First There Was Forever

by Juliana Romano

  “Why?” she pressed.

  “Mommy,” I groaned, “please come get me. I’ll tell you everything. And then I promise you can ground me for life if you feel like it.”

  After I hung up, Hailey reached out and put a hand on my leg.

  “You’re not gonna be in trouble,” Hailey said to me in a froggy, hungover voice. “You weren’t even drinking.”

  “I know, but my mom is gonna freak out when she hears that everyone else was and that someone got alcohol poisoning.”

  Hailey rolled onto her back. There was an imprint of the pillow etched into one of her cheeks. Her mascara from the night before formed charcoal smudges around her eyes.

  “I can’t believe how bad things got last night,” I said. “Lily could have died.”

  Hailey looked at me with a somber expression. She was kind of like Meredith in that, when they weren’t doing something or being funny, their faces just looked empty and sad. I wondered if that’s what I looked like, too.

  “She’s okay now,” Hailey said. “Everything is fine.”

  I nodded.

  “Last night was insane, though,” she agreed. “I was so drunk. Did I make a fool of myself? Tell me honestly? Do you think Nate thinks I’m a total stupid drunk?”

  “No,” I said. “You were great.”

  “I was?” Hailey asked eagerly.

  “Yeah,” I lied. “I’m sure Nate was glad you were there.”

  Why couldn’t I stop lying?

  Hailey let out a sigh of relief. “Oh my God. I hope you’re right. He was nicer to me than he has been in a long time.”

  Hailey threw on jeans and walked with me to wait for Mom on the concrete stoop outside her front gate. The sky that day was hazy and polluted, and the sun was a pulpy orange smear.

  I stood up when I saw Mom’s car approaching.

  Hailey gave me a hug.

  “Last night was really fun—minus the near-death experience,” she said. “Let’s hang out with Ryan and Nate again next weekend. I think we’re a good mix.”

  • • •

  Mom and I didn’t talk on the drive. When I started to explain what had happened the night before, she just said, “Save it, Lima. Dad will want to hear this, too.”

  Back at home, I told them both the whole story. I told them about how I found Lily on the floor, and how Ryan drove us to the hospital and then to Hailey’s. They listened quietly and when I was done, Dad said, “And where was Howie Hayes during all of this?”

  “He wasn’t there,” I said.

  “Where was he? It was the middle of the night,” he said.

  “I think he was out of town,” I stammered.

  “You think?” Mom repeated, raising her eyebrows.

  “Do you see him a lot when you’re over there?” Dad asked. “Does he know you’re my daughter?”

  “I don’t know,” I lied, dropping my gaze. I had totally forgotten that Mom and Dad didn’t know I’d never actually laid eyes on the twins’ dad.

  Sensing my nervousness, Mom said, “What’s wrong?”

  Dad was ahead of her. “Is he or is he not out of town?”

  “He is,” I replied.

  “So you’re saying there were no adults there?” Mom said, disbelief painted on her face like a mask.

  I nodded.

  “Has that happened before?” she asked.

  “I think so,” I said. “I mean, I don’t know. I don’t know when he’s there or not, we just, like, do our own thing, like, upstairs.”

  “You don’t know if their dad is there?” Mom squinted. “When was the last time you saw him?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I’ve never actually, like . . . seen him.”

  Mom’s face fell. I could see her pulling away from me, disappearing deep into herself. “So you’ve been staying over at a house with no supervision all year? And lying about it?”

  “I haven’t been lying about it,” I protested. “It just didn’t come up.”

  She stood up and dropped her ceramic mug of coffee into the sink. Without looking at me, she said, “That’s another lie and you know it.”

  And then she walked out of the kitchen.

  “Don’t move,” Dad said to me, following Mom.

  I could hear them fighting in their room while I waited for my punishment on the couch downstairs. Outside, the ocean was a gray slab of wet clay.

