First There Was Forever

by Juliana Romano

  “You have to pick one,” Hailey said authoritatively. “You have to rank number one and number two.”

  Everyone knew that Ryan was the cutest boy in school, so it would be the most obvious and therefore the least revealing answer.

  “Ryan Masterson,” I said.

  “I knew you’d say that,” Hailey said. “My number one is Nate Reed.”

  “Yeah, Nate is,” I didn’t know what to say about Nate. There was just something about him that made him stand out. “Nate is my number two.”

  Hailey halted her swinging. “No. He can’t be you number two. He’s my number one and my number two.”

  “Oh,” I said. The rules of this game really seemed to bend themselves in Hailey’s favor. “Why?”

  “I am in love with Nate, Lima,” Hailey said, looking me straight in the eye. “You should make Julian your number two. He’s taller than Nate anyway.”

  And just like that, the rules were laid out. Nate belonged to Hailey. Forever.

  Until now.

  chapter

  seventy-three

  A week later, I was on my way to eat lunch in the library when I saw Hailey and Skyler, arms linked, backpacks on, going in before me. I froze. I had forgotten that the library always became the center of activity in the weeks before finals.

  Suddenly, I felt overwhelmingly tired. I was hungry. I wanted to be by myself. I hated Hailey for being the victim. She had nothing to be ashamed of, she hadn’t done anything wrong. She could walk around campus totally blameless. I, on the other hand, was a social pariah. I clenched my jaw tight, trying to fight tears. I really didn’t want to cry at school. Girls who cried at school always seemed like they were trying to get attention and all I was trying to do was avoid it. But what was I supposed to do? Eat in a bathroom stall like girls do in bad movies about high school?

  I turned away from the library, my lip trembling, and walked quickly across campus to the patio behind the administration building. To my relief, it was empty. I sat at the dusty bench, wiped my eyes and pulled out my sandwich. While I ate, I willed myself to think only about how delicious it was. The perfect interaction of brie and bread filled me with pleasure. At least no one could take this away from me.

  “Yo.”

  Nate’s hands were on my shoulders. I jumped a little before I looked up at him. I tipped my head back so far it rested against his stomach.

  Nate and I hadn’t hung out at school together since the whole Hailey thing had exploded. Even though our relationship wasn’t a secret anymore, I wasn’t ready to be seen with him.

  “What are you doing back here?” he asked. He climbed past me so he was sitting on the table with his feet on the bench.

  “I’m just eating my sandwich,” I said, not wanting to get into it.

  “It looks like a good sandwich,” Nate said, but I felt like he saw there was more going on with me.

  “It is,” I said. “Do you want the last bite?”

  He shook his head. “You have it.”

  “It’s probably almost time for class,” I said when I finished.

  I stood up and prepared to leave, but Nate didn’t move.

  “What are you doing this weekend?” Nate asked.

  “I’m going to Santa Barbara with my parents to help my aunt pack,” I said.

  Mom had told me the big news a few days before: Caroline was selling the house and moving to LA. I thought about the shadowy tiled hallways and the bright porches in Nana and Caroline’s house. I was going to miss it.

  “I’m sorry you never got to come see it,” I said. “It’s so beautiful.”

  “Sucks,” he said.

  “It’s good for my aunt, though,” I said. “My mom says it’s weird for her to live there alone after living there with her mom and her kids for so long.”

  “That’s cool.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed, and I giggled a little and added in an imitating voice, “that’s cool.”

  Nate lit up. “Was that supposed to be an imitation of me?”

  I smiled. “Yeah, was it good?”

  Nate laughed and flicked my arm. “No. It was terrible. That sounded nothing like me.”

  I laughed. “It totally sounded like you. Maybe you just don’t know what you sound like!”

  “Come here,” Nate said, hopping off his seat on the picnic table and grabbing me as if he was going to wrestle me to the ground.

  I squealed and tried to squirm away from his grip, but he wrapped his arms around me, pinning my arms to my sides and pulling me toward him. I tried to break free for a second, then gave in and let my body go slack, leaning all my weight against him.

  Nate was smiling down at me and shaking his head in mock disapproval. It was amazing that he still had new ways of looking at me that made my insides melt.

  chapter

  seventy-four

  Mom, Dad, and I spent the night in Santa Barbara, helping Caroline pack up the house. It was weird that the house was going to be sold and passed down to strangers.

  On the car ride home, I stared out the window. The ocean was a deep turquoise laced with lavender foam.

  “Dad,” I said. “Remember that friend of yours who worked at the aquarium in San Diego? What was his name?”

  “Of course,” Dad said. “Mark Lanton.”

  “Do you think you could ask him if he has any internships for high school students this summer?” I asked. I had missed the deadline for the research internships Patty had mentioned, and until now, I hadn’t known what I wanted to with my summer. “It might be too late, but I don’t know, maybe there’s something I could do there?”

  Dad and Mom glanced at each other and didn’t say anything.

  “I’ve just been thinking it might be cool to, like, study the ocean,” I continued. “Like marine biology or whatever.”

  “I’ll call him first thing tomorrow,” Dad said. “Good thinking.”

