He let us in and Pilar winked at us. “You just gotta act like you know what you’re talking about.”
We got over to the room and suddenly I couldn’t move.
“I can’t intrude on this personal, private moment. He doesn’t need my drama on a day when his grandpa is in intensive care,” I said.
“You might be exactly what he needs,” Charlotte said. “The worst he can do is throw you out.”
I walked in and Nick was sitting next to his grandfather. He looked stunned when he saw me and stood up.
“What are you doing here?” he asked.
“I heard you were here all by yourself,” I said. “How’s your grandpa?”
“It’s pneumonia. I think I got him sick. I wasn’t feeling well, like, two days after I saw him and I just had a little cold, but maybe this is all my fault. I swear I felt fine when I was at the nursing home. If I thought I was sick I never would have gone,” he said. “And mine lasted two days. I feel fine now or I wouldn’t be in here.”
“Of course not. You always put him first. This isn’t your fault.”
“I go every weekend to watch the movie with him. I don’t even know if he realizes that, but I didn’t want him to be confused and wonder where I was on Saturday, so I went. I was kind of tired, but that was it. No symptoms or anything.”
“You didn’t know.”
“I have good intentions, so why do I end up hurting everyone I care about?” he asked.
I didn’t know what to say so I walked over and sat down next to him. Mr. Jenkins had his eyes shut and an oxygen mask over his face.
“Is he going to be okay?” I asked.
“The doctors seem to think so. Thank you for coming.”
I nodded and said Pilar and Charlotte were in the hall.
“Oh, do you have to go?” he asked.
“I can stay as long as you need me.”
“Good, because I need you,” he said.
“Do you want me to go and see if Kevin heard from your parents yet?”
He shook his head. “No, just stay with me, please. I guess this isn’t the birthday you had planned, huh?”
“I got some nice gifts,” I said.
“Oh?”
“Mmhmm, I got a bracelet I love.”
“Oh yeah?”
I moved my sleeve and just pulled the You’re My Person one out to show him. “Pilar got it for me. Isn’t that sweet? And Asia got me this one.”
He nodded.
“But I kind of like this one as well,” I said, pulling my sleeve up to reveal the one he had given me.
He looked shocked. “You’re wearing it.”
“Yup.”
“Just to be clear, this is the one from me and not some other guy, right?”
“Yup.”
His grandpa made a gasping sound then and Nick stood up to check on him. Nick’s face was creased with worry and I realized that compared to the rest of us, Nick, Pilar, and Kevin had been through so much worrying about hospital visits and family members.
Nick sat back down and stared at his grandfather.
“I don’t get it, Hadley. I wasn’t that sick. I stayed home the extra days because after we talked on Saturday, it sounded like you were starting to see my side of it. I was hoping you’d call and when you didn’t, I was so down. I didn’t want to deal with facing anyone and I was hoping you’d reach out to me if you thought I was sick. And now I might have infect—”
“Don’t. You didn’t.”
“I caused this. It’s all my fault.”
I shook my head.
“Nick, honey, we didn’t have our phone on.” Nick’s mom rushed into the room with his dad. “Oh, Hadley, thank you for being here with him.”
The nurse filled in Nick’s parents on his grandpa’s condition and said Mr. Jenkins was stable.
“Hon, why don’t you take Hadley home? You could use some rest,” Mrs. Jenkins said.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, go. Oh, Hadley, did you like your birthday gift?” she asked with a smile.
I nodded. “Loved it.”
“Good, now take the birthday girl home.”
Pilar and Charlotte were sitting on a bench by the nurse’s station.
“How is he?” Pilar asked him.
Nick filled her in and then blamed himself for causing it.
“You don’t even sound congested,” Charlotte said.
“Nick, take it from someone who has been here enough that the nurse over there called me by name,” Pilar said. “This was most likely caused by him getting food into his lungs. He’s in a wheelchair so he doesn’t move around like he used to and you and I both know they put them to bed soon after dinner at the home and that’s not the best thing for digestion. Plus, he needs a lot of liquids when he eats, so there ya go. It wasn’t your fault.”
He looked at me, unsure. “But I didn’t feel good Sunday night.”
“Hold on.” Pilar walked over to the nurse. “Do they know if this pneumonia is bacterial or what?”
The nurse looked at Nick. “It’s very common with people in wheelchairs to aspirate and we have orders that when he’s able to eat, he needs pureed foods for that reason. He’ll be fine.”
The nurse went back into the room and Nick looked over at Pilar.
“So it wasn’t my fault?” he asked.
Pilar shook her head.
We started to walk out of the ward when Nick asked if we could go into the chapel for a minute.
“Are you riding with us, Nick?” Pilar asked.
“No, I have my car.”
“Should we meet you at your house, Hadley?” she asked.
I nodded. “Why don’t you come over for a bit, Nick. You shouldn’t be alone tonight.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah.”
Nick and I went into the chapel and lit candles for his grandpa. We sat down and the room was so quiet and peaceful with the flickering candlelight. There was a book left open on the seat next to me with prayer petitions people had written down. I noticed one person had written:
Please pray for a merucal for my dad.
