The Thirteenth Chance

by Amy Matayo

As I knew he would be, Mr. Ellis is at my side within seconds, a smug expression on his face and a faint smear of powdered sugar across his lapel. A little water could have cleaned it up, but I refrain from saying so even as smart-mouth comments work their way past his lips.

  “Riveting speech, Ms. Pratt. What happened to the guest speaker you had supposedly lined up? Will Vandergriff, wasn’t it? The Rangers player? It’s always a pity when things don’t quite work out the way we promise they will, isn’t it?”

  This man makes me insane. As soon as I finish choking the breath out of Will, I’m going to slap the cocky expression off Mr. Ellis’s face. I swallow a sigh.

  “I suppose it is a shame, though no one else came forward with any better ideas. Not even the person who broke the news to me and claims to personally know several local celebrities who might have been at least marginally entertaining. More so than me, don’t you think?” It isn’t like me to be so direct, even with him. But I’m flustered and sweaty, I’ve just given the worst performance of my life, and I’m not in the mood to deal with him. And as for Will . . .

  I’ll never forgive him for this.

  I’m already thinking of ways to make living next door to me a source of constant misery for him. I could scatter kitty litter outside his front door, turn up my Chopin so the sound of classical music drifts through his walls in the afternoon, hang pictures late at night so the racket of a banging hammer keeps him awake. And there might be a few better ideas . . .

  “Don’t beat yourself up about your speech,” Mr. Ellis continues, interrupting my plans for revenge. “I doubt anyone listened to much of what you had to say anyway.” He squeezes my elbow and takes in my nonexistent cleavage again, staring a little longer than usual.

  “Good lord, could you be more obvious?” Kelly appears and nails him with a scathing glare. “Take your eyes off her chest, Ellis. And I’ve heard you speak. You wouldn’t have done any better.”

  His face reddens as his eyes meet my hard stare. He doesn’t bother looking at Kelly. “You have a good day, now,” he says, his jaw set. “Try not to be too discouraged. Only a few people fell asleep.” He laughs to himself and walks off.

  “I hate him, and I don’t hate anyone.”

  “We all hate him, so you’re in good company.” Kelly looks around the room. “I didn’t know about the speaker cancelling until right before we walked in. Sorry you had to do that by yourself.”

  I send her an imploring look. “Was it awful?”

  And you know what they say: the truth is in the hesitation. “It wasn’t terrible . . .”

  “Oh shut up. It was awful.”

  “Pretty bad. But good news.” She pats me on the shoulder. “A few people fell asleep, so not everyone will remember it.”

  “Thanks a lot.”

  “Anytime.” She takes a few steps backward and motions for her class to join her. “I’ll see you later.”

  “See you later.” I’m left standing all by myself in a sea of jabbering people, wishing it wasn’t my planning period. Forty-five minutes without children. Forty-five minutes in front of me to replay the disaster of the past hour. There are some things in life you just never get over. Embarrassment. The feeling of being unprepared for life’s biggest moments. The dismissal of a coworker, even one you can’t stand. And being abandoned by a man you were actually beginning to like.

  I won’t forget this.

  And when I’m done, neither will my stupid, ball-playing neighbor.

  Will

  I turn my head sideways and lie here blinking into the very strong sunlight. As I study the dust particles floating in the air around me, I’m suddenly hit with a weird sense of urgency. A list flashes through my head as though I were turning the pages of a mental day planner. There’s our pregame workout this afternoon. A team meeting an hour before the game. A couple of guys talked about going out for drinks after. I’m pretty sure my dry cleaning will be ready to be picked up in an hour.

  Aw crap.

  I was supposed to be somewhere in an hour. With Olivia. For Olivia. And it’s been . . . I reach for my cell phone to check the time.

  It’s been almost three hours. The graduation ceremony is long over by now.

  I flip onto my back and scrub a hand over my face, then leave an arm across my forehead.

