Chapter Twenty-Three
Twenty-Three
The text.
It takes on a whole new meaning now.
That’s my ring, Zadie.
On the night he broke up with me, Jason swore that there was nobody else. But what if he lied and he really gave the ring I’ve been wearing to someone else?
I’m so uninterested in getting up the next morning. In fact, I probably wouldn’t get up at all if there wasn’t someone on top of me. Actually, physically on top of me.
“What the hell?” My words come out muffled as I push the log of weight off me and sit up.
Mo bursts out laughing as she and Ambs end up in a heap on the ground.
“Aw, I told you it was too mean,” Amber says, standing up and throwing her arms around me.
“Your mom let us up,” Mo explains. “We were going to let you sleep, but then we thought nah.”
“You did look super serene, though,” Amber says.
“Really? Because I was having the worst fucking night,” I say, wiping the sleep from my eyes. Both my friends stare wide-eyed at my language.
“Well, it was,” I insist.
“Was it a bad dream?” Amber sits on the edge of my bed and takes my hand in hers as Mo goes over to my closet and rifles through it.
“Something like that.”
Ambs squeezes my hand. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“Not really,” I say.
“Well, we’re going to Tanner’s to drown our sorrows in pancakes and Canadian maple syrup,” Mo announces. “Do you want to, like, wash your face? Or is dry drool your new look?”
I sigh, pull myself up, and quietly start putting an outfit together. There doesn’t seem to be a need for an open secret today. My misery is written all over my face, and I can’t hide it no matter what I wear.
Behind me, Amber clears her throat, and I turn to face her. “So, um, I have news,” she says.
Mo’s look says, “Please don’t let it be Talon-related.”
“I applied to UMaine,” Amber says.
Mo and I stare at her, dumbfounded.
“But you’re going to New York,” I point out.
“Well, maybe not,” she says, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “I always thought I would be dying to leave, but I don’t know…now I think I might want to stay.”
“Please tell me this isn’t about Talon,” Mo says, voicing my exact thoughts.
Amber blushes, but she says, “Talon’s not going to UMaine. I just don’t want to leave my people.”
“Ambs, that’s great,” I say, reaching over to hug her, even as tears prick the back of my eyes.
Days ago, Mo was the odd one out, the one getting left behind, and now I’m the only one who’s leaving.
If I was looking forward to going, actually excited about Princeton or wherever, then it would be fine. But I’m not.
“Sorry,” Ambs says, looking guilty.
“Don’t be silly. Wherever you go, you’re going to kill it. And they’ll be lucky to have you,” I say.
Mo and Ambs hug, and I head to the bathroom. Alone, I stare at my own face in the mirror and try not to cry. The first term of senior year was not supposed to be this awful. I’ve even kind of slacked off on documenting it for the yearbook.
Jason is in a coma.
I haven’t been able to bring myself to continue my Princeton application.
And now, worst of all, Jason was most likely cheating on me.
My phone vibrates with a text as I’m getting dressed.
My heart does a weird stutter when I see that it’s from Marcus. Marcus, who saw my humiliation in our dream. Who has seen all my humiliation, including the fawning over Jason, the clueless faith, the undue optimism.
Marcus has drawn a sketch of two Smurfs. A Smurf and Smurfette, really. At Winfield Carnival.
At first, I think it’s me and Jason, but on closer look—I see my braids instead of Past Zadie’s bun. I see Marcus’s long hair.
It’s us, him and me.
And the “him” Smurf has a thought bubble that says Wow, we’re kind of hot for Smurfs.
I smile and text back.
Me: Stop objectifying Smurfs.
He texts back, How are you?
Me: I feel like death.
Marcus:…
Marcus:…
Finally, he says, Next time I see you, can I give you a hug?
I can’t help another little smile.
Me: In dreamland?
Marcus: Or in real life…
I bite my lower lip.
Me: Okay.
And suddenly I’m looking forward to the next time I see Marcus. But only because when he hugged me last dream, it felt so good. He’s a good hugger. That’s all there is to it.
I tuck my phone into the pocket of my leggings and brush my teeth.
It’s not long before her name comes back into my mind again, hovering like the melody of a catchy pop song.
Alana Duncan.
It sticks in my head for the whole morning, and by the time we’re halfway through brunch, everything I’ve convinced myself about being evolved and mature enough to not stalk a stranger has dissolved.
