Undecided

by Julianna Keyes

  “There’s no way you could have predicted how this would play out,” she argues. “Was it your best idea to move in with Kellan McVey? No, of course not. But how were you to know you’d fall for Crosbie and that stupid little May Madness mistake would come back to bite you in the ass?”

  I shrug. “Life’s not fair.” And it’s really not. How is it that I hook up with five guys and one of them winds up being my future boyfriend’s best friend and I end up the villain? How is it that Kellan can have sex with sixty-two women, catch an STI, and have his problems cured with a week’s worth of antibiotics? Crosbie literally covered up his regrets with a coat of blue paint; I tried to keep mine under the radar but that blew up in spectacular fashion. It’s the whole balance thing, all over again. In my effort to make up for being invisible in high school, I’d raced from the Nora Bora end of the spectrum right over to the Red Corset side. And for all my trouble to see and be seen, the only person who’d spotted me at all last year was a middle-aged peace officer with a flashlight and a frown.

  “Enough about me,” I say determinedly. “What’s going on with you and Nate?”

  Instead of their usual sniping, they’ve been studiously ignoring each other all afternoon, and Celestia has yet to make an appearance.

  Marcela studies her fingernails, painted to look like clouds. “Nothing.”

  “Nothing?” I narrow my eyes.

  She holds up her hands defensively. “Nothing, I swear. But…”

  I wait her out.

  “But there’s something to be said for having things out in the open,” she adds hastily. “I mean, last year with the secret admirer stuff—it was easy to pretend I didn’t know who it was. And I think it was easier for him to pretend he believed I didn’t know. And this year, as bad as it’s been seeing them together, it was easier than admitting that maybe I’d made a mistake not acknowledging him.”

  I blow out a breath. “Wow.”

  “Yeah. So, who knows what—if anything—will happen next. But you started fresh this year, and I’m going to start fresh in January. That’s my resolution. No secrets, no mixed messages.”

  “You’re going to tell Nate you like him?”

  “No, of course not. But I’m not going to pretend I don’t, either.”

  “I really feel like maybe you’re missing the point.”

  She bites the back legs off a sugar cookie shaped like a reindeer. “Well, look what happened here. You and Crosbie put it all on the line, and that flopped.”

  “You’re very sensitive.”

  “I’m just saying, maybe the truth is a little more than we can handle right now, but lying only makes it worse.”

  “You can say that again.”

  “And you can hear me say it,” she says, “whenever you want, since we’ll be roommates.”

  I stop polishing the silverware I’d picked up. “Come again?”

  She licks the red sprinkles off the reindeer’s nose. “Well, you’re homeless, and I have a spare bedroom. What kind of friend am I if I don’t insist on having you move in?”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Of course. It’ll be a boy-free zone. Kind of like what you and Kellan had, except without all the lying and gonorrhea.”

  “You know how to woo a girl.”

  “I’m going to Tahiti for two weeks; I’ll leave you my keys and you can move your stuff in. We’re talking, what? A duffel bag and a milk crate?”

  “Two milk crates.”

  “Look at you,” she coos, chucking me under the chin. “All grown up.”

  * * *

  To a perfect stranger, I’d look like anything but a grown up. In my efforts to keep my mind off Crosbie, I throw myself into studying, forsaking pretty much everything except my shifts at Beans, since I’ll now need the money more than ever. My hair is in a perpetual straggly bun, my daily uniform is the same pair of ratty jeans paired with a T-shirt and a hoodie. I haven’t made my bed since Chrisgiving, and the fitted sheet is just a crumpled ball lost under the duvet somewhere. It’s only when the last exam is written and it’s time to pack my bags to head home for the week that I survey the situation and realize what a mess I am. Perhaps it’s for the best that Crosbie’s been ignoring me since that awful night—if he came by and saw this, he’d hightail it right back out of here.

