“I don’t really think-”
“Not you and Daniel,” she said, cutting me off. “You two have some weird, honest, admit-all-your-feelings shit going on. Which is cool, I guess, but just so you know that’s not how it’s supposed to work.”
After Daniel had left this morning I’d gone upstairs and found Whitney sprawled on her bed in a muffin comma. After nudging her awake, I told her everything Daniel and I had talked about. She’d listened quietly and waited until I’d finished before she yawned and said ‘See? I told you he loved you, muffins don’t lie’ before pulling the covers over her head and going promptly back to sleep.
“How is it supposed to work? And what exit are we supposed to get off at?” I asked tersely. “I need to know. I don’t want to miss it.” As a blue Volvo came flying past on the left, I nervously tapped the brakes and checked all of my mirrors.
It wasn’t that I was afraid of driving on the interstate. Not really. It was just that after reading various articles, I knew how dangerous and distracted other drivers could be. Phone calls, texting, and talking to other passengers all contributed to a higher crash rate than drunk driving. Some studies even suggested that texting while driving was the equivalent of getting behind the wheel after drinking four beers, and the annual death toll from texting related accidents was climbing higher and higher with each passing year. In 2014 alone over three thousand people were killed because of distracted driving.
All of that knowledge, coupled with the fact that I had far fewer driving miles under my belt than most twenty-four-year-olds courtesy of all my time spent at Harvard, meant I was more tense than I should have been, but since letting Whitney drive was out of the question (at last count her speeding tickets almost equaled her number of ex-boyfriends) there was little I could do but grin and bear it. Or, in this case, grimace and bear it.
“Relax,” Whitney said as she fished her phone back out of her purse and brought up Google maps. “We have plenty of time. The exit isn’t for another…oh.”
“Oh?” Sweat sprang from my palms as my grip on the steering wheel intensified. “What do you mean, ‘oh’?”
“Nothing. Just turn here.”
“Turn where?”
“Here!”
I yelped as Whitney grabbed the wheel and wrenched it to the right. For one terrifying second the wheels locked in protest against the sharp, sudden turn before Roo straightened herself out. “Oh my God,” I gasped. “Oh my God. Whitney!”
“What?” Blinking innocently, my best friend shrugged. “We’re fine. I didn’t want to miss the exit. Google says turn left up here and Eastern Sports should be two miles down on…hold on…the right.” Clicking her phone off, she twisted in her seat and grinned at me. “You should have seen your face. Too funny!”
“Not funny at all,” I corrected. “At all, Whitney. Please don’t do that ever again.”
Seeing the genuine fear in my eyes, she sombered. “Sorry, Mo. Didn’t mean to scare you.”
“Well you did.” It took a lot to provoke my anger, but Whitney had managed to do it. Being nosy about my sex life was one thing. Trying to kill both of us was something else entirely. “I don’t believe it would hurt you to think before you acted every once in a while.”
“And I don’t think it would hurt you to be stop so judgemental!” Whitney shot back. While my temper was deeply rooted and carefully controlled, Whitney’s festered right under the surface, ready to break free at the smallest provocation. “I can tell what you’re thinking,” she continued as I waited for the light to turn green before turning left and merging into the far right lane.
Bangor was small by Pennsylvania standards, but compared to Camden it was a bustling metropolis. Four lanes dissected the middle of the city, two going towards the ocean and two going away. We were too far inland in to see any water, but the various boat shops we passed revealed it wasn’t too far away. In addition to being Maine’s third largest city, Bangor was also home to Stephen King, and I was hoping to drive past his house on our way back.
“You think I’m a slut.”
“I - what?” The light in front of me went from green to yellow. I slammed on the brakes, causing the car behind us to lay on their horn. I threw a hand up in the rearview mirror to apologize before I turned towards Whitney so fast the seat belt retractor mechanism deployed, snapping me back in my seat. Yanking the seat belt away from my collarbone I said, “Are you serious? Whit, I - I would never think that. Ever!”
