Letting Go

by Jessica Ruddick

  We had been, which is why our last conversation hadn’t been the most pleasant. We’d screamed at each other, said some hateful things. Now would have been the perfect time to tell Amber about the suicide.

  To tell her about the conversation that might have driven him to crash his car into that tree.

  If I said it out loud, it might make it true. As long as the thought remained locked away in my head, it was just that—a thought.

  I didn’t kill him.

  Did I?

  Amber’s eyes were full of compassion and sympathy. If I told her, would that change? Would she look at me differently knowing I drove Tyler to his death?

  I couldn’t. I just couldn’t say the words. Another sob tried to escape, but I held it in.

  Lock it away. If I let it out now, I would lose what little control I had left.

  I pulled away and wiped the tears out of my eyes with my fingertips. I took a deep breath and pasted a shaky smile on my face. “You’re right. I’m overreacting.”

  She smiled. “It’s about time you admitted that. When are you going to admit I’m always right?”

  I closed my eyes, and when I opened them, Tyler was securely tucked away in the furthest corner of my mind.

  I looked at Amber skeptically. “Aren’t we stalking a guy on Facebook because of your bad judgment when it comes to guys?”

  She stuck her tongue out at me.

  …

  I crossed campus early the next morning, excited to get to my first class of the day, criminology. I opened the door to the auditorium-style classroom fifteen minutes early and flipped on the lights. Perfect. First pick of seats.

  I put my stuff down and went in search of a soda machine. I’d lain in bed tossing and turning after my late night Facebook stalking session with Amber, so I was running on about four hours’ sleep.

  The only diet soda that was in the first machine I came to was decaffeinated. What was the point of that?

  I checked my watch. I still had time and my backpack was keeping my carefully selected seat safe, so I continued in my search of diet caffeine. I splurged and got myself a Pop-Tart as well. In my haste to get to class early, I’d skipped breakfast.

  I settled into my seat in the front row. Students were slowly starting to trickle in, but only a few others were sitting in the front half of the room. I just didn’t understand that, especially in a class like criminology. I mean, come on, this stuff was interesting, even for non-nerds.

  I pulled out my notebook and colored pens and laid them out in front of me. Then I popped the top on my soda and took a sip.

  “Hey,” someone said and touched my shoulder.

  I choked and starting coughing, sending the soda up my nose. It burned something fierce. I looked up to see who had touched my shoulder.

  “Sorry,” Luke said, grinning down at me. “You weren’t lying when you said you were jumpy.” He slipped into the seat next to me. “Are you okay?”

  I nodded, not trusting myself to talk. I never noticed how close together the seats were, but I was certainly aware of it now. He was mere inches away from me, and the seats were bolted to the floor, which meant I couldn’t do anything about it unless I wanted to be super obvious and switch seats. I scooted my notebook over, careful to leave enough space between us so that I wouldn’t accidently brush his arm. He pulled out a binder and a pen.

  I stared straight ahead. Damn. I was so looking forward to this class, and now I was full of nerves.

  Nerves and something else in the pit of my stomach I didn’t want to admit to. Why did he have to smell so freaking good?

  I could feel Luke’s eyes on me. After about a minute, I couldn’t take it anymore, so I turned to him. “What?”

  “You’re being weird,” was all he said.

  “No, I’m not.”

  “Yes, you are.”

  “Am not.”

  “Are too.”

  “Am— Are we really doing this?”

  He poked my arm with his pen. “You started it.”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  He raised his eyebrows.

  I sulked. “Okay. You made your point.”

  “My point is don’t. Be weird, I mean.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “Good.”

  “Fine.” I grinned in spite of myself.

  Okay, so maybe I was being weird, just a little. Luke seemed like a nice enough guy. There was no reason we couldn’t be friendly acquaintances. The kiss didn’t have to mean anything, even if it was delicious. I was being immature. Guys and girls could be just friends.

  If only my hormones had gotten that memo.

  The professor walked in then. She wasn’t actually a professor, but a doctoral student. She insisted we call her by her first name, Tanya. She told us she’d been a detective until she’d gotten shot for the third time and decided a change of career was in order. Her lecture was both informative and entertaining, peppered with personal stories from her cases. It was awesome. I was so enthralled with what she was saying I forgot to take notes a time or two. Praise from me didn’t get any higher than that. Luckily, all of the materials would be posted online.

  Plus, I admitted to myself begrudgingly, I could always ask Luke for what I missed. I could already tell he was a much better student than Josh by the way he actually took notes the entire class. And he didn’t heckle me about sitting in the front row.

  “Where would you have sat if I wasn’t in this class?” I asked.

  “What made you think I sat here to be next to you?”

  I blushed.

  He laughed. “Don’t worry. I sat next to you on purpose. I’d probably sit in the second or third row, though. Why?”

  “No reason.” Not front row, but close to it.

  He gave me a strange look as he zipped up his backpack. “I thought we agreed you weren’t going to be weird anymore.”

  “If you think this is weird, you’ve seen nothing yet.”

  He stood up, grinning. “Looking forward to it.”

  Oh, boy.

