“What are you doing?” I ask.
“Leaving you alone, isn’t that what you wanted?” he asks before saying to the driver, “Please make sure she makes it inside her house.” Then he shuts the door.
“Hold on,” I tell the driver and get out. Cabot is walking down the lot toward the street. “Where are you going?” I yell.
“I’m getting my own cab. Go home, Mariely. Enjoy your life free of any drama that you haven’t pre-scripted or any real emotions. That’s your comfort zone.”
I chase after his retreating back. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means you’re a coward.”
I stop chasing. “I’m a coward? You’re the one running away.” I stalk back toward the cab. Haven’t I had enough of exactly this tonight already? “Walk home, then, I don’t care.”
“Yes, you do,” he yells back, “you’re just too scared to actually deal with it. No wonder you love the theater so much. You get to pretend all of these emotions without having to deal with the consequences of actually feeling them. That’s why you stayed with Jacen, even though you knew deep down something wasn’t right between you two, because he didn’t make you feel anything you couldn’t control. But I do, I make you feel all those things, don’t I, Mariely? And you can’t control them and that scares the shit out of you.”
Oh, I’m definitely feeling something out of control now—rage.
“What do you know about being scared, Cabot Wheeler? With your sports car and your trust fund? Oh, boo hoo, your dad left. No, he didn’t. You see him every week over pâté and lobster tails, and every month he still writes out a big check so you can attend private art school. My mother abandoned me in the parking lot of a grocery store when I was twelve years old with my brother and sister who were babies. Every month we don’t know if we’re going to have enough money to make rent or keep on the lights or buy groceries. So I have to take extra shifts at the Drafthouse on top of studying and rehearsals to make ends meet, but if my grades drop I’ll lose my scholarship and if that happens I can kiss good-bye just about any chance I have of making it out of that shitty trailer park, much less making it onstage. That’s fear. That’s the zone I live in, Cabot. So when it comes to my personal relationships, I think I’m entitled to a little more comfort and a lot less disappointment.”
Everything becomes quiet and still between us. Ms. Nelson once explained in physics about these certain types of bombs that upon detonation suck all of the air from the blast radius, suffocating the victims. That’s what it feels like now in this parking lot, standing here staring at Cabot while he stares back at me, both of us caught in the suffocating shock wave of the giant emotional bomb I just dropped, and all the air is gone.
“Mariely…” He says my name as barely a whisper, but I hear the pity in his voice and I can’t take it, not from him. I jump into the cab and slam shut the door.
“Drive,” I tell the cabbie, but before the poor harried man can get the car in gear, Cabot barges into the backseat with me, again. I lose it. “God, Cabot, just let me go, please? I don’t want to talk anymore. I’m done. I’m done with you. I’m done with this whole stupid thing.”
“Should I go or not go?” the driver asks.
“Give me one minute, please,” Cabot tells him. I huff and turn my back to him—I can’t stop him from talking, but I don’t have to look at him while he does. I lean my forehead against the window; my reflection is a mess, tears and smeared makeup, like a melting clown.
“You’re right, I shouldn’t have broken up with you to save you from Audrey because you can obviously save yourself. You’re right, this whole fauxmance thing was probably not the best idea, for either of us. You’re right, we are very different, our backgrounds, where we live, how we dress, what we want. And most of all you’re right, I don’t know what it’s like to be really scared. I don’t have a clue what it must be like to have the person who’s supposed to love you and take care of you just walk out of your life, or be seventeen years old and deal with all the shit that you do. Where you’re wrong, though, dead wrong, is thinking that knowing any of this would change how I feel about you. I think you’re amazing. I think you’re one of the strongest people I will ever know. So I’ll understand if you still want me to get out of this cab, but if you do…it’ll be the greatest disappointment of my life.”
My chest is throbbing from holding back the ugly sobs I’m one more word away from unleashing on him and our poor driver.
Don’t go, I want to tell him so badly. Tell him and then fall so far into him that I believe everything he said, all of it. That I’m amazing and strong, and that his knowing how different we really are doesn’t matter. But I don’t tell him, and I bite down on my lips to keep the words from escaping.
Because deep down I know it does matter, maybe not to Cabot, but to me. This is the one difference that’s too great for us to overcome.
Once you know something you can’t unknow it. That’s why in the whole world there are only two people outside my family who know my story: Jacen and Willa. My story is sad and awful in the way that makes people feel sorry for me. That’s not what I want from anyone, especially Cabot.
My breath is shaky. “Good-bye, Cabot.” Nothing moves inside the cab for several seconds not even the driver, and then a door opens and I feel Cabot slide from the seat.
