Chapter 34
Ryder fell asleep on the sofa while I was writing my essay for AP English.
I’m going to give him another hour before I wake him up.
I hate that he’s so jetlagged, and I hate even more that it’s my fault he’s not feeling well because he flew to Spain to come see me.
Luckily, we have nine full days, including weekends, to sleep in late and do absolutely nothing.
As much as I loved the hustle and bustle of sightseeing with Fallon, I’m looking forward to the lazy days of Thanksgiving break.
I scour over my English essay on Dante’s Inferno, making a few small edits, wanting it perfect. After some minor tweaks to the conclusion, I decide that it’s good enough, and close my laptop. I’m now officially caught up.
Stretching my arms overhead, I roll my neck from side-to-side to work out the kinks.
Ryder makes a quiet grunt from the sofa, but he’s still sound asleep.
Carefully getting up off the floor as quietly as possible, I search for my phone.
I find it and his and pick them both up.
I would hate for them to go off and wake him up, so I take them with me to my bedroom where I plug his into the charger cable on the nightstand, then unlock mine.
Instead of texting, I call Meredith. Everyone should be at lunch now.
The soft mattress sinks when I crawl onto it.
I get comfortable by shoving a few pillows under my knees and behind my back, then place one in my lap to use as a makeshift lap desk.
It’s the pillow Ryder sleeps on whenever he stays over, and I press my nose to the soft cotton.
His lingering scent on the thin fabric brings back images from our shower together and I can feel my face getting warm from the memories.
Cradling the pillow close, I hit the call icon for Meredith’s number and put the phone up to my ear instead of placing it on speaker.
“I’m so mad at you right now,” she answers after two rings. I can hear talking and laughter in the background, so I know she’s outside in the quad like I expected
“I know! I’m sorry. I’m a horrible friend,” I admonish.
She makes a raspberry sound with her lips. “Yes, you are. It’s been three weeks, Elizabeth. Three weeks! Where the heck did you go? No matter how much I bugged the crap out of Jayson and Julien or Ryder, they wouldn’t spill anything, other than you were out of town.
“Don’t freak out.”
“Okay,” she drawls out in skepticism.
“I was with Fallon in Europe.”
Me telling Meredith not to freak out is like trying to tell a room full of people not to panic when someone yells fire.
“What? What?! Oh, my God, what?” she repeats. “I’m coming to you right now. When I get my hands on you, I’m going to smack you, then maybe I’ll hug you. But the smacking comes first.”
Over the phone, I hear someone say, “Who are you going to smack?”
“Is that Trevor?” I ask her.
“Yes, that’s Trevor. You know, the other friend who has been worried sick about you, too.”
I start laughing because she is repeating the exact same thing Trevor said to me after I was released from the hospital a little over a month ago. They definitely are twins. Jayson and Julien do the same thing.
Meredith emits a yelp and then Trevor comes on the line. “Elizabeth?”
“Hey, Trevor. Before you start yelling at me too, could you please make sure she doesn’t leave school to hunt me down.”
“I’m having a weird case of déjà vu,” he says as I continue to giggle.
“Trevor, give me my phone back,” Meredith shouts at him.
I hear some more shuffling noises and can only imagine Meredith trying to take her phone away from him. He’s taller than his sister and could easily keep it out of her reach. “Trevor! Stop being a dick! Darrel!” Meredith yells.
“You know I don’t get involved in your sibling rivalry,” Darrel replies.
“My sister is losing it.” Trevor is laughing and I can just picture Meredith with steam coming out of her ears. “Are you back in town?”
“Yeah, I’m back. You and Meredith can yell at me tonight when you come over.”
Trevor mumbles something that I don’t catch, then he says, “Seriously, I swear we’ve had this exact same conversation before.”
“That’s because we have. Did my amnesia wear off on you?” I tease.
“Har. Girl thinks she’s funny.”
“I have my moments,” I quip.
“So, you want us to come over tonight?”
