First There Was Forever

by Juliana Romano

  Nate looked surprised, and then he slumped back in his seat for a second before he placed his hands on the table and stood up to go.

  “Wait,” I said, feeling suddenly desperate. I reached across the table and put my hand on top of his. The action happened so fast, I didn’t even know where it came from. It was like instinct, or reflex. We both stared in surprise at our hands and the moment seemed to expand and stretch out. Nate’s hand felt soft and cool beneath mine. And then Nate pulled his hand away and straightened up.

  I was too embarrassed to look at him at first, but when I finally did, he had an apologetic, almost sad expression on his face.

  “I get it,” he said softly. “It’s cool.”

  As he walked away, I wanted so badly to undo everything that had just happened. I hated to see him leave.

  chapter

  twenty-six

  Meredith always had stories about her clothing and jewelry. Nothing she owned seemed to be bought at a mall.

  “This one,” she said, fingering a smooth, brown stone encased in a gold band, “is petrified wood from the Atlantic Ocean. It represents transformation. Touch it. It’s so smooth.”

  I reached up and fingered the stone. It was almost cold to the touch and smooth as glass. We were sitting cross-legged under a tree by lower campus.

  “I like it,” I cooed.

  Just then I caught Hailey walking by, headphones shoved into her ears. She was wearing her heart-shaped sunglasses.

  “Hailey!” I said.

  She didn’t hear.

  “Hailey!” I called again.

  This time she heard, and she stopped walking.

  I beckoned her over, and she came, not bothering to take off her sunglasses.

  “I texted you last night—where were you?” I asked.

  “Nowhere,” she said, her voice cold and tired. “I can’t go to community service today. I have too much homework.”

  Meredith stretched one of her long delicate arms up toward Hailey. “I am just wild about your sunglasses!”

  I sighed. “I wish you’d told me. I don’t want to go if you’re not going, and my mom isn’t coming for me until five.”

  “Sorry,” Hailey said irritably. “But you’re a big girl. Figure it out. You’ll be fine.”

  And then she just started walking away, not even acknowledging Meredith. I jumped up after her and touched her shoulder. She turned to face me. I felt suddenly enraged. What happened to all that closeness we had felt the other night?

  “Are you okay?” I asked. My heart was pounding.

  “I’m fine,” she said. “I’m sorry if I’m being weird. I’m just beyond tired. I’m on, like, another planet of exhaustion.”

  I tried to look in her eyes but all I could see was my own insect-like reflection in her big black glasses.

  I wanted to say something, to tell her it wasn’t fair that she kept turning our friendship on and off like a light switch. But I couldn’t find the words.

  “Lima,” Meredith called from behind me. “Are you going to finish this?”

  I turned to Meredith, who was holding up my half-eaten apple.

  “No, you can have it,” I said. I looked back at Hailey, who was looking at her phone. I felt the moment dissolve away.

  • • •

  Clean the Bay was different without Hailey. For one thing, I got to sit in the front and talk to Leo on the way there. He told me what it was like to get around in LA on buses and bikes. It sounded like a ton of work to me, but I was impressed. I thought about how much Dad would like Leo. Dad secretly wished he was the kind of guy who rode bikes and boycotted cars instead of a lawyer who watched football and drove a Lexus.

  It was cold on the beach that day. And there wasn’t very much trash. Maybe another group had come before us. I found myself sort of meandering, waiting for the hour to pass. I wove in and around the pillars under the pier. Years of ocean water splashing against them had transformed the wood into a black, sooty material. I wondered how long the pier had been there. It had probably been a real pier for fishermen before it got turned into an amusement park for tourists. I was so busy imagining this history that as I rounded the final pillar, I practically walked right into Nate.

  “Whoops, sorry,” I said quickly.

  “It’s okay,” he said. “Have you found any trash?”

  “Not really.”

  He stood there for a second looking like there was something he wanted to say.

  “I’m sorry about the other day,” I said before he got the chance.

  He didn’t look surprised. “It’s fine.”

  “It is?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” he said.

  Nate started walking toward the water, and I followed.

  “Why’d you sign up for Clean the Bay?” I asked after a while.

  “Lizzie did it,” he replied simply.

  I thought it was cute that he called his older sister Lizzie. I had only ever known her as Liz.

  “Do you miss her now that she’s at college?” I felt a little shy asking him more questions, but I was gripped with curiosity. I wanted to know everything about him.

  He snorted. “No. She’s fucking nuts.”

  And then he broke into a run and dove into the sand and grabbed the only piece of trash either of us had seen all day. It was a tiny silvery gum wrapper, and he waved it over his head, victorious. “Finally! Trash!”

  We both laughed.

  Even though he had said he didn’t miss his sister, something about the way he said no made it clear he was lying. I knew he missed her a lot. It was like I was starting to figure him out. He was made up of a million noes that were actually yeses.

  On the bus ride back to school there was traffic, so I read from Great Expectations, and Nate sat next to me with his headphones on. The air between us was soft.

  Back at school, Mom was waiting for me. I descended the bus and headed in her direction, not saying good-bye to Nate. But before I had walked away, he reached out and flicked my shoulder. I turned and looked at him, and his eyes were full of a message I couldn’t quite decipher. Something mischievous.

