Chapter 3
Three
Willow stands over me, peering down as I lie on her couch.
“Stella,” she says, her tone a frustrated growl.
It’s as if she thought I’d get dressed today.
Why would she think that? I haven’t gotten dressed all week.
My hair is unwashed. My teeth—okay, my teeth are brushed, but they haven’t been flossed in days, despite what Dr. Carlson said about my gum situation.
And I am in the same socks I put on my feet three days ago.
“It’s Halloween,” she says, as if this should mean something to me. “Don’t you want to go to Kate’s party?”
I peer up at my friend from her couch like she’s speaking a foreign language. I have been sleeping here for the last six nights. I have been spending my days on this couch, eating microwave popcorn and pondering my many failures. Why in the world would she think I’d want to move?
“Huh?” I grunt as I lift a handful of extra-buttery popcorn to my mouth.
I’m watching all of the Star Wars films in chronological order.
They were my brother’s favorite, but I never really understood the craze.
I’m still not sure I do, but I’m not Anakin.
I’ve picked a side (this couch and my wallowing), and I am committed.
I’m not quitting now. Certainly not for a Halloween party.
“You need an intervention,” Willow says, arms folded.
But what does Willow know? She still gets to go to Clay & Crescent every day.
Her sales rep job is safe and sound. They don’t care if she gets creative.
Go ahead, Willow, be creative in your ads and pitches.
As long as you don’t make the dishes a little more interesting.
I throw a hand toward the television. “Luke just landed on Dagobah. I think he’s having a mental breakdown.”
“You would know,” Willow groans, then bumps the frame of the couch with her foot.
“Come on. I brought sustenance. It’s time to get some things off your chest.” She sets one hand to her curved hips, then runs a hand over the top of her short pixie cut.
Willow stares down at me, but I pretend she isn’t there.
I watch Luke as he spots Yoda in the swamp, pretending my friend and her sustenance aren’t there.
But Willow won’t be ignored. She snatches the remote from her coffee table and switches off the TV.
“Hey!” I point to the thirty-inch screen across from my judgment-free zone sofa. “Willow!”
“No one likes disappointing their parents, Stella. But this is out of control.”
“You know it’s more than that!” I surge for the remote, but Willow lifts it up and out of my reach. It isn’t difficult, as I’m still lying down.
“You can’t sleep on my couch forever. You can’t wallow your days away. I love you, but you can’t.”
“Is this about Jerry?”
It’s the wrong thing to say. Willow’s ears turn red, her eyes reduce to slits, and she glowers at me.
“Fine, it’s not about Jerry,” I say. And yet, Willow’s semi-dorky but very patient boyfriend, who was planning to move in the day I did, is waiting me out.
With the limited space of Willow’s apartment and the single bathroom, he has kindly stepped aside, waiting until I’m back on my feet to move in.
Thank you, Jerry—you volunteered as tribute, and my pjs and I greatly appreciate it.
I shouldn’t have mentioned Jerry—it only makes me feel guilty. And I already have enough negative energy swirling inside of me at the moment to support a small planet of stormtroopers.
“I have nothing to get off my chest,” I tell her.
“And I have no idea how to fix the mess my life has become. I am unable to do anything right. I am unable to fix this disaster. I know it. You know it. Do we have to talk about it?” I push myself up into a seated position, but I keep my legs stretched out.
I don’t want her getting the wrong idea.
She isn’t allowed to sit on my depression nest. This couch is mine.
I have claimed it. I’m Darth, and this couch is the Death Star. She isn’t taking it.
“You need a heart-to-heart. You need your confidence restored. This multi-disaster mess has filled you with doubt—doubt that isn’t true.
You can fix this! We just need to talk about it.
And if you aren’t feeling up to sharing, then I’ve brought some liquid courage to help you spill your guts.
” She leans down and picks up a two-liter bottle from the floor.
She holds the bottle high in one hand. Dark bubbly liquid sloshes inside.
Coke—fully leaded. Nothing Zero about it.