  Mom craned her neck around from the front seat and pushed her sunglasses off her face so they held her hair back like a headband. Her eyes scanned my face.

  “What?” I said.

  “Honey,” she said seriously. “That’s a brilliant idea.”

  I rolled my eyes at her and opened my window a crack. A loud rush of salty air sliced through the car.

  “Anyone want to stop at Gladstones?” Dad asked as we got closer to Malibu, tossing a hopeful smile over his shoulder at me and Mom.

  “Sounds great,” Mom said, winking quickly at me.

  • • •

  We ate at Dad’s favorite table in the corner of the restaurant. The thick glass window muted the sounds of the ocean outside. After we ate, we walked out the front doors through the patio to valet parking, feeling droopy from the greasy food.

  “Look,” Mom said. “Isn’t that Meredith Hayes?”

  I glanced in the direction Mom was facing and there she was. Meredith, Walker, Henry, and Lily were seated around a big circular table. Lily? I couldn’t believe it. I had just assumed her friendship with the twins had ended the same night that mine had. How could she stand to be around any of them after what had happened?

  “Oh, wow,” I stammered. This was all too much to process. It was disorienting enough to run into any of them here, even without the added shock of realizing that Lily was still hanging out with the twins. And I hadn’t seen Meredith since the unsatisfying conversation we’d had in the parking lot weeks earlier. Seniors finished two weeks before the rest of the school, trickling out while everyone else stressed over finals and end-of-the-year deadlines.

  “I think you should go say hi,” Mom said, giving me a gentle push. “We’ll meet you out front.”

  I walked tentatively up to their table.

  “Lima! What a surprise.” Meredith said. Her eyes were protected behind an enormous pair of vintage sunglasses.

&nbs
p; “Hey, guys,” I said awkwardly.

  My eyes drifted around the table. Henry waved at me but didn’t smile. Walker mumbled something and then reached for an oyster off of the bowl of ice in the center of the table. Lily didn’t look at me. I hadn’t seen her since that night, which felt like a lifetime ago. She looked different and I realized after a minute that it was because her bangs had grown out and she was wearing them swept over to the side, not coiled and sprayed. It made her look more conventionally pretty, even younger. I stared at her for a moment, willing her to acknowledge me, but she kept her eyes glued to her plate. And then, after a minute she turned away and reached for something in her purse.

  “We’ve been up all night, so excuse us if we are weird,” Meredith said. “We’re just getting some brunch.”

  “Oh, cool,” I said. It was so Meredith to call a meal at four o’clock brunch.

  “Walker thinks raw oysters are the perfect hangover cure,” Henry said.

  “Does it work?” I asked, trying to match their casual tone.

  “The verdict is still out,” Walker said, finally looking up at me. There was a cautiousness in his expression that I hadn’t ever seen before.

  “I hope it works,” I said quietly. “I should go, but I just wanted to say hi.”

  Meredith put her sunglasses on the table, pushed her chair back, and stood up, “I’ll walk you out.”

  “Bye,” I said to the table lamely, and was met with a few halfhearted byes.

  “How have you been?” Meredith asked as we walked toward the valet.

  “I’ve been not great,” I said. “There’s been a lot of hard stuff going on.”

  I looked at Meredith, and suddenly I realized this was my last chance to tell her what I thought. What did I have to lose anymore? I’d already lost everything.

  “And I’m still upset about us. I’m mad and hurt and confused about the fact that we’re just not friends anymore,” I said simply, not dropping her gaze.

  I expected Meredith to respond with one of her typical, elusive answers, but instead she sighed.

  “I know,” she said. “Me too.”

  Meredith’s usually enchanting black eyes were marked with the opacity that people get from not sleeping. I’d seen it in my own eyes over the past few weeks.

  “So, what happened? Why did you disappear on me?” I asked. “Was it because of Nate? Because I am so sorry about that. I never meant to use your house like that. I can tell you the whole story if you give me a chance.”

  Meredith shook her head. “We don’t need to get into it. Besides, I don’t really remember what happened. Everything has been crazy lately.”

  “We need to talk about it,” I said. And then I added, “I need that.”

  Meredith paused. “I don’t know. But I really do miss you and I want to see you before I go,” she said, forcing a smile. “Walker and I leave the second week of July. Things are gonna be kind of crazy until then, but maybe we can go swimming or something? You never taught me how to make peach crumble and you know that’s all I want.”

  “You want to learn to make a crumble?” I repeated slowly.

  “Yeah. Or like, I don’t know, ravioli. Weren’t you going to teach me to make ravioli?” she asked.

  I bit my lip. The realization that Meredith was totally incapable of having a real conversation was making sadness blossom inside of me, spreading like dark ink. There were so many unsorted things about Meredith’s life, things that she just refused to look at.

  “Okay, sure,” I said. “I’ll come over.”

  We had reached the valet parking area now and I could see Mom and Dad double parked, waiting for me in the car.

  Meredith gave me a hug.

  “Bye, Lima,” she said. A flicker of emotion passed behind her eyes, and I wondered if there was something she wanted to say but couldn’t.

  “Bye,” I said.

