle and lowered her gaze as she walked by, heading toward the team. They were stretching and sharing a container of homemade cookies. They got cookies, and I got public parental humiliation.
“Take a breath, both of you,” suggested Dad.
“I’m. Trying,” I panted. “Some of us just ran a race.”
Dad’s mouth wiggled in that way it did when he was trying to look firm but was actually amused. Like when I’d stuck real worms in the kindergarten bully’s pudding dirt. “You looked great out there.”
“Thanks. I’m sorry I got caught messaging.”
“Sorry you got caught? Or sorry you did it?” he asked.
“Honestly?” Eliza says whenever I start a sentence with “honestly,” I should stop talking. One of these days I’m going to remember to take her advice. “Sorry I got caught. Everyone uses messenger. It’s like not chewing gum with braces, one of those rules no one follows.”
“So you’re okay with cheating? That’s what you’re telling us? Everyone at your school cheats and you’re okay with that?”
“I wasn’t cheating, Mom.”
“Monroe was taking a test!”
I’d hoped Headmaster Williams would leave that part out. “I didn’t know that.”
“He knew. And I know you know this was wrong,” said Dad. His hair—the same hair I had, which didn’t do anything but flop and look brown—was stickin
g up. Like he’d been pulling on it. Hopefully it had been while he was cheering, rather than in frustration.
“He was quoting Shakespeare, not suggesting we elope.” What was it about parents that made you want to disagree with them—even when you agreed with them? There was no other explanation for why I was defending the same guy I’d decided to break up with three miles ago.
“He hasn’t done that, right?” Mom was rumpled too; even on her best day, her eye makeup tended to be a bit smeared or crooked, but now it was smudged like she’d been rubbing her eyes or pinching the bridge of her nose.
“Of course not!” I glanced at the team huddle and pep talk I was missing. The cookies were going to be long gone by the time my parents finished convincing the contrary part of my brain to not break up with Monroe.
“Another deep breath might be a good idea,” Dad suggested. “Merrilee, we’re glad you found a boy who makes you happy, but we don’t like the behaviors he seems to be encouraging.”
I looked down at my muddy sneakers, which were suddenly fascinating. . . . Dad in his usual Dad-ness had gotten to the heart of the issue without even realizing it. Monroe didn’t make me happy, and he’d encouraged far worse behaviors.
“And you need a consequence,” he finished.
“Like what?” I looked up at him with my most innocent expression as I stood on one foot to stretch my quad.
Dad wrapped an arm around my shoulder to steady me and looked at Mom with an expression that clearly said, How can you possibly expect me to punish anyone this adorable? Sometimes being a Daddy’s girl paid off.
“You’re grounded,” said Mom. “Through the weekend.”
And sometimes it didn’t. “Grounded? No. Please?”
“How about this?” Dad countered. “If you want to see any of your other friends between now and Monday, that’s okay. We don’t want to stop you from forming friendships with your new classmates. But you’re grounded from Monroe. Good?”
Mom tilted her head as she considered this. “I’m okay with that.”
I was one hundred percent okay with being grounded from him. But it wouldn’t do to be excited about a punishment, so I looked down and scraped my shoe along the sidewalk for effect. “Fine.”
“Good,” said Mom. “Now grab your stuff. You’re working at the store tonight.”
Mom and Dad were waiting in the car. I’d promised to just run in, throw on my Haute Dog uniform, and come back out. They’d assume I’d grab a snack or a bathroom break, but still—I had ten minutes. Tops. It probably wasn’t enough for a serious conversation, but I was sick with impatience—literally. My stomach was twisted into knots, and if I had to throw up, I’d rather do it in the privacy of my own bathroom than at the store. I pressed one sweaty hand to my stomach and dialed with the other.
“Hello.” He answered on the first ring, and I paused for one last check for butterflies or sparks or any sort of wistful feeling. Nope. Just stress-nausea.
“Hey, Monroe.” I sat on the corner of my bed and tucked Brontësaurus Rex under my chin. “I’ve only got a minute, but we need to talk.”
“Hi.” He sounded sullen. Maybe he knew what was coming? “I’m not Romeo anymore.”
“Good, because I don’t want to be Juliet.” Not his, not anyone’s. I mean, really, who voluntarily models their love life after a tragedy? “So, we can just be—”
“No, you don’t understand, love.”
My “—friends” was buried beneath his interruption, and clearly we were not on the same page, or even in the same book. Not that his “love” had sounded all that loving.
He sounded even more frustrated when he added, “What I’m telling you is: ‘And for that offence / Immediately we do exile him hence.’”
“Um, what?” I stood and toed off my socks. Shimmied out of my shorts and into khakis.
“Catch up, Merri. Act three, scene one, the Prince.”
“Nope. No clue what you mean.” And I wasn’t super keen on the tone he was using. I clicked him onto speakerphone while I rummaged in my drawer for a store polo and a bra.
“I got kicked out of the play. The idiot headmaster kicked me out of the play.”
“That was your punishment for messaging?” I sucked in a breath and froze with my singlet tangled around my neck and one arm. I remembered how ecstatic he’d been to get that role—you know, a whole thirty-six hours ago, back when I was still excited about us.
