I force another smile, hoping it looks as excited and genuine as hers. Last night, when I got the email, I should have danced, screamed, called my best friend and freaked the hell out. Instead, I burst into tears.
All I could think was, This should make me happy. I should be happy. Why am I not happy? But there I was, crying into a box of tissues.
“Yep,” I answer. “Van actually came through.”
“How are you not freaking out?!” she asks.
“I did, believe me.”
“Did you sign the contract yet?”
“I wanted to sleep on it, but I’m going to.”
Rowan slides back into her own seat as we talk about the terms. Van told me not to be afraid to negotiate any I didn’t like, but the contract was more than generous. Based on the time it takes me to make the shirts, I’ll be making nearly triple minimum wage. My “brand” will also be featured on the band’s website and at their merchandise booth. They want me to send a picture and a bio and make it a whole big thing.
“I think I might also apply to fashion school,” I add, and Rowan’s eyes get big.
“Really?”
Nikki and Molly had been the first to suggest it, and Joel had been the last. “Yeah, maybe. I mean, it’s just something I’m thinking of. I—”
“I think you should do it,” Rowan says. “You’d be really good at it, Dee.”
“You think so?”
“I know so.” She presses the heels of her palms against her eyes when she starts getting choked up again. “I still don’t want you to go though.”
“I know,” I say, because we both know I’m going to anyway.
“I’ll miss you.”
I give her a weak smile. “Nah, you’re going to hate me when you realize what this means.”
She pulls her hands away from her eyes, and I manage a sincere smirk in her direction.
“You’re going to have to tell your parents about you living with Adam.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
OUR FINAL WEEK in the apartment, Rowan spends every night either in my bed or camped out with me in the living room. We build a massive fort out of pillows and blankets and leave it up until it’s time to pack everything away.
“They want to meet him,” she tells me as we fold a sheet together, and I laugh. I wish I could see her dad’s face when he sees Adam’s black nail polish.
“Of course they want to meet him.”
We bring the edges of the four-hundred-thread-count sheet together and Rowan gives me a flat stare as she takes over the folding. “You don’t have to sound so happy about it.” When I just smile at her, she says, “He’s going to drive the moving van for us on Sunday and stay the night at my house.”
“They’re going to make him sleep on the couch,” I warn, and Rowan nods.
“I just hope he stays there.”
I laugh and ask, “Are you going to make him dress up?” Adam could be considered “dressed up” if he just wore jeans without rips, took off some of his bracelets, and wore a shirt with buttons.
Rowan shakes her head. “No. I love him the way he is, so they should too.”
I smile, pretending her words don’t sting the open wound in my chest. I wonder if Joel loved me like that—just the way I am—and if he did, how he could stop doing it so quickly. He was the first boy I ever loved, the first boy I ever let inside me with nothing between us, the first boy I ever wanted to really be with, and it took him approximately two seconds after fucking me against a bathroom wall to haul some other girl out of Mayhem and probably fuck her the same way.
I broke his heart first, but he broke mine last.
“Do you know what I love?” I ask, ignoring memories of Joel, pretending to feel normal. Pretending to be myself. I flop onto the couch and watch Rowan fold. She tucks a long-edged seam under her chin and works her magic.
“What?” she asks once her chin is free.
“This new you. Adam has been really good for you. You don’t take shit anymore.”
“I took enough shit from Brady to last me a lifetime,” she says, and I toast a half-empty margarita glass into the air. I’m sucking at its salted rim when Leti knocks on the front door. He pushes it open without invitation and strolls inside with Kit on his heels. I’ve seen her a few times since she joined the band, and if I were sticking around, I think we might’ve even become friends.
“Help has arrived!” Leti says with both arms thrown in the air.
Rowan, the genius that she is, insisted on throwing me a packing party disguised as a girls’ day, and I figured it was a brilliant way to secure some cheap labor. Tomorrow, she’s throwing me a birthday-slash-going-away party, for which everyone is required to bring a present and help us load the moving van. We’re having the party in my empty apartment, and then I’m going to Rowan’s to spend the night at her place. By then I will have said all my goodbyes, and on Sunday morning, I’ll leave this life behind.
“You’re not packing up the fort, are you?” Leti asks with an exaggerated amount of alarm, keeping me in the present instead of a future that feels just as lonely.
“Yes?” Rowan says.