  The worry in her eyes when she told me about the cancelled speaker, the embarrassment I childishly made her endure at the sight of my mostly undressed self, the relief on her face when I said I would help her out. All those images and more assault me and heap layer upon layer of guilt into my subconscious. I have no idea how to apologize . . . no idea how to make it up to her . . . no idea how I will even face her.

  The lady might be a little odd, but something deep in my bones tells me that she’s sincere. She looked frightened earlier. Almost as if—

  Oh dear God. What if she had to deliver the commencement speech herself?

  The idea of Olivia up there saying words that I have no doubt would be completely off-the-cuff fills me with an unusual sense of remorse. No regrets, that’s my motto. Maybe it’s because she’s my neighbor and I know I’ll be faced with the consequences eventually, though I’m pretty sure her idea of punishment is on the same level of innocence as the rest of her seems to be. She would probably place a banana peel in my path or slam my car with hard-boiled eggs to prove whatever point she’s trying to make. I laugh a little to myself just thinking about it.

  Still.

  I really need to be more careful with people’s feelings. Really need to work at saying what I mean and keeping my word. Really need to think more about the careless decisions I make and the people they affect. The intent is always there, but the follow-through . . . let’s just say I’m better at pitching than keeping my promises. Sometimes I even think—

  The cell phone rings from its spot on my bedside table, and I groan from the desire to suppress the noise. I forgot to silence it again. Never smart, since some people have a sixth sense about when I’ll be awake. If I could find whatever triggers that sixth sense, whatever invisible switch exists that tunes certain people into my every movement, I would disable it long enough to take a freaking shower. Instead, I reach for the phone and press the on button.

  “Hello?” My voice is raspy and laced with annoyance.

  “It’s about time you answered,” my agent barks. “I’m standing outside. You’ve got exactly five minutes to get your butt out of bed and answer your front door. You’ve made quite a mess of things, and somehow we’ve got to figure out a way to clean it up.”

  “What are you talking about? I mean, I know we’ve lost a few games and some of the fault lies with me, but—”

  “I’m not talking about the losses.”

  At that, my blood stops flowing. I’ve never heard him so angry, so calmly enraged. I sit up and grip the phone, a dozen possible scenarios coming at me like water balloons thrown at a kids’ birthday party, but I’m too tired to duck, so I just sit here with drippy hair and busted latex on my face.

  Maybe it’s Olivia and her commencement speech, but that makes no sense. He doesn’t even know Olivia.

  Maybe it’s the three games we’ve lost in a row, but then only one was directly my fault.

  Maybe it’s the other night when—

  The possibilities fall in a heap around me as a nauseating sense of dread settles in my gut. The girl. The fingernails. The bar. The . . . after.

  Surely that isn’t the reason.

  How did anyone even find out?

  Chapter 9

  Olivia

  I saw him wave at me. He doesn’t think I saw him, because I’m pretty good at pretending not to notice people—I hide behind my car under the pretense that it’s dirty and needs a quick polish, I shove bags of groceries closer to my face to obstruct my vision, I slip on sunglasses and pretend to look off in the distance . . . the list is endless. When you like to keep to yourself, you’ll do whatever it takes to make sure your alone status doesn’t shift.
But I saw him. I pushed my sunglasses a little higher on my nose, and I walked right by. When he called my name, I turned up the music on my phone and kept going down the road with Perry.

  This cat and his stupid aversion to a leash. It makes no sense. We follow this routine every afternoon, though we’re currently walking in the morning since today is the first official day of summer vacation and I’m able to do whatever I want. Now I want to enjoy a nice walk. Currently all I’m doing is dragging a twenty-pound feline behind me and cursing the eventual moment when I’ll have to pick him up. It isn’t that he’s overly heavy; it’s that the wind is blowing a little harder than normal and strands of his hair will be certain to fly up my nose, and I left the house without taking my allergy medication. I’m so forgetful lately. I don’t understand what’s causing this distracted state.

