One Last Time

by Beth Reekles

  Brad rolled his eyes. “You’re not in college yet, Elle.”

  But he did look totally thrilled at the idea.

  I glanced at Linda, wondering if Dad had invited her along, too. I guessed I couldn’t say anything about that. I just had to hope I wouldn’t run into her on the night.

  She caught me looking and, instead of mentioning Fourth of July, just said, “I’m really sorry this is how we ended up meeting, Elle, but it is so good to finally meet you. Maybe, if you’ve got a free evening, the four of us could go out to dinner somewhere? Get to know each other better?”

  “Like you said,” I told her, “I’m busy.”

  * * *

  • • •

  As I parked at the beach house, after driving around for an hour trying to clear my head, my phone buzzed.

  Don’t forget! Lee’s text told me. #9 tonight! Meet you at the mall.

  Bucket-list item number nine: be part of a flash mob.

  Lee had found one being organized for tonight online. If you signed up, you got sent an email with a video of the choreography, which had been pretty straightforward to learn. And with all the effort we’d put into organizing race day and scheduling other activities around my hectic schedule, it had been easier to take part in an existing one than to organize an entire flash mob ourselves.

  I sighed. I hadn’t changed out of my work uniform and was still carting my outfit for the flash mob around in my backpack—and I’d been so caught up in Brad missing and the Linda drama that I actually had forgotten all about the flash mob. I grabbed my backpack now, heading inside. Quick change, then back to the city and the mall.

  Inside, the lights were low and something orange flickered from the direction of the kitchen.

  Following the flickering, I found several tea lights and saw more on the table outside. A bowl of salad waited outdoors, too. And then Noah stood up from the oven, pulling out a casserole.

  “Hey! You’re here.” He beamed at me, dimple showing, eyes sparkling.

  “What’s…” I stared around at the candles, the food. “What’s all this?”

  “I wanted to make it up to you, for yesterday. And you’ve been so busy, I thought you could use a night in.”

  “You did all this yourself?”

  “Of course,” he declared, puffing out his chest, then smirking and saying, “No. Amanda totally helped me prep the casserole.”

  “Where is she?”

  Mixed as my feelings could be about Amanda, I would feel terrible if she had to shut herself up in Lee’s and my old room all evening so Noah and I could have a romantic dinner.

  “She headed back to the hotel to have dinner with her parents. They said they had some stuff to talk to her about. I think she’s staying there tonight.” He set down the dish and shook off the oven mitts before coming over, putting his hands on my hips and bending to kiss me.

  “Noah, this…” Despite myself, tears sprang to my eyes and I had to gulp to keep my voice steady. “This looks amazing. It’s so sweet, but…”

  I pulled back, feeling my shoulders hunch and my head bow. My hands fidgeted in front of me.

  I could feel Noah’s eyes roaming over me, taking in my guilty expression, the frown on my face, the sigh I was barely managing to hold back. Even though I was staring determinedly at the floor and trying to block out the delicious aroma of the casserole and the romantic glow of the candles, out of the corner of my eye I saw his excited smile fade away.

  “Elle? What’s up?”

  What’s up?

  That was such a loaded question. Between an exhausting double shift, complete with some grabby jackass, the panic over Brad not being at camp, and the whole ordeal with Linda, now Noah had made a romantic meal for us to spend the evening together and I had to say…

  “I’m sorry,” I told him, my dejected sigh finally escaping now as I fell back another step. “Noah, I’m sorry, because this is all so amazing and honestly it’s exactly what I need tonight, but I can’t. I have somewhere I need to be.”

  I saw it dawn on him, and he let out a sharp, frustrated noise. “Please tell me this isn’t another bucket-list thing.”

  “I’m sorry!” I cried. I felt genuinely awful, especially given how much trouble he’d gone to. “I promised Lee, and I already missed one thing this week. I’m trying really hard not to make a habit of that.”

  I was already backing away through the door.

  “You’re seriously gonna leave?” he asked, gawping incredulously.

  “It’s not like I have a choice! I promised Lee. It’s not like this is something we can just rearrange. I’m gonna be with you all next year. I need to make that up to him this summer. I’m sorry, Noah, but I have to go.”

  He followed me through to our bedroom. I pulled the flash-mob clothes out of my bag and started to get changed. Noah scoffed again.

  “So just because you picked Harvard over Berkeley, I don’t get to spend any time with you this summer?”

  “That’s not what I said. Don’t blow it out of proportion.”

  “You keep saying this summer is all about you and Lee, all about the bucket list. I didn’t think I was reaching for the stars by hoping for an evening in with my girlfriend.”

  He’d picked up my shirt, and I snatched it back from him. “You’re not! But not tonight, Noah. That’s all.”

  “Then when? Tomorrow?”

  Tomorrow, Lee, the guys, and I all had plans to go to the movies.

  He sensed me faltering.

  “The next day?”

  “I’m on the late shift.”

  “How about August eighteenth? Two years from now? How does that work for you, Elle?”

  I’d put the T-shirt on backward. Huffing, I wriggled my arms back out of it, working it around to put it on properly. “Noah, come on. Don’t be like this. I’m sorry I ruined your surprise dinner and already had plans that I can’t bail on now. Okay? But right now, I’ve gotta go.”

