“Mandy, are you okay?”
I looked up at Lashell and felt my chest fall heavily at the sight of her worried expression.
Because my sister had taken the car to the soup kitchen, I hadn’t had anything to drive to track her down. When I stormed out of the house, I stepped into the pouring rain and ran. And I just kept running for six blocks until I finally reached the church.
My clothes were soaked through to my skin, cold and wet, and I was freezing. I could feel the black trails of mascara dripping down my cheeks, but all I could really focus on was trying to find my sister.
“Where’s Bailey?” I asked, and I looked around the kitchen. I ran into the packed dining room and didn’t find her on the line. Returning to the kitchen, I looked back to Lashell. “Where is she? Why isn’t she here?”
“She and Gabe went to the market to get some more pasta,” she said. “We ran out.”
“Gabe was here?” A sharp pain wrenched itself deep into my gut, and I knew the pain could’ve been caused by any number of things. Maybe because he’d been avoiding me. Maybe because he hadn’t bothered showing up for a week? It could’ve been that he’d left me hanging with words of uncertainty, words that I couldn’t interpret no matter how hard I tried. Or it might’ve been the fact that he was making a food run with my sister, and I was supposed to stand there and act like that didn’t bother me.
“Mandy,” Lashell said, dropping her hands on my shoulders. “Honey, what’s going on? Are you okay?”
“No!” I screamed, shoving her arms off of me. “I’m not okay! I—need—to—talk—to—Bailey!”
My eyes darted around the kitchen, and both Carla and Fletcher turned to watch as I stumbled, nearly losing my balance and falling to the floor.
“This was all just one big mistake,” I said, dropping my shoulders. “All of it. This whole thing! I didn’t have friends, I didn’t need friends, and I most definitely didn’t need a man in my life complicating everything.”
“Mandy, maybe you should—”
“Stop!” I screamed, covering my ears. “Don’t tell me to calm down!” While it did just enough to muffle the sound of her voice, it did nothing to drown out the sound of the agonizing cries surging through me. There was something screaming, something buried so deep inside of me that clawed to reach the surface, begging for a way out.
My hands slid up from my ears and dug at the roots of my hair, and as the screaming became louder, all I could do was close my eyes and pray that it would stop. I pressed my eyes shut and counted slowly to myself, trying to ignore the pounding in my brain. But it only grew louder as I counted.
My eyes fluttered open and I fought to catch my breath.
Everyone in the kitchen who hadn’t already been looking turned to watch me, and the buzz in the dining room quickly died down.
“I have to move to California next week,” I said, finding my voice again. “Seven days, Lashell. I have to quit the program and leave my school to move back to the one place I never want to be again.”
Gabe and Bailey rounded the corner. Both of them stopped in their tracks as they watched me standing in front of them, my hair a ratted mess and my clothes dripping a puddle of rain water at my feet.
“Mandy?” my sister asked. “What’s wrong? Why are you—”
“We’re leaving,” I said, struggling to catch my breath. “Dad’s calling Ripken tonight to take the job, and we’re leaving on Friday.”
“What?” she asked. “No, we had a deal. He promised.”
“And when has that ever meant anything?”
She set the grocery bags on the counter and took a step closer to me.
“We’ll fix this,” she said, reaching forward to take my arm, but I jerked it away. “Mandy, come on, don’t do that. We’ll fix it.”
“There’s nothing to fix,” I said. “We’ll just have to go home and pack… and get ready to say goodbye all over again.”
I thought that Gabe would have something to say, especially to that, and especially since he’d been so distant. I thought that he would step up and try to be a voice of reason, but he didn’t say a word. He just stood there and watched me, and I couldn’t read anything in his expression. I turned away, giving up all hope that he’d offer any kind of explanation as to why he left me hanging for a week—even now when I needed comfort the most—and I opened the door and stepped outside.
Sulking through the downpour, I sloshed through the puddles and headed for home.
