Rhode Island
Senior Year
I didn’t see David again for the rest of the day after Ryan walked him to class. I half wondered if Ryan had chopped him up and stashed the parts in an empty locker. But he seemed back to normal when he drove me to get my car after school.
I wished everything could go back to the way it was that easily. My family and I had been living in Rhode Island, right outside Newport, for the past year, just as I’d always dreamed of doing. That night, however, my dreams were filled with images of Norwood. More specifically, the piece of Norwood that had turned up like a metastasized tumor in the last place I expected.
Deep down, I knew I shouldn’t have been so surprised. We’d met in Newport, after all, and his grandfather’s house hadn’t been a vacation home like Uncle Tommy’s; Jay had lived there year-round. In the back of my mind, I’d always known I might see David again, especially since he and Mr. Kerrigan were Jay’s only family. And I’d mostly succeeded in not thinking about it.
But every image I’d tried to suppress for the past year found a way to break through the dam that night. I saw the delicate white and purple flowers in the empty field near the house David had shared with his father. The way he’d pick them and sneak them in my hair when I wasn’t looking, because he knew I was petrified that bugs would crawl out and nest in my scalp. The photo I took of him, beaming after he’d pitched a perfect game.
Then the images became more distorted and nightmarish. I looked down and saw blood everywhere. It stained my clothes, my hands, my face. I started to cry, and when David tried to comfort me, I got blood all over him, too.
Suddenly everything disappeared: David, Norwood, all of it. I stood in the hallway at Clayton, not a speck of blood in my perfectly highlighted hair, and not one red smear on my pretty white sundress. I stared at the glass doors at the end of the hall, knowing something was about to go terribly wrong. David walked in, just as he had that morning. Only this time it was the David I’d met three years ago. The one with an air of uncertainty about him and too much black hair hanging in his eyes and braces on his teeth.
His clothes were disheveled, and the closer he got to me, the easier it became to see dark splotches of blood all over him.
“David,” I gasped, keenly aware that the hallway had filled with gawkers. “You’re covered in blood.”
“I know. It’s happening to me, too.”
“What’s happening to you?”
David’s eyes hardened, and I barely recognized the voice that spoke his next words. “Do you even care?”
That’s when my eyes flew open and I struggled to sit up, fighting off the tail end of dream paralysis.
No Freud required to analyze that one.
I knew, even in my sleep, that what I’d had with David in Norwood would never translate to the life I’d lived for the past year in Rhode Island. Beautiful as he might be, he served as a reminder of my ugly past. He didn’t fit in my new world, and having him here would only ruin everything. The same way he’d ruined everything once before.
According to the clock, I still had ten more minutes before my alarm went off. But the last thing I wanted was to fall back to sleep and revisit my dream. So I dragged myself into the bathroom. I cast a skittish glance in the mirror, and even though I didn’t see blood pouring out of my nose or mouth, I still ran to the kitchen and downed some vitamins before jumping in the shower.
Normally a shower would have soothed me, but that morning it stimulated my pissiness, as if the receptors determining my shitty mood were activated by the hot water hitting my skin.
Who the hell does he think he is? I thought as I yanked a comb through my hair afterward. First doing what he did before I left, and then showing up here? I threw a towel around my hair and then let out a mini scream of frustration when it unraveled immediately. He’s crazy if he thinks I’m going to act like everything is fine. I’m not going to speak to him. I’ll acknowledge him if he talks to me, but we will not be friends again. I’m not even going to look at him.
That didn’t happen.
I got to my first-period English class early, since my morning dose of Candy and Ryan hadn’t done much to improve my mood. Neither had the fact that Mom and Miranda spent breakfast blathering about how excited they were to have David and his father in town, and how they wished Aunt Tess and Uncle Tommy hadn’t sold the cabin, so we could all get together for old time’s sake.
I had muttered that old times were old for a reason. They ignored me.
Most of the desks were still empty as I took my place in the back, reserving the seat next to me for Violet by dumping my bag on the chair. I dug out the book we’d been assigned to read and prepared to numb my mind for a few minutes.
That is, until David walked in the door and handed Mr. Ingles a transfer slip.
“Ah,” Mr. Ingles said, twisting his thick mustache. “Mrs. Pruitt’s class too full?”
“Yes,” David replied. “They told me I should come to this room starting today.”
“Well, then. Welcome aboard Mr.”—he glanced at the paper—“Kerrigan. Have a seat.”
No. No, no frickin’ way. My palms started to sweat as I hoped David wouldn’t see me. Or that he would, and he’d choose a seat as far from me as possible.
But he strode right over, plopping himself down at the desk in front of Violet’s. “Hey.” He smiled an effortless smile, and something I’d noticed yesterday caught my attention again. The tiny beauty mark he’d always had beneath his lip was now accompanied by a small, angry red line, like a cut that hadn’t healed properly.
I wondered how and when he’d gotten it before I slipped my bookmark between the pages of my novel and sat up. And broke my promise to ignore him by replying, “Hey.”
That didn’t take long.
We started talking at the same time, turned red, and stopped. “Go ahead,” I said with a nervous laugh.
“I was just saying we didn’t really get a chance to talk yesterday.”
“I know. I’m sorry to hear about your grandfather.”
“I’m not.” He raked a hand through his hair and shook his head. “That came out wrong. I just meant he’s been in a bad way for a long time, and unhappy even longer. Maybe now he’s at peace. Or something.”