  I climbed into the backseat of the car and Meredith stood there, squinting and waving as we drove away. Wind and light ricocheted off the ocean and lit up strands of her hair like glitter. I knew after I left she’d go back to Walker and Henry and Lily and their epic hangovers and their fabulous parties. And I knew I wouldn’t go over to her house before she left to teach her how to make a crumble. I wondered if she knew it, too.

  • • •

  When I opened my computer that night, there was an e-mail from Lily with no subject. I hesitated and then opened it. All it said was “Thank you.”

  I closed my laptop, unnerved. It was weird that she had ignored me at lunch today only to thank me now. But the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. She must have been too embarrassed to say anything to me in front of the twins or Henry.

  I opened my computer and wrote back. I typed, “Of course,” and then clicked send. In the quiet moment that followed, it dawned on me that I didn’t care anymore what Meredith and Walker thought about what I’d done at all. It didn’t matter if they thought I was in the right or the wrong. I knew that I had helped Lily and Lily knew it, too. Maybe not every decision I’d made in the last few months had been terrible.

  chapter

  seventy-five

  The morning of my first surfing lesson with Emily was bright and crisp. After talking about it over a couple of lunches, I had finally agreed to let her teach me. We swam out to a spot beyond the breaking waves and sat, straddling our surfboards and staring out at the horizon.

  “This waiting is a lot of what surfing is,” Emily explained. “Especially when you’re a beginner.”

  The ocean gently rocked our boards up and down and side to side. A neat V of pelicans flew by, and we instinctively followed their path with our gazes.

  “It’s pretty mellow today,” she said, turning around and squinting at me. A reddish morning sunlight lit up her body and caught swirls of metallic purple and green on the oily surface of the water.

  The air was salty, rich, and vivid. The ocean water was briny and cold on my bare feet and in the places where it snuck underneath my wet suit. Getting into the wet suit had taken almost ten minutes, and I had face-planted in the sand twice, making Emily laugh so hard she said she was going to pee in her pants.

  I fidgeted with the Velcro strap around my ankle, the one that secured me to my borrowed surfboard by a three-foot plastic cable. “Paddle!” Emily shouted suddenly, and she spun around onto her belly and started hurtling herself and her board in the direction of the shore to demonstrate what I was supposed to do.

  I twisted around, trying to get onto my belly, but it was awkward and I could feel my limbs flailing. My leg got stuck in the cable and I lost time trying to untangle it, so by the time I was actually paddling, it was too late. I felt the wave billow up underneath me and then pass me by, leaving me bobbing on my board. I glanced over my shoulder and Emily was laughing hysterically, covering her mouth with two hands.

  Seeing her laugh so hard made me start to laugh, too. I tried to splash her, but I had no momentum lying on my stomach, so I just kind of slapped the water. This made us both laugh harder.

  “You’ll get the hang of it,” she said when she could speak again. She wiped away tears of laughter from her cheeks. Her wet hair was thick and it glistened in the sunlight.

  The ocean was so full of secrets. Surfing showed me a whole other side to it that I could never have known just from looking at it from the beach. The ocean was strong and rhythmic and steady.

  For a moment we were both still, and then we erupted again into a fit of giggles. I might be the world’s worst surfer, but I loved it anyway.

  chapter

  seventy-six

  Afterward, Emily took me to the In-N-Out drive-through. It was only 10:00 a.m., but we both got burgers and milk shakes.

  “Surfers are always the first people here,” Emily explained. She spread her meal out across her lap and wedged her milk shake into one
of the car’s built-in cup holders.

  I squeezed ketchup out of a slippery packet, trying to aim it at my burger.

  “So what’s the story with you and Hailey?” Emily asked, her mouth full of food. “I’ve heard some things at school, but I’m not sure what to believe.”

  I sighed. “You might hate me if I tell you the truth.”

  Emily rolled her eyes. “I doubt it. Honestly, I’m not exactly the biggest fan of Hailey and Skyler.”

  It was weird how Hailey and Skyler had become such a pair. My whole life it was Hailey and Lima. Skyler had finally fully replaced me.

  “Okay,” I said. “But if you decide you think I’m a bad person and you don’t want to hang out with me anymore, who’s gonna teach me to surf?”

  Emily laughed. “Shut up.”

  I told her about how Hailey had always been obsessed with Nate and how he and I had started to like each other and date in secret. I told her about how I lied to Hailey about it, and kept encouraging her to go for him until it all came out in the most horrible way imaginable.

  “Whoa, that’s intense,” Emily said afterward. “It’s so weird how you can like someone so much even when they are off-limits. Something like that happened to me once, too.”

  “Really?” I asked.

  “Well, I mean, your situation sounds way, way worse,” she retracted. “But, it was kind of similar. I had a crush on one of my brother’s friends, and my brother was so pissed, he put an end to it.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  Emily frowned. “He’s just like that.”

  “Who was the guy?” I asked.

  “My brother’s friend, Tyler,” she said. “We used to all go surfing together: him and me and my brother, and some other people, too. They were all my brother’s friends, not my friends, but once I got good enough at surfing, I’d go out with them. And I’d always had a crush on Tyler, even since before we started surfing together.”