Chapter 26 Sabrina
The sky has gone dark outside the window of the athletics office, and I’m squinting to read the papers spread before me. The janitor has come and gone in the hallway outside, leaving the scent of lemon Pledge behind, and the clattering of lockers opening and closing has long since faded.
I don’t usually stay this late, but I have a lot to do.
And the last thing I want is to risk a run-in with anyone from the football team after practice.
By now they’re probably all home, like I should be.
Tyler has caught a ride with Will or Gabe, and he’s back at the Thompsons’.
Maybe he and Ryan have figured it out and made up.
Or maybe they haven’t. It’s not my problem.
I groan and bang my head against the desk in gentle slow motion.
It’s only October, and already this year has gotten so messed up.
Not only did I not dodge the drama with Ryan, but I’ve made it even worse by sneaking around.
And the guy I’ve been making out with has a secret past that he was lying to me about—that has made him the center of the drama mill at another school?
Let me explain. I’ve had enough of guys lying to me and then telling me they can explain. I don’t need anything to take away my sanctuary. Where I still have control.
But how did I—my heart gives a traitorous flutter—fall head over heels for him?
I know Marissa’s right about there being two sides to every story. But I’m too frazzled and devastated and hurt, bleeding from wounds so deep, I can’t tell what’s fresh and what’s merely a reopened scab.
So, maybe I’ll just stay here. Keep my face planted against the fake wood grain of this desk. Melt into it, and the custodians can clean me up tomorrow morning.
My hair falls in a curtain around my face, cocooning me from anyone passing in the hall, and it just reminds me of how delighted Tyler always was to take it down. I let out a groan of regret, and betrayal, and longing, and—
“Sabrina?” Someone clears their throat in the doorway.
I jolt upright, wincing as blood rushes to my head.
Mr. Lewis frowns at me from the doorway. “You doing okay?”
I consider. Having a full existential crisis, behind on homecoming preparations, dodging my friends’ thoughtful check-ins, heartbroken, and hiding out in an office that smells like disintegrating papers, Axe body spray, and a trash can that contains more than one overripe banana peel.
“Fine,” I say. I pull my laptop toward me. “I just have a lot to take care of today. Ella told me about the flooding at the theater, so I need to find a new venue, and we have so little time! So just trying to get busy!”
Because that’s what I should be doing. I’ve never met a problem I couldn’t run from with a long enough to-do list.
But Mr. Lewis winces, and a feeling of foreboding creeps across my skin. “About homecoming.” He pauses, and I can sense the other shoe about to drop. I hold my breath. “I’m sorry, Sabrina, but at this stage… we need to cancel the dance.”
I blink, my brain struggling to catch up. Flooding with panic at the idea that I messed something up this badly. “But we still have time. I can do more—I have ideas!” Desperation sharpens the edge of each word.
He shakes his head sadly. “You did more than enough for a normal year. But that venue was already almost out of our price range, and there’s no way we’re going to find something else affordable at this rate.
I just don’t think we’re going to make it in the next week.
I hate to do this, but I need to call it now. ”
“No way.” I shake my head. “We can’t just… not make it. There has to be something else we can do. We still have time, right?” The panic builds at his silence. “Don’t we?”
Mr. Lewis’s eyes are too soft. He shakes his head again, slowly this time, and I can tell he wishes he could deliver different news. “We really don’t, Sabrina. It’s way too close to the deadline.”
Of all the disasters that have happened today, this is the one that makes tears burn behind my eyes. “No one’s ever failed to put on homecoming before,” I whisper. The lump in my throat almost makes it impossible to get the words out.
Mr. Lewis smiles kindly, and that makes it worse. The tears press closer to the surface. “But this year’s budget was higher than ever, Sabrina. And unexpected things happen sometimes. You have to cut yourself some slack.”
I shake my head. No. I don’t cut myself slack. I raise the bar. I will not be the Spirit Committee president to fail to raise the homecoming budget and put on the dance of our dreams. My cheeks burn from mortification. “How do we fix it?” Desperation soaks every word.
Mr. Lewis gives me a pitying look. “We don’t, Sabrina.” He shakes his head. “It’s okay if we have to cancel. It’s just a dance.”
Intellectually, I know he’s right. But everyone’s been waiting for this dance all fall—it’s not just a dance.
It’s a celebration of our senior year. It’s the culmination of all my hard work.
Now everyone will be talking about me for an entirely different reason—because I’m the girl who let them down. Who couldn’t follow through.