Her mouth formed a hard, stubborn line before she stared out the window, refusing to look at me. “Forget about it,” she muttered.
I swallowed a sigh. The last thing I wanted - or needed - right now was a fight with my best friend. Whitney was the only person in the entire world who completely understood me. The only person I could turn to. The only person I could talk to about Daniel. “Whitney, I’ve never thought that about you. Ever. I don’t know why-”
“The light’s green,” she said, cutting me off.
Before the car behind us could honk again, I hit the gas. We rode the rest of the way to Eastern Sports in uncomfortable silence. Whitney jumped out the second I put Roo in park and was halfway across the lot before I could pull the keys out the ignition.
Mulling over the possible reasons behind my best friend’s anger I followed at a slower pace, stopping to allow a woman with three small children in tow to push her cart past in front of me.
“Thanks,” she said, flashing a tired smile.
“You’re welcome.” I waved at the children. “Have a nice day.”
“You too,” they chorused in unison before their mother herded them into a tan minivan.
If only someone else could be so polite.
From experience, I knew the one good thing about Whitney’s temper was that it faded quickly. Chances were she had already forgotten why she’d become so mad in the first place.
My suspicions were confirmed the instant I stepped into Eastern Sports. Holding a pink fleece in one hand and a pair of purple running sneakers in the other, Whitney came charging towards me with an enormous smile on her face.
“Mo, get a look at these.” She shoved the sneakers in my face. “They’re sixty percent off!”
“You don’t run,” I pointed out.
“So what? They’re on sale.”
If there was one thing Whitney loved more than sex and gossiping about sex, it was a good sale. It usually didn’t matter what was on sale. It could have been sneakers, shirts, sparkly headbands… If it was discounted, she had to have it.
“Well…they’re definitely you,” I conceded. “And the fleece looks nice, although maybe you should try to find something a little heavier. It’s only going to keep getting colder out.”
“Something heavier?” Whitney looked at me as though I’d just told her the earth was flat. “But the fleece jackets are on sale.”
“Then get what you want,” I said, a bit harder than I had intended. “I’m going to look at the hiking equipment.” I felt Whitney’s eyes following me as I brushed past her. After a quick consult with one of the friendly faced employees, I stalked to the hiking section.
As I stared at the jackets and boots and backpacks, I couldn’t help but replay what Whitney had said in the car because that was how my temper worked. Did she really think I was judgemental? Frowning, I picked up a pair of black binoculars and turned them over in my hands. I wasn’t judgemental. At least, I didn’t think so. I may have doubted a few of Whitney’s life decisions, but I’d never told her what to do. Well, almost never. It had been my idea to move to Camden, but Whitney had agreed to it. She’d wanted a change as much as I had, and aside from a few snarky remarks here and there lamenting that there was nothing to do, I’d thought she liked Maine.
Maybe I was wrong.
Quickly setting the binoculars down after I happened to glance at the price (two hundred dollars?!) I picked out three pairs of thick wool socks, a silver thermos, and a tiny, clip-on compass. I wanted to buy mo
re - if only to feel completely prepared for tomorrow - but my bank account was already on the lower end of the spectrum.
Six months in to being cut off from the family fortune, and I was still adjusting. I’d never been wasteful or prone to exorbitant spending habits, but I had also never known what it felt like not to buy something because I simply couldn’t afford it. It was the little things I’d always taken for granted that kept surprising me.
A tank of gas.
The cost of groceries.
Lunch at the college pub.
Two hundred dollar binoculars.
Once I would have purchased the binoculars without thinking. Now I gave them a wide berth as I brought my carefully selected items up to the counter.
“Just these today?” asked the clerk, an older man with the scruffy beard, weathered skin, and flat, rolling accent of a born and bred Mainer.