I realized they meant miracle and had just sounded the word out. Nick reached over and held my hand as we sat in silence. After a few minutes we went out to the parking lot.
“You all right?” I asked.
“I dunno. I guess. That nurse seemed pretty sure Grandpa was going to be okay. Right?”
“Yeah, I don’t think she would have told you that if there was any doubt in her mind.”
He nodded. “True.”
“I had no idea how much Pilar had been through with her grandmother,” I said. “You should have heard her with the desk guy. She sounded like a doctor.”
“Yeah, she and Kevin are both talking about going to medical school. I think going through all of this with her grandmother has made her see everything differently, you know?”
We pulled into my driveway and went inside.
Charlotte and Pilar were at the table eating popcorn.
“We’ll give you a little privacy and take our snacks and go watch Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” Charlotte said.
Chapter Twenty-Four
I felt nervous once the girls left the room, so I asked Nick if he had eaten anything tonight. He shook his head and I heated up some leftovers for us both.
“Can I ask you something?” Nick asked. “Where do we stand now? I mean…are we boyfriend and girlfriend again or what? You do believe me now, right? I mean, I got that vibe the other day at the nursing home that you were sorta thinking I was telling the truth. And I don’t think you’d show up at the hospital if you thought I had cheated on you. Right?”
He looked so unsure of himself as he sat there. I took our food over to the table and sat next to him.
“This whole thing has been hard on me. I guess knowing you liked Simone at one time made me feel insecure, and then when I heard something happened between you two it was like my worst fears coming true
,” I said. “I wanted to believe you all along and I kept asking people what I should do, hoping they’d somehow have this magical way for me to know what really happened that day. But the only two people who know are you and Simone.”
He nodded. “Yeah, and you have to take either her word on it or mine. I get that, what I don’t get was how you could take her side. Even when she did admit to kissing me, you stayed friends with her and froze me out. I thought we had this connection and suddenly it was like she was forgiven and I was this scum bag pervert who cheated on you. I told you the truth. I never lied to you.”
“My friends and even my aunt all said that you always take a friend’s side over a boyfriend. That boyfriends come and go, but friends are forever,” I said, poking at my food with a fork.
“Yeah, but we weren’t just boyfriend and girlfriend—we were best friends. And I never gave you any reason to doubt me. Can you say she was always there for you?”
I looked away.
“And you said you hated me, yet I don’t recall you ignoring her in the hall or walking away from her,” he said.
“Simone is this larger than life type who just goes with her heart and makes these—”
“You mean she’s flighty and she acts without thinking or considering the consequences to her actions,” he said.
“Maybe. I just…every girl wants to be like her and every guy wants to be with her. That’s hard to compete with.”
“Hadley, there is no competition. You should never compare yourself to anyone, but especially not to her.”
“I know, I can’t compete with a gorgeous ex-TV star.”
Nick put his hand on my arm. “She was my friend, but she can be shallow and self-absorbed, and you are not at all—”
“I know, I’m nothing like her or your ex,” I said, looking down.
“Exactly, you’re sweet, thoughtful, and sensitive to other people’s feelings, a good friend. You were mad at me and you still helped out my grandpa the other day.”
“I guess you’re going against type, huh? No more pretty mean girls,” I said, feeling uneasy.
“I dunno, you were kind of mean to me when I was trying to tell you how I felt about you at the nursing home. So maybe I’m still into that,” he said with a little smile.
“Not funny.”
“Wait, are you mad?” he asked.
My phone got a message and it was Simone sending me an online quiz about which Hollywood star you were the most like based on your online profile and she took it for all of us.
“Simone just got she’s most like Marilyn Monroe in some quiz thing,” I said.
“Okay, but back to why you’re acting all weird,” he said.
I wanted to push it all under the surface. To not face it and just ride this out, but I knew I would always feel queasy when the subject of how different I was from his exes and how “sweet” I was would come up. If we were going to have anything real, then I had to be truthful about how I was feeling.
“The things you say about me and your exes sometimes make me feel a little self-conscious. Everyone knows Reagan was always sitting on your lap and she’s so pretty and sophisticated, and there’s you liking Simone—this blonde TV star—and then you say stuff like I’m the opposite of them. I worry one day you’ll wake up and realize you just needed a distraction from their drama for a bit and then you’ll figure out you only liked me as a friend,” I said.
“That’s what you’ve been feeling this whole time?”
I nodded. “And then when the kiss happened it was like it confirmed it.”
“Wow. Okay, I had no idea it was coming across to you like that. I thought you realized when I was saying all that stuff, it was to let you know how much I liked you compared to those superficial relationships and crushes I had in the past. Hadley, I only told you that stuff to let you know how much more we had as a couple than I did with anyone else. I didn’t know you felt insecure about any of that. The entire time I was with Reagan, all she did was take selfies and then go through and see which one she looked the prettiest in to post online.”
“Yeah, I heard that’s not all you did,” I said, taking a bite of lasagna.
“She did always sit on my lap whenever we were out with people. It was weird. On our own, she was more into herself and once we were with a crowd she was hanging on me, but we never talked about anything…unless you count which filter made her skin look the best.”