  The music stops playing, replaced by the buzzing of my phone. My already precarious mood dips a little. The day is too nice for phone calls. I check the caller ID and frown. It’s been a while since we talked, and I had hoped to keep it that way. It looks like she has other ideas. I give the world a great big eye roll and slide my phone on.

  “Hello, Mother.” There are other words I could add to that sentence, but I stop at the two most important ones and leave it at that.

  “You can’t ignore me forever, Olivia Jane.”

  Suddenly too exhausted to care about germs, I sit crossed-legged on the pavement and rest my chin on my palm. This road is mostly untraveled—a good thing since I’m currently curled up in the middle of it. “I realize that, hence my answering this call.”

  “Are you going to get in contact with him or not?” she continues. All at once I remember the mother of my early childhood, the woman who brushed my hair for hours and hours just because I loved the way it felt. The woman who read me the same bedtime story night after night after night because I was a bit OCD and she was too kind to draw attention to it. The mother who packed me a peanut butter sandwich with banana and raisins every day of preschool because it turns out you never quite rid yourself of compulsive issues even as you age.

  That mother didn’t last long.

  By the time I hit kindergarten, she was replaced with someone obsessed with perfection and relentless in the pursuit of it for her children. Or, more accurately . . . for her older child. My brother. Star athlete poised for success, though success took a detour in the form of complete derailment. My mother, though . . . she’s a still-beautiful woman turned bitter from intense anger at life and all the ways it wronged her. And wronged her it has: my father, my brother, some might say even me. But sometimes you have to let go. Even if it means moving far away from the family you love for the sole purpose of being able to breathe for the first time in your life.

  As sad as it is to admit, I’m prepared for things to stay this way forever.

  “I haven’t decided whether to call him or not,” I say. It’s honest. I’ve lost sleep over my brother. I’ve cried over him. I’ve missed him and longed for one of his pep talks. But every single time my mind goes down that road, I’ve had to prevent myself from sliding into another state of depression over things I can’t change. In the end, the responsibility lies with him. It’s a concept my family has never been able to comprehend, not even when we were younger.

  Except, only recently, me.

  “He’s your brother, Olivia Jane.” I hate my middle name, especially when it’s strung together with my first and used as a curse word.

  “I’m aware of that, Mother. It’s been a year. A few more months while I try to make up my mind won’t hurt him.” I squeeze my eyes shut to ward off an impending headache. “If I call him, I’ll do it on his birthday.”

  She clears her throat, displeased with my answer.

  “I sincerely hope you won’t let another birthday go by without a word. Last year your silence nearly crushed him.”

  I open my eyes and stare at the loose bits of gravel resting beside my bare thigh.

  I don’t say that I’ve spent my life getting crushed.

  I don’t say that my life has always been about my older brother.

  I don’t say that no one ever thinks of me.

  I don’t say that it might be nice if someone—anyone—saw things from my perspective.

  Instead, I say, “I won’t. I love you,” and hang up the phone with empty promises to call my mother back soon.

  And then I curl into myself in the middle of the road, wondering what life would be like if someone cared that much about me.

  A few minutes later I’m running. It’s hard to run with a cat in your hands, which is why I make it only twenty yards—Perry’s poor head jostling against my chest, his meows coming faster and louder in protest and duration—before I give up, lower him to the pavement, and proceed to drag him behind me again. A run would be a nice way to flee the demons that keep assaulting me when I replay the conversation with my mother, but Perry won’t have it, and I can’t figure out a way to make it work. I glance at the time on my phone. Perfect. In five minutes I’ll officially be able to chalk up this last half hour as one I’d like to permanently forget.

  My mother.

  My brother.

  That phone call.

  The latest email from my principal this morning—another not-so-gentle reminder to set up next year’s graduation speaker at least three months in advance to save myself repeated embarrassment, as though I hadn’t done that this year. As though I needed yet another reminder that my speech sucked, and I rarely use words like suck because there are much more interesting words in the English language. More dignified. Less crass.

  But it sucked. That’s the best way to describe it.

