AFTER JOEL WALKED away from me, I wanted to fall to my knees. I wanted to collapse and cry until I had no tears left to shed.
Instead, I ran after him.
It took a few seconds for my feet to move, but eventually, something clicked in my brain. A desperate voice said, this is your last chance, and I took it. I swung open the door, I pushed through the crowd, I searched for him. And I froze.
He was leaving—with her. My gaze lowered to their joined hands, and I stared at them until they were burned into my brain. Then, the hands disappeared, and I knew with crushing certainty that my chance with Joel was gone. The chance had passed two weeks earlier in an empty pool, and now it was too late.
I left Mayhem as soon as I was sure Joel wouldn’t still be in the parking lot. In my car, I texted Rowan to tell her I had changed my mind about telling him how I felt. I asked her to give Leti a ride home, and I also asked, very politely, for her to please give me my space.
She showed up at my apartment half an hour later, but by then, I was already numb. It was easy to tell her that I had simply decided I didn’t want to be tied down, that I was sure Joel wouldn’t want to be tied down either. She argued with me and repeatedly asked me if something had happened, but I had no intention of ever telling her about what happened in the bathroom.
Gradually, days turned into weeks and she let it go.
I thought of Joel every day, every night, but I eventually stopped crying about him. He never texted, never called, and neither did I. I avoided Mayhem, and even though I still got asked out on dates almost anytime I bothered brushing my hair and going out in public, I turned them all down. Instead, I focused all my energy on finishing my classes and making T-shirts for The Last Ones to Know.
THE WEEK BEFORE finals, Rowan drags me to IHOP and I let her because I’ve come to a decision she needs to know about sooner rather than later. We sit in a booth, we place our orders, and we’re both carving into high stacks of strawberry pancakes when she says, “How do you think you’re going to do on your finals next week?”
“Honestly?” She waits expectantly, and I give it to her straight. “I’m not even going to bother taking two of them because there’s no way I can pass the classes even if I ace the finals.” Her lips part like she’s going to say something, but I don’t leave her time to interrupt. “Two others are papers, and I’ve already started working on them, but I’ll be lucky if I pass the classes with Cs. The other one is the marketing class, and I better get an A on that one or I’m seriously going to burn the entire school to the ground.”
Rowan’s worry lines are deep when she says, “You really can’t pass two of them even if you ace the finals?”
“Don’t look at me like that,” I say. “I tried, Ro. I really did. I mean, you saw me, I—”
“I know you did,” she assures me. “You’ve been working really hard . . .”
I take a deep, heavy breath. “I promised my dad I’d get my grades up . . . but the damage was already done before midterms. I couldn’t get caught up, and then . . . stuff happened.” I don’t need to say what stuff. I stopped saying Joel’s name a few weeks ago. “It just wasn’t going to happen.”
“There’s always next semester,” she suggests after a while, forcing a smile at me even though her eyes are still sad.
I take another weighted breath, knowing I have to tell her and hoping I don’t cry. “Ro . . . I’m not coming back next semester.”
She stops cutting into her pancakes to stare at me. “What do you mean?”
“I’m going home. I’m not coming back. I—”
“You’re not coming back?”
My eyes start to sting, so I close them. “I just can’t be here anymore. This isn’t working out for me.”
When she slides into my side of the booth, I open my eyes and look at her. She takes my hand. “Dee, I know you miss Joel, but—”
“This isn’t just about Joel,” I say, and it’s the truth. The past few weeks have been some of the most miserable of my life, but while part of my brain insists that it’s all because of a certain boy I can’t forget, the other part knows that’s not entirely true. It’s also because I’ve honestly been giving college my all, and the more seriously I take it, the more wrong it feels, like I’m not doing what I’m supposed to be doing or in the place where I should be. Over the past year, I’ve tried to quiet the voice, convincing myself that it’s just because I’m lazy or disinterested—because everyone with half a brain goes to college, right?—but it’s gotten to the point where I no longer care what the voice says because I just want to go home.
I want to go back to a place where subjects like math and biology don’t matter. Back where homework doesn’t exist and boys are predictable. Back where I can figure out who I am, because right now, the only thing I’m absolutely sure of is who I’m not. I’m not the same girl who accepted that college was her only option. I’m not the same girl who obsessed over Joel, or who let Aiden drool all over her, or who thought she could use Cody as a pawn to get what she wanted.
