by A. R. Perry
I gave a pointed look at my very flattering sweatpants and tattered tank top. She grinned and nudged her bag with her toe.
“I came prepared.”
“Nope.” I made my way to the kitchen where a pint of Ben & Jerry’s Half Baked awaited me. No way in hell was I playing dress up again. Last time that happened I ended up on the receiving end of a broken heart. Something I would prefer to avoid in the future.
“Okay, so I might not have been one hundred percent honest. Billy McDermott is throwing a party tonight and I think we should go.”
Didn’t everyone get sick of parties? “How have you not learned from the last two? Parties and me don’t end well.”
“Except I know for a fact Parker won’t be there. It’s perfect. You get all hot and find yourself a new man to drool over.”
“Or get dared into dating another one?”
Madison cringed from the anger in my statement as she sat down at the kitchen table.
At least she looked remorseful.
“I said I was sorry like a million times. I promised never to butt in again. What more do you want?”
“Dragging me to a party is butting in.” I slammed the silverware drawer shut with my hip. “Parties suck and so do boys. I just want to get through this summer without another round of humiliation.” I dug my spoon into the ice cream a little too aggressively. “Do you know what people are saying about me online?”
Okay, so I might have stalked a few classmates the night after the party. Twitter was the worst with several very unflattering pictures of me trying not to cry and Madison screaming at Parker. Most of them were titled with #troubleinparadise and #caughtintheact. The latter was referring to Parker, but still painted me in a bad light. Blind idiot wasn’t the look I was going for.
“I saw.” Madison ran a finger over the worn wood of the kitchen table. “But screw them. They’ve already moved on to new things.”
“So glad,” I mumbled in the most sarcastic tone I could muster then shoved another heaping spoonful of ice cream in my mouth.
“So…no party?”
I gave Madison a look that said I would kill her if she brought it up again.
She threw her palms up in defeat. “Okay fine. But we’re getting cheesy sticks with the pizza.” She typed something into her phone, most likely telling Billy we couldn’t make it. “If I’m staying in, I’m doing it right. And you’re letting me borrow a pair of those ugly sweatpants.” She looked up at me, eyebrow arched.
I grinned and tossed my spoon in the sink with a loud clatter. It was about time that Madison got a Lily make-under. “Sweatpants in the top drawer. I’ll order pizza.”
Madison did a little shimmy with a lot of boob jiggle as she stood up. “Five minutes. You better have ordered the pizza and picked a movie.” She set her phone down on the kitchen counter where I left mine charging earlier. Knowing her, she would steal my charger the second she got back.
As her feet pounded up the stairs, I reached for my phone to call in the pizza. As it was ringing, I disconnected the charger and reached for Madison’s phone. In the process of plugging it in, my finger hit the home button lighting up the screed and revealing a text… from Parker.
“Thank you for calling MOD Pizza, can I place you on a quick hold?” The person on the other line spoke.
“S-sure.” My ear filled with an audio recording of current offers and thanks for being patient. But I barely heard any of it. My hand shook as I stared down at his name. On my best friend’s phone. A girl who three days prior had torn his head off for hurting me.
Several scenarios ran through my head. The most absurd being them hooking up behind my back. The most obvious explanation was Madison telling him off again via text. That still wasn’t enough to quell the churning in my stomach. Telling him off or not, she shouldn’t have texted him at all.
I heard a door open and shut followed by a few footsteps and another door. Knowing Madison was in the bathroom leaving me with only a few minutes to find out what the hell she was up to, I pressed the home button again and typed in her password when the phone prompted me.
Total best friend no-no, but so was texting an asshole who broke my heart.
With a lump in my throat, I clicked on their text exchange.
Parker: Thanks for trying.
It was the latest message, the one that displayed on the home screen. I scrolled up checking to see what prompted it.
Madison: Sorry I tried. If u want to make it up to her u better figure out something else.
I scrolled through their message exchange, most of which included Madison telling him off for hurting me like a good best friend and then Parker begging her to bring me to this party. None of it made any sense. Why would Madison go from angry to agreeing to bring me to a place she knew he would be at when I made it clear I never wanted to see him again?
Madison walked into the room right as I had opened her call log and saw Parker’s name plastered all over it. She gave me a confused look, matching my own until she noticed the phone tucked against my shoulder and the other in my hand.
“Lily…” Her eyes went wide at the same time a person answered the line at the pizza joint.
I hung up on the pizza guy as fast as I could and tossed her phone at her. “You should go.”
“I can explain.” Madison fumbled with her phone, catching it before it fell to the tile floor.
“Explain why my best friend is chatting up the guy who tore out my heart and stomped on it?”
“Yes. I ripped his damn head off, you saw for yourself! I would never do anything that would hurt you.”
“And the party?”
Madison’s cheeks flushed red. “He begged me. He called and told me how sorry he was and that it was a misunderstanding. Tracy threw herself at him and he was trying to pry her off when we walked in. He wanted to make it up to you, but knew you would avoid him.”