  In the car, Mom said, “Who was that boy?”

  I groaned. “What boy?”

  “That boy who just said good-bye to you?”

  “Oh, that’s just Nate,” I said nonchalantly.

  “Nate,” Mom repeated slowly, pulling out into traffic. “The one that Hailey is dating?”

  “They’re not dating,” I said. “But yeah, that’s him. So what’s for dinner?”

  “Lima, listen,” Mom said, ignoring my question. “If you have a crush on the boy . . .”

  “Stop,” I said, covering my face with my hands. “Mommy, please.”

  “It’s a really bad idea to get involved with someone your friend likes,” she continued. “It can cause a lot of pain for everyone. Even for you.”

  “Oh my God, Mom,” I said. “This is insane. I told you, he’s just a friend. He’s, like, less than a friend. There’s nothing going on.”

  When we came to a red light, Mom turned her head and looked at me. When I allowed myself to meet her gaze, her eyes were as still and impossible to read as rocks.

  “What?” I asked defensively. “What are you thinking?”

  Mom blinked and then looked back at the road and sighed. “Nothing.”

  chapter

  twenty-seven

  The next day, I spotted Hailey and Skyler sitting on the concrete slab outside the history building. I tried to walk past them unnoticed, but Hailey waved at me to come over.

  “I’m sorry I was weird yesterday,” she said. She looked refreshed.

  “Yeah, you seemed like you were in a really bad mood,” I said cautiously.

  Hailey rolled her eyes. “Yes and no. But it was mainly just that Meredith gives
me the heebie-jeebies.”

  “Meredith and Walker Hayes are the creepiest ever,” Skyler added.

  “You should give them a chance,” I said lamely. I sounded like Mom.

  “I should probably give a lot of people chances who I don’t,” Skyler said flatly.

  Hailey snorted. “So, how was Clean the Bay alone with Nate?” she asked.

  My mouth went dry. “I didn’t really see him.”

  “So he didn’t, like, ask where I was?” she asked.

  I shook my head no.

  “I thought maybe if I didn’t come, he would wonder where I was,” Hailey continued. “I just feel like he knows I like him. I want to play hard to get.”

  “You’re such a moron,” Skyler said, looking right at Hailey. “Remember what Sara told us yesterday?”

  “What did Sara tell you guys?” I asked.

  “Sara said Nate’s been hooking up with that senior, Sophie, for, like, months,” Hailey said.

  “The one who dresses like a dude,” Skyler added. “It’s so weird. Guys, like, love her, and I swear, I’ve only ever seen her wear enormous sweatshirts and baggy jeans.”

  “Nate has a girlfriend?” I asked meekly.

  Skyler scoffed. “Nate definitely does not have a girlfriend. That guy will probably never have a girlfriend.”

  “Sara said it’s super-casual,” Hailey said. “Sophie is still in love with her ex-boyfriend, but she just, like, hooks up with tons of guys. She’s not into any of them, though.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  “Anyway, Sophie’s nothing,” Hailey said. “I am totally as hot as her.”

  Skyler scanned the tip of her ponytail for split ends. “I’m so over hearing about Nate. He’s a douche bag.”

  Hailey ignored her. Her hazel eyes were fixed on me, suddenly focused, intense.

  “What are you thinking, Li?” she asked.

  “Nothing,” I said, throwing on a quick smile. “Just, yeah, I agree with both of you. You are totally as hot as Sophie. But, also, Nate’s probably, like, a douche bag. Like Skyler said.”

  Hailey laughed. “I can’t believe you just said douche bag. That sounds so wrong coming out of you, Li.”

  I giggled. “Yeah, I know. It felt wrong.”

  Hailey stood up and linked her arm through mine.

  “C’mon. I’ll walk you to class,” she said, and then quickly turned to Skyler. “See you at the smoking tree at three?”

  “Same as always,” Skyler said.

  chapter

  twenty-eight

  “That quiz today killed me,” Emily said as we waited for our parents in the car-pool line under a milky December sky.

  “I know, me too,” I said. “What did you get for the second question? Alkaline?”

  It seemed like chemistry had gone from hard to impossible overnight. The first part of the year had been fine. I could look at the problems on the board and visualize how they would balance themselves out, like pieces fitting into a puzzle. But once we started reaction stoichiometry, solving the chemical equations felt like trying to reassemble a sheet of paper that had been shredded. Every piece of information was impossibly detailed and delicate and nuanced. If I forgot one teeny tiny characteristic or rule, an almost perfect answer would be wrong.

  “I put alkaline and then I changed it at the last minute,” Emily said, biting her lip. “Shoot. Maybe that was a mistake.”

  “Well, I don’t know if I was right,” I said, and then, spotting Mom’s car, I added, “We’ll find out tomorrow. I gotta go; that’s my mom.”

  I bounded toward the car, but I stopped in my tracks before I got in. Dad was sitting in the passenger seat. In my whole life, Dad had never come with Mom to pick me up. He should be at work right now. Dread rose up inside me, thick and dark as molasses.

  “What’s going on?” I asked carefully when I got in.

