Chapter Thirty-Two
Thirty-Two
Mom’s end-of-term party, and with it her retreat from public life and politics, is an all-star event.
The previous mayor is there, members of the city council.
So many of my classmates and teachers and friends, all tucked into city hall, which is decorated in balloons and streamers, like a child’s birthday party.
I’m wearing a navy-blue suit dress, fresh braids in my hair, Jason on my arm. I’m also wearing a brand-new red lip, closer to burgundy this time. Today’s open secret is that I am confident but still sad.
Mom manages to look a mixture of touched, surprised, and humbled by the lengths people have gone to to celebrate her. I don’t know how she does it.
“I shouldn’t be crying,” Amber tells me, where we are hidden beside one of the refreshment tables. I’ve caught her sobbing twice already today. “I’m the one who broke up with him, you know?”
“I get it, though. It still hurts,” I say, hugging her. “And Talon’s a nice guy.”
It’s hard to admit it, but he is.
“A really nice guy,” Mo says, “the kind of person you’d think you’d want to end up with.” My head injury must have made me slow because I can’t figure out for the life of me how Mo’s words are supportive. She’s basically telling Amber she was stupid to let go of Talon.
Amber says nothing, just swipes under her eyes with a Kleenex.
“Do any of these foods have banana?” a girl’s voice says. I whirl around to find Joey Riddick, with Marcus arriving a little behind her.
“Hey,” he says.
My eyes immediately fix onto his quiet, easy smile, but I fight to bring my attention back to Joey. Behind me, my friends try to make themselves less conspicuous.
“Hey, Joey, are you allergic to bananas?” I ask.
Marcus’s sister is frowning at me. “How do you know my name?”
“I, um…we…”
“We’re friends,” Marcus says. “Zadie and I.”
I mouth a silent thank-you to him. He knows it’s probably something from the dreams. “Plus, um, you’re Jason’s cousin. I feel like we’re old friends.”
Joey doesn’t look totally convinced, but she turns her attention back to the food. “I’m deathly allergic to bananas. Just looking at one makes me feel itchy.”
My eyes widen.
“Please ignore the little kangaroo. Honesty is not her strong suit.”
Joey looks mortified. “Marcus! You’re not allowed to call me that.”
I hear her telling him off some more under her breath, but Marcus just grins.
“Hey, Joey,” I say. “Will you be in high school soon? You seem like an almost high schooler.”
“You think?” she asks, helping herself to a sandwich.
“Oh definitely. Maybe sometime we should talk about what’s cool to wear, so you’re prepared,” I suggest.
“What the frig! That would be so cool!”
“Then it’s a plan,” I say, right as I spy my mom heading upstage with a microphone.
I tell them bye, then hurry to stand near the front, clapping and looking appropriately proud of her.
As soon as Mom is done thanking everyone for the honor of serving as their mayor, etc.
, I slip through the crowd and head for the bathroom.
Right before I can leave my stall, someone bursts into the outer room.
“God, Mo, I don’t know what you want me to say!” Amber sounds so upset, I’m immediately alarmed.
“I want him back,” Ambs continues. “I love him.”
My eyes widen. I keep being surprised by how serious things between Amber and Talon seem to have been.
“You love him so you can just have him, is that it?”
“He loves me too; he just feels trapped. He feels he has to keep dating her.”
“Ugh, do you hear yourself?” Mo asks. What even is her problem?
I swear I’m about to push the door open and snap at her for being so consistently awful to Amber, but I think of the ways I misjudged Mo already, and something stops me.
“You love him, so it’s okay to treat other people like trash? Talon? Your best friend?”
My heart starts to beat faster.
Amber is silent a minute then starts to wash her hands. “I don’t want to hurt Zadie. Neither of us does. We just want to be happy.”
What does any of this have to do with me?
“She is going to be hurt. She’s going to be devastated,” Mo says.
“We didn’t ask for any of it to happen,” Amber insists, “and it’s honestly been really difficult for us too.”
“Oh my God,” Mo says with a groan. “Please spare me the details of how inconvenient your friend’s coma has been for you and her boyfriend. You and Jason are not star-crossed lovers. You don’t want me to tell you what I think you are.”
Amber sighs as they both move toward the door. “You don’t have to be such a bitch.” They’re still talking as they leave.
I sink down onto the cover of the toilet, unable to move for at least five minutes.
Amber and Jason.
Amber. And Jason.
That’s who Amber has been in love with all this time. That’s who she’s going to the University of Maine for instead of New York.
Her soulmate. Everything inside me wants to fall apart.
I do the opposite.