  I blow out a heavy breath and grab my hamper, resolutely filling it with every washable item in the room. Every item of clothing, save the pair of sweatpants and T-shirt I’m currently wearing, every piece of bedding—nothing is safe. I march the entire thing into the kitchen and start what will probably be the first of five loads, doubling up on detergent. I won’t lie: it’s starting to smell, and I’m not going to take this mess with me into either the new year or my new apartment. It will be a fresh, clean start, in more ways than one.

  My bus leaves at noon tomorrow and since Kellan’s in California until January second, I’ve booked a ticket back for New Year’s Eve to give myself a day and a half to finish packing and get everything carted over to Marcela’s before his return. With the room largely empty, there’s no way to ignore the obvious, and I stare at my desk and bed until my lower lip trembles, and not just because it’s sad to think about dismantling them only to rebuild them a week and a half from now. It’s sad because they make me think about Crosbie; this whole room makes me think about him. Everything does. I’ve taken to leaving my phone in my sock drawer so I can’t text him whenever the urge hits, which is still with embarrassing frequency. I know I can’t afford to go down this depressing road, so I trudge back into the kitchen to collect Kellan’s toolbox and decide the bed will be my first victim.

  I drag off the mattresses and stash them in the living room, and that small act has my muscles burning and my breath coming in harsh pants, making me consider abandoning the bed altogether and crashing on the couch until I leave. But I don’t. Loose ends are my newest nemesis, and I’m going to see this thing through. At least, that’s the plan until I crouch next to the bed, wrench in hand, and spot the small red box on the floor.

  I’ve definitely never seen it before. It’s flat and square, not quite as large as a CD, the velvet smooth and soft under my fingers. The wrench clatters when I drop it back into the toolbox, but I barely register the noise over the thudding of my heart. I know this room was empty when I moved in; I know I have never seen this box before. Sometime between Labor Day and today, this thing…materialized.

  Equally frantic parts of me are warring over whether or not I should hope it’s something from Crosbie or just something Kellan accidentally tossed in here. He’s forever throwing things from the couch into the kitchen, swearing he can land them in the sink. Why he would do that with a red velvet box—

  Okay. I’m just going to open it.

  I take a deep breath and lift the lid, feeling the strong fight of the springs, as though it’s never been opened before. When I see the fine gold chain bearing a tiny book pendant, I know this has nothing to do with Kellan. Nothing does. I’ve known this for a long time; the one person who needs to know it is the only one who doesn’t.

  If I were smarter and saner, I’d snap this box shut and leave it in Kellan’s room, asking him to return it to Crosbie when—and if—he sees him again. But I’m not feeling even remotely smart or sane right now, and instead I lift the necklace from the box and study the delicate little book, half open to reveal dainty gold pages. It’s small enough that I have to squint to read the characters etched on the cover, but when I finally make them out, I confirm what I have known for a while: I have made a huge mistake.

  I love you.

  The tears that have been threatening for days take advantage and pour forth, stupid and sloppy, until I’m just a sobbing mess on the floor. I cram the necklace back into the box and slide it away, as unreachable as the guy who put it here in the first place. It must have been a Christmas present; he must have brought it that last night and hidden it under my pillow, and sometime in the terrible aftermath it must have
slid down between the mattress and the wall and gone unnoticed.

  Until now.

  Which is ironic, because now that it’s found, everything it represents is farther away than ever.

  The buzz of the washer finishing its cycle nearly gives me a heart attack, and I lurch to my feet and swipe at my eyes, grateful for something to do beyond sitting here weeping foolishly.

  I stick the wet clothes in the dryer and load up another batch, then take a seat at the breakfast bar and stare at my room like it’s the mouth of a dark, terrifying cave.

  Poor Crosbie. Always working so hard to present the perfect, strong image to the world. The exercise, the studying, the sweet gestures no one saw because I insisted he remain a secret. He gets so much attention being the guy people think he is, but the guy at keg parties and on bathroom walls isn’t the real Crosbie at all. It’s the person behind those ideas, the guy who works so diligently to keep the wheels turning, that counts.