And in the other hand, two Clay & Crescent mugs.
“Coke.” My weakness. “The real deal.” I cut cola out of my life—cold turkey. Never looking back. It does things to me.
“Yep. Let’s go, girl.” She storms past me to her small kitchen. The one I have made eighty-seven pounds of extra-buttery microwave popcorn in the last six days. It’s the only thing nourishing me at the moment.
My parents have moved, and I’m taking it harder than I thought I would. Probably because I sent them off with a boatload of lies. They have no idea that I am currently jobless, awardless, and dishwasherless—yes, my landlord kicked me out because of that little dishwasher mishap.
Willow smacks my legs from their claimed position and plops down next to me.
“Hey!” I cry. It’s dramatic. It’s pathetic. But this couch and I have become one. There is no room for Willow.
“Move over.” She nudges her shoulders against my tucked-in legs.
Sitting up, I cross my arms and stare at my fuzzy pink socks that are looking a little gray on day three.
I watch as Willow fills one mug and then the other.
“Here,” she says, handing me the thing as if it were a beer stein filled to the brim.
“This mug would be so much prettier with a little color. A little design.”
“Of course it would,” Willow says, taking a sip of her fully charged cola. “But that isn’t the job C&C asked you to do.”
I scoff. “So, you agree with them now? I’m just this big fat failure. I can’t even make a mug right.” Oof—wallowing is so not pretty on me.
“Of course not,” my friend says, her tone patient. “I’m not calling you a failure. I’m stating the truth. Now, your turn for truth. What are you going to do?”
I hold my mug with both hands, swishing the liquid within from side to side. “If I knew, I wouldn’t be sitting here. I’m afraid I’m just going to fail again, Willow. How’s that for truth?” I am crashing out and I don’t know how to stop.
She stirs next to me, her eyes soft and fairly pitiful. “Okay, well, let’s talk it out. Drink up.”
“Your answer to everything can’t be Coke and confession.”
“And yet, it is.” She pushes up on my hand, until the edge of my C&C mug presses against my bottom lip. I take one delectable sip. Does she have any idea how long it’s been since I cut real Coke from my life?
Ten minutes later and two mugs down, I sit on the floor across from Willow—yes, she has successfully removed my butt from the couch. I fill up my third mug of Coke and take a long, dragging drink. “I thought I was helping them. I just wanted to make the dishes beautiful. Why wouldn’t they let me?”
She tips back her head and downs her last drop of Coke. “Because C&C appeals to people without taste.”
“Ha!” I yell, smacking my mug to hers. “Yes!” Only it isn’t true. Clay & Crescent is high-end stuff. Uniform. Boring. Expensive. And popular.
Still, Willow giggles with my jolt of caffeine.
“They never believed in me. Just like—” I breathe out, the thought heavy on my chest.
“Don’t stop now, Princess Leia!” Willow smacks the coffee table with her open palm. “Keep talking.”
“Actually, I’m more of a Luke.” I peer down into my mug.
“Do I even have the skills to do what I want to do? The truth is, I’m afraid that everyone else has been right all along.
And I’m just fooling myself. Maybe I do need to grow up and get a real job and quit making thingy-ma-bobs.
” It’s my greatest fear. One that makes me doubt myself more than ever.
I was sort of depending on the judges of the Sierra Clay Award to tell me if I actually have what it takes in this business.
And now we’ll never know. Because Spiral Song is a goner.
A series of If Give a Pig a Pancake—or in my case, give an anxious woman dish soap and my piece is toast. It’s actually sitting on Willow’s TV stand—a large crack down one of the waving spirals and a jagged chunk broken from the top. It’s not winning an award.
It's a failure. Just like me.
“This isn’t like you,” she says.
“Maybe it’s the new me,” I say, afraid that it’s true.
“It’s not!” she insists. “Now, finish your thought from before.”
“My dream isn’t practical, Willow. My parents have known that all along. Why would anyone believe in it?” What has my dream caused but worry and heartache?