“I would like that, yes.” I reply as I smile into the phone. I’ve missed them.
“We may have plans. Maybe, we’re going out of town,” he remarks.
My smile grows. “Are you?”
“No. But I figure I should make you squirm a bit for disappearing and not texting or emailing us. Where were you?”
I answer the same way I did for Meredith, and I get the same response from Trevor. “Didn’t Jayson or Julien tell you I was back?” I ask him.
I hear a loud whack. “Stop hitting me, Mer. I’ll give you your dang phone back in a second.
” Meredith growls in frustration at him.
Trevor comes back on the phone. “No. They haven’t come out for lunch.
We’ve been wondering where they are. I saw Julien this morning in the hallway after second period, but I haven’t seen Jayson yet. ”
“Jayson told me this morning before school that he thought Keith and Beth might be heading out of town this afternoon. Can you do me a solid and tell the gang about tonight? Just to warn you—my sister, Hailey, is here. And my memories came back. That’s why I was gone,” I rush to get out and grimace when he promptly shouts into the phone, “Why the heck didn’t you say that to begin with? ”
“Say what?” Meredith asks from nearby.
I hear more sounds of a struggle, and then Meredith is back on the line. “What didn’t you say?” she queries between pants of air.
Is she running? I laugh harder as I imagine her taking off across the quad to keep her phone away from Trevor
“I was telling Trevor that the reason I left was because I got my memories back.”
“Seriously? Like, you remember everything now?” she wheezes.
“Yep.”
“Holy crap, Elizabeth! This is huge!” —more gasping for air— “I’m coming over immediately after school.”
At least that’s progress over threatening to come over right now. “Ryder and I are going to spend the day together. I’ll text you when we’re back.”
“Wait, give me a sec,” she huffs, gulping in air. After a few seconds, she continues, “Girl, you have a lot of explaining to do. I’m so confused right now. Are you with Ryder or with Fallon? You better tell me everything!”
When Meredith gets excited, her voice doesn’t pitch up like you would expect.
Instead, it drops a few octaves until she sounds almost like Darth Vader.
Actually, right now, she does sound like Darth Vader as she tries to talk while being out of breath.
She’d knock me upside the head if I told her that, so I’ll keep the observation to myself.
“I’m still with Ryder, Mer. I promise I’ll explain everything tonight.”
“Yes, you certainly will.” She huffs, then she softens her voice. “I’m glad you’re okay. I was worried.”
Guilt-trip accomplished. Score one to Mer. “I’m so sorry that I ghosted everyone. I was in a bad place for a while and needed some space.”
“You know that me and Trevor are here for you. No matter what. Oh, and get this. I actually got into a fight with Maria last week.”
“Why?” I ask, a little perplexed. Then I get angry because Meredith is my friend, and if anyone is messing with her, especially Maria, I’m going to put a stop to it.
“She started talking ‘sugar honey iced tea’ about you.
Did I hear her right? “Sugar honey iced tea?
“Sorry. It was something I saw on Netflix. A mnemonic device.”
The only mnemonic device I know is the one our science teacher taught us in AP Biology.
What was it? King Phillip Came Over For Grape Soda.
It was a way to help us remember the classification of living organisms: Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species.
It takes me a second to pick out the first letters of ‘sugar honey iced tea.’
When I do, I pronounce, “Oh! I get it! Nice.” I’ll have to remember that one and use it. I can definitely create some good mnemonic devices for the other curse words.
“Hey, sweets, the bell just rang. I’ve to go,” Meredith tells me.
“I’ll text you when me and Ryder get back. He’s been really jet-lagged so I’m letting him sleep as much as possible.”
“Why would Ryder be jet-lagged?” she asks, then, “Ohhh. I’m definitely going to smack you first when I see you, and then we’ll see if you’ve earned that hug. Be ready.”
“No, you won’t,” I reply with a chuckle, knowing full-well that she most definitely will. “Bye, Mer. Tell Trevor bye for me.”
“Will do.” She hangs up.