“I know.”
I put a hand on his arm, and he covered it with his own. “I just wanted to get through high school and get away to college. And you … shit! I thought I could handle this, but I can’t. I just can’t. I’m sorry.”
He kissed me and it felt nice, but no longer necessary. He tasted of tears, longing, and farewell. “I’m sorry.”
I remembered when his blue eyes had laughed instead of worried and his hand had tickled instead of clamped. “Don’t be sorry. You were the best part of this year. The only good part.”
His face collapsed under my sincerity. “Maybe I …”
“Ryan, why don’t I drop you at the school? We can talk tomorrow.” The cold was creeping through my coat; each icy inhale burned my lungs.
“What about you? You could still come.”
“I just want to go home and put on pajamas.” My head was heavy, cloudy—sleep would help. “Go with Chris and everyone; you’ll have fun.”
“Fun? You really think anything that happens tonight could be fun? Mia—”
I wanted to think through how Ryan must be feeling, but more than that, I wanted to go home. I tried to swallow through my tightening lungs, and choked out a sputtering cough.
He exhaled and deflated. “It doesn’t matter anymore. C’mon, drop me off and then get to bed.”
The drive to the school was tense. My fingers wouldn’t stop trembling, even after Ryan redirected all the heat vents at me. He’d sent a few texts, then slumped against his window, fists in his lap. The only time he spoke was to comment on the music.
“This is Coldplay, right? Can we turn it off? It’s depressing as shit.”
I nodded.
Ejected Gyver’s CD.
Gulped air, then forgot how to exhale.
My head spun as pieces clicked.
Coldplay. Gyver. Oh God! “Surrender” song.
Gyver?
I bit my lip to keep myself from sobbing. Clenched the wheel to prevent myself from pulling a U-turn and speeding home. What would that accomplish? What would I do? He’d said … And I’d said … My head was too busy tilting and blurring to focus. It took all of my concentration to see the dotted street lines and navigate the roads to East Lake High.
Hillary, like a shark, scented the blood from Ryan’s broken heart. She hurried to my car seconds after he exited. Ryan dropped his bag in the back of Chris’s SUV and entered the school. He didn’t look back. Hil leaned against my driver’s door, tapping the window with her manicure until I lowered the glass. She looked like petite perfection in a skimpy golden dress and three-inch heels.
“You broke up,” she stated.
Her words distracted me from my task: breathing.
“You know,” she said, a smile tugging at the corner of her lip gloss, “I did tell you it’d happen before Fall Ball. You should’ve listened to me.”
My mind wanted to say: stop being such a hardass and admit you care. But my body was too tired. “At least I didn’t OD on chocolate.”
“True, you did follow my advice about that.” She tilted her head and studied me. “Though you still look like crap. Since when do you let your mom pick your dresses? Don’t even try and deny it; you would never pick out something that pageanty, and your mom loves that color.” Her tone wasn’t caustic, it was teasing. She reached through the window and plucked at a layer of the tulle.
“It’s bad, isn’t it? Good thing I’m not going in.” I managed a few seconds of laughter before it turned to choking.
Hil didn’t ask if I was okay, but the question was written in the lines marring her forehead. When I stopped coughing, she asked, “Does this mean you’ll be abandoning the soccer players and rejoining our lunch table?”
“Am I welcome?” My voice was quiet and raspy, masking how desperately I wanted her to answer yes.
“I don’t know. My best friend wouldn’t be skipping the dance because she’s all pouty about a guy. Even if she does look like a contestant from Toddlers and Tiaras.” There was a challenge in her words.
But I was too tired to play friendship games or jump through hoops. Every weary cell in my body demanded an end to tonight’s drama. “Well, when you decide, let me know.”
She opened my door, adding the car’s key-in-ignition beeping to the percussion of my coughing. Leaning forward, she hugged me. A fierce, almost painfully tight Hil hug. She pulled back, eyes wide and sad. “I miss you.”
Then she turned, her heels clicked on the pavement, and the fabric of her dress looked like molten gold as she practically ran for the school entrance.
And I was left in silence. Even my coughing momentarily ceased as I shut my door and tried to sort through my scrambled thoughts to make sense of what had happened.
My head and palms were sweating. I pulled off my wig and reached to direct the heat vents away—I must’ve already turned them off—there was no air coming out.
Hil had extended an invitation to open my car door and rejoin the group. It was tempting. So tempting. But the parking lot looked huge; the school looked impossibly far away.