  I, on the other hand, worked so hard to be seen that I let all the other things slip away. Study, be responsible, be honest, be kind. I didn’t study; I got arrested. I lied to Kellan and Crosbie; I unfriended Marcela because I needed a scapegoat to justify last year’s stupidity. Everything I did was to cultivate some ridiculous phony image, either a party girl or a studious homebody, but I’d never taken the time to shore up my defenses, to make sure the person inside was solid and sound. And to what end? The one person who finally noticed me saw past the façade to the real me and liked me anyway. Long before I was smart enough to realize it.

  I think of Nate sending those gifts to Marcela last year, her not-so-secret admirer. I think of all the times he’d listened to us recount our weekend exploits, all the times he must have wished it were him in those stories, that he could be that guy. But still he’d loved her, supported her, admired her. Until he couldn’t anymore. And then these past months, the furtive looks they’d exchanged, the not-so-significant others they’d paraded around when really it was the things they weren’t saying, they weren’t doing, that spoke volumes.

  I think of my parents, their lives together but not, residing in separate halves of a home. They insist on presenting a united front for my benefit, but nobody benefits from this arrangement. When my back is turned they resume hating one another, a festering and unnecessary contempt that should have ended long ago.

  We can scream and fight and cry and ignore, but really, it’s the things we do when we think nobody’s watching that reveal the most. Well, I’m done. No more messes, no more lies.

  Starting now.

  * * *

  Snow crunches under the tires as we pull into the dingy bus depot in Grayson, Washington, and I see my parents fighting for top billing as they stand clustered with the small crowd gathered just inside the terminal doors. In typical fashion they’d both dressed in neon colors to try to stand out more than the other: my mother in pink, my father in yellow. I’m pretty sure I remember those jackets from an ill-fated ski trip when I was six. In any case, they’re effective: there’s not a single person on the bus who hasn’t noticed them.

  “Hi!” my mom exclaims, folding me in a hug when I enter.

  “Hi,” I say, the words muffled against the rayon fabric of her jacket. I extricate myself from her grip only to be pulled into my father’s hug.

  “How you doing, Nora Bora?” he asks. “Got anymore luggage?”

  “No,” I say, stepping away and hefting my backpack onto my shoulder. “Just this.”

  “That’s not very much for a week.”

  “I don’t need much.” There’s not a whole lot to do in Grayson, and given my non-existent high school popularity, I don’t have many friends to catch up with or places to go. Unfortunately, the same can currently be said about Burnham.

  “You look great,” my mom says, leading the way to the parking lot.

  “Thanks.” I shiver in the damp air and zip my coat to my chin. Then I sigh as we reach the cars. Two of them. Parked side by side, ready for me to make a choice.

  “Get in,” they say, reaching for the passenger side doors of both vehicles.

  “Were two cars really necessary?” I ask tiredly. “When we’re going to the same house?”

  “It’s a duplex,” my dad points out.

  “It’s the same structure.”

  “But two homes.”

  “Yes, I get it. But you’re wasting gas.” And truthfully—no matter who I choose, no matter the reason, someone’s feelings are going to get hurt. There are only two sides in this equation, much like there are two sides in the duplex. There’s no safe, neutral territory. Maybe that’s why a comfortable middle balance is at once so appealing and so difficult to achieve.

  “Fine,” I say, when neither of them gives in. My dad is parked at the end of the aisle, which means the door opens wider so I can stuff my bag in easily. “I choose this car. See you at the two homes.”

  My mom looks wounded. “But I—”

  “You wanted me to choose. I chose. Let’s go.”

  They look startled as I sling my bag into the footwell and follow, buckling my seatbelt. In previous years I’d bemoaned their behavior and pleaded with them not to do things like this. It’s not a competition. I love them both, as much as they frustrate me. But their unspoken war has more to do with each other than it ever has with me.