He clears his throat. “Please make sure she gets inside her house,” he repeats quietly before shutting the door firmly behind him. The cab rolls slowly forward and we pull back onto the road. The driver turns up the radio so he doesn’t have to listen to my ugly sobbing all the way home.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Willa, Damien, and I walk across the yard toward our classes after lunch. It’s Tuesday, so we have track classes and I’ve been shut up in the Black Box all day. I deliberately steer us so that we can see the parking lot while at the same time trying not to act like I’m scanning for Cabot’s Porsche. He wasn’t at school Monday, and I haven’t seen him today, either.
“He’s not here, so you can stop looking for his car.” Willa’s BFF superpowers strike again.
“How do you know?”
“That Cabot’s not here, or that you’re looking for him?”
I shoot her an impatient look. “The first one.”
“Because he came by my house last night to hang out with Finn.”
I grab her arm. “Cabot was at your house last night, and you’re just now telling me this? It’s almost one o’clock. Don’t you think that’s the type of information I might want to know in real time, not half a day later?”
“Oh, I’m sorry, I remembered you telling me you left him in a dark parking lot right after he told you how amazing he thinks you are. I thought that was a pretty clear signal that you and he are over. And if that’s the case there’s really no reason to keep you updated on his and Finn’s budding bromance, is there?”
Willa’s not thrilled with how I handled the post-dance Cabot situation. She’s been a tad more sarcastic with me than usual the past couple of days. “No, you’re right, Wills. I made a choice, and I have to live with it. I have to move on.”
She huffs. “Well, if you want Cabot to move on you might get your wish. I heard him tell Finn he’s thinking about transferring back to his old school.”
My heart squeezes painfully. Not being with Cabot is one thing, but possibly never seeing him again…I didn’t think this could get any worse, but with my history I should have known better. “You mean leave NextGen? But what about his photography? His painting? I can’t believe he’d give them up. I also cannot believe you didn’t tell me this earlier. That’s really shitty, Willa.”
“You can’t have it both ways. Either Cabot is in your life, or he’s not. And if he’s not, his plans can’t matter to you.”
“But he’s being ridiculous. He can’t give up art—he loves it too much. If he quits now he’ll never know whether or not he could be great at it.”
“Sounds familiar
, doesn’t it?” Willa gives me a pointed look before she continues on her smug way to the writing building.
Whatever. Sometimes having a best friend is a real pain in the ass.
During rehearsal I’m a mess. Again. I forget my lines, my blocking, I can’t focus on anything except that Cabot might quit NextGen for good.
“Jesus, Mariely, get it together,” Damien growls after I ask to start a scene over for the fourth time.
To my surprise, Jacen jumps to my defense. “Because we’ve never had to start over for you, have we, Damien?”
Mrs. Steele calls for a five-minute break so we can regroup. I rummage through my bag for my script.
Jacen sits down on the floor next to me. “So, I guess you and Cabot didn’t work things out?”
I don’t really want to talk about this with him, so I keep my answer succinct. “No, we didn’t.”
“That sucks. I spent a lot of time on his makeup.”
“I’m surprised you agreed to do it—you weren’t exactly Cabot’s biggest fan.”
“Eh, I was wrong—he’s a good guy. I think you and he would be good together.”
I feel myself heating up, getting pissed. “What is it with everybody getting on Cabot’s side of this now? You’re the one who told me I shouldn’t even be in a relationship, now you think I should be?”
“Don’t take this the wrong way, because I love you, but you come with a lot of baggage. Even more than me. I think Cabot is the kind of guy who can handle that.”
“What makes you think so?”
“That day I was warning you not to be with him and he interrupted us, well, he came back in the theater. At first I thought he was pissed, that you’d told him what I’d said. Instead he said that I didn’t need to worry about you being with him, that everything was going to be good. I could tell he meant it, that he was really into you.”
I remembered that day, when he gave me his sunglasses and disappeared. “He never told me that.”
“I know. I asked him about it while I was painting his face.”
“Did he tell you anything else, about what happened between us?”
“No. The only thing he said was that he hoped he hadn’t missed his chance with you, and y’all being awesome together.”
What if we do this and it’s awesome?
Could we still be? I didn’t know; so much had happened already before we’d had a chance to find out. I lean over and kiss Jacen on the cheek. “Thank you. You’re a good friend. I hope you’re a better boyfriend to Himesh, though, than you were to me. But I’m glad I can still be your leading lady on the stage.”
“Me, too,” he says. “I hope you make it work with Cabot; you deserve to be happy.”
I smile and say, “I know. I really do.” And for the first time I can remember since my mom left, I believe it.
I ask Mrs. Steele to be excused, telling her I don’t feel well, which given my lackluster performance today she doesn’t question at all. After I leave class my first thought is to get to Cabot as soon as possible, and basically wrap myself around his ankles, Audrey-style, until he takes me back. Except I don’t have a car, and even if I did, I don’t know where he lives—I’ve only been to his dad’s house, and he doesn’t stay there every day.
I take out my phone. I’ll text him to come get me so we can talk. I mean, he would come if I asked, right? But what if he won’t? What if he doesn’t want to talk to me? I didn’t want to talk to him after he broke up with me. Oh, Betty Bacall! I don’t know what to do.