And I’m definitely not the same girl who blamed herself for what Cody did.
The girl I am now knows better. Even though there are days when I still think about that night, each time Cody’s face enters my mind, I become more and more sure that I didn’t deserve what happened. A kiss, even one that I enjoyed, does not equal consent. I was not to blame for what he tried to do to me.
It wasn’t my fault.
It took me a while to believe it, and some days, it’s still hard, but I know Rowan was right when she told me I did all I needed to do when I told him that one word: “STOP.”
Before that night, I was broken, and after, I was destroyed. It was a broken girl who turned Joel away when he told me he loved me, and a broken girl who watched him leave Mayhem holding another girl’s hand. I’m still trying to put myself together, but I need to be able to think to do that, and that’s the last thing I can do when every single breath I take in this town pulls at the fissures of my completely broken heart. If my future doesn’t involve college or the only guy I ever gave my heart to, I don’t know where that leaves me, but I need to figure it out.
“It’ll get better,” Rowan says. “Next semester—”
“My mind’s already made up, babe.” The corners of her lips start slipping into a frown, but my voice stays sure. “I’m moving back home at the end of the month. I already talked to my dad.”
Rowan shakes her head, her blue eyes welling with unshed tears. “What about me?”
I smile and smooth her hair over her shoulder. “You’ll be fine. You’ll stay here with Adam and finish school and be awesome, and we’ll visit each other. And we’ll talk all the time.”
“Dee . . .”
I pull her in for a hug, and she squeezes me close. When the server stops by to ask how we’re doing, she takes one look at us and gives us another few minutes.
“What will you do?” Rowan asks when she pulls away. She wipes her eyes and sniffs in the rest of her tears.
“Call Jeremy, see what he’s up to.” She chuckles when I bring up the name of the lifeguard, and I force a smile even though I’m lying out of my teeth. I have no interest in seeing anyone, especially considering it’s taking all of my energy just to crawl out of bed in the morning.
Last week, Rowan told me Joel got his own place, and I asked her to stop giving me updates. She told me she didn’t think he was seeing anyone, and I told her I didn’t care.
I’m happy that he finally has a place he can call home, but I don’t believe for a second that he’s been alone all this time, and I hate that some other girl is the one who got to sleep in his bed first. Or at all.
“I actually got an email from Van last night,” I say, showing Rowan my phone to distract us both. This will make her happy, and hopefully that will help me block Joel from my mind for another five minutes. If I take life five minutes at a time, maybe I’ll never need to think of him again.
“From Van?” she asks.
“He wanted to let me know he finally got in touch with his marketing people. I got an email from them half an hour later with a contract attached.”
“Seriously?” she says, her face lighting up. “You’re going to make T-shirts for Cutting the Line?”
I force another smile, hoping it looks as excited and genuine as hers. Last night, when I got the email, I should have danced, screamed, called my best friend and freaked the hell out. Instead, I burst into tears.
All I could think was, This should make me happy. I should be happy. Why am I not happy? But there I was, crying into a box of tissues.
“Yep,” I answer. “Van actually came through.”
“How are you not freaking out?!” she asks.
“I did, believe me.”
“Did you sign the contract yet?”
“I wanted to sleep on it, but I’m going to.”
Rowan slides back into her own seat as we talk about the terms. Van told me not to be afraid to negotiate any I didn’t like, but the contract was more than generous. Based on the time it takes me to make the shirts, I’ll be making nearly triple minimum wage. My “brand” will also be featured on the band’s website and at their merchandise booth. They want me to send a picture and a bio and make it a whole big thing.
“I think I might also apply to fashion school,” I add, and Rowan’s eyes get big.
“Really?”
Nikki and Molly had been the first to suggest it, and Joel had been the last. “Yeah, maybe. I mean, it’s just something I’m thinking of. I—”
“I think you should do it,” Rowan says. “You’d be really good at it, Dee.”
“You think so?”
“I know so.” She presses the heels of her palms against her eyes when she starts getting choked up again. “I still don’t want you to go though.”
“I know,” I say, because we both know I’m going to anyway.
“I’ll miss you.”
I give her a weak smile. “Nah, you’re going to hate me when you realize what this means.”
She pulls her hands away from her eyes, and I manage a sincere smirk in her direction.
“You’re going to have to tell your parents about you living with Adam.”