“Mandy, wait,” his voice called through the rain as I reached the edge of the parking lot. He managed a brisk jog across the pavement, but his limp slowed him down. When he caught up to me, he opened his arms, and I simply shook my head.
“No,” I said, refusing the hug he’d offered. “I don’t want that.”
“Then what do you want?” he asked, dropping his hands. “How can I help?”
“You can start by leaving me alone, Gabe,” I said. “You’ve been doing an excellent job of that already this week, so it shouldn’t be too hard. Just keep doing what you’re doing.”
“Mandy—”
“I never wanted this in the first place,” I said. “I didn’t want your friendship, your kindness, or your challenge to make me a better person. I was fine just the way I was. I just wanted to be left alone. You knew that! You knew that from the start!”
He winced at the harshness of my tone, but he never said a word. I hated him. He’d gotten close. He forced my guard down, and he made me believe that I was wrong for not believing in the notion of love and romance. He made me feel something I never wanted to feel. He did. It was his fault that I had nearly broken every rule, and then he turned around and left me with a thousand unanswered questions and a broken heart.
Gabe didn’t draw back. I expected him to. I wholeheartedly expected him to turn away, but he didn’t. Instead, he took a step closer, and his eyes softened as he lowered his open arms to wrap himself around me.
“No!” I yelled, pushing him back. I had to fight to wriggle out of his arms. “Don’t touch me! Don’t hug me; don’t stand there and act like you’re going to make this better. I was fine before I met you, Gabe. Sure, I was alone, but at least I wasn’t hurting. And this past week, these last seven days that I haven’t heard from you or seen you, that’s all I’ve done! I’ve hurt—because of you! Because you made me open up, you made me feel. And then I show up here tonight and find out that you were out with my sister—”
“Oh, no, Mandy,” he said. “We were—”
“I don’t care where you were,” I yelled over the rain as it pelted against us, drenching us. “I just know how it made me feel, and I hate it. I don’t want to feel angry. I don’t want to feel jealous. I don’t want to feel anything, especially where you’re concerned.”
“Mandy, please—”
“I don’t want to hear your explanation,” I yelled louder, and my voice was strained from trying to scream over the roaring thunder. “I don’t want to hear anything you have to say, Gabe. I just want to walk away, go home, and forget I ever knew you.”
“Please, listen,” he begged.
“Leave—me—alone,” I said. “I don’t get why you’re having such a hard time understanding what I’m saying to you. I had no one to say goodbye to, Gabe. I could’ve just left.” I shook my head and looked away. “And now I have to go home, pack everything I own, and leave all of this behind me like it never happened. And the hardest part of all is that I don’t have a single clue how I’m going to even start to erase all of this. I don’t know how I’m going to find a way to forget you, and I hate you for that!”
Three days passed since I stood outside in the pouring rain, yelling at Gabe. I hadn’t heard from him once since I turned away from him, and I doubted I would ever hear from him again. I didn’t know Gabe well enough to know that he would listen and actually leave me alone. I didn’t know if that had made me happy or sad.
He told me once that he wasn’t the kind of perso
n who could be pushed away, but I didn’t feel that I’d really given him much of a choice this time. I yelled at him. I pushed him away—literally. I hadn’t given him any reason to believe it would be okay to keep pressing.
I told him I hated him.
I told him to go.
So he stayed away. And I moved forward, trying to settle my unfinished affairs before I ran out of time.
“Okay,” I said, smoothing the paper out in front of Carla. “I don’t have much, but this is what I’ve been able to get so far.”
I showed her the list of sponsors and donations I’d drummed up for the big, finale fundraiser; I’d been able to cover the fliers, the newspaper ads, and the band. I called Jones last night and asked him to call in a favor with his band mates; they all agreed that a charity benefit would be a great opportunity for a little exposure. The school was going to provide the space, the tables, and the chairs. The dance committee offered to chip in and decorate with old archived and leftover decorations. All that was really left for Carla, Fletcher, and Lashell to do was find someone to take care of the food. With a little bit of advertising, the dance would go off without a hitch.