“And I’m suspended for a week—but can you believe the play?”
Personally, I thought the suspension was the bigger deal, especially on the year before he’d be applying to colleges—but to each his own.
“And you know what my parents said when the headmaster called them? This is via their assistant, obviously, because neither of them had time to call me. They said ‘good.’ They thanked him. They said this was the last play they were going to let me do anyway, and they’re glad I’m done with that nonsense.”
The part of my stomach that wasn’t a ball of stress clenched with sympathy. This was his dream they’d ridiculed. And since he was clearly devastated by this, it meant I’d have to live in breakup limbo a little while longer, because I couldn’t pile on more problems.
Also, Dad had double-beeped the horn. Next step was Mom coming in to fetch me. I doubted she’d be happy to find me on the phone with the person I was grounded from. I’d call him tomorrow, after he’d had time to process everything. We could break up then. I sighed into the collar of my shirt but offered a sincere “I’m sorry.”
“You should be. I mean, how hard is it to hide your computer screen?”
“I’m sorry?” I said it again, but with very different inflection. “I must have misunderstood, because you can’t possibly be blaming me for the messages you sent, despite me asking you to stop, and despite the fact that you were taking a test.”
“You’re the one who got caught.”
Any reservations I had about this breakup vanished into a red haze of rage. If I were to rewrite the play at that moment, I’d have had Juliet stab Romeo, not herself. Or maybe she’d just push him off her balcony the first time he tried to climb it.
“I’m also the one ending this phone call. Don’t call me back. Don’t text. Don’t come over. I’m sorry you lost your part in the play, I know you must be really disappointed, but I’m not taking the blame for your mistakes.”
Before he could give any sort of big Shakespearean response, I hung up.
21
It might not have been especially professional to work while smelling like a sweat sock, but I didn’t care. Mom and Dad dropped me off out front and I stomped toward the store, ready to unleash a hurricane of complaints to Lilly. But the door was locked. I let myself in, flipping the “Bark in woof-teen minutes” sign.
I wanted to call Eliza or Toby or anyone who would let me rant then tell me how special and wronged I was. Instead I picked up a cloth and vigorously cleaned the pup-pastry case until the bell over the door rang and in bounded a chocolate Lab that clearly needed to be lavished with ear scratches and belly rubs while his owner picked out kibble.
Lilly breezed in ten minutes later. “I’m late, but I’ve got dinner, do you forgive me?”
“Depends. What’s in the bag?”
“For you, cream soda and chicken potpie.” Okay, she was forgiven because those were my comfort foods.
“And for you?”
“Oh, I ate with Trent.”
I hated that even years after she’d been through treatment, my first reaction was to worry she was lying. And that there was no way to ask her without making it a big issue. I knew that sometimes those questions, making it sound like I expected her to be skipping meals, could be a trigger. I hated that her connection with food might never be simple or straightforward. I hated that it haunted our relationship.
She put the bag on the counter and ducked to make eye contact. “I really did. Caesar salad with shrimp. Want me to breathe on you so you can smell my garlic breadst
ick breath?”
I hated that she knew what I was thinking. That I now felt guilty for caring. “Yuck. Don’t you dare. And thank you for dinner.”
“Of course. So, am I forgiven?”
“No big deal. We only had one customer. Mrs. Diaz needed dog food. She brought Bear.”
“Not for being late. For the country club.” Lilly’s shoulders were up, and her head was bowed down like she expected me to rant and yell. “I heard about the fines.”
“You’re not the one who pulled the fire alarm. And Monroe took care of the fines. He said it was ‘no big deal.’”
“Must be nice,” said Lilly.
“Seriously.” I uncapped my soda. “Though you’ll know soon enough. How many days until you’re a Rhodes?”
Lilly picked up my fork and poked a hole in the top of my piecrust. A puff of steam came out and she yelped when she took a bite. “Let that cool. Eight months, but we’re not taking their money. I mean, I’m obviously not, but Trent won’t either. His parents said they’d only pay for law school if he chose one of their alma maters.”
“And Trent’s got something against the Ivy League?”
She grinned and leaned in. “He does when it comes with a side of expectations that he’ll join his dad’s law firm. Don’t tell them, but we’re going rogue. We’ll be taking out loans and likely living on noodles, but it’ll be worth it.”
“You mavericks!” I told her around bites of chicken. I totally didn’t know that Trent had a backbone or enough personality to dream up something so scandalous. But if he was going to go rogue, I was glad it was for her, with her. It might not have been roses, but it was sort of romantic.
Store traffic always picked up after five p.m., so Lillian and I were busy. I stole bites and sips between wrestling a Chihuahua into rain boots, choosing the right collar to compliment Fizzy the chow chow’s fur, and helping a nervous middle-aged man pick out a heart-shaped chew toy for his new boyfriend’s goldendoodle.
The door chime jingled, and I put on my best customer smile. The one that charmed people into telling me their pup’s life story and hopefully picking up extra treats while they chattered. But my lips slid back over my teeth. “Oh. It’s you. Why are you here? You weren’t on the schedule.” And if she was going to stay, maybe I could leave early?
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