Chapter Three
Three
I don’t remember falling asleep, but I must drift off for a few minutes.
I’m still lying on Jason’s bed when, without warning, his door swings open and what seems like all of Sterlingwood comes bustling in.
First, the Riddicks: Jay’s mom, Cara, and dad, Rhett.
His uncle Tommy and little cousin, Joey.
Then, the soccer team, complete with coach and assistant coach.
There’s fourteen players, and they’re all dressed in their soccer uniforms.
Great.
I realize that some kind nurse must have let me sleep, as I climb down off the bed, adjusting my dress.
I must look awful with my smudged-off makeup and no-longer-controlled edges.
Both coaches squeeze my shoulders, and all of Jay’s friends hug me and tell me how sorry they are, how glad they are that I’m okay.
None of his friends say anything about Jason having broken my heart. Honestly, none of them even look like they have a clue, and I start to wonder if it’s possible Jason told no one what he was planning to do. My first thought would have been to get his friends to tell me what he told them.
“Zadie, he’s coming on back to you. Just give him time,” Coach Kyle says, and something about his ferociously tender confidence makes my stomach twist.
I give him a sheepish smile. “Thanks.”
“Fellas, thank you for wearing your uniforms and coming out so late and on such short notice.” Coach Kyle addresses the team like they’re in a mid-game huddle and not an intensive care unit.
“I thought it would only be appropriate to bring Jason some of our team spirit, because he needs it right now more than ever.”
A few people yell “Hell yeah” and echo his words.
I quietly slip out of the room and head to the family waiting area, feeling the pinch of guilt under my skin.
I know that technically I’m not doing anything wrong in letting everyone think I’m still Jason’s girlfriend.
Jason and I were broken up for maybe ten minutes.
That can’t be worth announcing. Plus, if I have my way, we’re probably not even staying broken up.
Still, maybe I should try to tell someone. I find Amber in the waiting room.
“Ambs, I have to tell you something,” I say, after I’ve apologized for abandoning her and falling asleep in Jay’s room. She’s flipping through a magazine next to a vending-machine feast of chips, pretzels, and candy.
“Don’t even worry,” Amber says, grinning for the first time since I woke up. “I already sent the word out and everybody’s going to look for the ring…”
I think I’ve misheard her.
“Wait, what?” I frown.
“The ring. Sterlingwood is on it.”
Sterlingwood is like an entire human body. It functions as a unit, thinks as one group. If she says the town is on it, then the town is on it.
Dread creeps over me as she continues to explain.
“I told everyone Jason gave you a promise ring but it got lost in the wreck,” she says. “I put it out on social.”
“Amber!” I’m horrified. “Why would you do that? Are you crazy?”
“You’ll find it faster this way. Maybe even before Jason wakes up—”
I bury my face in my hands, every cell in my body buzzing with horror. Now what am I supposed to do?
Either I play along and hope Jason follows my lead when he wakes up—if he wakes up—or I have to tell the truth and out myself as both a liar and the girl who wasn’t worthy of Jason Riddick.
I’m pretty sure that I can only live with one option.
“You don’t understand,” I tell Amber desperately. She looks at me with furrowed brows, a bit startled.
“What don’t I understand?”
“The ring isn’t—” Before I can finish, Amber’s phone trills with Dolly Parton singing “I Will Always Love You.” It’s way too loud for a hospital waiting room, and she quickly answers it before one of the nurses can complain.
“Hello?” she whispers into the phone, and then she motions at me. “It’s Talon.”
Amber’s latest boyfriend, Talon, is what we respectfully refer to as a stoner.
Dirty Converse, weed, and skateboards are Talon’s whole life.
Despite not being her usual type, at three months in, he is easily Amber’s longest relationship yet.
For such a big romantic, Ambs is terrible at relationships.
She’s great at getting into them, frequently obsessing over someone for weeks before finally asking them out (or getting them to ask her out).
There’ll be the first two weeks of grand gestures and epic declarations and “I think he’s the one” before it all just…
peters out. Surprisingly, Amber and Talon still appear to like each other right now, as she delves into a long, whispered conversation with him, repeating the whole story about the accident and the ring.
Amber’s run-through is detailed, dramatic, and almost gleeful in the moments she forgets to be somber.
My head spins suddenly, and I drop into the nearest seat to regain my balance.