“Simone likes sunset for indoor pics and venetian for outdoor lighting,” I said.
“And what’s your best filter?”
“I don’t use one. I’m afraid if I post something altered, people will know it’s not real and make fun of me.”
He asked if he could see my phone. “So the new Marilyn here took the quiz for all your profiles. Reagan got Sophia Loren—she’s sex appeal and sophistication. And Charlotte got Natalie Wood. Did you see your result?”
I shook my head and said I didn’t scroll down far enough.
“Audrey Hepburn. Adorable and helps others.”
Such a femme fatale. The sex appeal must be oozing off me.
“Kinda suits you,” he said.
“We rented one of Audrey’s movies tonight, but I haven’t seen it yet. I’ve only seen one of her movies.”
“I was kind of falling for her in Sabrina when they showed it the other day.”
“Well, who doesn’t love the girl next door—or the girl over the garage.”
“True, but that’s not exactly how I’d describe her,” he said, handing me my phone. “You know there are a million Marilyn Monroe wannabes, but you don’t see that with Audrey.”
“Maybe no one wants to be the sweet, non-threatening type.”
“Or maybe it’s easier to copy the overly sexy blonde thing, but hard to get that genuine thing—”
“Okay, I get it. Marilyn is a goddess and so is Simone. And Reagan and Sophia are just the perfect—”
“You don’t get it,” he said. “Marilyn is known for that look and yeah, you can tell Simone likes that—I mean, she has a picture of Marilyn Monroe as the background on her phone, but you don’t see what I see in you. You are so amazing and have this whole natural beauty thing going. Just being around you is so different than being around Simone. I’ll be honest, sometimes being around Simone makes me feel tired. She’s demanding of my time and energy. It’s weird. It’s like this desperation thing of ‘love me, love me, tell me I’m pretty’. Reagan was that way too. They want all your attention and constant reassurance of how beautiful they are. But when I’m around you, you have this amazing energy and being with you makes me feel better about everything. Simone asks if her fake tan is wearing off and yet you have this natural glow to you. Sometimes I find myself just staring at you and hoping you don’t notice and wonder how you got stuck with such a dork.”
“You do that?”
“All the time. Although I had to choose between you and Audrey at the nursing home the other day. Even one of the nurses noticed. I went to get Grandpa another cookie and the nurse said, ‘Son, the movie is up front,’ and smiled at me.”
I took another bite of my lasagna.
“You know, Reagan took a millions pictures of us when we were dating and I never kept one of them, but I look at this one every day,” he said, holding out his phone.
It was the picture of us on the pier in Grand Haven.
“I lied to you,” I said.
“About what?”
“I’ve used a filter before. I took the red out of my face on that shot.”
Nick started to laugh. “Wow, our whole relationship has been a lie. How will I ever trust you?” Then he stopped. “Can you tell me something? Do you trust me? Can you just tell me where we are now? I don’t mean to sound all needy and pathetic, but I haven’t been myself without you. I…I need you. I need you in my life.”
“I do trust you and I’m glad I finally got out what’s been bothering me. I’m not sure it’ll make all those insecure feelings go
away, but at least you’ll understand it a little,” I said.
Another message popped up from Simone.
“I’m not up to dealing with her tonight. I don’t know why she keeps pushing herself on me right now.”
“She’s scared to lose you as a friend,” he said. “You know, she called me freaking out that she was worried you’d stop talking to her and what would she do without you. Like I’m supposed to fix it when she caused all this crap in the first place.”
“I guess she needs someone to talk to and I’m everyone’s dumping ground. Yay me.”
“I told her that until she was willing to tell you the whole truth about that day, I had nothing to say to her. I mean, why am I supposed to care how she’s feeling when she broke us up?” he said. “Meanwhile I’ve felt physically sick over all this.”
“I believe you.”
“Well, yeah, because you probably saw me walking around looking like a zombie from lack of sleep.”
“No, about everything. I believe you and I’m not sure how I’m going to handle the whole thing with Simone, but I almost feel sorry for her that she felt so insecure about her breakup that she was trying to find someone to love her.”
“Yeah, I’m not there yet,” Nick said.
“I said almost. After all, I didn’t become enlightened overnight.”
“So we’re good?”
“We’re good,” I said.
“You know, now that we’re back together we have to plan a real birthday date. Not that spending the evening freaking out over my grandfather and watching chick movies with your friends isn’t my idea of an awesome date.”
He leaned over to kiss me when Charlotte ran into the room.
“Hadley, you’ve got to hear this.”
Nick pulled away and we shared a smile.
“Seriously, you’re not going to believe this. It’s like your number four or five gift from the universe today,” Pilar said.
“Jack Brogger is looking for extras for his next music video and get this—women from ages sixteen to thirty-five. You just make the cut off,” Charlotte said.
“Oh yay. Happy day,” Nick said, rolling his eyes.
I smiled. “Well, if I’m free that day and happen to be in the area, I might drop by.”
Competing With the Star (Star #2) Page 16