First There Was Forever

by Juliana Romano

  chapter

  sixty-seven

  Mom and I rolled down the windows on the way to school the following Thursday and let the hot air blow through the car. It was the last week of May, but it felt like summer. The mornings had grown warm enough to sit outside without a sweater; the city smelled like a mixture of cement and salt. The sky seemed to have been drained of its springtime moisture and turned back into a hard, cobalt blue ceiling.

  I’d spent the two weeks after the Lily episode grounded. The most social thing I had done since that night was talk on the phone to Nate for an hour on Sunday. I had to call him from the landline downstairs while Mom and Dad were at a movie because they had confiscated my cell phone as part of my punishment.

  Nate and I didn’t talk about any real topics, like what had happened to Lily, or Meredith, or what we were going to do with our summers. Instead, we talked about random stuff. We discovered a shared preference for winter Olympics over summer Olympics, and then I tried to explain to him why Top Chef was better than the other reality TV on the air. We talked for so long that the phone got hot in my hand.

  Talking to Nate was insanely fun even though what we talked about was mostly meaningless. Just picturing him at his house, holding his cell phone to his ear and thinking about me, made me feel close to him.

  “So, Hailey called the house phone last night to talk to me,” Mom said.

  I had sunk so far down into thoughts of Nate, I had almost forgotten I was in the car with Mom.

  “She did?” I asked. “That’s so weird. Why?”

  “It was sweet of her, actually,” Mom said. “She told me about the Memorial Day party she’s having this weekend.”

  “She told you about it?” I was shocked. Hailey had been obsessing about her party for over a week. I couldn’t go because I was still grounded, so I hadn’t been paying much attention when she brought it up. “Wow, she is literally telling everyone.”

  “She told me because she said she knew you were grounded and she really wants you to come,” Mom continued. “She wanted to see if we’d let you.”

  “You’re joking,” I said flatly.

  “So Daddy and I discussed it and we said yes. You can go,” Mom said with a conspiratorial smile, as if this was supposed to be good news.

  The truth was, I had been glad to miss it. Hailey’s party was the last place in the world I wanted to be and now I had no excuse not to go.

  “Great, Mommy, thank you,” I said, trying to sound happy.

  “Have you talked to her yet?” Mom asked. “About you know who?”

  “I haven’t had time,” I said quickly. “But I’m going to, like, today.”

  chapter

  sixty-eight

  The day of Hailey’s party, we rode the bus home from school, like the old days. We didn’t talk very much but Hailey’s excitement was electric. Even though she wasn’t saying a lot, she was buzzing with energy.

  When we got to her apartment, we set up right away. We strung white Christmas lights around the living room, fastening them to the wall with duct tape and thumbtacks. They were sloppy and sagging, threatening to crumple to the floor at any second.

  “Atmosphere,” Hailey explained.

  When Hailey took a break, I followed her onto the balcony. Sounds of traffic and black dust from car exhausts blew up from Venice Boulevard and seemed to crawl all over my skin. I missed Meredith’s house. The magical twilight of the Hollywood Hills.

  “Are you okay?” Hailey asked.

  I didn’t answer because suddenly I couldn’t speak. I felt as if I might cry.

  “What’s wrong?” she pressed.

  Everything.

  “Nothing,” I lied.

  “I’m not trying to be mean or pry or whatever,” she continued in a gentle voice, “but you’re acting really weird.”

  “It’s a weird day,” I finally said.

  She shook her head. “It’s not just tonight. It’s been lately. For, like, weeks. Are you mad at me or something?”

  I felt heat rising to my face. Guilt. Lies formed on my lips, but I couldn’t speak. I opened my mouth.

  “Hailey, I don’t think you should go for Nate anymore,” I blurted.

  Hailey bristled. “What?”

  “I just”—I was trying to ease into the confession—“don’t think it’s a good idea.”