“Well apparently someone else our age was in the accident, but I still haven’t heard if it was anyone we know.” Amber’s voice is stressing me out, so despite not feeling great, I push up and walk through the halls until I find a restroom far enough away to feel safe.
As I feared, I look like the cargo truck personally ran me over multiple times.
I tie my microbraids into a bun on the top of my head and clean up my smeared makeup. But I’m woozy, the way you are when you haven’t eaten in a while, and it trickles all the way down into my body until I feel like a shell of myself. Maybe I just need some sugar.
I splash cold water on my face to wake up.
Amber’s call with Talon has reminded me of exactly why I don’t want her to be the first person to hear about me and Jason.
She’ll be sweet about it, comforting, but I know a part of her will just be dying to share it with someone.
The news will be everywhere by the end of the night, and being the talk of the town because Jason broke up with me is the last thing I want.
God, I can picture it already. Everyone’s sympathy—faux kind smiles and condescending hand squeezes—or worse, diverted gazes and whispers, their quiet confirmation that I was never good enough for him.
Zadie Cartwright, Most Likely to Think She Was Better Than She Is.
I call Monique. I won’t get Amber’s softness from Mo, the empathy and determination to be on my side no matter what.
It’s the reason I’m far more likely to confide in Amber when I just need a sympathetic ear.
That, and I’ve known Ambs way longer. Both my friends held me and cried with me when my dad died.
Still, with Mo, I know I’ll get bluntness and possibly a talk about right versus wrong, aka why I need to fess up and tell the truth.
But maybe Mo will understand why I lied about the ring after everything that has happened.
Mo’s phone rings and rings, but she doesn’t answer.
Chances are, she is already safely tucked in bed, as per her grandparents’ wishes.
Mo and her siblings spent years in foster care before being adopted by their grandparents four years ago when she moved to Sterlingwood.
Mo is half-Jamaican and has all types of feelings about being saved by her white grandparents, but the fact that they all love each other is indisputable.
I decide to leave her a voice memo.
“Mo, it’s me. I need you to promise not to judge me for what I’m about to tell you.”
I’ve heard that confession is good for the soul, so I swallow my nerves and spill my guts in the note.
About how Jason broke up with me, about how sad and confused I feel, about wanting to know why, and the lie I fed Amber about the ring.
I’m just getting to the end when someone beats insistently on the door of the restroom.
“One second!” I say, squirting soap into the hand without a phone.
Knock knock knock.
“I said, one second!”
But when the pounding continues, I quickly end Mo’s message.
“I have to go, Mo. Some psycho won’t let me even wash my hands. Love you, bye.”
Knock, knock, knock.
“Oh my God, can I finish?” When I open the door, I’m shocked to see Marcus Riddick.
Marcus with his lazy grin and his messy, shoulder-length dirty blond hair.
He’s wearing a soccer shirt, but he’s paired it with jeans.
It occurs to me that he was the only player on the Sterlingwood Silvers who didn’t show up to Jason’s room earlier.
“M&Ms or Skittles?” Marcus says, apropos of nothing, smiling broadly at me.
I tug at my sleeve when what I really want is to shut the door in his face.
A long time ago, Marcus decided our “thing” was playing an everlasting game of This or That.
I did not agree to any such thing, so I completely ignore his question.
“Did you get the time wrong?” I ask, and it comes out more snide than curious. His cousin is in a coma, and he can’t even be bothered to show up to see him on time.
My real concern is that I thought I was far enough from the ICU that none of Jason’s teammates or family would be around, but I don’t know how long Marcus has been standing out here. If there’s any justice in the world, Marcus cannot be the first person to know about me and Jason.
That sleepy smile stretches across his face now. “Something like that,” he says, voice gritty like he just woke up from a nap.
“Did you…How long have you been waiting?” I ask him, trying not to show my panic.
He yawns. “Just got here. You done?” he asks, but he’s already pushing in past me, completely oblivious to the concept of waiting his turn.
“Oh, don’t worry about it, Marcus. I was just leaving, anyway.” Mom would call my sarcasm unbecoming, but in this case I would say it’s justified.
Marcus is holding on to his belt like he wants to start undoing it, and since that’s a show I have no intention of seeing, I hurry out of the restroom, slamming the door shut behind me.
Then I look at my phone and see that my voice recording has disappeared. “Please tell me it sent,” I whisper, checking Mo’s and my message thread.