“Yeah, sounds like a great excuse. Parker will say anything he can to get what he wants. And for whatever reason he wants you to think he’s a good guy so he can make my life miserable.”
“Why do you think that is, huh?” Madison propped a hand on her hip changing from defensive to offensive.
“Because he’s a dick?”
“Or maybe it’s because he’s crushing so hard he doesn’t know how to handle it. He’s a guy—we both know they aren’t too smart especially when it comes to their emotions.”
“Wow.” I palmed my forehead and made a move toward the door. “You can’t be that stupid. He’s playing with you and you’re eating it up.”
Madison blocked my path. She knew me well, and I was five seconds away from putting a locked bedroom door between us.
“Maybe you’re the stupid one. Maybe he’s been trying all week to tell you how he feels and every time he got close you shut off like you always do! Just because your dad left doesn’t mean every guy does.”
The second the words were out, Madison’s mouth popped open as if she couldn’t believe what she said. I know I couldn’t.
“You should go,” I said between clenched teeth.
“Look, I’m sorry. You’re right—it was over the line. But you should talk to him. You know I wouldn’t push this if I thought for one second he was out to hurt you.”
“Go.”
“Lily, come on. You can’t be pissed at a guy who you strung along all week. You played just as many games as he did, you’re just too upset to realize it.”
My heart fluttered at her words because as much as I hated to admit it, she was right. I was so back and forth every time my feelings surfaced that I probably gave both of us emotional whiplash. That aside, it still didn’t excuse her from butting in.
“Please, just go.”
Madison shoved her phone in her pocket and made her way to the living room. “Fine. Call me when you realize that I’m right.” She slammed the door, shaking the painting that my mother did at one of those painting parties that was hanging beside the door.
> I glared at the door, hoping Madison could feel it through the cherrywood. The second I heard her car pull out of the driveway, I collapsed onto the sofa, four years of repressed tears streaming down my face. Not only had she betrayed me, she poured salt in my wound by bringing up my dad.
What a great best friend.
My mom came home at half past ten and found me in a curled-up mess with our decorative blankets cocooning me.
A little after Madison left, I received a text from a number I no longer had stored in my phone. It was easy to guess who it was since it pleaded with me not be mad at Madison and that he coerced her into it.
So my best friend ran to my former best friend and current heart-wrecker to tell him how much of a bitch I was being. Perfect. How else should an already craptastic day end?
Considering how much of a bad mood I had been in, my mom barely batted an eye. That was, until she saw my tear-streaked cheeks. Little known fact, my mom hadn’t seen me cry since my dad left. I decided that day that no one would ever see that particular weakness again. Which is why she practically threw herself at me and pulled me into her lap.
To say that made my hysterics worse would be an understatement.
It took a while of her rocking and stroking my hair before I calmed down. See, I realized somewhere in my breakdown that the whole thing wasn’t all due to Parker’s maybe hook-up. That was crappy and hurt like hell, but I really had no right to be that mad. Not when he wasn’t mine. All of my feelings just got muddled because the same year my dad held up an emotional middle finger to my family and bounced, so did Parker. And if I had to admit it, my tears were mostly about the lost friendship—twice—due to the emotional barbed wire I put up.
Like it or not, Madison was right. When it came to men, I was completely closed off. I could be as candid as the day was long with women, but the second I felt any connection with guys, I shut down. Same reason I shrugged off Milo leaving because I never let myself fall for him. And he proved why when he left. Just like everyone else.
Halfway through this revelation I realized how melodramatic I sounded. I let four years of my life pass me by out of fear.
That made me cry more. Like a fricken floodgate burst and I couldn’t close it.
When I ran out of extra water to leak out of my face, my mom kissed my temple and hugged me closer. “What happened, baby?”
“Do you want the short or long answer?” I wiped my nose on the blanket, vowing to wash it as soon as I got up, and moved so I could look her in the eye.
“Long, of course.” My mom tucked me under her arm, resting her chin on my head.
“Parker and I stopped being friends in eighth grade.”
She let out a little chuckle that she covered with another kiss on my hair. “I know that, sweetie. I kinda noticed when my grocery bill went down and you stopped having so many dare-induced injuries.”
Dares. The same thing that brought me to the point of repressed tears. They held a long tradition in Parker’s and my friendship, which is how I ended up with the jagged scar under my lip. Neither one of us was fond of turning them down.
“Well I have a new one, but I don’t think the doctor can fix a broken heart.”
“What happened?”
I sighed and twisted a loose strand on the blanket between my fingers. “The first day of break Madison and I went to a party. We got roped into a game of truth or dare and I was dared to date Parker for the summer.”
“So that’s why he was hanging around more often?”
“Uh-huh. And the only reason he invited me to the lake house.”
“Okay… So how does this end with a broken heart? You and Parker drifted apart years ago.”
“We drifted apart because he pushed me away. I’ve been in love with him since I was old enough to love boys and he threw it back in my face. Twice.” The admission physically hurt. My mom and I were close, but not that close. I kept my private life private when it came to her.
She leaned to the side, laying her hands on my shoulders so she could stare at me head-on. “Explain.”
