“I’m just getting my check,” I tell them, hands up in surrender, feeling my face flush—none of that piss-off, don’t-mess-with-me vinegar I felt coursing through my veins the other night at the party. “You don’t—I’ll be out of here in a second.”
“Thank fuck,” Julia says, in a voice exactly loud enough for me to hear her. So much for laying the smackdown, I guess. I think of what Roisin said on the phone the other night, It’s easy to forget that your hometown isn’t the entire universe. I wish there were a way to convince myself that’s true.
I slip into the office and fish my check out of my mailbox, which is already retagged with a label reading HAL. It’s crazy how fast things can change. I stuff it in my pocket and head for the doorway—
And that’s when I see Tess.
She’s standing in the hallway waiting, smooth braid and Barnard T-shirt, looking a thousand times more pulled together than she did the other day by the pool. “Hi!” I blurt, some weird muscle memory, that feeling of my friend is here. Then I blush some more. “I mean. Hi.”
Tess doesn’t smile. “I broke up with Patrick,” she tells me flatly, crossing her arms across her chest. “For good this time.”
“You did?” I echo her posture without totally meaning to, then drop my arms to my sides. I think of how guiltily my heart leaped when I heard that news the last time. All I can call up now is numbness and exhaustion. “I’m really sorry.”
Tess shakes her head. “No,” she says, sounding a little impatient. “That’s not why I’m telling you. I just—” She breaks off for a moment. “You and me are never going to be friends again, Molly, okay? We’re not. But I just wanted to tell you, I guess, that you were right. What you said at the party. That you’re not the only one who screwed up, and it sucked for us all to act like you were.” She raises her eyebrows. “Me included.”
For a moment, I just gape at her, uncomprehending. It sounds like something Imogen would say. It probably was something Imogen told her, as a matter of fact, but wherever it came from, hearing it feels like being hit with a wrecking ball, like my heart actually breaking in half. I didn’t always deserve them, friends like Tess and Imogen. From now on I’m going to make sure I do.
“Thanks,” I tell her finally, swallowing down the sharp press of tears—it feels like there shouldn’t be any more left in me by this point. My insides should be dried up like a prune. “I mean it. Thank you.”
Tess shrugs. “Take care of yourself, Molly,” she tells me. She waves to me once before she walks away.
Day 99
My mom and I leave for Boston in the morning, the two of us hefting my packed duffel into the trunk of her car, plus the TV and my shower shoes and starchy extra-long sheets printed with tiny dots. “Oh, one more thing,” my mom says, then runs back into the house and returns with the biggest box of Red Vines I’ve ever seen in this lifetime, enough to keep me in candy for the entire semester at least.
“I went to Costco,” she says, and she grins.
I say bye to Vita and scratch Oscar under his doggie chin, then zip up my hoodie—it’s colder in the mornings now, the lake breeze tempting fall—and pick up my shoulder bag, doing one last mental double check for anything I might have missed. There were two texts on my phone when I woke up today: a pattern from this summer, maybe, but instead of twin missives from either Donnelly brother this morning, they were from Imogen and Roisin—good luck! and can’t wait!
“Ready to go?” my mom asks me, a hand on my arm as we stand in the driveway. I glance up at the lilac Victorian, then higher at the treetops. The sun is warm and yellow-feeling on the back of my neck.
“I am,” I tell her, and smile. I squeeze her hand once before we get into the car.
Acknowledgments
Oh, hey, this does not get any easier the second time. So many people make it possible for me to do this thing that I love so hugely, and every last one of you holds my heart and truest gratitude:
To Alessandra Balzer, for your keen vision and steady guidance—you make me want to be a better man, and by “man,” I mean “writer who is not in fact a man.” To Emilie Polster, Jenna Lisanti, Nellie Kurtzman, Caroline Sun, Ali Lisnow, Bethany Reis, Alison Klapthor, Andrea Pappenheimer, Kerry Moynagh, Kathy Faber, Ruiko Tokunaga, Susan Katz, Kate Jackson, and every other gorgeous soul at Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins for your unflagging support and general wonderfulness. I’m so honored to play for this team.
To Josh Bank, Joelle Hobeika, and Sara Shandler: I honestly just love the shit out of you. To everyone at Alloy—especially Les Morgenstein, Natalie Sousa, Liz Dresner, Romy Golan, Heather David, Lauren Metz, and Theo Guliadis—thank you. You’re champions of the world.
To Christa Desir and Julie Murphy, for your fearlessness; to Court Stevens, for your heart; to Jasmine Warga, for your insight and encouragement on these pages.
To the Fourteenery, who make sure I am never alone.
To Rachel Hutchinson, best and most, always and always.
To all the Cotugnos, for launching me onto this delicious, unbelievable flight path, and all the Collerans, for giving me a safe place to land.