  I’m dwelling on this very sad fact when I look up and see him. And if there’s actually a rock bottom in life—if it’s possible to physically hit it—I just did.

  Will Vandergriff.

  Jogging right toward me.

  And aside from scooping Perry up and holding him in front of my face, I have no way to hide. I glance at my cat, glance at Will’s approaching form, panic, panic more, worry about the speed at which my heart is racing.

  And then decide it’s hopeless.

  Twisting the loop of the leash in a tight ring around my wrist, I stand in the road and wait. I wish for the earth to open up and swallow me, for a tree to choose this exact moment to fall on me, for a car to flatten me perpendicular to the yellow lines, for a very out-of-place mountain lion to—

  “What’s that look on your face for?” Will comes to a halt in front of me. In his black fitted tee and gray gym shorts, he’s all sweaty and wind-blown and perfect. Seriously, his brown hair looks like he just rolled out of bed—and not from sleeping. It makes me dislike him even more. I cross my arms over my chest, inadvertently choking Perry. He squeals. I look down and gasp when I see that I’ve accidently hung him by his own leash. I loosen the leash and plant what I hope is a menacing glare into my eyes.

  “What look? The one that I hope communicates how much I’d like to kill you?” A friend once told me I had a way of sounding intensely threatening if I tried hard enough. That’s the tone I’m going for now. Will doesn’t flinch like I hoped, so it’s hard to know if it worked.

  “No, I mean the look of terror, the look that says you’re afraid of me, the look that screams someone find me a place to hide. That look.” He glances at Perry. “And speaking of killing, good job almost doing it to your furball.”

  I’m now fairly sure it didn’t work. My eyes narrow because now he’s just getting on my nerves. “Stop calling him that. I’m not afraid of you, and I certainly have no desire to hide.” Lies, all lies. He doesn’t need to know that.

  “It sure looked like it.” He takes a deep breath and rests his hands on very well-defined hips. And in those shorts, it’s hard not to stare at—

  “You mad at me?”

  I force my eyes upward and focus on his question, telling myself his body is officially off-limits. Until he raises the hem of his tee an
d uses it to swipe at his forehead. It’s so unfair, the way my eyes dart to his waistline and lock there, pulled in by some sort of athlete magnetic force that I’ve unfortunately been around my whole life. There’s comfort in familiarity. But only for a second.

  It takes work, but I make myself look away.

  His body.

  Is off-limits.

  Starting right now.

  Remember that, Olivia.

  I blink at him.

  “Why would I be mad at you?” My voice is shaky, slightly breathless. I swallow and command a little more venom in my tone. “For leaving me on my own? For breaking your word? For making me look like a fool in front of the entire student body and my coworkers? What about any of that could possibly make me mad?”

  “Touché. I deserve that.”

  “You deserve it and more.” I look toward the tree line behind Will’s head, beginning to feel my anger ebb and morph into something that feels a bit too much like rejection. I’m best friends with the emotion and don’t welcome it. Not when I’ve worked so hard for two years to keep it at bay. I gather up a little of my self-control and look at Will’s face. “Why would you do that? If you didn’t want to help, all you had to do was say so. There’s nothing nice about standing up a woman, especially not when doing so causes her so much embarrassment.”

  The words are meant to sound like a lecture; instead they wind up sounding pathetic. Like a plea for an apology. Maybe that’s what they are. A lock of hair escapes my ponytail and I push it off my forehead. When it falls again, I leave it alone and stare at the ground.

  “Hey.”

  Will’s voice is so soft that I can’t help but look up. Our gazes lock—mine wrapped in rejection, his in apology.

  “I’m sorry I stood you up. It wasn’t intentional, but it was unfair. I hope you’ll give me another chance.” He reaches out and tucks that stray strand of hair behind my ear, and my breath catches in my throat. My lungs feel so small that there’s no way I can grab enough air. His fingers brush the skin of my cheekbone and my face grows warm. I swallow, trying to remember how to speak.