We were sitting at the diner Sunday morning, going over all of the basics. I’d called and invited both Carla and Fletcher, but he was tied up with homework and she was pressed for time. Still, she managed to come out for a quick breakfast.
“You killed it, Mandy,” she said, smiling down at the list. “When did you have time to get all of this done?”
“Little by little, day by day,” I said, taking in a deep breath. I didn’t want to tell her that it hadn’t been all that hard. Most everyone I talked to was eager to help, especially since it was for charity. Between all of the hard work that everyone in our group had done, throwing in the grand finale dance next month, I couldn’t foresee any way that the other districts would beat out Sugar Creek for the win. It just couldn’t happen.
If our school won, with me in LA, that meant that Carla and Fletcher each had a one-in-ten shot at winning the scholarship.
I forced a smile.
“Oh, hey,” she said, running her hand across the top of my back. “It’s okay. We’ll take care of it.” I nodded and blinked away a tear. “Mandy, listen,” she said, “I know this dance means a lot to you, and we’re going to give it all the time and attention it deserves. I promise.”
“I’m trusting you with this,” I teased, trying to smile through my pain. If there was one thing Gabe had been right about, it was that I always tried to mask my feelings with a smile or a laugh. Covering up the pain was just somehow easier than facing the real emotion. Unable to bear the thought of Gabe or the way he’d challenged me, I focused on (what I hoped would be) much safer territory. “Okay, so tell me. How’s the soup kitchen running now?” After two weeks, Carla had already managed to successfully run four nights in the kitchen. I couldn’t imagine it hadn’t been a success.
“It’s great,” she said. “The markets have been really cool about donating food. We’ve set up a food pantry to take donations, and Gabe’s even brought in some stuff from the Desden kitchen. I knew it would be a nice, little thing to do for a couple of nights a week, but I guess I never realized how many families in Sugar Creek really needed something like this.” She paused and held her breath for a moment, and then she shook her head. “Can I tell you something?”
“Of course.”
“And promise you’ll tell me the truth if you think it’s a bad idea, okay?”
“Sure. Yeah, absolutely. What’s going on?”
“I’ve talked to my Uncle Rick, the pastor over at the church, and we both want to keep the soup kitchen open permanently. Thursdays and Saturdays seem to be the best days for it. It’s doing its part to spread the goodness around Sugar Creek, and it’s been great exposure for the church. Sunday morning attendance has doubled in the last two weeks.”
“Wow, Carla, that’s amazing.”
“And I think that making a decision like this, deciding to keep it open permanently, will give me a leg-up in the scholarship competition. I’m hoping that Gabe will see how hard I’m working—”
“I don’t think Gabe’s picking the winner,” I said, but I knew that it didn’t matter. Anyone judging the final outcome would see that my idea for the community dance didn’t stand a chance against Carla’s soup kitchen, especially if the soup kitchen had potential to last well beyond the end of the program. Maybe it was a good thing that I wouldn’t be sticking around, after all. I didn’t know if I could bear losing the scholarship to Carla.
“Oh, I know it’s not solely up to Gabe,” she said, shaking her head. “But he has major influence on who’ll get the money. It’s coming out of the foundation’s fund, you know, and he’s not going to hand it over to just anyone. There’s a separate team of judges for picking the winner, but it definitely can’t hurt to impress the president, am I right?”
“Yeah,” I said, swallowing hard. “You’re right.”
“Okay, so listen,” she said, scooping up the notebook and all the plans I’d put together. “Thank you for this. I promise I won’t let you down. And I’ll take lots of pictures so you won’t miss a thing. K? We’ll stay in touch.”
I’d heard that before. If I had a penny for every time one of my friends back home had promised to stay in touch and hadn’t followed through, I wouldn’t even need the Raddick Initiative or the scholarship. My college education could’ve been paid for years ago!
“Yeah,” I nodded, pretending to really believe her lie. “We’ll stay in touch.”
She stood up and patted me on the back once again. “See ya around, Mandy.”
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