  “Fine,” he snapped. “Have fun with Lee.”

  I hated that I’d upset him. I hated that I couldn’t stay, because I really, honestly did want to—but I also knew I couldn’t let Lee down. Not again. I hated that I had to leave in the middle of a fight and I hated that we were fighting again.

  So I told him, “I love you.”

  Noah gave a noncommittal mutter as he left the room, but then said, “Yeah. You too.”

  Which was about as good as I was going to get tonight, so I’d take it.

  Maybe I’d crash in my old bed tonight and we could clear the air tomorrow.

  I passed Rachel on my way out the door. She didn’t look overly happy either. There had to be something in the air tonight.

  “Bucket list?” she said to me in a way that told me she already knew.

  “Uh-huh. Catch you later!”

  She huffed, muttering, “Have fun, I guess.”

  Maybe I wasn’t the only one whose relationship was taking second place to the bucket list.

  As I shut the door behind me, I heard Rachel asking Noah, “What’s all this?” and him muttering, “It’s nothing,” and blowing out the candles.

  * * *

  • • •

  “You’ve got such a stick up your ass tonight, Shelly,” Lee told me. “Come on! Flash mob! This is supposed to be fun!”

  “Sorry. I promise I’m having fun. And I’ll be smiling when it starts.”

  We’d taken up a perch on a bench by a fountain in the mall near the food court. The flash mob was eight minutes from starting. So far, we’d been playing a game of “Are they shopping or are they with the flash mob?”—a game that I, apparently, wasn’t engaged enough with.

  Lee scooted closer to me. “What’s up?”

  I was so close to telling him. It had been such a horrible shitshow of a day t
hat I was three seconds from bursting into tears, and I knew I would if I told him.

  Aside from when I’d started dating Noah, I didn’t make a habit of keeping secrets from Lee or lying to him. (The application to Harvard didn’t count, I kept telling myself, since I never thought I’d get in.)

  It would be so easy to just tell him.

  But I couldn’t do that. I knew exactly how it would sound: that I didn’t want to be here, that I didn’t want to be doing the bucket list, that I wanted to pick Noah over him yet again, that our friendship was a burden and getting in the way of my relationship.

  I knew exactly how it’d sound, so I kept my mouth shut.

  “It’s just been A DAY, you know?” I settled on saying.

  He gave a breath of laughter. “Tell me about it. I totally forgot to tell Rachel about this, so she thought we were going to have dinner with her folks. My bad, totally. But she was cool with it. She gets this summer’s important to us.”

  That makes one of them.

  I decided not to mention how disgruntled Rachel had looked when she’d gotten home to the beach house earlier this evening.

  Lee started talking again about race day (how many hits the video had now, how epic it had been), what was next up on the bucket list, if we’d have time to head to the arcade again in the next couple of days. I indulged him, doing my best to put the fight with Noah out of my mind.

  It wasn’t about picking one Flynn brother over the other. It never had been.

  But when it came down to it, Lee was like a part of me. Without him, I’d feel like I was missing a limb. I’d be missing part of my soul. I already knew what it was like to be apart from Noah and that had been enough of a struggle. I was dreading leaving Lee.

  So while it wasn’t about picking Lee or Noah over the other…maybe it was, just a little. And this summer it had to be Lee.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  If I’d thought things had been rough two days ago, it was only getting worse. Noah and I had barely spoken. He’d been out yesterday to show Amanda around the city a little—an impromptu decision, with an obvious reason behind his sudden zest for local tourism—and I’d pretended to be asleep when he came to bed last night.

  It was probably totally childish, but I didn’t really have it in me to care. I just hadn’t been able to face another discussion that’d probably turn into a heated debate, if not a full-on argument.

  After an early start to go tick off another bucket-list item with Lee (number twelve: rappelling), I was back at work, doing the lunch and dinner shifts.

  My dad had been trying to get a hold of me for the last couple of days, too.

  I’d sent him a short text to say I was busy, I had things to do, and if he needed someone to help out with Brad, maybe Linda could do it. Precious Linda. Stupid Linda. Making-herself-at-home-in-my-kitchen Linda.

  Lee knew something was up. He knew me too well.

  Weirdly, the only person I felt like talking to about Linda was Amanda. She hadn’t been judgmental when I’d told her about Linda originally and it somehow seemed less scary to tell her than to talk to Lee or Noah about it. (Not that Noah and I were exactly talking right now anyway…)

  So without wanting to hurt Lee’s feelings by explaining that the tension between me and Noah was because of him and the bucket list, and without going into the whole Linda thing, I just kept shrugging it off and saying, “It’s no big deal. I’m just kind of tired from everything that’s going on. Work’s crazy, you know?”

  The last part wasn’t even a lie.

  Work was crazy, today especially. There had been some surfing competition on the beach and we were swamped. There wasn’t even a lull between lunch and dinner the way there usually was.

  The douchebags from earlier in the week had shown up, but May was quick to tell them, politely and in no uncertain terms, that they would have to take their business elsewhere. They started to object until one of them spotted me and I gave an enthusiastic wave, holding up a tray of brightly colored virgin cocktails I was taking to table thirty, at which point they gave in and left.