“Just these,” I confirmed. With a nod the clerk began to ring up the socks, thermos, and compass as I glanced behind me, looking for Whitney amidst the hanging kayaks and pitched tents. My brow furrowed when I didn’t see her, especially since we hadn’t talked about going anywhere else. Aside from a pizza shop, a dollar store, Goodwill, CVS, and a thrift store, there wasn’t really anywhere else to go. Not when Roo’s keys were still tucked safely inside my wallet.
“And your total comes to twenty seven dollars and thirteen cents,” the clerk said, drawing my attention back to the counter. He smiled pleasantly. “Cash or credit?”
“Cash.” Opening my wallet, I counted out the bills one by one. I had a debit card, but while researching ways to live on a budget I’d learned that paying with cash cut down on impulse purchases by nearly sixty percent. Swiping a piece of plastic didn’t have nearly the same effect on the human psyche as being forced to give something away - in this case, paper money - you wouldn’t get back.
Maybe that was why I was having such a hard time admitting my true feelings to Daniel…and to myself. Because once you gave it away, unconditional love couldn’t be taken back. At least not in the same condition you’d given it in.
Hadn’t I already learned that lesson time and time again? With my father. With my mother. Even to some extent with Justin, although I’d never felt for him even half of what I felt for Daniel. And that scared me. Because love - true, head over heels, I’ll want you until the day I die love - didn’t care about the Faculty Code of Conduct. And it didn’t care about logic. And it didn’t care about doing what made sense.
True love wasn’t something that could be researched and studied. It wasn’t a test that would be passed. It wasn’t a diploma that could be earned. It was an electric, living, breathing force. A force that defied all reason. A force that couldn’t be controlled or contained.
“You have a nice day now.”
I blinked at the clerk and mustered a delayed smile. “Thank you.” Accepting my change and a blue plastic bag with ‘Eastern Sports’ written across it in bold white font, I did one more loop around the store, looking for Whitney. By the time I doubled back around to the counter, two things were clear: my best friend was gone…and I was more confused about Daniel than ever before.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Pizza
“What took you so long?” Not looking the least bit apologetic, Whitney took a long sip of her soda before she sat back and crossed her arms. “I’ve been waiting forever.”
The smell of freshly baked pizza dough hung heavily in the air, making my stomach growl as I slid into the booth across from Whitney and summoned my very best I-am-extremely-annoyed-at-you glare. It was a glare I reserved for very special occasions, which made it all the more potent. The first time I’d used it had been when I’d come back to our dorm room after a late night of studying to find Whitney making out with the captain of the lacrosse team…on my bed. I’d used it again when she’d taken Roo without my permission and once more on the morning of graduation (a story so horrible and embarrassing I’d vowed never to think about it again). I had thought the days of having to use The Glare were far behind us, but after wandering around CVS and Goodwill for nearly an hour searching for Whitney I couldn’t think of a better time for it to make a reappearance.
“You’ve been waiting forever?” Disbelief raised my voice a full octave. “Why didn’t you tell me you were coming here?” Indicating the tiny pizza shop with a sweep of my arm, I straightened my spine and set my jaw. If I hadn’t been angry with Whitney before, I definitely was now, if only for the sole reason I still didn’t know why she was angry at me.
Whitney’s mouth tightened. “I didn’t know I had to.”
“I tried to call you! Three times!”
Her scowl turned sulky. “I turned my phone off. The battery’s almost dead.”
“Then you should have checked with me before you left Eastern Sports.”
“Who are you, my mother?”
“No of course not, I - I don’t want to fight.” My shoulders slumped as all of my anger drained away in one surging wave. Whitney was my best friend. More than that, she was the sister I’d never had. The mother who actually cared. The one person I could always trust to be there for me, no matter what. I didn’t want to yell at her and I didn’t want to fight in the middle of a crowded pizza shop with two dozen eavesdroppers listening in on our conversation. Lowering my voice, I leaned towards her across the red and white checkered tablecloth and said, “If you’re mad at me for something I did or said, just tell me. I can’t read your mind, Whit.”