“I think Jason was cheating on me,” I blurt out to my friends. I touch my chest as I say it, because it hurts like hell to admit it.
Mo has been telling us about the bug she’s fixing on her Zebra app, but she immediately pivots.
“I’m going to kill him,” she says, and it’s like she doesn’t even need the details. I see a version of the past year where she’s been waiting for him to fuck up, and now he has.
“Are you sure?” Amber asks.
“I don’t trust him,” I say, and it feels like a giant release after all this time. To simply tell the truth.
I know this is as good a chance as any to tell them about the dumping, the dreams, but at this point things have gotten so far that I don’t think I can.
Besides, Jason cheating on me would be mostly a Jay-is-a-douche kind of problem, mostly his fault, rather than a situation where I’ve lied to them for more than a month.
I’m sure I’ll tell them the whole truth at some point. Just not now.
“With who?” Amber asks.
“Yeah, how did you find out? Piece of shit.” Mo mutters the last part under her breath.
“It’s complicated,” I say, “but basically there’s a girl named Alana Duncan who looks like a brunette Sabrina Carpenter, and I found her number in his phone.”
“Could it be a mistake? Maybe he has the girl’s number for another reason?” Amber says, forever cautious to take up arms against someone she likes.
“They’re into each other. Just trust me on this,” I say.
“I believe you,” Amber says, and I want to kiss her for choosing my side, always. “What do you want to do? I mean, have you looked up her socials?”
“Not yet,” I admit.
“Okay, but how aggressively stupid can one guy be?” Mo asks, stealing a bit of bacon from my plate. “I told you it was weird how he was suddenly into you, didn’t I? As if he didn’t know you all his life…”
Amber shuts it right down. “Mo, seriously. More support. Less…whatever it is you’re doing.”
They glare at each other. Mo relents. “Fine. What’s her name again?”
I repeat her name, and all three of us search for her.
“I have her Instagram,” I say, and both of them lean in to look at my phone.
“She’s hot,” Amber says, stating the obvious.
“Oh my God, her dog,” Mo coos. “Can the two cheaters eff off to an island and give us the cute dog?”
Amber smacks her, and Mo giggles.
“She has so many friends,” I say, looking at the vast array of faces on her grid.
Alana hasn’t updated her Instagram in over a year, but there are a few pertinent things we learn about her. She’s great at golf. She’s great at playing the bass. She’s older than us—in her first year of college. And she has three older brothers.
“God, it’s like a page of testimonials,” I say, looking at her tagged photos.
@northernAlana You are the funniest, sweetest, most loyal friend I have ever had.
You have been there for me ALL our lives, through thin and thicc (iykyk, hahaha).
Even tho we don’t share blood, you are my SISTER for life and the kindest soul I have been priviliged to know and I miss you now that we’re on separate coasts.
“Separate coasts?” Mo says. “Oh, it looks like she moved out west for school.”
After some back and forth, we decide I should DM Alana and send this message: Hey Alana, I wanted to ask a couple of questions about someone you know. Do you have time to chat?
She doesn’t respond throughout our brunch, and by the end of the day, there’s still no reply.
The next several days are late October gloomy, cold and rainy.
There’s nothing from Alana, and it begins to occur to me that she might never respond.
And even if she does, who knows if she’ll tell the truth?
Who knows if she’s the only girl out there?
Jason didn’t exactly look new to the whole flirting-while-having-a-girlfriend deal.
Until he wakes up, I might never be able to answer the question of whether Jason really has been cheating on me.
Plus, all my original questions still remain: whether Jason loves me, why he broke up with me, what I’m supposed to do until he wakes up.
I haven’t been to see Jason since Friday morning, and I don’t know if I can go back.
In the quiet of my room and with no one here to notice, I let myself cry over everything that has happened the past few days. Things weren’t supposed to be like this. They weren’t supposed to be this uncertain or this painful.
Crying has made a brand-new headache start to blossom, a kind of faraway ringing in my head.
I reach for my nightstand and take one of the pills the doctor prescribed, but it doesn’t make the ache disappear.
It just makes me feel different, like there’s electricity in my head.
The door to my room is gone, a distinct rectangular hole in the world, but it doesn’t last. It’s like a dream is threatening to start, but something is stopping it from happening.
Maybe it’s the medication.
Finally, the dream gods win out, and it happens the way I’m used to: My walls collapse, and the world restarts.