Yes, I was definitely okay.
Chapter Fourteen
Luke drove me home the next morning. I’d spent the night with him, and this time we didn’t stay on our respective sides of the bed, instead having a good old-fashioned make-out session before we fell asleep spooning.
When he pulled up to the Alpha house, he turned off the ignition and walked around to my side to open my door. He helped me down, but instead of walking me to the door, he put his arms on either side of me, trapping me against the Jeep. He gave me a playful smile and then leaned down to press his lips to mine. I grabbed his shirt and pulled him closer. Our tongues tangled and I drank in the scent of him, something that never failed to affect me.
He pulled away after a few moments. “Did you have fun yesterday?”
I nodded, barely comprehending the question. My lips were swollen, and the taste of him was on my tongue.
He tweaked my nose playfully. “Told you.”
“Am I supposed to be eternally grateful?” I somehow managed to say this with a straight face.
He considered. “Maybe not eternally, but remember this the next time I do something stupid.”
My jaw dropped in mock surprise. “You do something stupid?” Even though I was exaggerating with my reaction, I honestly couldn’t imagine it. I’d hit the boyfriend jackpot with Luke.
His eyes roamed over my face. “You’re a good girl, Cori.”
“You’re not so bad yourself,” I said, pulling him in for another kiss.
…
Amber’s nose entered the kitchen first, followed by the rest of her body. “What is that smell? Are you baking something?”
I glanced up from where I was crouching in front of the oven, watching the cupcakes rise. “Yup.” I wasn’t an experienced baker, but I figured I could handle some cupcakes out of a red box.
Amber appeared utterly confused. “Why? Shouldn’t you be studying or writing a paper or, well, doing anything else but this?”
I glared at her through slitted eyes. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“In the ten years I’ve known you, I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve seen you bake something. Maybe even on one finger.”
I slipped oven mitts on my hands. “That doesn’t mean I can’t do it.” I pulled the cupcakes out of the oven and set them on the stove. A toothpick stuck in the middle of one determined they were perfectly done. Thanks for the tip, Pinterest. I gave Amber an I told you so look.
Amber slapped her palms together and rubbed, a gleam in her eyes. “When do we eat?”
“We don’t,” I said firmly. “These are for the Beta Chi pledges.”
Amber raised her eyebrows. “Oh?”
I busied myself with checking the cupcakes to ensure that each one was cooked through, even though I knew they were. “Luke is the pledge master. I thought this would be a nice treat.”
Amber hopped up on the counter and grinned. “You’ve been spending a lot of time together.”
I nodded, still not meeting her eyes.
“And?”
I sat down at the kitchen table where I’d put my homework. She was right on the money about me doing homework. It annoyed me that I was so predictable.
She nudged me with her foot. “Uh-uh. You aren’t getting off that easy. I’ve given you space this entire week. I can’t take it anymore. Spill.”
Luke and I hadn’t seen each other outside of class this week, but we’d talked on the phone every night, if only for a few minutes, and exchanged texts back and forth. He’d been busy getting ready for the new pledge class which had its first meeting tonight. I’d jokingly volunteered to be the “pledge mom” and bake cupcakes, even though as Amber had so helpfully pointed out, I wasn’t an experienced baker. Despite my lack of experience, I was pleased when Luke took me up on it.
I wasn’t sure what the status of our relationship was. We were more than friends, but I wouldn’t quite consider him my boyfriend yet—we hadn’t had “the talk.” Knots formed in my stomach whenever I thought about that. Absently, I toyed with my necklace. I felt like I shouldn’t be ready to take that next step. It felt wrong, disloyal. But the truth was I wanted to move forward. Why else would I be baking, for goodness sake?
I picked up my highlighter and focused on my textbook, not meeting her eyes. “We’re friends.”
“What kind of friends?” Amber prompted.
“Friendly ones.”
She threw up her hands in exasperation. “You are impossible!” She hopped off the counter and leaned over my shoulder. “What are you working on?”
“Stupid biology,” I muttered.
She wrinkled her nose. “I’m so glad I didn’t take that. Guess what?”
I sighed and put down my highlighter. “What? On second thought, why don’t you guess the number of chapters I have to get through tonight?”
She stuck out her tongue. “Two. You’ve mentioned it a few times. Seriously though, guess what?” I waited half a beat for her to rush on like she normally did. I never actually got to guess. “Brad asked me out. On a real date!”
Good thing I wasn’t the guessing type.
“That’s great, Amber. When?” I didn’t have to fake my enthusiasm. I was happy for her.
“Tomorrow. I thought about telling him I was busy. I didn’t want to give in too easy, but then again, we’re getting too old for games, don’t you think? I mean, I do like him. You and Luke aren’t playing any games, are you?”
I ignored her last question, a lame attempt to get me to talk about Luke. “Where’s he taking you?”
“Dinner somewhere. I’m not sure. I don’t really care. I’ll eat anything. I’m just glad he finally got around to taking me out somewhere. Hanging at the house is fun and all, but my college years are ticking. I don’t want to waste any more time on scumbags.”
I rose and walked over to the stove to take the cupcakes out of the pans so they could finish cooling.