  When they came downstairs, Dad sat across from me and Mom walked right past us. She stood perfectly still, staring straight out the window.

  “You’re scaring us, Lima,” Dad said. “If you’re lying about this, what else are you hiding?”

  “What do you mean?” I asked. Did he know about Nate? If Meredith knew, did other people know too? Maybe I hadn’t been as discreet as I thought.

  “Drugs,” he said flatly. “Are you doing drugs?”

  I almost laughed. At least this wasn’t something I had to lie about.

  “No.” I declared firmly.

  Dad looked at Mom and shrugged. She still wouldn’t look at me.

  “I swear I don’t do drugs. I don’t drink; I seriously am the lamest person ever. You can drug test me, do whatever. I swear, they’re just my friends. What happened last night was an accident.”

  “I don’t know what to say, Lima.” Dad said. “But you’re out of your mind if you think you are ever going back to their house. Those kids are trouble. They’re just screaming for attention. Am I right?”

  Mom turned and looked at Dad. She nodded in agreement.

  Dad then informed me that I was grounded, and the room grew strangely quiet. Mom asked Dad if he wanted her to make lunch, and he said he just felt like ordering pizza. Mom said good, she didn’t really feel like cooking. Then she turned to me.

  “Is pizza okay?” she asked.

  It was the first time she had looked at me since I had confessed that I never met Meredith’s dad. There was something so deeply distant and disappointed in her eyes it made me want to scream.

  How long would I have to wait for Mom to get over the fact that I had lied to her? What if she never did? Was that how people grew apart from their parents? Little, stupid lies chinking away at their armor of closeness? And then someday you’re just a couple of grown-ups, meeting for lunch and talking about traffic and the weather and real estate?

  “Pizza sounds good,” I said, in a voice so clamped it was practically a whisper.

  chapter

  sixty-four

  Mom and I barely talked on Sunday and the silence in the car on the way to school on Monday felt like glass. If it broke, it might shatter everywhere and slice us both.

  There was a part of me that wanted to tell her everything. I wanted to tell her that Meredith hadn’t returned any of my calls since Friday night and that I was freaking out. I wanted to tell her that I felt like my friendship with Hailey had fallen apart and then been put back together all wrong. But if I told her about my problems with either Meredith or Hailey, I would have to tell her about Nate. And that would be bad. She was going to be so disappointed when she found out what I’d done.

  At break, I went to see if the Hayeses’ car was in the parking lot. I walked past a pack of seniors, and I could feel their eyes following me. I had the sensation that everyone at school knew what had happened.

  The Hayes spot was empty. I took a deep breath and pivoted, turning back toward the center of campus.

  “Oh my God, Lima,” Hailey said, looping her arm through mine. “Everyone is talking about Friday.”

  I looked at Hailey. She was wearing her heart-shaped sunglasses, and her cheeks were flushed so red they almost looked bruised.

  “I had a feeling,” I said. “Everyone’s been staring at me all day. How did it get around?”

  “I don’t know, but literally, I feel like a celebrity,”
she cooed.

  “I really want to talk to Meredith,” I blurted out.

  “Why?” Hailey asked, making a face like she’d smelled something bad. “You do realize she is completely bitchy and weird, right? I mean, I was beyond drunk, but even I could tell she was being a bitch.”

  “She was drunk, too. Maybe she didn’t know what she was doing. Maybe she feels bad now. You just never liked her.”

  Hailey shook her head. “That’s not exactly true. I mean, kind of, but I get why you liked her. And now that I’ve hung out there, I get why you liked it. It’s cool and glamorous and kind of, like, I don’t know, different.”

  I nodded.

  “But after Friday,” she continued, “I’d think you wouldn’t really want to be friends with them anymore. They were assholes to all of us. They acted like you were being uptight for trying to help Lily.”

  I knew Hailey was right, but I wanted to give Meredith a chance to explain.

  “I just want to know what she has to say,” I said.