“I’m not mad at you,” she muttered under her breath, toying with a corner of her paper placemat.
“Really?” I said skeptically. “Because that’s not what it seems like.”
“Why can’t you just let it go?” Reluctantly lifting her gaze to mine, Whitney huffed out a breath. “Forget about it. It’s nothing. I’m not mad, I swear. Everything’s fine.”
I had never completely understood the nuances of female communication where ‘nothing’ really meant ‘everything’ and ‘fine’ translated directly into ‘I’m going to kill you the second your back is turned’. Both of my parents had always been very upfront with me, and I was required to be the same in return. If I was unhappy, I needed to have a reason. If I was angry, I needed to explain why. There were never any slammed doors. No ‘I don’t want to talk about it right now!’. As a result, I’d learned how to speak my mind at an early age which had served me fairly well up until the ninth grade when Mia Rodgers, head cheerleader and homecoming queen, asked me if the skirt she was wearing made her thighs look big…and I said yes. That social faux pas taught me two valuable lessons: there was a time and a place to tell the truth, and when a cheerleader asked you if she looked fat the answer was always no.
“Whitney, I know you.” Grabbing her menu before she could tear it to shreds, I set it aside and stared her straight in the eye. “And I know you’re upset about something. Please tell me what it is.”
For a moment I thought she wasn’t going to. For a moment I thought she was going to get up and leave. But with a long, gusty sigh she rolled her eyes and grudgingly admitted, “I’m pissed off about the muffins.”
It wasn’t often I found myself caught completely off guard, but Whitney had managed to do it. Biting the inside of my cheek, I struggled to think of a suitable response. Fortunately a young, pimple-faced waiter with a shock of greasy black hair and bored brown eyes chose that exact moment to take our order.
“Welcome to DeMarco’s,” he said in a monotone voice. “Can I get you something to drink?”
“Another diet,” Whitney said, nudging her empty glass to the edge of the table.
“Um…a water for me, please. No lemon.”
“She thinks the lemons in restaurants have traces of fecal matter on them,” Whitney informed the waiter.
“Only because I read a study in the Environmental Journal of Health that said seventy percent of the lemons they tested contained microbial growth,” I said defensively.
The waiter glanced u
ncertainly between us. “Uh, is that like, true?”
“Ask her,” Whitney said sullenly. “She’s the genius.”
I frowned at her before I looked up at the waiter. “It’s true. They tested seventy different restaurants and found over thirty-seven different microorganisms on the lemons, including bacteria from the human digestive system and respiratory tract.”
“Dude,” the waiter breathed as his eyes widened with equal parts disgust and fascination. “That’s nasty. I’m never eating a lemon again!”
“As long as you thoroughly wash the lemon and make sure your hands are clean before touching it, there’s no reason to stop putting lemons in your water. They’re actually quite beneficial. Could we place our order now?” Besides being hungry, I wanted to talk to Whitney in private, something that was rather hard to do with a waiter hovering over us.
“Yeah, sure.” He pulled a white pad out of his front pocket and flipped to an empty page. “What do you want?”
The specials had been written on a sign outside the pizza shop and I didn’t hesitate before I said, “Two slices of pepperoni and a garden salad.”
“What kind of dressing?”
“Blue cheese. On the side.”
Biting his tongue, he muttered my order out loud as he scribbled it down on his pad. “Two pepperoni…salad…blue cheese. You got it.” He looked at Whitney expectantly.
“The same thing,” she said, “but ranch instead of blue cheese.”
“You got it,” he repeated before he snapped his pad closed and strolled away with the long, careless gait of an unruly teenager who hadn’t yet felt the full weight of responsibility.
“So,” Whitney said, pursing her lips.
“So,” I echoed.
Awkward silence filled the space between us. Seconds that felt like minutes ticked by, each one longer than the last until, in a sudden rush of garbled words, we both tried to speak at the same time.
“I’m sorry I’ve been such a bitch-”
Learning to Fall Page 22