Amber looked longingly at them. “Are you going to decorate them?”
I pointed to a can of chocolate frosting I’d bought with the cake mix.
She shook her head. “What? No sprinkles?”
“They’re boys. They don’t care about sprinkles.”
“Well, not specifically,” Amber huffed, “but you’ve got to make them look appealing.” She grabbed my arm. “Come on, let’s go buy some blue sprinkles. Isn’t blue a Beta color?”
“Wait.” I stopped and glanced at the cupcakes lined up in neat rows on the counter. “Do you think these are safe here?” I didn’t trust leaving the cupcakes unattended in a house full of girls.
I cringed as Amber ripped a sheet of paper out of my notebook. If she’d asked, I could’ve gotten her a sheet of paper out of my bag instead of her tearing up my notebook. Sigh.
She scribbled on it and slapped it down on the counter in front of the cupcakes. The paper read Do not eat under pain of death!!!
“That should do the trick.”
By the time we went to the store and came home with blue sprinkles in hand, the cupcakes were cool and ready to frost. Amber helped me frost and decorate them. Then I packaged them up in a plastic container I’d found in the kitchen and loaded them into my car.
Butterflies were in my stomach as I sat in the Beta Chi parking lot. I gripped the steering wheel with my hands, even though I had already turned off the ignition.
“Stop being stupid,” I told myself. “Get out of the car.”
Fuck. What was I doing?
Cupcakes, I told myself. They’re just cupcakes.
It didn’t feel like that, though.
My phone rang. It was a number I didn’t recognize, but the area code was from home, and I was desperate for an excuse to stall.
“Hello?”
“Is this Cori Elliott?” The woman’s voice sounded vaguely familiar.
“Yes.”
“Thank goodness! This is Mrs. Talbot.”
It took me a second to remember she was
the pageant coordinator at my high school. “Hi, Mrs. Talbot.”
“I’ll cut right to the chase. I’m in a bit of a situation. Our pageant is this weekend and I’m short one judge. I was hoping you could fill in.”
I balked. “I’ve never judged before. I don’t think I’m qualified.”
“You’re a former Miss Forrest Creek, which means you’re automatically an approved judge. Besides, with all of your pageant experience, you’re more than qualified.”
I hesitated. This was really last minute. Granted, I didn’t have any plans for this weekend, but still, it was almost a six-hour drive.
“Please, please, please!” Mrs. Talbot pleaded with desperation in her voice. “I’m begging you. I’ll even pay for your gas money.”
I sighed. “Okay, I’ll do it.”
“Yay! The pageant starts at seven. Interviews are at four. Try to arrive no later than three. Oh, and wear a suit.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“You’re a doll.”
That’s what I get for stalling.
I popped the top off the cupcake container. I grabbed one and stuffed my face.
Brushing the sprinkles off my shirt, I opened my car door. With a smile on my face and a box of cupcakes in my hands, I threw my shoulders back and walked into the Beta house.
Those were some damn good cupcakes, if I did say so myself.
…
It was startling to wake up in my room at my parents’ house, almost like I’d gone through a time warp instead of driving across the state. Sheet music for the songs I used to perform was tacked all over one of the walls. In the bookcase, binders from my high school career were neatly alphabetized. The clothes I’d left behind when I went away to college were in uniform stacks in the back of the closet right where I’d left them. The bulletin board was still covered with the white sheet I’d put over it this summer. My heart had caught in my chest when I’d awoken and seen the sunlight streaming through the window onto it. I could vaguely make out the shapes of the photos and other things pinned on it. When the light threatened to reveal too much, I’d gotten up and headed to the shower.
As I was standing under the spray, I realized that this could be my future. If I didn’t figure out my tuition situation, I’d be waking up every day in my childhood room.
Good-bye Alpha Delta.
Good-bye Amber.
Good-bye Luke.
I hadn’t been focusing on the problem like I should. But now that I was back in my parents’ house, the possible consequences became very real.
I might actually have to come home.
Everything I’d worked so hard for just…gone.
Tuition just got moved to the top of my priority list. I was an idiot not to have it there in the first place.
Even though I’d slept in, I had several hours to kill before I was due for pageant judging. I poured myself a bowl of Lucky Charms and laid my criminology notes and textbook out on the breakfast table.
My mom joined me. I spared her a glance before returning to my notes.
“Should I come to the pageant?” she asked.
Shoveling a spoonful of cereal in my mouth, I shrugged.
“Do you want to go out to dinner?”
“I won’t be home until late.”
“Oh, okay.” She fiddled with the edge of the placemat. “What about breakfast before you leave tomorrow?”
I shook my head. “I want to get on the road early.”
She sighed. “All right. Let me know if you change your mind.”
It might have been cruel, but I wasn’t ready to forgive her for how she handled my financial aid situation. I wasn’t going to address it with her, either. That was the way with my family. We each lived in our own orbits that happened to intersect from time to time.
I arrived early at the school, and Mrs. Talbot was nowhere to be found, so I wandered around a bit. I hadn’t been back since I graduated. Not much had changed. Same gold colored lockers, same cream cinderblock walls, same scuffed speckled tile floors. It was the same, yet it seemed so different.