  I glanced over my shoulder at the empty parking space and felt a pang of longing for the Hayeses’ big vintage car. I pictured Meredith driving, her hair going wild in all directions from the wind.

  chapter

  sixty-five

  Another day passed without Meredith coming to school. Finally, that Wednesday, I saw her car pull into the senior lot as I was walking toward first period. I only had five minutes before class, but I had to catch her while I had the chance.

  As soon as Walker was gone, I rushed over to Meredith’s side.

  She was bending down through the open car door, rearranging things in her purse when I approached.

  “Hey,” I said.

  She straightened up and looked at me, and there was a long moment before she smiled. It was almost like she didn’t recognize me.

  “Hey,” she said.

  “Can we talk?”

  Meredith pulled her bag onto her shoulder and slammed the car door.

  “It’s time for class,” she said.

  “I’m upset about the other night. With Lily,” I blurted.

  “Yeah, I know,” she said. “That sucked.”

  “But Lily was okay, so everything is okay now, right?” I asked hopefully.

  “Okay now?” she repeated, and then giggled a mean giggle. “Lima, Lily didn’t have to go the hospital. You and your friends made such a big deal out of nothing.”

  “I don’t think so,” I said. “I really feel like it was the right thing to do.”

  A hardness passed behind Meredith’s eyes. She took a deep breath, and I could see her struggling to regain her cool before she spoke again.

  “If you want me to tell you that I think you were in the right, I never will,” she said, her tone still mild but firm. “I just don’t. I’m never going to comfort you about this.”

  Comfort me? That wasn’t what I was looking for, was it? Confusion swarmed inside of me.

  “So, are you, like, mad at me?” I asked.

  “I’m not mad at you, Lima,” she said exasperatedly. “It ended up being fine. Lily’s mom didn’t tell the school or my parents or whatever, so nothing happened. We’re fine. Everything can go back to normal.”

  What was normal? I wanted to ask her, but I knew I only had a minute left to find out what I really wanted to know.

  “But what about what you said? About feeling like I use your house or whatever, to see Nate?” I asked. I so rarely said his name out loud, and never to Meredith, and it felt strange coming out of my mouth. “Do you really think that?”

  People were moving faster now, hurrying to get to class under the May morning sun, a bright clutter of hats and backpacks and sunglasses swirling around us.

  “I shouldn’t have said anything,” she said impatiently. “I don’t care about what you do with anyone. At our house or anywhere else.”

  “But—” I was sinking, struggling to figure out what I wanted to say.

  Meredith sighed.

  “Oh, Lima,” she said condescendingly. “You’re stressing too much. Everything is fine now. Don’t worry about it.”

  It was weird. As much as I hated fighting with Hailey, at least we fought. At least she owned up to her own actions, apologized, got angry. This was worse.

  “I have to get to French, but let’s get together soon,” she said vaguely as she backed away, heading toward class.

  “Yeah, right,” I said.

  As I watched Meredith disappear down the hallway, I felt more abandoned than ever. Even though she had suggested we hang out, it was obvious she didn’t mean it.

  Was this how it was going to be? Maybe this was just how Meredith did things. Maybe she picked up friends when she felt like it and then dropped them when she felt like it, too. Is that what she had done to Lily? And now, was she doing it me? She had adopted me at the beginning of the school year like a new toy, and now that I hadn’t done exactly what she wanted, she was discarding me. Frustrated tears stung my eyes. I wiped them away, angrily, and headed to class.

  chapter

  sixty-six

  Mom and Dad and I ate on the back porch that night. I sat where I always sit, with my back to the house, facing the ocean. The sunset was fluorescent and fake-looking.

  Even though Mom made roast chicken, one of my favorite things in the world, I was too preoccupied to eat. My mind kept circling from Meredith, to Nate, to Hailey, and then back to Meredith again. Even though Meredith had let me off the hook today, I didn’t actually feel better. Her words from Friday night kept coming back to me.