  “Look, Lima,” Hailey said defensively. “I get that you’re sick of hearing about him. So is Skyler. So I should probably shut up about it. I’ll just keep it to myself.”

  “It’s not that. I just think it seems kind of frustrating for you. I think you would be happier if you didn’t worry about him.”

  Hailey looked away from me and sighed. She faced out toward the city, rested her elbows on the banister and leaned out and over the ledge, thinking.

  “The thing is,” she said softly after a minute, “I could stop talking about him with you if you want. And I could even stop strategizing how to get him or whatever. But I can’t stop liking him. It’s not like a button I can push and make the crush go away. Trust me. I’ve tried that many, many times.”

  I was being choked. She really liked him. She couldn’t stop herself. And I knew how she felt, because it was how I felt, too. There was nothing I could say to make the truth hurt less.

  “I’m gonna get dressed,” Hailey said to me. “This conversation is bumming me out.”

  She walked back inside, abruptly, leaving me on her balcony. I waited outside for another minute, but I felt weird being alone. Her sudden absence had a presence, like a fossil, or a footprint in the sand.

  chapter

  sixty-nine

  Tons of random people from school came to the party. Even Emily showed up with her older brother. The apartment was packed. The music was loud.

  I didn’t see Nate arrive, but he found me where I was talking to Emily and came over to say hi.

  “How’s it going?” he asked us, sipping a beer.

  “It’s okay,” Emily said in her usual straightforward tone. “I’m really happy it’s a three-day weekend.”

  I liked seeing Nate and Emily talk. There was something sweet about it. I looked up admiringly at Nate, and he looked back at me and I felt that invisible string tugging at my chest. My mind flashed on to us having sex. Is that what it’s like when you’ve had sex with someone? Like you can never look at them again without getting flashes to this dark, shapeless moment you shared?

  Emily turned to me and launched into a story about her cousins who were visiting from out of town. I don’t think Nate could hear Emily over the noise in the room, and he eventually drifted away and dissolved into the crowd. I was sad to see him go, but sort of relieved, too. Talking to him in public scared me. I didn’t trust myself not to reach out and kiss him.

  The crowd thickened and thinned as groups came and left. Hailey opened the windows so everyone could smoke inside. The apartment thumped. People kept switching the music in the middle of songs, trying to find the one that would get the most people dancing at once.

  After a while, I went into Hailey’s room to get a sweatshirt and found Nate sitting on the edge of Hailey’s bed alone, talking on his phone. When he saw me he gave me an acknowledging nod.

  “I gotta go,” he said into phone. “Me too.”

  “Who was that?” I asked.

  Nate snapped his phone shut. “My sister. She just drunk dialed me from school to complain about her roommate. She’s so crazy.”

  Without thinking about what I was doing, I sat down next to him and let my head fall onto his shoulder.

  “You having fun?” he asked, placing his hand on my thigh.

  I giggled and shrugged. “Eh.”

  Just then the door opened. I jerked upright, and pushed Nate’s hand away as Hailey tumbled in. She froze when she saw us.

  “What’s going on?”
she asked.

  I looked at Hailey. The room was spinning.

  “Just tell her,” Nate said to me softly. “It’s okay.”

  “I can’t,” I stammered.

  Nate stood. He looked at me, his expression a mix of pity and disappointment. Then he crossed the room and left.

  When he was gone, Hailey moved her eyes slowly to mine. “Tell me what?”

  “Hailey,” I began. “It’s—there’s, well—I, I mean—we . . .”

  My voice trailed off. The stretch of room between us seemed to grow wide and dark as a ravine. As soon as I told her the truth, it would swallow me up entirely.

  “I’m sorry, Hailey, I’ve wanted to tell you, I just—” I tried again and stopped. I had no idea what to say. I wished I had memorized a statement, something concise and simple. Instead, I was going to have to go into the whole long story. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. I would never be able to un-tell her.