I fix my makeup, go back out into the large hall, and run right into my mom and a group of women. “Zadie! Let me introduce you to the ladies who are behind this…”
I barely hear a word she says, but I know I’m smiling and shaking hands and nodding. “Mom, I’m going to leave,” I whisper.
She looks caught off guard. “Are you okay? Do you need something?”
“I’m fine,” I say, give her a reassuring smile, and start a hasty exit across the hall. Only to see the three of them—Jason, Amber, and Mo—standing in a little group right in my path.
I freeze, don’t know whether to turn around and go back into the bathroom. Or march past and ignore them.
“Zadie!” Amber says, waving me over with a huge smile.
It’s too late. I take tentative steps toward them. Mo notices my artificial smile, the glazed look in my eyes, but she mistakes it for illness.
“Zad, you don’t look so good. Do you want us to drive you home?”
“No, I can drive myself,” I say. “Thanks, though.”
I start to walk away from them.
“You look like you’re a second from passing out,” Jason says, catching up with me.
“And you just got out of a coma,” Amber says.
She’s looking at me with pity, but I’m hearing her tell Mo in the bathroom just now how hard things have been for her and Jason.
“I’m okay,” I assure them.
A voice in my head is telling me to stop acting. For the first time in your life, stop acting, Zadie.
But I don’t listen to it.
We’re in public.
Mom is actually going to get away with the mess she made.
She actually found a way to clean it up.
Keep a low profile and go.
It’s when Amber catches my elbow and says, “Zad, are you sure you’re okay?” That’s when I lose it.
No, I don’t lose it.
I decide I’m done.
Done working so, so hard to be perfect when everyone else is allowed to be a mess.
Done being so good that I’m never allowed to actually feel anything.
Done watching my three best friends lie through their teeth to my face and still caring the most about what everybody else will think.
Softer eyes and kinder smiles and fewer whispers.
I turn around, reach for the nearest thing around me (an abandoned glass of orange juice), and toss it in Amber’s face.
Amber squeals and jumps backward.
Mo gasps.
Jason freezes. “Why would you…Ambs, are you…” He goes between us like some sort of pendulum. Freak out on girlfriend or check on fellow cheater.
“No, go ahead,” I tell Jason. “Find out if she’s okay.”
He actually follows my direction, turns to Amber. “Are you hurt?”
Hurt.
I threw orange juice at her, not arsenic.
Amber shakes her head bravely then gives me another stunned look.
Jason, meanwhile, has grown some balls. He steps forward. “Why would you do that?” he asks.
“It’s a thank-you,” I say, “for sleeping with my boyfriend.”
Amber’s mouth opens and shuts. What she says shocks me. “It wasn’t just a hookup. I love him.”
I laugh, even as a small crowd gathers around us. “You love him,” I repeat. “So you were, what, stringing Talon along?”
“I told him we were just having fun,” Amber says, defensive. “It’s not my fault if he didn’t take me seriously.”
I shake my head, tummy turning. “I can’t even look at you.” I look at Jason. “Or you.”
“Hold on,” Jason says, grabbing my arm. I shrug him off and reach for the nearest thing—a pitcher of water.
Jason takes a step back. “Whoa, whoa, whoa.”
I’ve lost it. I know I have, but I can’t even help it. “You lied to me. You broke up with me because you loved me too much? How stupid do you think I am?”
He has the decency to look ashamed. “I do love you.” Then he remembers Amber. “And…you. I love both of you.”
“That’s not what you told me,” Mo says, stepping forward. “You told me it was Amber for you. That she was the love of your life.”
It is the single most humiliating moment of my life.
It’s like being set on fire and also finding yourself naked on the roof. It is like being set on fire while naked on the roof.
Everyone knows I’m the one he didn’t love, the one he won’t choose, the one that wasn’t enough.
Amber looks touched. “R-really?” This must give her some type of strength because she juts her chin forward and meets my gaze. “I’m not going to apologize for loving him. It’s how I feel.”
I remember the conversation we had weeks ago, in the coma. Amber’s question: You don’t think anything goes if love is involved?
“And do you know how I feel?” I say, surprised to realize I’m yelling. “I feel stupid. I feel used, and ashamed, and angry and alone and betrayed. By all of you.”
I look at Mo. “Even you.”
“I wanted to tell you, but they promised…I gave them the chance to tell you themselves.”
“And you didn’t even have enough of a conscience to do that,” I spit at the two of them. “You just kept lying.”
“Love is complicated,” Amber says.
“Oh my God, enough about love!” I snap. “You’re not the first person who’s ever felt it. You’re not even the first person who has felt it for someone they shouldn’t.”
I steal Dad’s words. “Every story is about love,” I say. But then I add my own piece of truth to it. “But love should make you better, not worse. You two aren’t special for being in love. What you are is a coward and a traitor.”