I was different.
There by the main office was my locker from freshman year, where Tyler had asked me out for the first time. I smiled, remembering the way his Adam’s apple had bobbed up and down as he swallowed from nervousness. He’d been an attentive high school boyfriend, bringing me a rose each month on our anniversary for the first year. We held hands between classes and kissed when we had to go our separate ways. For Valentine’s Day, he always brought me the biggest, most obnoxious stuffed animal and balloon arrangement he could find. Back in the day, those things were important.
All the girls had been so jealous.
I slipped into the girls’ bathroom on the main hallway. The same bad fluorescent lighting illuminated the forest green stalls. Most of the graffiti had been scrubbed free over the summer, but the requisite “so-and-so is a slut” scrawls peppered the walls. I checked the second stall and yup—the lock was still broken. Amber and I had hid in it once when we skipped gym class my sophomore year. That was the first and only time I ever skipped a class. I chewed every nail on my fingers down to a nub in the hour we huddled there. I just knew a security guard was going to fling open the door at any moment and drag me to the principal’s office.
I pulled out my lip gloss for a touch-up. In my black suit and teal blouse with my copper locks pulled into a sleek low ponytail, I looked a lot more grown-up than the last time I’d touched up my makeup in this mirror.
It felt like decades had passed.
“Corinne?”
My back stiffened, and I turned to find two high school girls gaping at me.
“Corinne Elliott?”
I pasted a smile on my face. “That’s me.”
The girls wore green and gold FC cheering uniforms and held rolls of raffle tickets in their hands.
“Oh my God, they said you were coming, but I can’t believe you’re actually here,” the first one gushed. Her long blond hair was curled and pulled back into a ponytail. The star on her skirt indicated she was the captain of the squad. That meant she was probably a senior, so she would have been a sophomore when I was a senior, but I didn’t recognize her.
My smile tightened, but to my credit, it remained on my face. “It’s great to be back.” I sounded like a damn politician.
“We’ve never met,” the second one said, “but I am like, so sorry for your loss. You and Tyler had to be the most perfect couple I’ve ever seen.” This one also had her blond hair curled and pulled back into a ponytail. They could have been twins.
“It’s just so sad,” Captain Blondie said, tears actually forming in her eyes.
You have got to be freaking kidding me.
Blondie Two wrapped her arm around Captain Blondie’s shoulders. “Tragic. It was tragic. How do you go on? You are so brave.”
Captain Blondie nodded emphatically. “You’re like a tragic heroine, like Juliet or something.”
Not really. Juliet killed herself. I hadn’t gotten there yet. But I might if I had to talk to these two any longer.
My smile was so tight my face was in danger of cracking. “I do the best I can.” It was the standard line I always gave to questions like these. I’d learned in the beginning that no one wanted to hear an honest answer. No one wanted to hear about the sleepless nights or, worse, the nightmares.
Blondie Two’s bottom lip started to quiver, and I fought the urge to punch her in the mouth. Instead, I said, “It was nice to meet you both,” and hurried out of the bathroom.
No more trips down memory lane, especially if it meant more encounters like that.
I probably shouldn’t have come. I wondered what Amber and Luke were doing, then I remembered that Amber had her date with Brad tonight. Then they’d probably end up at the Beta house.
Even though I didn’t have formal plans, I probably would have ended up there, too. I would much rather be there than here.
I headed toward the library where the i
nterviews were taking place. A smartly dressed man in a charcoal suit was waiting there. I remembered him as one of the judges from when I competed in the pageant. After briefly introducing myself, I sat on a bench to wait.
I thought back to my conversation with the Blondies. They compared me to Juliet. Was everyone waiting for me to make one last tragic show of devotion?
If Juliet hadn’t killed herself, would she ever be forgiven for moving on with her life?
I was scared to know the answer.
Chapter Fifteen
Judging the pageant was actually fun. There were a few contestants whose talents were painful to watch—after all, this was a high school pageant—but there were some genuinely talented girls. It was hard not to reminisce about my own pageant days—the preparation, the anticipation, the feeling of accomplishment when I knew I had nailed it. Being crowned the winner wasn’t so bad, either.
After the winners were announced and the audience had rushed the stage, I craned my neck from where I sat at the judges’ table, trying to find Mrs. Talbot to let her know I was leaving.
“Oh my God, Cori, it is you!” a high-pitched male voice said.
I turned to see Dante, my former pageant coach, strutting his way over to me¸ hips swinging in his signature swagger. He was wearing white skinny jeans, black leather boots, and a black button-down shirt. Black eyeliner lined his deep brown eyes and his black hair was slicked back. It totally worked for him.
I grinned. “Were you coaching one of these girls?”
He pursed his lips and jerked his head toward the stage. “Blue taffeta.”
My eyebrows shot up. Her performance had been mediocre at best.
He flipped his hand out and popped his hip. “Tell me about it. But what are you going to do? The money was good. Not everyone can be a starlet like Miss Corinne over here.” He flashed a smile and put a hand on my arm.
I blushed.
“So girl, tell me, what are you doing with yourself?”
Letting Go Page 14