Chapter Twenty-Nine
Nora
The next morning, Mom pops her head into my room.
“What’s up, buttercup?” she asks in her dorky Mom way. I don’t hold it against her, though, because she looks wrecked. It’s midterms in dental hygiene school this week and she’s been at study groups late, trying to get this certificate that will allow her to get paid to clean people’s teeth.
“Nothing,” I say. Not entirely true, of course I’m not about to share with her that I had dreams last night that should disturb me about a certain boy next door. At this point I wonder if it’ll ever be possible to completely exorcise Eli from my life, from my brain, from my heart.
Then I remember, like a light flickering on. I hold back a smile. “Oh yeah,” I say. “I got an email from Emory.”
Instantly, her forehead crinkles up in worry. “Oh? And?”
I have to force my mouth not to turn upward. “I did get some scholarship money.”
“What?” She’s still worried. “Oh my God. How much?” She presses her hands together, holds them up to her mouth, like she’s praying. “Oh my God, tell me!”
That’s it. I can’t hold it in. “Most of it, Mom, and I qualified for work study, which they say should cover the rest. For four years.”
Then my mother screams. “Ohmygod! You did it! You did it!” She throws herself on my still-horizontal self and grabs me in a hug. “You did it! You did it!”
I start laughing and can’t stop. Mom has always been my biggest cheerleader, and right now she’s acting like I won a gold medal in the Olympics or something, which it feels like I sort of did.
She climbs onto my bed, sits cross-legged and starts to cry.
I sit up, swipe a tear off her cheek, and tug on her pajama sleeve. “Mom? What’s wrong?”
She sniffs and rubs at her eyes. “Nothing. Nothing’s wrong! I’m just so proud of you, and amazed by you. You’re amazing.” She sniffs again. “You know that?”
“I’m just a good student, Ma, not amazing.”
I lie back, head on my pillow and she flops down at my side. She wraps her arm around me and pulls me to her, then kisses the top of my head. I feel like a tiny girl again, and I don’t mind at all.
“You are a good student, but you’re so much more, honey. God, I’m so happy for you. You have the world at your feet, and that’s all I’ve ever wanted for you—the adventure is about to begin!”
She squeezes me tighter and cries some more, and I’m surprised to find myself with tears in my eyes, too. This time I don’t feel like they are a waste of time. This time, they feel good.
Suddenly, she sits up. “Hey, let’s celebrate, let’s go get breakfast!” As she shimmies off my bed, her happy face turns back to me. “We can ask Eli, too!”
My smile is gone. “Eli?”
“Yeah, I mean, both of you—going away to school! I can’t believe it!” She must see in my face that I don’t know what she’s talking about, because she frowns. “Wait. You don’t know? Are you still in a fight?”
My nonanswer is her answer.
I swallow hard. “Eli is going away to school?”
She edges closer. “Yes? Oh, honey, I assumed you knew. He got a call from the UNF coach. They want him to play lacrosse.”
It feels like I just got punched in the stomach. I sit up, my back to Mom, so I can pull myself together. “Oh. Jacksonville?”
“I’m sorry. I assumed you two had patched everything up.”
“No.” I bite my bottom lip. “But good for him!”
My voice is high, and barely recognizable. I’m trying to take the high road for my mother’s sake, and be the bigger person. Except I don’t feel bigger. All I feel is my heart break a little bit more, and here I’d thought it was already shattered into microscopic pieces.
To make matters worse, after a slice of subpar blueberry pie at the Mermaid for breakfast, we go to see Gigi, who doesn’t remember us at all.
I almost cancel with Abby. I don’t feel like going to the bonfire. I don’t want to see all those people. I don’t want to hear the sneers of the girls who think I’m cold. I don’t want to hear them say that Eli is hot. I don’t want to see his teammates. I don’t want to go.
Oh hell no, Abby texts me when I let her know my feelings.
At six sharp, she pulls up to the house, ready to go, not taking no for an answer.