“Stella! I believe in you. But if you don’t believe in yourself, does it even matter?”
“Maybe they’re right, Willow.”
She shakes her head. “None of that. You’re letting the doubt of C&C, of your family, of your recent bad luck, cloud your head. Come on, reroute. Tell me about someone who did believe in you. That’s the kind of energy you need right now.”
I lift my mug and down its contents, then fill it up once more. Three mugs in and my dry spell is officially over. Thanks, Willow.
“Your brother, maybe?”
“Brice was always so busy with his own stuff, he never really got involved in mine.”
Her lips pinch as she waits for me to produce some kind of an answer.
My energized, caffeinated mind wanders. And wanders ... And wanders ...
All the way back to my freshman year in high school.
All the way back to Roman Graves. I crushed on that boy hardcore.
But I’m pretty sure Brice would have disowned me if anything had happened.
Roman was a senior, an athlete, and dreamy, so nothing would have happened.
Still, my brother caught me drawing a heart over Roman’s face in my yearbook one day.
He tore the page out of the book and scolded me for a solid two minutes.
“Who is it, Stell?” Willow asks, invading my memory.
Maybe it’s the cola, but my mouth opens, and out speaks truth: “Roman.”
“Roman?” She squints. “You’ve never mentioned a Roman. Old boyfriend?”
Willow and I have only been close for a couple years now. Roman was long before her time. When I think of him. I think of Brice. And when I think of Brice, I’m transported to a time I haven’t fully worked through yet. So, I rarely let myself think of Roman.
“No,” I say, because for the first time in years, I feel like talking about Roman. The bubbly liquid stimulating my body has decided that it won’t be detrimental to my soul to do so. “He was my brother’s best friend growing up. He’s a soccer player—he actually went pro.”
“Nice. For real?”
I swallow and peer down into my mug of Coke. “Yeah, my family hasn’t kept in touch with him. It’s been years.” Nine, to be exact. “He might not even remember me,” I say. Only he would. I’m Brice’s sister. Still, the lie comes out, shielding my heart.
“And this Roman believed in you?” she asks.
My lips work into a small grin, one I am painfully trying and failing to hide.
I take one more sip from my mug, concealing my mouth.
I’m not sure my popcorn binge and this soda are mixing well, and yet, I keep on.
“I think he did.” I pinch my brows, my mouth continuing to twitch with a smile from memories I haven’t conjured in years.
“He’d always ask what I was working on. I begged for a potter’s wheel for Christmas when I was just thirteen.
I don’t think my parents realized how far I’d take the obsession.
They thought it was a nice hobby, something to keep me away from the internet.
So, they indulged me. Something, they no doubt regret—”
Willow circles her finger in the air. “Go back to Roman.”
I swallow and blink away from her gaze. “He asked me to make him something once.” My crooked grin is back, only now there’s a rhythmic thump in my heart.
Yes, Roman was to-die-for gorgeous. Yes, he was a gifted athlete.
Every single female at Jackson High came out to watch the boy play his game.
But I saw Roman up close and personal, in my home, with my family, and he saw me. I know he did.
Willow sets her mug on the coffee table and leans toward me, elbows on knees. “Tell me.”
“He wanted a ceramic trophy.” I shake my head. “A soccer ball on a base with a plaque that read: GOAT.” I chuckle at the memory. “And after I made it and gave it to him, he told me I had a future. He told me I was to ceramics what he was to soccer, and that we were both going to make it one day.”
“Wow.” She laughs. “He had a healthy self-esteem.”
I shrug. There are plenty of days I’d love to borrow Roman’s self-confidence. “He really was that good. But making that silly trophy for Roman changed me. He loved it so much. Roman made me think I could do this, that I could make beautiful things for people and be successful.”
She stares at me. “He remembers you, Stella.”
“What do you mean?” I say, peering into my empty mug.
“That guy. A guy who tells a girl she’s the GOAT, that she has a future, he doesn’t forget about her.”