  …

  As I was walking across campus, my phone chimed, indicating an incoming email. Another notice from the financial aid office. I read over it—they were still missing documentation for my financial aid.

  I handled almost everything in my life, but this was one thing I had no control over since the financial aid office required paperwork about my parents’ income. Ugh. My parents were slipping. Couldn’t they take care of just this one thing?

  I stepped off the walking path to call my mom.

  “Did you get that email I sent you?” I said when she answered.

  “Email?”

  “Yeah, the one about the financial aid?”

  “Um…let me think. Which one was it again?”

  I ground my teeth. “The only one I sent you.”

  “Oh, yes. That one. I got it.”

  I tried to keep the annoyance out of my voice. “Did you take care of it yet? I just got another one.”

  The line went silent.

  “Mom?”

  “About that, honey. Well, you see, the darnedest thing happened…”

  Uh-oh. I sat on a bench. “Spit it out, Mom.”

  “You’re not eligible for those grants anymore.”

  I closed my eyes, dreading the answer to the question I was calmly about to ask. “Why, Mom? Why?”

  “We missed the FAFSA deadline.”

  The air left my lungs, and I was glad I was sitting down. I put my head in my hands.

  “Mom, how could you? I reminded you. I wrote it on the calendar. In red marker. And I circled it.”

  “I just…forgot. These things happen.”

  I clutched the phone tighter and breathed deeply.

  This shouldn’t come as a surprise. These things were always happening to my parents. My parents had never been good with anything money related. My mom could keep any houseplant alive no matter how complicated the maintenance, but she couldn’t balance her checkboo
k. Our dog never missed a grooming appointment, but one year she forgot to file their taxes. How does that happen? I just didn’t get it.

  Stupid, I chided myself. I should have stayed on top of her. But when she said she’d handle it, I’d foolishly believed her. Stupidity on my part. But I couldn’t go back now.

  A queasy feeling settled in my stomach. “What am I supposed to do now?”

  “Don’t worry about this semester. Your father and I can handle this semester.” I sensed a but coming on. Sure enough, she continued. “But you have to figure something out for next semester.”

  “How could you let this happen?”

  She avoided the question. “You could get student loans or go to community college for a while. It’s cheaper. Or get a part-time job.”

  I kept my voice neutral, masking the anger that threatened to spill over. “When were you going to tell me about this?” The FAFSA was due last spring, six months ago. Half a year ago. And I’d lived at home all summer. She didn’t even think to tell me about it?

  “It didn’t seem like the right time, you know, with the news about Tyler.”

  A lump formed in my throat at the mention of his name. I swallowed it down.

  “You could have told me this summer. Or when you first missed the deadline. I can’t believe this. What am I supposed to do now?”

  “I told you, honey. Student loans. Or you could come home.”

  I fought the urge to slam my phone into the pavement. Instead, I politely said good-bye and disconnected.

  After all, if I didn’t have money to pay for tuition, then I certainly didn’t have money to buy myself a new phone.

  All of the scholarships I’d won had been applied to last year’s tuition. I had some money that I’d carefully stashed away in high school that was enough to cover my car insurance and give me a small allowance every month. Luckily, a sorority scholarship paid for my dues and room and board in the house since my GPA raised the sorority’s average.

  I’d meticulously calculated so that I’d have enough to get by until at least next year. I didn’t factor in having to pay tuition.

  I bristled at my mother’s solutions to this dilemma. I didn’t have time for a job with my course load. And I didn’t bust my ass all last year earning a 4.0 GPA just to move home and transfer to community college. GPAs didn’t transfer.

  Anger bubbled in my gut. I’d been offered full scholarships to two other schools, but I’d declined them in favor of attending this school, my dream school. I was beginning to reconsider the wisdom of my decision.

  But it wasn’t my actions that fucked everything up. I had my shit in order.

  My fingers tightened on the straps of my backpack as I fought the urge to scream.

  I might be angry with my mom, but I was furious with myself. I always promised myself I’d never be as irresponsible with money as they were, accumulating debt I couldn’t handle. I’d seen the stress caused by foreclosure notices and debt collection phone calls. No, thank you. I’d be damned if I was going to finish school with tens of thousands of student loan debt.

  I was just going to have to come up with tens of thousands of dollars in scholarship money on my own before next semester.

  My shoulders slumped. Fuck.

  I’d think about it later. For now, I had to get to class.

  Chapter Seven

  My feet were so sweaty they slipped down in my peep-toe heels, making it hard to walk. The result was the beginnings of blisters from hell. I’d forgotten how much these damn shoes hurt.

  “Shit.” I rubbed my sweaty palms on my dress.

  Amber gave me a sidelong glance. “You don’t look so good.”

  I stopped walking and put a hand to my stomach, trying to stop it from twisting. “I don’t feel so good.”

  It was Friday night, and we were on our way to the student center for the Greek talent show. I was not prepared. I’d only chosen my song two nights ago, which left me little time to rehearse. My accompaniment was an mp3 karaoke download, which was not up to my usual standards, but it was the best I could do on short notice.

  She looked at me quizzically. “Has this happened before?”

