“No,” I admit. “But only because I don’t want to see Matt.” As soon as I say it I realize it’s true. Convictions aside, I really, really, really wish I could be at that parade tonight. I wish I could sit on a quilt surrounded by friends on Luke’s front lawn, watching explosions of glittering light fill up the sky. I wish Megan and I would get to take pictures of one another writing each other’s names in the air with sparklers, and that we’d drink bottles of Ale-8-One with sneaky quarter-shots of vodka we can’t taste or feel but enjoy just for the sake of rebelliousness and summer and friendship and all the parts of the Fourth of July I still love. I wish that change weren’t so hard, or that I didn’t feel so thoroughly that I needed it to make room in my life to live and space in my brain to think. “I would go,” I say again, “if things were different.”
“Oh, honey.” Mom releases a sigh and sits down beside me, pulling me against her chest and lightly circling her fingernails against my scalp. She squeezes me tight. “It won’t always feel like this,” she says. “Time heals all.”
And by the end of our conversation, after Mom and Dad have finally accepted that I’ll be fine staying home while they go out after all, I start to think she’s right. Last July I made Mom cry, and now she’s going to a cookout. Maybe by this time next year, when I look at or think about Matt Kincaid, my heart won’t start to break. Maybe I’ll be able to think of him as my friend again.
For tonight, though, I wander barefoot through an empty house, catching the dust of years on the bottom of my feet and memorizing the walls I’m leaving behind soon. When the sun sets, I go up to my room and watch my cul-de-sac’s private show of fireworks from my bedroom window.
When the last of our neighbors sets off the last grand finale, I fall into bed and text Megan:
Miss you so much it hurts.
Seconds later, she texts back, The feeling is mushrooms, followed by a second text reading, Yes, autocorrect, I meant to say mushrooms, not mutual. Good catch.
Life without you does feel a little bit like fungus, I reply. But definitely less tasty.
I mean, both mushrooms and my tears taste a little bit salty?
Megan says.
How do you have fluid left for tears with all the soccer sexting you’re doing? I answer, Btw I tried to type soccer sweating, but my phone simply wasn’t having it.
Your phone’s right, she replies. Soccer sexting. Fave competitive sport. Considering trying out for Olympic team.
You’re a shut-in, I say. Shoe-in. SHOO-IN**.
You’re a beautiful and wonderful and sensual and strong golden fawn, she says, followed by, That was supposed to say “my best friend,” but my phone . . .
The feeling is mushrooms, I tell her. I fall asleep feeling a happy kind of sad.
Beau never shows up. When I call him, his phone goes straight to voice mail. I call a handful of times and leave one message, but soon it’s noon and it’s clear he’s not coming.
Dad decided to take a half-day, so he gets home around one, drops his bag in the kitchen, and starts digging through the refrigerator for a beer. “Where’s your friend?” he calls over his shoulder.
“Something came up,” I lie. “He couldn’t come.” Dad glances back at me suspiciously. I am, after all, sitting at the kitchen table in the middle of the day like I’ve been waiting, but he doesn’t call me out. I’ve never been sure if it’s more annoying when Mom tries to help me process my emotions aloud or when Dad looks at me with X-ray, horse-whisperer eyes but keeps what he sees to himself.
He looks down at the bottle in his hands and gives it an apologetic sigh before stuffing it back in the fridge and clearing his throat. “Well, your mom’s right. We probably oughta get a second opinion on it before shellin’ out a few thousand bucks on something new, and I’d feel better if we took it in to a professional anyway. Don’t want my baby girl in a car some kid duct-taped together.”
My first inclination is to defend Beau, but then, with disappointment sinking in my stomach, I remember that Beau’s supposed to be here, and he isn’t. I don’t really know who he is; maybe he is just some kid. “If you really loved me, you’d forget the car and buy me an airplane,” I say, steering the conversation away from the absence of Beau.
“Kiddo, if you really loved me, you’d get a bike.” Dad swipes his phone off the counter and shoots the refrigerator one last mournful glance. “Come on. Let’s get that sucker towed in.”
“What about this one?” Coco spritzes another purple bottle identical to the last hundred into the air beside my nose. We’ve been in Bath & Body Works for thirty minutes, and by now I’ve entirely lost my sense of smell.
“It’s nice,” I lie, scrambling to check my phone when I feel it buzz in my pocket. My mounting nerves skyrocket when instead of the apology from Beau I’d been hoping for, I see a mass text from Derek Dillhorn, alerting us to a party he’s throwing while his parents are out of town. I haven’t tried calling Beau since yesterday afternoon, and he hasn’t called me either. Four days have passed since we talked about him coming to look at the car, four weeks since Grandmother gave me her three months’ warning, and this shopping trip isn’t proving to be the distraction from either situation I had hoped it would be.
“That’s what you said about the last six,” Coco complains.
“They were all nice.”
“Then why are you making that face?”
“Because my brain is full of fumes, and I’m about to pass out,” I say. “It’s unrelated to all that toxic gas you keep spraying into my eyes.”