2. Pretty Fcking Spectacular
2
Pretty F*cking Spectacular
Trevor
“Have fun living with seven other people, potentially hearing your ex have sex with one of your closest friends, and… oh, yeah. Don’t forget to wrap it before you tap it.”
I stare dryly at my sister. “Remind me again why I like you.”
“Because I’m your favoritest person in the whole world.”
Hyla’s warm brown eyes dance as her sun-kissed blonde hair rustles in the wind. Her smile and her words are a playful mask of the pain I know she’s feeling.
She’s my sister in every way except biology. We’ve known each other since we were born. My mom is the mom in her life, and if Hyla would ditch her shit-tacular parents, my mom would adopt her in a heartbeat. She’s had a rough time lately—the last few years, really—but so have I. We’ve been each other’s ride-or-die for our entire lives. Through her shitty parents, and plenty of heartbreak and loss. Leaving her the first time for college two years ago was tough, but after all we’ve both been through in the last six months, leaving her this time is harder, even if she will be a lot closer to Mom.
I pull her into a hug. “You are my favorite person.”
“Excuse me. What about me?”
Mom’s all smiles with her hands on her hips, but I know she has a hard time letting me go too. We survived the worst together. I’m glad she and Hyla will have each other when I’m not here.
But this is the moment I second-guess going.
I’m transferring schools this year. I could’ve gone somewhere closer to home, but I still wanted to explore more, and experience life outside my tiny town of Ida. So I’m moving to a different tiny town and into a house with seven of my friends.
At least it has a sweet view of the lake.
“Stop with that look,” Mom says. “This will be good for you. You need a breath of fresh air, and where better to get that than right by a beautiful lake?”
Right. Forgot my mother is a mind reader.
I shift from Hyla’s arms to Mom’s and hold her close.
“I love you.”
“I love you too, honey.” She clears her throat to pretend her voice doesn’t break.
Whose bright idea was this, anyway?
Oh, yeah. Mine.
This is supposed to be my fresh start. A chance to start over. New school. New major. New life plan, even if the wounds from the old one are still healing.
Still, I don’t need to do this.
I want to.
That’s harder for me to admit because of my character not-a-flaw of always putting the important people in my life first. If anyone says it’s a flaw, they can suck it, because caring about the people I love will never ever be a bad thing. I’d go to jail or an early grave for Hyla or my mom—even a lot of my friends—and I’m good with that. It’s who I am. And, if I’m honest, who I am is pretty fucking spectacular, so there’s no need to change.
Hyla would smack me in the back of the head if she caught me saying that, but for being unbiologically related, she’d totally say the same shit.
Mom lets me go, then pinches my cheek.
“Mother, why?”
She laughs. “Because you’ll always be my baby.”
Then Hyla sings the Mariah Carey song of the same name from behind me, and yeah, I’m ready to leave.
“And on that off-tune note.”
Hyla mock gasps. “How dare you? I have a stunning voice.”
“Stunning’s a word for it.”
She slugs me in the arm. “Okay, you can leave now. I’m tired of you already.”
But she can’t even manage the words without tears filling her eyes.
I wrap her in another hug.
“Sure you don’t want to come with me?” Hyla recently took a break from college, but I’m sure she could easily find a job in the college town I’m moving to. “We could get bunk beds.”
She snorts a laugh.
“’Cause hearing you hook up is high on my list of priorities.” She blanches. “And living with my ex-girlfriend who I still have feelings for and sometimes hook up with even though I shouldn’t sounds like a dumpster fire waiting to happen.” She wraps an arm around Mom. “I’ll be in good company here. Plus, someone has to keep an eye on her.”
I slowly nod. “True. But probably not you.” I look between them. “I’m not sure who’s the bigger troublemaker and who’s the instigator.”
“Depends on the day.” Mom pulls me in for another hug. “Be good. Take care of yourself. Don’t forget to smile,” she whispers. Those words almost fucking break me. At the worst of times, she whispered them to me. A reminder to keep going, keep seeing the brightness in each day, even when it all feels dull and cloudy.
Which is a lot of the time lately.
Nope . Not going down that road.
I glance toward my car. Only one road I need to head down now. I already loaded up most of my shit into the moving truck my friends hired.