“So you’re living in his house?”
He nodded. “It’s ours now.”
“I can’t believe you’re here.”
It was an honest statement, but I hadn’t meant for it to sound quite so blunt.
David smirked. “Neither could your sister. She made me feel like a rock star.”
I wanted to ask him why he hadn’t called, or sent a text, or given me some sort of warning, but I knew it was a stupid question. I wouldn’t have broken radio silence after a year either. So I said, “Miranda always loved you.”
Bad choice. His smile faded and he flipped his notebook cover open and closed as I tried to think of something, anything, to diffuse the mention of the L word.
“So, um, what else is new?”
David’s eyes flitted over me. “Your hair is different.”
My hands fluttered to the highlighted blond strands that suddenly felt foreign and phony, and I tried to ignore that his words sounded like an accusation. “I needed a change. Do you like it?”
He shrugged. “It’s nice. But I liked it before, too.”
Painful. This conversation was truly and utterly painful. Teach us something, Mr. Ingles! I begged silently. So what if there are only five people in the room?
With no relief in sight, I made a last-ditch effort. “How’s your dad?”
“He’s better.”
“Better?”
David made a noise somewhere between a sigh and a snort.
“What?” My heart sped up as I waited for him to tell me whatever it was I didn’t know but apparently should’ve.
His eyes narrowed, like he couldn’t decide whether or not to take me seriously. “We found out he had cancer a few months after you left. They caught it pretty early and everything, but he went through some brutal treatments. I spent months learning to write computer programs because he was too sick to do his job. He was in rough shape for a while.”
I laid my hand on my chest as guilt and panic coursed through me. “Oh my God. No, no one told me. Is he . . . ?” I struggled to find the right words. “Is he okay?”
“His last scan was all clear. So far so good.” He gave me another dubious look. “You really didn’t know?”
“I swear I didn’t. Why would you think I did?”
David leaned back in his seat and fiddled with his pencil. “Because of the huge basket of stuff your parents sent.”
“Wait—what? When was this?”
“Months ago. I thought you would’ve called.”
I sank in my chair, feeling small and god-awful. The real meaning of his words came through loud and clear: I thought you’d be there for me when I needed you.
The unmistakable bitterness in his words sat heavy in my stomach. Prickles of heat spread over my body, and for a second I thought I might really be sick. My mind refused to digest what he’d told me. Instead of thinking his father’s cancer might have brought David and me back together, my own parents had thought I wouldn’t care?
My hand moved toward him and my lips parted, but to say what, I didn’t know.
I didn’t get a chance to say anything at all, because Violet bounded into the classroom at that moment. She spotted David, froze, and threw a frantic glance from him to me and back again. I stood up and removed my bag from her chair. “David,” I said. “This is Violet. Violet, David.”
“Hi!” Violet thrust her hand out with an enthusiasm only the quintessential cheerleader could muster. Which she was. Take short, cute, bouncy, and blond, inject them with caffeinated lattes and dress them in a purple and yellow flowered sundress, and behold Violet Kensing. “You weren’t here yesterday! Did you switch so you could be in Kelsey’s class? I heard you two were friends!”
Way to up the awkward factor, Vi.
David flashed his most swoonworthy grin as he shook her hand. “Nah. My schedule was all screwed up. I spent my whole lunch in the office yesterday trying to straighten it out. They had me in Pruitt’s class, but it was full. I have a feeling I’ll like it better here anyway.”
Violet giggled. “I think this might be my favorite class now.”
Oh, for the love. That hadn’t taken long at all. Girls had always thrown themselves at David. Some things never changed.
And some things did.
A bubble of something hot and sour rose up in my chest, something I either couldn’t or didn’t want to identify. Whatever it was, it made me want to take the hair Violet kept tossing flirtatiously over her shoulder and yank it out of her head.
My concentration drifted for the rest of class. Especially once Violet slipped me a note. It said, “I’m inviting him to my party.”
I wrote back, “What party?”
“The party I decided to have five minutes ago. MUST GET HIM ALONE! P.S.: Is he a good kisser? P.P.S.: You don’t mind, do you?”
A good kisser? Why would she say that?
She’d drawn a deranged-looking smiley face in the corner, and I wondered if it was to distract me from the fact that she was asking permission to treat my best friend as her shiny object du jour. Former best friend. Why was I gripping my pen so tightly?
I sent the note back with, “I don’t know. He’s all yours.”
A smirk appeared on Violet’s face when she read my response, and a moment later the note landed back on my desk. She’d drawn an arrow pointing to the words “I don’t know” and written “LIAR!” in big block letters. Another arrow pointed to “He’s all yours,” which she’d boxed off so heavy-handedly that she’d almost gone through the paper. Next to it, with equal vigor, she’d spelled out “I HAVE IT IN WRITING! HE IS MINE!”
My fingers twitched as I fought the urge to write Until you get bored with him. Instead I forced a smile and passed the paper back to her. This was a good thing, after all. If David had his hands full with Violet, he wouldn’t be thinking about me, or the things we’d said and done, or not said and done, last year. We could start all over, and for that I should have been grateful.
Violet propped her chin on one hand, pretending to be engrossed in Mr. Ingles’s lecture. With the other hand, she wiggled her fingers against David’s back until he turned enough to take a note from her. I watched him read it, then turn around and nod, grinning that grin I knew so well.
I definitely should have been grateful.
“Should” being the operative word.