  She’d never seen me directly before a pageant, and my stage fright wasn’t something I advertised, even to my bestie. I didn’t like to acknowledge my weaknesses. It gave them power.

  I nodded. “It usually passes by the time I get backstage, but it’s been a while. And I’m…I’m just not prepared. How did I let myself get sucked into this?” There was nothing in this for me, absolutely nothing. My stomach heaved and I choked back the vomit. I picked the wrong damn time to be a people-pleaser.

  Amber pulled me over to a bench, and we sat. I used the tissue she handed me to wipe the moisture off my palms.

  “Do we have time?” I rotated the tissue in my hand, systematically shredding it. “I don’t want to be late.”

  “You’re as white as a sheet. We’ll make time.”

  I counted to ten and did breathing exercises to calm myself down. Inhale, move my hands up toward my face in a gliding motion. Exhale, hands down and out. Inhale, exhale.

  I looked to my phone as a reflex to my budding hysteria. No new messages. With a jolt, I realized there would be no text message, no message of encouragement.

  Tyler was gone. And even if he weren’t, our relationship had been so damaged, I doubted he’d be there to support me for this anyway.

  Instinctively, I reached up for the silver necklace at my throat. Panic rose up in me again. “I can’t do it.”

  “Yes, you can,” Amber said. “I came prepared.” She opened her purse and pulled out a tiny bottle of rum.

  “What is that?” I hissed. I shoved her hand back into her purse, looking to make sure no one had seen. We were underage. What was she thinking waving that around? I peeked in her purse to find a stash of little bottles. My jaw dropped a little.

  She rolled her eyes. “Relax. I’m not going to force you to drink it. It was supposed to be for a pre-game for me and some of the girls, but you need it more.”

  I licked my lips. “Thanks, but no.”

  Amber cocked her head. “Wasn’t it your drunken campfire singing that got you in this mess in the first place?”

  “Don’t remind me.” I knew it was my own dumb fault I was in this position, but a repeat of my drunken performance didn’t seem like a good solution.

  “Here.” Amber put the bottles in my purse. “Just in case.”

  I gave her a wary look, but I didn’t object.

  When we got to the auditorium, I was directed backstage with the rest of the performers. Amber gave me a kiss on the cheek.

  “I’d wish you luck, but you don’t need it.”

  I nodded, too unnerved to speak, and she left.

  Despite my fears about being late, I was actually one of the first performers backstage. The backstage manager told me I was number twenty out of twenty-three performers. I did the math in my head. Five minutes per act times nineteen performers in front of me meant I had an hour and a half to kill before it was my turn. I would prefer to just get it over with, but something told me the stressed-out stage manager who was barking orders into a headset wouldn’t care what I preferred.

  I paced backstage until it became too crowded. Some of the other fraternities had full bands representing them and other sororities had groups of girls in matching dance outfits. How could I compete with that? They had entire acts planned out while I would just be holding a microphone.

  I peeked out into the audience. My vision blurred at the sight of the nearly full auditorium. There had to be thousands of people out there.

  Somehow I didn’t think the old technique for overcoming stage fright would work. There were way too many people to imagine them in their underwear. Not that it ever really worked anyway. Nothing beat proper preparation, but it was too late for that.

  “Don’t you know better than to look out there?”

  I jumped away from the curtain. It was Jo
sh, and he had his guitar with him. A relieved smile spread across my face. I almost hugged him.

  “I do,” I said sheepishly, “but I couldn’t help it.”

  The lights blinked, indicating that we only had five minutes until showtime. I followed Josh backstage and out a door to a waiting area in the hall.

  “I didn’t know you were performing tonight,” I said.

  “Neither did I,” he said with a lazy grin. “Apparently they signed me up and forgot to tell me.”

  A look of horror crossed my face. “What are you going to play?”

  He shrugged. “Don’t know. I’ll figure it out when I get out there.”

  The very thought of that made me twitchy. He just leaned against the wall like he hadn’t a care in the world, like he wasn’t about to go onstage in front of thousands of people. I wished I could channel a little of his calmness, his nonchalance.

  A girl dressed in black with a clipboard and a headset announced, “Beta Chi, you’re up next.”

  “Sweet,” Josh said. “I guess I’m second.”

  I went backstage with him to show my support, not that he seemed to need it. He was perfectly at ease. I was more nervous for him than he was.

  They called his name and he walked onstage holding his guitar. When he got to the center, he grinned and held his guitar up in one hand while motioning with the other hand for the audience to cheer.

  Which they did.

  If I tried that, crickets would probably start chirping.

  “What do y’all want to hear?” he said into the microphone.

  Immediately someone in the audience yelled “Freebird!” I rolled my eyes. There was one in every crowd. Then there was a cacophony of shouted requests.

  Grinning, Josh rocked back on his heels and looked around the audience. He put his hand up to his ear. “What was that?”

  The audience shouted their requests again. “I heard Dave Matthews from the lovely lady in the front. What’s your name, sweetheart? Kimberly?” He winked at her. Actually winked. “I’ll see you after the show.”

  He sat on the stool behind the microphone and adjusted the strings on the guitar. He played a few simple chords before starting his song.