I spent the next three days bouncing all over Jessell, applying to every job in the want ads: a babysitting gig that turned out to be for a guinea pig named Lester, a dishwashing shift at a seafood restaurant that reeked of rotting fish. Sure, technically I’d been on Guy’s payroll all summer, but each week he’d held a slice back for expenses—rent in the complex, that expensive studio time—and now I had basically less than I’d had when I’d gone to Orlando. I thought of that flashy red bathing suit I hadn’t bothered to check the price on, and cursed myself for being such a fool.
It was nearing dusk by the time I got off the bus on the third day, sun sinking behind the low-slung houses and the cicadas already screeching their desperate calls for love. My shirt was sticking to my back, hot and sweaty; the backs of my feet were puffy with blisters from my uncomfortable “hire me” shoes. I let myself in through the screen door, was heading down the hall to shower when my mom called out to me from the living room.
“Come here a second,” she said, hitting the mute button on the Law & Order rerun she was watching and patting the couch cushion beside her. “You’ve been running around since you got back. I haven’t hardly seen you.”
That was mostly because she’d been passed out in her bedroom, but I didn’t say that out loud. “I need to find a job,” I reminded her, but I went anyway, sinking into our ancient floral couch and gingerly sliding my feet out of my sandals.
“You’ll find something,” she said. She smelled like cigarettes and the same raspberry body spray she’d worn since I was a little girl, sweet and fruity and overpowering. A glass of something icy and clear sweated on the coffee table. “I got ice cream at the store today,” my mom continued, looping one slender arm around my shoulders unexpectedly. Normally she wasn’t much for hugs.
“You did?” I asked, smiling a little, leaning into her a bit. It was nice to be held for a moment, even if I was too big for it.
“I did,” she said, sounding pleased. She looked so young to me all of a sudden, like she could have been in a girl group herself. “To celebrate you being back at home.”
“That’s nice,” I said, and I meant it. “Thanks.”
“I’ll tell you something,” my mom continued, reaching up and pushing my hair back off my forehead, her palm warm against my skin. “It never made any sense to me, what you were doing down there in Orlando.”
I felt my skin prickle at that, but I tried to keep my face expressionless. “No?” I said. “Why not?”
I felt her shrug. “It just felt like they were having you put on airs the whole time you were down there, you know what I mean? Tryin’ to make you into something you’re not.”
“I could have been, though,” I said, sitting up before I could stop myself. “Guy picked me over Olivia, remember? I’m the one who decided not to do it.”
“I never liked that Guy, is the other thing,” my mom continued, almost as if she hadn’t heard me, like she’d already made up her own version of events and that was that.
“You never met him, Mom.”
“No, I know I didn’t, but just the way you described him. He seemed real Big City to me. Like he thought real highly of himself.”
Well, that much was true. Guy did think highly of himself. But he’d thought highly of me, too. It was possible he was the first person who ever had.
“Now, Olivia, sure,” my mom continued, still fussing with my hair like I was a little kid. “You always kind of knew Olivia was going to go do some cockamamie thing, didn’t you? She comes from that kind of family, her mom walking around with her nose in the air all the time. I don’t know.” She shrugged. “Anyway, it seemed stupid to me to begin with.”
I nodded wordlessly, still staring at the TV and telling myself the stinging at the back of my throat was anything but tears. The worst part was how I knew she was trying to tell me something nice—that she’d missed me, that she thought I was smart for owning up to who and what I really was. In her mind, there were a limited number of things a person could do, only a few places they fit in the world; trying to change that was embarrassing and shameful for everyone involved. I got it, truly. At the beginning of the summer, I’d felt the exact same way.
Now, though, I wasn’t so sure.
Still, I thought as I sat there, it didn’t really make a difference anymore, did it? Maybe I could have been something else, in an alternate universe. But in the end, here I was anyway, back in the same place I’d always been. I’d made sure of that myself.
“Anyway,” my mom finished, unmuting the TV just as the twist ending was revealed, everything suddenly making sense at once. “It’s good to have you back where you belong.”
I met Sarah Jane for breakfast at Waffle House a couple of mornings later. “So,” she said once we’d placed our orders, “how is it being back?”
“It’s good,” I said, trying to muster some enthusiasm. I didn’t want her to think I thought I was better than her, that I was—as my mom would have said—putting on airs.
Sarah Jane snorted. “You’re miserable, I can tell.”
“I’m not miserable,” I protested, though in fact that was basically the perfect word to describe it. “I’m just . . . lost, I guess? I’m back at my mom’s. I have zero job prospects. And I miss Olivia, honestly, which makes me feel like a huge chump.”
“You’re not a chump,” Sarah Jane said as the waitress set our plates down on the table. “You’re human. And maybe it’s a good thing you’re apart, you know? I know you guys were joined at the hip and all, but it’s gotta be kind of freeing, isn’t it? Not to have to worry about her all the time? I mean, you could do anything now.”
“I don’t know about that,” I protested. “I barely graduated, remember?”
“Oh, don’t be dumb, Dana,” Sarah Jane said flatly, reaching for the sticky-looking pitcher of syrup. “Grades or no grades, you were one of the only people in our whole class who knew her ass from her elbow. You never even wanted to be a pop star and you got Guy freaking Monroe to offer you a spot on tour with Tulsa MacCreadie.” She shook her head. “Don’t insult the rest of us by acting like you’re stuck at your mom’s forever. What about your cute boyfriend, where’s he in all this?”
I picked at the edge of my waffle. “I broke up with him before I came back here,” I admitted.
“Of course you did.” Sarah Jane made a face. “And for what? So you and Tim can live miserably ever after? That was dumb.”
I blew out a breath instead of answering. The truth was, I could barely sleep for thinking about Alex—trying to convince myself that I didn’t still miss him, that my chest didn’t ache with the loss. I’d been so sure that breaking things off with him had been my only option. But what if I’d been wrong?
“Olivia always needed you so much more than you needed her,” Sarah Jane continued, shaking her head thoughtfully. “Maybe now you can put all that energy into yourself instead.”
I thought about it for a moment. It was the same thing Charla had said, I realized, albeit a little more bluntly, and maybe they were right. But I didn’t know how to see past how angry I was at Olivia, or how hopeless I felt at being back here. I didn’t know how the hell I was supposed to move on.
“What’s that dorky talk show thing you guys always used to say to each other?” SJ asked, reaching for her coffee cup. “‘Live your life forward’?”