  My dad seems pleased as we ride home, telling me about his current girlfriend, Sandy, who works at a gym, and their plans to go to Antigua in the spring. “Your mother’s going to Mexico,” he says, his tone almost pitying. “That’s a little...done, don’t you think?”

  “Is Mexico ‘done?’” I echo. “I don’t know. I’ve never been.”

  He’s been, three times. My mother’s been as well. But I’ve never been invited.

  We stop for a red light and he turns to look at me, expression serious. “Are you okay, Nora? You seem a little tense.”

  “It was a long bus ride, that’s all.” It’s late afternoon but the sky is already growing dark. I feign a yawn and he seems to buy it.

  We make our way silently through the center of town, the icy streets still busy as people finish up their last-minute shopping. It’s Christmas Eve, so shops will be open for another few hours, and when we pass a grocery store, I sit up in my seat.

  “Who has the turkey?” I ask.

  “Hmm?”

  “The turkey. Who’s making it this year? You or mom?”

  “Oh, your mother, I believe. Don’t worry—I bought hamburgers, just in case.”

  We stop for another light, my mother idling right beside us. I roll down my window and gesture for her to do the same. “Do you have a turkey?” I shout.

  “What?”

  “Do you have a turkey?”

  “Your father’s making it!”

  “He said you were!”

  “Robert!” she yells past me. “You said you would get it!”

  “I offered,” he hollers back, “but you said I would lose it!”

  “And then you said—”

  I roll up the window on the argument. “Stop at Carters.”

  * * *

  We end up with a small but obnoxiously overpriced bird that sits in the laundry sink in my mother’s basement overnight, presumably thawing. I explain I’ll be alternating sides of the duplex during my stay, starting with mom’s house tonight so I can keep an eye on the turkey.

  Christmas morning is the usual strained affair. My parents act as though everything is all right and I sit there in pajamas opening too many presents as they try to outdo each other with things like perfume and scarves and gaudy jewelry—none of which I would ever wear, but thank them for all the same. I think we’re all relieved when the last gift is unwrapped and I head down to the basement to grab the turkey from its chilly bath.

  Kellan had insisted on explaining the whole turkey process as he performed it, gross things like grabbing the innards that are stashed inside and sewing parts to other parts so it stays together. I skip the �
�brining,” mostly because I don’t know what brine is, and skim the recipe he’d texted me, mixing up breadcrumbs and diced vegetables and a variety of spices rescued from the depths of my mother’s pantry.

  I gag a little as I stuff the bird and rub butter under its pebbled skin, then stick the whole thing in the oven. I threaten to go home immediately if this bird disappears for even one second, and both my parents promise to remain hands off. To be honest, they look a little frightened by my uncharacteristic decisiveness.

  All too soon it’s time for dinner. I make my way downstairs where I’m introduced to dad’s girlfriend, Sandy, and Byron, mom’s new boyfriend. Each relationship is still in its early stages, far too early for Christmas dinner with each other’s ex, if their strained expressions are any indication.

  For the first time in years, we sit down to a meal that involves actual turkey cooked in our oven. Everyone makes appreciative noises as my dad carves it up, and I feel a tiny, satisfied thrill when we start eating and no one pulls any supplementary food items from their pockets. It’s already more successful than Chrisgiving.

  “So,” Byron says, peering at me over his wine glass. “You’re at Burnham, is that right?”

  “I am.”

  “My alma mater,” my father chimes in, uninvited.

  Byron just glances at him before returning his attention to me. “What are you studying?”

  “I’m undecided.”

  “I thought this was your second year.”

  “It is.”

  My mom smiles reassuringly. “There’s no timeline for finding your way,” she assures me. “When you get there, you’ll know.”

  Dad and Sandy scoff in unison.

  “I’m sorry, Robert,” my mom says tersely. “Is something wrong?”

  “Wrong?” he asks. “No, Diane, nothing’s wrong. Why would it be?”

  “I—”

  “Though there is a timeline,” he continues. “It’s four years. And each one costs a small fortune.”