It’s going to be insane living with seven of them—including my ex. But we were friends first and we’re friends again, and I’m over the love we once shared. She ended things because she knew it wasn’t the right fit. Sure, we could’ve made it work, but forcing something to work isn’t what you should do at seventeen. Now I’m grateful for it because I know she was right.
As long as my room isn’t next to the one she’ll be sharing with her boyfriend—or whatever he is to her—I’ll be fine.
“Stop standing there looking all melodramatic,” Hyla says. “We love you, but you’ve got a life to live. Go have fun. Party. Fall in love—or lust. And I promise I’ll be up to visit soon.”
“You better.” I toss a hand through my curly hair. “Okay, I better get on the road. Love you both.”
“Call me or I’ll call you and be extra annoying,” Mom says sweetly.
“Oh, I know.”
“Hey!”
“I mean, I love you!” I blow a kiss in their direction and climb into the car.
They wave as I start my car and drive away from the large country-style house down the long gravel drive and past the gate at the end of it.
It’s not until I’m about to turn out of the driveway that I remember I have one last stop to make.
An important one, but also the hardest.
I need to say goodbye to my dad.
Pain radiates through my left leg and hip as I break above the lake water and suck in a breath. Swimming is supposed to be low impact, but I guess moving boxes for an hour, plus racing my friends down the dock over and over before jumping into the lake were not low impact activities. I grip one of the posts of the dock as I hobble out of the water.
It’s moments like this where I swear I can feel every fracture in my leg. I can pinpoint the exact spots where the breaks were, where rods or pins were put in, or where pieces of me were cut away and replaced with new ones.
A knee and partial hip replacement wasn’t on my bucket list for my sophomore year of college, but neither was losing control of my snowboard and bouncing off a few trees.
I may have won the battle, but I still lost.
Lost the future I was planning for myself. A shot at playing baseball professionally. Now, I have to live with never playing again. Not like that. Sure, I’ll probably play in some rec league with my friends one day, but it’s not the same.
I wince my way up the stairs, limping like I’m still freshly recovering.
“You okay?” Amanda Hamilton leaps out of the Adirondack chair she’s sitting in and comes over to me.
Amanda is the most recent addition to the craziness that is this friend group. While I consider them some of my closest friends, the six of them still goofing around on the lawn have been ride-or-die since they were six years old. Amanda, who lives in one of the nearby towns to Ida, New York—where we all grew up—met them during their freshman year of college and quickly became the long lost seventh member of their little group. But since she’s newer, she’s not part of the hive mind as much as the rest of them.
Amanda and I hit it off quickly because she’s feisty and funny and doesn’t take anyone’s shit. She also speaks fluent sarcasm. All essential things for a solid friendship with me.
She’s also a mother hen, and wraps her arm around me, guiding me to a chair next to the one she vacated.
“I’m okay. Just did a little too much today.” Sometimes I let myself forget everything, then I have a moment like this and realize that’s impossible. “One day, I’ll age into my body, right?”
She laughs. “Exactly. And when you do, you’ll be a step ahead of us because you’ve already had your knee replaced. You’ll be running circles around us.” Her face softens. “Want a beer?”
I toss a hand through my hair. “Yeah. Thanks.”
She nods, and returns a second later with a beer for me and a hard cider for her.
“So, how are you feeling about being here? New school? Living with the hive mind?”
She leans back in her chair and puts her feet up on the railing. I stare out at the lake and take it all in.
“Pretty good. I’m excited for the possibilities. I’m not sure I’ll ever stop being bummed about losing my shot at going pro or just playing for longer, but it is what it is, and I’m refusing to let baseball go. I already asked Aaron and Joel to put in a good word with their coach. I can’t play, but I want to be involved with the team.”
“I’m sure you’ll find a way. Just turn on the annoying Trevor charm.”
“Rude. I’m never annoying. Fabulous is the word you’re looking for. Maybe incredible.”
“Obnoxious. Over the top.”
“I think we must be speaking different languages.”
She laughs. “Totally selfish, but I’m glad you’re here. We always had the most fun when you and Hy would come to visit us and we’d spend a weekend here. Now we get to live like that all the time. Minus Hyla, but she’ll just have to come visit.”
