Are you sure you don’t need me to pick you up later?
I check the next few directions on the app and shove the phone into my pocket so I can ignore my mother properly.
It buzzes.
And buzzes again.
And again.
When I’ve walked far enough that I don’t know where to turn next, I pull it out to look at the map. The screen is full of more texts from Mom.
Who is bringing you home?
I want to know who you’re getting a ride with, Vicky.
I don’t want you driving home with someone who’s been drinking.
It says I’ll be home in forty-six minutes, and I recognize the way now. So I shove the phone into my pocket and let it bleep away. It’s completely dark at this point, and the road I’m walking on doesn’t have streetlights. Or sidewalks. Cars come up on me fast, not seeing my olive-green drabness at the side of the road. Some swerve and honk; others fly by without even spotting me.
By the time I reach my neighborhood, I’m sweaty from both the exertion and the anxiety of nearly being run over a few times. I’m so tired and thirsty I push the front door open without pausing to think what I’ll say. I just want to crawl into my bed.
Dad’s sitting on the couch, watching TV. He looks up. “Hey, kiddo. You’re home early. And all in one piece.”
I nod. “Imagine that.”
He lowers the volume on the TV. “Your mother will be relieved.”
“She expected me to be torn to shreds or something?”
“She worries,” he says. “You know how protective she gets.”
“Is that what you call it?”
My father frowns at me. “What do you call it?”
“Oh, I don’t know, emotional manipulation? Aggravated menacing? Something like that?”
“Vicky.”
“Seriously, Dad. She forced me to go to a party against my will. She tricked me. What kind of mother—”
“She means well,” he interrupts. “Maybe she doesn’t always get it right, but she’s trying. You should give her a break.”
“Yeah, well, she doesn’t trick you into going to parties, does she?”
He chuckles under his breath. “She has.”
“And you’re taking her side?”
“You have to understand.” He glances toward the kitchen, voice low. “Your mother is a social creature. We’re like aliens to her. She’s just trying to help us adapt to her world, to fit in.”
I shake my head. “I’d rather phone home, E.T.”
Dad laughs.
She blusters into the room then, nose glued to her cell phone, not even realizing I’m here. “She’s not answering me, Gary. Do you think she’s okay? Should I go over and get her? I never should’ve—”
Dad clears his throat and she looks up and sees me. “Oh. You’re home.”
“Indeed.”
She lowers her phone. “You didn’t answer my texts.”
“I was at a party.”
She nods. “Right. Of course. But I didn’t see you go into the house, and—”
“Nora.” My father reaches a hand out to her. “She’s fine.”
Mom slips her fingers into his and lets him pull her to sit on the couch next to him. “Of course she’s fine,” she says. “She’s perfectly fine.”
No, I’m not.
I want to say it, tell my mother I’m not fine at all. That I didn’t go to the party because I physically couldn’t face it. That maybe I need help. And I almost do. The words are on my tongue, waiting to pass my lips.
Then Mom’s smiling at me and asking, “Did you have a good time?”
And I’m nodding, and telling her what she wants to hear, because she so desperately wants to believe there’s nothing wrong with me.
“I’m tired from dancing,” I say. “I think I’ll go to bed.”
I’m halfway to my room when Mom calls out, “Who brought you home?”
I hesitate for a moment, then say, “Lipton Gregory.”
“Oh! He’s driving already?”
“His mom dropped me off.” I hurry to my room so I can put a closed door between us and avoid any more questions that make me tell lies.
I flop onto my bed, sweaty and thirsty and hungry, but I don’t want to go back out there. I find a half-full water bottle in my backpack, slurp it down, and scrounge a piece of gum from my desk drawer. Maybe if I Photoshop Vicurious into a feast somewhere, it’ll feel as if I’ve actually eaten. The thought of it makes me hungrier.
I swipe my phone open to see a stream of notifications—Mom’s frantic texts, and . . .
Jenna?
She’s been texting me like crazy. All those beeps my phone was making from my back pocket, which I thought were my mom, were actually Jenna. I quickly scroll back to the first one and read through them.
Hey. It’s me.
Earth to Vicky! Come in!
You there?
Come on, I know you have your phone. I really need to talk to you.
The time stamp on the first several texts is forty-five minutes ago. Then nothing for about ten minutes until they start up again.
I know why you’re mad at me.
I butt dialed you, didn’t I?
I saw the call on my phone log. Outgoing call, four minutes. After school last week. I was with Tristan. You heard us talking?
Whatever I said, I didn’t mean it. I was just trying to be cool.
I’m sorry.
My throat tightens. I want to laugh or shout or cheer or cry. I’m not sure which. But here is the truth in front of me and my best friend apologizing and all I have to do is text her and say, “It’s okay.” And everything will be okay. We’ll go back to the way it was, and I can even tell her about Vicurious! She will die.
I scroll a bit farther down so I can text her back, and there’s more. Fifteen minutes ago, she texted again.
So that’s it?
We’re done?
Make new friends, forget the old?
Nice, Vicky. Thanks a lot.
Hope you and Marissa and Adrian will be very happy together.
Can’t believe I wasted 12 years on you.
You know how many parties I missed because of you? How many friends I could’ve had? And this is what I get in return?
Have a nice life.
The air goes completely out of my lungs. I double over. Drop to my knees on the floor. You know how many parties I missed because of you? How many friends I could’ve had? The memories come back to me like a tsunami, laying me flat in a giant wave.
All those times at lunch, Jenna and me together, alone, when girls would come by and say to her, “Want to sit with us?” And she’d look longingly toward their table with its one empty seat, and shake her head. When they walked away, she’d say to me, “Too crowded” or “I’d much rather sit with you.”
And all those party invitations slipped into her hand so I wouldn’t see? I saw. But Jenna never wanted to go. “It’s more fun just the two of us,” she always said. And I believed her.
How could I have ever believed such a thing?