“Everything seemed like it was getting back to normal at the lake house, you know? We joked, we messed around, we flirted…” I went ahead and left the kiss out. I didn’t want my mom to have a stroke from shock or elation. “And then I found him kissing a girl from school.”
“Which is the real reason you came home early,” she guessed correctly.
“Right.”
“Did you and Madison do that thing where you ran out and didn’t let him talk?”
Damn, my mom was good.
“Maybe.”
“Sweetie…” She brushed hair out of my face, cupping my cheek in her favorite mom move. “I’m going to say something that might make you mad.”
I tensed. Madison I could take—kind of—having my mom call me out on my faults might shatter me.
“You can’t assume that everyone is like your father. He couldn’t hang, and I know that’s a crappy thing to do, but to be honest, we don’t need him. I think I’ve done a bang-up job myself and I would hope you agree. But not everyone is your dad. Most guys aren’t, actually. Parker has been in love with you for as long as I can remember. You might not have seen it, but I did.”
“You’re only saying that because you’re my mom and trying to make me feel better.”
“No, I’m telling you the truth. I figured you both would come to this conclusion on your own, but apparently you’re both too stubborn when it comes to your feelings.” She sighed, patting my knee in an almost condescending way. “I can say with utmost certainty that he is in love with you. No boy, I don’t care who they are, would go to the lengths he has gone for you if they weren’t.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
She ignored my tone, a first for her. We may be close, but she still had rules. Disrespect was a big one.
“Oh, I don’t know… How about the fact that he checked in with me regularly when you were dating Milo, offing to beat the crap out of him if he hurt you? Or how about the summer you had your wisdom teeth out and he went to the store and got you all your favorite soft foods and made me promise not to tell you it was from him.”
My wisdom teeth were extracted the summer between freshman and sophomore year. Parker was just a blip on my radar, in fact most of that year he seemed a little less annoying than usual.
“I could go on and on and, believe me when I tell you, he asked about you every time he saw me. He wanted to know about your life and I have a feeling it was because he regretted that he was no longer in it. You both had crappy things happen to you and you both dealt with it in different ways. You can’t fault him for that.”
“He left me when I needed him.”
“And you pushed him away the second he showed any kind of weakness. He needed some space and instead you cut him out.”
Damn.
Just like I had realized earlier. I had built up a wall so thick that when Parker tried to talk to me halfway through eighth grade I blew him off. After all, I already had Madison.
“Talk to him.” She patted my knee and got up. “Then I expect a big fancy mom-daughter dinner when you find out that I was right.” She kissed my head then went upstairs.
I sat staring at my phone where it rested in my lap. Too much had happened in the course of a few days and I was fairly certain my head was about to explode. But a part of me wanted to hear his side of the story, from him. He may have been able to spew things to Madison over the phone and have her believe him, but if I looked in his eyes when he was telling me, I would know for sure if he was lying.
With a shaky breath, I responded to his text.
Me: Can we talk…tomorrow?
His response was instantaneous.
Parker: Yes please. Meet me at my house at noon? I have something I want to show u.
Interesting… His text made me want to run over there right then, but my face was that of horror movies after crying. Seriously, it might have been th
e reason I decided crying wasn’t my thing and held everything inside instead.
Me: Noon it is. And Parker…I’m sorry.
With that I switched my phone off, something I rarely did because I liked being connected. I heard the shower running, so I decided to get a jump start on beauty sleep. If I woke up early enough, there was a chance I would be able to work some voodoo magic and hide the puffy eyes I would be saddled with.
Lily: …I’m sorry.
I stared at those words for hours as I lay in bed. I couldn’t quite figure out what she was sorry for. After all, I was the one who paraded Tracy around the party and got caught in a compromising position. If I had kept my head on straight like Hunter told me to do, the night might have ended differently.
With me telling her I was out-of-the-world in love with her.
Well past midnight, I set my phone on the nightstand and tried to sleep. It was no use. Around and around, my thoughts chased each other. Both possible reactions from Lily. The good and the heartbreaking. I kept wanting to walk over there and drag her out of the house to show her what I spent the day building for her when I should have been at swimming practice.
It was a conversation I would need to have with my dad after I sorted everything out with Lily. I hoped I would be in a better mood because I would need it to face off with my dad about swimming. And maybe if I had Lily by my side I could draw strength from her.
Then again, my whole plan was riding on Lily hearing me out. Past experiences showed that when upset, she wasn’t good at listening.
Dragging her best friend into the mess only made things worse. I might have had a better shot without her, but at the time I was desperate. Especially after I caught her peeking at me from inside her house and then refusing to come out. Again, from past experience I figured she would spend the whole summer avoiding me and wouldn’t even think about hearing me out long enough to get her to my house.
With a sigh, I threw my arm over my eyes to block out the moonlight flowing through the gap in the drapes I forgot to close. Okay, maybe not forgot, more along the line of left open hoping I would catch a glimpse of Lily because I was that desperate. Unfortunately, her blinds remained closed tight.