  “Nana’s sick,” Mom said.

  My heart raced. “Like, how sick?”

  Mom let out a ragged breath. “She’s not going to get better. She’s in the hospital.”

  Dad turned his head around to me and made this pained face, like a cross between sort of smile and a frown and a grimace. I hadn’t buckled my seat belt yet, and I climbed forward and wrapped my arms around his neck. It was an awkward position to hug him in, but he hugged me back tight.

  • • •

  The next day, the three of us drove up to Santa Barbara together. We were quiet in the car.

  Nana looked really different in the hospital bed. It was the first time I had seen her without her makeup on and she looked so much frailer because of it. But when she held my hand, she still had that clawlike firm grip.

  We shifted around the hospital all day, alternating from the waiting area to Nana’s bedside to the dreary café. Nana mostly slept. The drugs she was on made her tired. There was a window made of thick, tinted glass in Nana’s room that looked out to a flat, concrete parking lot and a separate adjacent bleached-out medical building. Looking out the window was almost sadder than sitting there looking at Nana.

  Mom and I drove back that night, but Dad stayed over at Caroline’s. For long stretches between Santa Barbara and Los Angeles there’s just farmland and mountains. At night, you can’t see anything but darkness.

  chapter

  twenty-nine

  When I told Hailey about Nana the next day at break, she stared at me blankly for a long moment, and then said, “Are you sad?”

  “I’m really sad,” I said. “And I’m especially sad for my dad and Caroline.”

  Skyler, who had been sitting silently next to Hailey and playing on her phone the whole time, finally spoke. “Grandparents die,” she said. “That’s what they do.”

  I looked at Skyler, with her gooey lips and glossy snake of a ponytail.

  Hailey laughed a little. “It’s true, Li. That is what they do.”

  I couldn’t laugh about it. I just stared at the ground.

  “Well, Skyler’s holiday party is next weekend,” Hailey said. “At least you can look forward to that.”

  I had forgotten about Skyler’s party. It was the last thing on my mind.

  “I’ve been planning it forever,” Skyler said. “I invited, literally, the whole grade.”

  “I don’t know if I’m going to feel like going to a party,” I said, feeling suddenly really, really tired. “With all of this sad stuff happening.”

  Skyler gave Hailey a quick, loaded look. I recognized that look. It was the kind of look you gave people who know you really well, the people who can read your mind. That’s the way Hailey and I used to be: telepathic.

  Hailey squinted up at me. “Well, you have a whole week to decide. But, seriously, it would be stupid not to come just ’cause your grandmother’s sick.”

  chapter

  thirty

  The last day of school before Christmas vacation was one of those awkward filler days that come before a break. We had a holiday party in math, watched The Motorcycle Diaries with subtitles in Spanish, and played Literary Charades in English. Everything was supposed to be fun, but all I wanted to do was go home, climb into bed, and start making up for the sleep I’d lost since Nana had been in the hospital.

  “Can we get ice cream on the way home?” I asked Mom when she picked me up after school. Finally, the day was over and the two weeks of vacation stretched out ahead of me like a perfect, unbroken ribbon.

  “Of course,” Mom said. “And you should do something fun tonight.”

  “I’m going to catch up on sleep,” I said. “That is my idea of fun.”

  “Why don’t you invite Hailey over?” Mom asked.

  “Hailey’s going to some party,” I grumbled, kicking my feet up onto the dashboard.

  “You’re not going?” Mom asked. “Were you invited?”

  “Sure, I
was invited,” I shrugged. “Everyone is invited. But, it’s at this girl’s house who isn’t really my friend. It’s gonna be more Hailey’s friends. I don’t really like those people.”

  Mom paused.

  “Maybe you’ll like them more if you get to know them better,” she said carefully.

  We didn’t speak again for the rest of the ride, but her words rolled around in my head like gravel.

  When we pulled into the parking lot at the Cold Stone on the PCH, Mom unsnapped her seat belt and turned to face me.

  “I really think you should go to the party tonight, Lima,” she declared.

  “Mom, you’re being so weird about this. It’s not like I’m antisocial. I’m just tired,” I said.

  “I know you aren’t antisocial,” Mom said gently. She reached out and smoothed my hair back with her hand. “It’s been a hard couple of weeks with Nana being sick and everything. I just want to see you have fun.”

  “I know,” I whispered. I wished I could explain to Mom why Skyler’s party wouldn’t be fun for me, but I didn’t know how to put it into words.

  “Worst case scenario, you don’t have a good time. And then you can come home and say ‘I told you so,’” she said.

  I laughed a little. “I can’t believe I’m so pathetic that my mom has to convince me to go to a party.”

  “Don’t call my favorite person pathetic,” Mom said. And then she leaned across the center console and kissed my cheek.

  • • •

  Mom dropped me at Skyler’s on the way to meet one of her friends for dinner. Dad was still with Nana. We called him from the car but he didn’t answer, so we left him a silly, singsongy voice mail. I hoped it would cheer him up.

  I agreed to let Mom put makeup on me for the party. She powdered my nose and forehead, and when I flipped down the passenger side mirror and inspected her work, I thought it made me look strange and pastry-like.