One thing that’s good—I’m glad that Abby and I have started to hang out again, even if she is only using me as a cover for being perpetually grounded. I’ve missed her. We have a lot in common, and when I tell her I got the scholarship, her reaction is pretty much just like Mom’s.
“We are so getting you drunk tonight,” she says once we’re inside my car.
My body stiffens and I wonder if she’s serious. I’m not going down the vodka-orange juice road with her again. “You don’t even want to drive with me when I’m sober,” I joke, trying to calm myself. Even though I’m legal now, there’s still a wave of anxiety that sweeps over me every time I buckle up. I can still hear that poor woman scream, and I can also still imagine Eli beside me, trying to calm me down.
None of that is good.
At least his new piece of crap car—is that duct tape on the bumper?—is still in the driveway. Which means he isn’t going to the bonfire. Good. That’s exactly what I hoped for.
I inhale and exhale, channeling my inner capable driver, and we’re off, my mother waving from the driveway, tears still rolling down her face.
The bonfire is at someone’s grandparents’ beach house. It’s a long way off the main road, it’s dark, and I have no idea where I’m going, so by the time we get there, I’m frazzled.
I park and Abby swats my arm. “That was some first-class driving, girlfriend,” she says.
I guess she’s right, but there’s still a giant ball of anxiety in my stomach. It’s not just about the driving, it’s everything. Especially Eli. I’ve never done one of these things without him around.
Abby opens her door. “Come on, Nora, let’s own this bonfire.”
I’m not owning anything, but I follow her anyway.
We walk a few blocks to the house. It’s obvious that retirees live here. There are vases full of fake plastic flowers and plastic on all the furniture, which actually makes it perfect for a high school party. Go ahead, puke on the chair, it’ll wipe right up!
Almost immediately, Abby gets sucked into a group of girls that includes Veronica. When I think of her nasty comments at O’Dell’s, I make a beeline to the sliding glass doors at the back of the house.
It’s cooler tonight, the heat wave of the last few weeks finally lifting. I go out onto the deck, past a bunch of patio furniture where there are several couples making out. It’s impossible to tell who they are, and it would be weird to look too closely, so I pass through them quickly.
Out at the keg a few of the lax guys are filling their cups. “Hey, Nora,” one of them says. It’s Koviak, who hands me a cup. “Here, just poured this for ya.”
Even though I’m the designated driver, Koviak is a friend of Eli’s, and he’s being nice to me. I decide to keep my mouth shut and take the beer.
“Thank you,” I say.
He starts to pump another cup. “So, did you come with your boy?”
I might have spoken too soon. “My boy?”
“Yeah. Eli?”
I raise my cup, take a tiny sip, and cringe. God, beer is so gross. “Not my boy. And no, he’s not with me.”
Truer words were never spoken.
I turn away. The beach is in front of me, a wide stretch of it, filled with people I’ve known since I was nine years old. Friends, acquaintances, strangers, maybe a nemesis or two.
But no Eli, who at the moment feels like a mix of all those things.
Out on the sand, there’s a group trying to start the bonfire, and I see Caleb in silhouette. I guess I should probably go ahead and kiss him, except my hypothesis is in pieces, and the truth is, I still don’t want to.
I walk down the wooden deck stairs, take off my shoes, and let my feet sink in as I gaze at the sky. I’m pretty sure no one else here knows that the moon is in a waning gibbous phase, just after a full moon. That’s why it’s so bright, lighting up the sky and reflecting off the mirror smooth Gulf water.
It makes me think of the picnic, and being with Eli out in the water. Our first near-kiss since the actual kiss when we were kids. I shiver thinking how badly I wanted it to happen. I know this much—when I go to college in the fall, I have to toughen up. I can’t be so naive. I can’t let myself fall so hard. Even if my hypothesis has changed, I can still be rational and keep my head.
What other choice do I have if I don’t want a life filled with this kind of heartbreak?
I have to say, it totally sucks.