  Hailey rolled her eyes and scoffed. “Don’t be so dramatic. Just spit it out, Li.”

  “It’s Nate. We, like, like each other.”

  “You like each other?” she repeated.

  I nodded.

  “That’s ridiculous,” she said, and she started laughing. “He doesn’t like you. If it’s anything, he probably just wants to fuck you.”

  I was stunned. I thought about Nate and about what had happened between us over the last year. I thought about the conversations and the silences and the super-gentle way he touched my hair. Hailey was wrong. Nate liked me for real.

  “So that’s it?” she egged me on, staring. “You like Nate. Big surprise. I could have told you that. Everyone likes Nate.”

  The volume of the music in the living room spiked, and people shrieked excitedly as a song I vaguely recognized came on. It was exactly the kind of thing Hailey would have wanted to dance to, but she didn’t even seem to hear it.

  “So how do you know that Nate like-likes you? Did he, like, try and make out with you when he was drunk at the Hayeses’ or something?”

  “It’s not like that,” I said.

  “Have you kissed him?” she asked.

  I nodded.

  Hailey’s face fell, all the color draining from it like air going out of a balloon. When she spoke, her voice was tiny. “When?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

  “You don’t know?” she asked, her bottom lip trembling. “Last weekend? Today? Just now?”

  “Hailey, stop,” I pleaded. I stepped toward her and gently touched her shoulder. She pulled away from my hand like it burned. Until that moment, I almost wasn’t sure if she was mad or upset or what. But when I touched her, it was as if I literally felt her pain.

  “Don’t,” she said.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, my heart pounding. “Hailey, I’m so sorry.”

  “For what?” she said, shaking. “You haven’t even told me what happened yet.”

  “We’re sort of together,” I said. “We have been for a while.”

  Hailey dropped back, leaning into the edge of her desk for support like she was too weak to stand.

  “I’m so sorry,” I choked. Hot tears stung my eyes. “I love you so much.”

  “Since when?” she asked.

  I was too dizzy with anxiety to focus on what had happened with Nate. “We kissed for the first time like maybe a week or two before my birthday.”

  “Your birthday? In March? That was so long ago,” Hailey said. Her tears were streaming fast now, cutting dark tracks through her makeup. Hailey never let her makeup get messed up, and for some reason the fact that she all of a sudden didn’t seem to care wrenched at my heart.

  “I know,” I whispered.

  Something thudded in the other room. A lamp getting knocked over? A picture falling off the wall? Hailey ignored it. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered.

  “Why have you been telling me to go for him?” she asked. “Are you evil? Seriously. Are you pure evil? Who are you?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, uncertain. “I wanted to tell you about us but I was scared. I’ve hated having a secret from you, you have to believe me.”

  Hailey shook her head. “I don’t have to believe you, Lima. I don’t have to do anything for you ever again.”

  “I didn’t mean it like that,” I stammered. “I never wanted to hurt you. But it’s so complicated. Nate’s not your boyfriend.”

  “He’s not my boyfriend, fine,” she hissed, “but then why keep it a secret? Don’t even pretend that you don’t know how fucked up this is.”

  “I know,” I said. “I’m a terrible person. But I’m telling you now so that we can start to make it better.”

  Hailey’s face contorted with a fresh wave of pain. She reached for a tissue off of her desk, and blew her nose. For a moment, she stood there silently crying, her shoulders shaking.

  “Hailey,” I whispered. “I’m sorry.”

  “I can’t even look at you,” she said softly. “Just leave.”

  “Hailey, I want to talk about it; I want to make it better,” I pleaded.

  “Seriously, Lima. I don’t want to talk to you,” she said. “I don’t want to be around you. Ever again.”

  “What can I say that will make it better?” I begged.

  “Nothing. I have no idea who you are. I thought you were my best friend,” she began, but her voice caught on the word friend and she let out a ragged sob. “And it turns out you’re a total stranger.”