Suddenly, it comes to me. I may not know where he lives, and I’m too scared he might not answer if I text or call, but I know exactly where he’ll be Thursday night at eight. If Cabot is willing to leave his comfort zone to prove how much I’m worth to him, I can do the same.
I’ll just need a dress.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Cabot got out of his car and handed the keys to the valet. Three times on the way over he’d pressed the buttons on his phone to call his dad and cancel, but hung up before the call connected. Mariely had made him realize how childish he’d been about this whole thing with his father. He didn’t know if he could quite forgive him for what he’d done, but having dinner once a week was a start.
The club was full as always on Thursday night. He made his way to his dad’s usual table near the windows in back. Cabot hoped his dad hadn’t brought another “friend” tonight; he wanted to broach the subject of going back to his old school and didn’t particularly want an audience. As he got closer to the table, though, he saw his father and caught a glimpse of long dark hair. Cabot sighed. That his father didn’t want to be alone with him and vice versa was as much his own fault as his father’s. Tonight, though, he’d be on his best behavior—he couldn’t handle another fight with his dad on top of everything else this week.
His father rose from his seat when he arrived. “There you are, Cabot. We’ve been waiting.”
The woman turned, and Cabot saw that it wasn’t a woman at all, or rather, not one he’d been expecting.
Mariely smiled tentatively. “Hi, Cabot. I hope you don’t mind that I came tonight. I wanted to see you and this was where I knew you would be.”
Mind? For days now he hadn’t slept, he hadn’t eaten as his mind ran a constant loop thinking about how everything had gone wrong with her, and how he couldn’t make it right. He’d worried his mom so badly that she made him a doctor’s appointment, then he’d milked it all week so he wouldn’t have to go to school and see Mariely at all. Now here she was in the absolute last place he’d ever imagined.
“What are you doing here?”
She chewed her lip nervously for a moment, before she sat up and squared her shoulders. “Leaving my comfort zone. I know I said that we are too different, that the drama was too much, and that I was too scared of being disappointed and getting my heart broken again to be with you, but over the last few days I’ve been thinking. And I think I might be stronger than I thought. Or at least I am when I’m with you. So I came here tonight because I wanted to ask you something.” She paused, bit her lip again and Cabot felt his own breathing stop as he waited. When he thought he couldn’t stand waiting another second, she closed her eyes and blurted in a rush of words, “What if we do this and it’s awesome?”
Cabot stood still, afraid to move, to even blink, because if he did he thought he might wake up and discover he had finally fallen asleep and none of this was real. Instead, he drank in the way her dark hair fell in waves around her shoulders, memorized the way the candlelight brushed across the bridge of her nose, danced along her cheekbones, and lit up her beautiful brown eyes. She looked absolutely luminous. If he had his camera with him to capture this moment, he would title the picture The Beginning.
Hadn’t she been the one who told him beginnings are always the best? Full of possibility and perfection? Just like her.
He took a deep, full breath, the first he’d been able since he’d watched her ride away in that cab, and felt himself waking up, coming fully back to life. He finally blinked and she was still there, nibbling on her lip and waiting for him to answer. He thought about kissing that lip, soothing away all those little nervous bites, and he couldn’t make her wait any longer.
“Let’s be awesome.”
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Acknowledgments
Some authors may write books on their own, but for me it is definitely a team effort.
Emily McKay, who coaches and cajols, and listens to me for hours into the night while I get the story just right in my head…until the next day. Tracy Deebs, who tells me to put on my big girl panties and get it done. Sherry Thomas, who wo
n’t put up with drama or bullshit, but texts me to make sure I’m doing okay. Courtney Murati, who spends her weekends with me at coffeeshops and tries tirelessly to keep me on task while I make deadline. Tyler, who can’t understand why I do something that keeps me from sleeping, makes me the other side of crazy, and means we’ll never get to finish Making A Murderer, but never asks me to stop. And, of course, Maddy, who could never understand why any girl would be dumb enough to break up with Cabot. I love you all.
About the Author
There are three things (besides her family) that Shellee loves more than Netflix: Dr Pepper, OTPs, and book boyfriends (I’m looking at you, Gilbert Blythe).
Shellee has been told that her life goal as a writer should be to win prestigious awards that will grant her literary immortality, but as an OG shipper (Tad and Dixie—my first hardcore ship) all she really wants is to create two characters that people love so much they give them a cool mashup name.
Shellee spends her days living the dream with her family in Austin, Texas—and by living the dream she means waking up at the crack of dawn to go to work, chauffeur, walk dogs, do dishes, and fold laundry. At night she gets down to real business, basking in the warm, blue glow of her computer screen and bringing the stories in her head to life on the page...or watching shipper fan videos on YouTube till 2 a.m. Tomorrow she’s definitely going to kick that procrastination problem to the curb.
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