  That was about the best part of the day.

  I dropped an entire order before I even made it out of the kitchen. I mixed up at least three other orders. I forgot to pick up the check at table twenty-four for so long the dad eventually marched up to me, credit card in hand, and demanded to speak to my manager if he was going to be kept waiting like this. The kids at table thirty-three left it a total mess—spilled drinks, ketchup all over the table, half a burger smooshed into the seat, and fries floating in half a milkshake.

  My pants had ripped at some point. I didn’t even know when, but I did know the right leg was currently torn halfway up my shin, the fabric flapping around even though I’d tucked the ends into my sock. When I took a bathroom break, I realized there was pen on my face. I didn’t even bother trying to rub it off.

  I had just finished taking the order from a large family group of twelve and given them what I hoped was a smile, when, as I stepped away, I careered forward. My arms flung out, pulling a plate off one table and half strangling some poor girl at another as I tried to catch myself.

  Struggling to stand back up, I found the laces of my shoes tied together. Some snot-nosed kid who couldn’t have been more than four or five at the table I’d just been waiting on was giggling hysterically.

  His mother looked mortified, taking turns apologizing profusely to me and scolding her son.

  “It’s fine,” I told her, leaning forward to fix my shoelaces. Damn, the kid tied a good knot. Finally fixing them, I trudged back to the bar, clipping the order up for the chef.

  A hand landed lightly on my shoulder. “You doing okay there, Elle?”

  I looked at May. She had such a concerned look on her face I almost cried. Not trusting my voice, I nodded.

  She didn’t look totally convinced, though. “Why don’t you take a break? Kaylie just got here. She can look after your tables for a little bit.”

  “B-but—”

  “Hey. No arguing with the boss. Take a break. That’s an order, okay?”

  I sniffled, giving her the world’s most pathetic smile and trudging outside. I just needed some fresh air, that was all. A couple of minutes to get some fresh air, and I’d be fine. I was just tired. I was just run off my feet.

  I was just…

  Falling apart.

  “Elle?”

  I jumped at the sound of my name, a familiar voice—and then jumped again when a car door opened and clipped me on the hip. “Oof!”

  “Shit, sorry. I didn’t realize you were that close.” Levi pulled himself out of his car and cracked a smile. “We’ve gotta stop bumping into each other like this.”

  The first time we’d met, he’d opened a car door into me. I tried to smile at the joke, I really did, but all I managed was a twitch of the muscles somewhere in my cheek. His face fell.

  “What’s up? Wow, you look like a hot mess. Not hot, like, hot. But you’re…Well, that’s…Never mind. You doing okay, Elle?”

  I couldn’t talk to Lee without hurting his feelings. I wasn’t talking to Noah right now. I couldn’t talk to my dad about Linda without sounding like a brat, and I couldn’t talk to Rachel or Amanda without the very good chance they would go back to Lee or Noah and tell them everything, and then it’d be a big deal because they’d know what I wasn’t talking to them about—and that there was even something going on that I wasn’t talking to them about.

  But Levi…

  Levi was looking at me so sadly, his forehead creased and his mouth twisted downward, his eyes so warm and friendly. He looked like he just wanted to help.

  “Elle?” he asked again.

  And I burst into tears.

  * * *

  • • •

  I told Levi everything. I even told him abou
t the fight I’d had with Noah on race day and how Noah thought Levi still had a crush on me and everything else that had been said. I told him about Linda: that if I wasn’t so busy working, maybe she wouldn’t need to be around so much, but if I didn’t have this job, I couldn’t really do the bucket list. And speaking of the bucket list, I told him about missing eighties mini golf and then having to bail on Noah like that…

  “He thinks just because he cooked and lit a couple of candles, everything’s fine again?”

  I shook my head. “No, it’s not like that. He’d already apologized. He was just trying to be nice and wanted to spend some time with me. And then I bailed on him to do the flash mob, which I did want to do, but…I feel like I keep getting stuck between them, and the last time this happened, I almost lost Lee and Noah went off on some stupid bender because he thought he’d, like, ruined everything or whatever.”

  “No offense, Elle, but your boyfriend sounds like a real piece of work sometimes.”

  I grunted. Yeah, but he’s my piece of work.

  “It’s not like I’m so perfect myself.” I snorted. “If he wasn’t like this, he wouldn’t be Noah, and I wouldn’t love him the way I do.”

  “Hmm.”

  We were sitting on a pile of rocks between the parking lot and the beach. I hugged my knees up to my chin. Levi stretched out beside me, his hands planted just behind his hips.

  “It’s just,” I tried, “between all that, and Linda, and things being so crazy here, I feel like I can’t breathe some days. You know? Don’t get me wrong, I love doing the bucket-list stuff. It was my idea! And I’m having a blast doing it all. And I’m happy to help look after Brad, and I wanted to work here—and I like it. Aside from the occasional”—I sighed, long and loud through my nose, gesturing at myself and the state of disarray I was in—“day like today and the odd ass-pincher. But it’s just getting to be a lot.”