“I tried to get her to come.”
“She needs to find her own path. And her and Mackenzie sharing a house would be complicated.”
“I know.”
Amanda rolls her eyes. “You can’t solve Hyla’s problems for her, so focus on yourself. Channel your egotistical side. Weren’t you just telling me how great you are?”
“Stupendous, really.”
“That’s how you should hit on girls. Just walk up to them and tell them you’re stupendous and they should be honored to spend time in your presence. I promise it’ll work.”
“Sounds very effective at getting me slapped.”
“Oh, did I say it would work? I meant it would work at entertaining me.”
“I hate you.”
“Lies.”
“How’s Jamie?”
I swear hearts appear in her eyes at the mention of his name, but then her face falls a little, and she swallows hard. “He’s ahh… he’s fine.”
“Mands.”
“What? He’s busy and fine.”
“You can talk about it. How’s he settling in with the Knights?”
Amanda bites her lip, still looking unsure. Her boyfriend, Jamie, was drafted by the New York Metros right out of high school. He’s currently settling in with the triple-A team near our hometown, The Binghamton Knights.
“He’s having a great time. He was worried about settling in, but he’s killing it.”
I elbow her. “It’s okay to talk about it. Better than okay. It’s hard for me, but I’m happy for him.” I never had as much raw talent as he did. Jamie is two years younger than us, but his talent as a pitcher is next level. “And you deserve to be the proud girlfriend.”
“What about you?”
“I don’t think Jamie’s looking for a proud boyfriend.”
She ignores my comment and continues on. “Are you hooking up or looking for something serious? I figure I should know for when someone sees me with you and inevitably asks. I mean, obviously I’ll warn them you’re much more of a pain in the ass than your looks could ever give away, but if they’re still interested…”
“Eh, as soon as I play the crippled card, I’ll have them falling at my feet.”
She pins me with a look, and I laugh.
“Come on. You know I wouldn’t do that. Not exactly proud that I fucked my chances at a dream career.”
“You haven’t answered me.”
Almost got away with it.
“I don’t know. I guess I’ll see what happens.”
I take a swig of my beer and look back out at the lake.
If Amanda knows I’m lying—which there’s a good chance of—she doesn’t call me on it.
It’s not like I’m ashamed to say the truth, I’m just not sure exactly what the truth is. I’m not choosing celibacy until I find my perfect match, but I’m over the hook up scene. It was never really me to begin with.
I swore off love for a bit after Sarah and I ended. I wallowed, uninterested in dating anyone for a while, then swung in the opposite direction and fucked my way through my freshman year of college. Sophomore year I was still hooking up, but more focused on baseball until my accident.
Most of the guys on the baseball team at my old school would’ve given me shit if I hadn’t been. Granted, most of them were pricks, but it’s part of the toxic culture that can come with sports. If we say we want love or a serious girlfriend, we’re pussies. We’re supposed to fuck the nearest girl who’s interested and then discuss those girls in the locker room.
That kind of toxicity is one thing I’m happy to be done with because none of that ever settled right with me, and it’s not what I wanted. It’s also why I never became close with most guys on the team—the ones I got close with were both quieter and in relationships. Most of the guys were only good to party with, and that got old fast. Even my former roommate—who I thought was a good friend—was like that, and ditched me as soon as he found out about my accident.
That’s all part of why I decided to come to SUNY Finger Lakes with a horde of my friends.
Coming out of one of the darkest seasons of my life, I wanted to be surrounded by people I trust and respect, who will support me while I figure my shit out—and on my bad days.
Everything I’ve gone through recently was a reminder of what really matters and who I am. That’s a guy who thought he found the love of his life, the girl he was going to marry, at thirteen years old. I wanted that to be the case.
It’s ingrained in me. I like caring for other people. I like being in a relationship. There’s nothing like the connection of loving someone and having them love you back.
Maybe it makes me a sap.
Pathetic.
Even naive.
But if last year forced me to do anything, it was to accept what I want out of life and go for it. I have more clarity about what I want for the future, and while I’m not expecting my perfect love to magically appear, I’m choosing to live my life and actively work toward the things I want.
I lost a piece of the future I thought I’d have, but I didn’t lose everything, and more importantly, I refuse to lose myself.