They know who I am, but they don’t know what happened—they don’t know that I returned early because Tate ended it between us. Somehow, that makes it even worse.
“Hang in there, honey,” Hank says, gunning the engine to show he means business. “Time to ditch the vultures.”
The window finally slides upward, sealing shut the outside world. With a squeal of tires, Hank pulls out onto the street, speeding away from the flash of cameras.
*
My grandmother is not easy on me—not at first.
“What did you think would happen?” she asks while I sit at the kitchen table, slumped and defeated, my suitcase still propped up by the door.
“It was a mistake,” I tell her, staring down at my hands in my lap. “I shouldn’t have gone.”
I think about the mob at the airport, the flashes of cameras. Mia popped her head into the kitchen when I first got home, her voice uncharacteristically gentle as she told me that the photos were already online, then disappeared back into her bedroom—I think she realized Grandma wanted to talk to me alone. Moments like this, I’m glad I don’t have Twitter or Instagram or Snapchat, where I’d be forced to see the same GIF of myself trying to roll up the backseat window over and over again.
Grandma refolds a stack of towels and straightens the row of spice jars on the counter. She’s upset. When she’s upset, she paces, she fidgets, she tries to keep her hands busy.
“I’m sorry,” I tell her. “You were right. You were completely right about him.”
She turns to look at me and I’m surprised to see there are tears in her eyes.
“Grandma,” I breathe. “I’m so sorry.”
She takes a deep breath. She wraps her arms around me.
“It’ll be okay,” she tells me. “It’s good that you found out now, before things went any further.”
But there, circled in her arms, I can’t help but feel like it did go too far. I went too far. I felt too much. And now I don’t know how to feel anything else.
FIFTEEN
IT’S A RELIEF TO BE back at school, to have something to do with my days. For the last week of winter break, I spent most of my time at home, avoiding anything that could remind me of Tate. I took a few extra shifts at the Bloom Room, but it wasn’t enough to distract me.
Carlos folds his arm over my shoulder, forcing me to fall in step with him as we walk to English. “I never liked his music anyway,” he’s saying, his chin held high as we move through the sea of people, all staring directly at me.
Everyone knows by now. Everyone knows that I, Charlotte Reed, had some sort of fling with Tate Collins. And now they all stare. They look at me like they’re trying to see something they’ve missed for the last four years—some part of me they just didn’t notice. But I’m still the same Charlotte, at least on the outside. Just maybe a little blonder.
“Nice try,” I say to Carlos. “You’re obsessed with his music.”
He grunts and flips his hair back from his eyes. “Not anymore. I deleted all his songs from my playlists, even the Love Is a Verb, Live Tour album.” He pauses, as if expecting me to be impressed, but then rushes on. “I have stripped my life clean of him.”
“I wish a simple ‘delete’ would rid him from my life.”
“There should be an app for that.”
“Yeah, I’d pay at least ninety-nine cents for that one.” I smile.
Carlos winks and pokes my ribs. “See? You still have your sense of humor. You’ll be fine.”
I’m not so sure. But the days and weeks find a way of tumbling past, even when memories of Tate rise up inside me: the way his hands felt that first night when we danced on the grass and he sang into my ear, the way his lips fit perfectly against mine, like we were made for each other. I try to pretend that none of it ever happened. I throw myself into school, into work. I stuff all the clothes he bought me from Barneys back into their bags—I plan on giving them to Mia or donating them to a thrift store. But I just can’t bring myself to do it, so I cram them into the very back of my closet—out of sight. To Mia’s unending joy, I babysit for Leo in the evenings after my shifts are over, barely letting myself have a moment alone.
I give in and go to parties with Carlos when he promises it’ll help. I drink beer (well, I drink a beer, but it’s gross so that’s about as far as I get). I try to be social. I show up at beach bonfires, chat with classmates I’ve only really known in passing until now. Sometimes, when something epically funny happens, like Andy Strauss losing his trunks after diving into the rough midnight surf, we laugh and in the warm glow of the fire I forget for an instant about everything before.
But then I find myself staring blankly into the flames, and I can’t help but think about him.
Him.
Him.
*
One of those nights brings me to Alison Yarrow’s birthday party. Her parents actually leave town so she can invite all her friends over and throw, basically, Pacific Heights High’s biggest bash of the year. Even bigger than prom, some say.