  I wished I could say she was wrong about me being a user. But hadn’t I been using her house to meet up with Nate? I mean, I’d had sex in her dad’s bed. That thought, that one action, which had felt so natural at the time, suddenly seemed filthy and selfish and the kind of thing only really bad kids did. I had thought I would lose my virginity at college, or in my own room. Not in someone’s parent’s bed. It was just sleazy.

  “Lima?” Mom said. “Earth to Lima!”

  My eyes snapped from the gooey sunset to Mom’s face.

  “Daddy can clear the table,” she said. “Stay here. I want to talk to you.”

  We sat there quietly while Dad took our plates away. I felt passive, pliable, patient. I was no longer afraid of getting in trouble. No lecture from her could be as painful as this self-loathing I was feeling.

  “Where are you?” she asked. “What are you thinking about?”

  “I saw Meredith at school today. I tried to talk to her about what happened, and she just, like, blew me off,” I said. “She thinks we made a big deal out of nothing. I feel like, she’s just, like, over me.”

  “You did the absolute, one hundred percent right thing,” Mom said without hesitating.

  “But what else is going on?” she asked.

  I stiffened. “Nothing.”

  Mom closed her eyes for a second and pressed her forefinger and thumb into her forehead hard. I had only ever seen her do that when she was really mad about something.

  “Mom? Are you okay?” I asked.

  “It hurts me that you’re being so secretive about this boy,” she said.

  My heart caved in.

  “Mommy, what—what boy?” I asked.

  “Give me a little credit, Lima. I can tell there’s a guy.”

  I felt cagey. I was tempted just to start spewing lies, denying everything, but something about Mom’s expression stopped me.

  I didn’t know where to start, so I just blurted out the only thing I could think of.

  “His name is Nate,” I said.

  I started talking. I told Mom about how Nate and I started studying together in the fall, and how I never meant to go behind Hailey’s back. I thought Nate and I were just friends, and by the time I realized it was more than that it felt too late to tell her.
Once I started talking, I didn’t want to stop. It felt so good to share that a small part of me I even wanted to tell her that we had sex. But I didn’t. And not just because I didn’t want her to judge me. I actually felt protective of Nate. I didn’t want her to think he was bad.

  Mom listened, nodding and frowning, her brow permanently furrowed.

  Finally she said, “You know, it’s okay that you and Hailey like the same boy. That happens all the time. My best friend in high school, Ashley Petersen, she and I both had crushes on Trey Krieger. And he ended up going out with Ashley. I was devastated.”

  Mom had a nostalgic gleam in her eye, and it actually made me kind of angry. Mom liked Trey and he ended up going out with Ashley? It didn’t match the intensity of what had been going on between me and Nate. I felt myself clamming up again.

  “You don’t understand. It’s not like that. Nate is . . . ” I searched for the word. “Real.”

  “Listen, Lima,” Mom said. Her tone had turned serious. “You should talk to Hailey.”

  “I know I should,” I said. “But I’m scared.”

  “We’re a lot alike, you and me,” she said. “I also have a big capacity to hold things in.”

  “Do I hold things in?” I asked.

  She smiled. “I think so.”

  “Hailey is going to kill me. You don’t understand. She is obsessed with Nate. She talks about him constantly.”

  “What do you do when Hailey talks about him?” Mom asked, looking concerned.

  “I don’t say anything,” I said. I encourage her. But I couldn’t tell Mom that. It was too twisted and shameful.

  “Tell her before she finds out,” Mom said. “Look, you were so afraid to tell me about him, and it hasn’t been that horrible, has it? I’ve done okay, right?”

  I knew Mom was right that I had to tell Hailey before she found out. But telling Hailey was going to be so much more complicated than telling Mom. I was scared she would hate me and judge me. I was terrified Hailey was going to find a way to take everything good I had with Nate and smash it.