  “Hailey, I’m so sorry,” I sobbed.

  “I seriously can’t look at you,” she said again. “Just go.”

  I looked at Hailey’s door and my gaze snagged on a squiggly-looking tree that I’d drawn on the back of the door in green marker. I wondered if I would ever see it again.

  “Now.” Hailey hissed. “Leave.”

  I wrenched open the door, stumbled through the party and then down the stairs of Hailey’s apartment building, blinded by tears, my sobs echoing in the cold stairwell. When I finally got outside, I pulled out my cell phone to call a taxi, but my hands were shaking so badly the phone clattered to the sidewalk and bounced away from me.

  I was crouched down, cursing and crying and crawling to find my phone in the dark, when I heard Nate’s voice.

  “Hey,” he said.

  I looked up at him for second and then back down at the dark pavement.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” I said. “And I know I should have told her sooner. I’ve told her now. Please don’t make me feel worse than I already do.”

  “That’s not what I’m thinking,” Nate said softly. Then he bent down and picked up my phone. “Is this what you’re looking for?” he asked.

  I nodded.

  “Let me take you home,” he said.

  • • •

  Nate and I didn’t speak or listen to music in the car. I tucked my knees up to my chest and stared out the window. The only motions I made were to wipe tears off my face. I wasn’t even sure if I was breathing.

  The city was indifferent. Sepulveda Boulevard was abandoned this late at night. It was all brown and black and mustard yellow in the streetlamps. The only sound we could hear was the gentle, patient ticktock of Nate’s turn signal while we waited at a light.

  “Let’s go get something to eat,” Nate said. “I’m starving.”

  I wasn’t even a little bit hungry, but I nodded anyway. I didn’t have the energy to argue. Besides, where could I go? Upsetting thoughts would chase me down anywhere I went.

  “I love this one,” Nate said as we walked into a glowing twenty-four-hour Taco Bell on Venice Boulevard. Synthetic music sprang from the speakers. Fluorescent lights paneled the ceiling, making the whole room feel brighter than daylight.

  “Want anything?” Nate asked.

  I shook my
head no and wordlessly took a seat.

  The fight with Hailey had been replaying in my head this whole time. It was more real, more vivid, than reality. Her words were jumbled and I couldn’t straighten them out, but they were all there, surfacing and resurfacing. I thought you were my best friend and it turns out you’re a total stranger.

  “Hey,” Nate said, sitting across from me with a tray of food.

  He pushed a blue slushie across the table toward me. It had a fat red straw sticking out of it.

  “That’s for you,” he said. “I know you like blue slushies.”

  “You remember that?” I asked. It was the first time I’d spoken since we left Hailey’s.

  He nodded. And then he ate his burrito in silence. When he was done, he scrunched the paper into a waxy ball and threw it four feet into the trash can. Even though he was finished eating, he gave no sign that he was ready to leave.

  I glanced outside. A cop car with its siren light on zipped past us.

  “You okay?” Nate finally asked. “Want to talk about it?”

  “She hates me,” I said.

  I took a sip of the blue slushie, and it was so sour I practically spit it out.

  “That’s disgusting,” I said. “It’s gone bad or something.”

  “Do you want something else instead?” he asked. “A Coke?”

  “No. We should tell the people who work here that there’s something wrong with the formula.”

  My mind flashed again on Hailey’s distorted, crying face, and I felt nauseous. Her pain had been so white-hot, I could see it. She didn’t just look upset or mad, like I expected. She looked injured.

  “The formula?” Nate replied, cracking a smile. “This is straight from nature, Lima. This is a native blue fruit that grows on trees in Mexico.”

  Nate was trying so hard to make me feel better.

  This observation grew in me, changed shape. It seemed profound. Even though nothing could make me feel better about Hailey, I wanted Nate to think I was feeling better. I wanted to make him happy by showing him that he was making me happy. I realized that our own separate happinesses had grown intertwined.