And still, I force a smile. Like always. “Okay. Well, thanks for telling me.”
Mr. Lewis casts me one last, lingering look before taking a step back into the doorway. “Don’t stay too late, okay? You should get some rest.” He tries for a wry smile. “Maybe that’s a silver lining? You can actually relax for a change?”
I choke out a laugh. Yeah. Time to rest. That’s exactly what I need.
I spend the next hour checking and rechecking our numbers, my notes, my lists… but eventually I have to admit that Mr. Lewis is right. There’s nothing we can do within our budget, and I should’ve seen it coming sooner. Maybe I would have, if I hadn’t been so consumed by Tyler.
I turn off the lights in the office and trudge out to the parking lot, my steps dragging more than ever before. I’ve never felt like so much of a failure.
The weather’s turning ugly. There’s no moon in sight, and the wind stirs up the leaves that have started to fall. Real autumn is coming, and I yearn to curl up in the cocoon of my comforter and never leave.
I unlock the car and slide inside, flicking on the headlights against the dark and pulling out of the parking lot. I barely notice my surroundings.
I thought I’d hit rock bottom before, but I had no idea. Now I don’t even have the Spirit Committee to fall back on.
How am I going to face everyone?
How am I going to survive the next week without this project to focus on?
And that thought breaks the seal on the tears I’ve been holding back. Before I know it, I’m sobbing over the steering wheel, trying to wipe the tears from my eyes and snot from my nose so I can see clearly enough to drive safely.
The problem with smiling all the time is that when you break, you really break.
The streets of Hamilton Lakes don’t care that I’m falling apart.
I pass Kara’s house, and I think about her leaving next year and no longer being at my side to do my makeup, and help with my to-do list, and defend me against the world; I pass the diner, and I think of Tyler and strawberry milkshakes and heads bent together in conversation; I pass the Thompsons’ house on my way to my subdivision, and I think of parties and stolen kisses and the feeling of my friends dancing at my side.
It all just makes me cry harder. All the things I’m losing this year, and there’s nothing I can do to hang on to them.
And then, as if things couldn’t get any worse… my engine starts to sputter.
No. Oh no, no, no. Not tonight. Not in this weather. Please, God, I’ve suffered enough today—things don’t need to get any worse—
But no one is listening.
The car dies.
I snort-laugh in desperation and grip the steering wheel, thinking of the last time this happened. The way Tyler coached me gently through pulling the vehicle to the side of the road. How his steadiness made it not at all scary.
And this, at least, I manage to do without him.
When the car rolls to a halt, I have to take in a deep, shuddery breath. Tears are still drying on my face, but against all odds, the shock of the car dying has jolted me back into some strange sort of presence.
For a long moment, I just sit there, still and quiet, staring out the windshield and wondering what has happened to my life.
Who did I piss off? What did I do to deserve this? Have I not given everything I have to these people, to this school? To this car??
And here I am at the side of the road, about to be responsible for Hamilton Lakes’s canceled homecoming dance. Letting everyone down. Left all alone.
I swipe my sleeve across my face. Okay, Sabrina. Enough self-pity. I roll my eyes and grab my phone.
Time to get it together.
I can’t call Kara—she took off after school on a mini road trip to Chicago with Harper and Marissa.
Ostensibly to visit colleges, though we all know she’s been missing Dawson something fierce.
Marissa will take any excuse to visit Northwestern and meet some of the students at the Medill School of Journalism, and Kara’s genuinely excited to see UChicago.
Where fun goes to die! she told me cheerily, and I tried not to get my hopes up too high at the idea of her staying closer to home than California.
Regardless, I’m not making her clean up my messes again.
Mom is working until midnight, of course, and I’m not going to ask her to leave work early just to help me call a tow truck and catch a ride.
Not when she’s juggling so much already.
Not when the last time I saw her was two days ago, when she was returning from a night shift and I was getting ready to go to school.
Not when the last communication we’ve had was her latest note: Marriage has no guarantees.
If that’s what you’re looking for, go live with a car battery.
The irony of it brings me to hysterical laughter, my chest heaving so uncontrollably, I wonder if I’m going to cry again. Absolutely nothing has been guaranteed this year, and everything I thought was stable has fizzled out dead.
Except… maybe that quote kinda has it backward. Maybe there’s no guarantee, and my mom is wrong to be looking for one.
Maybe I need to be learning from her mistakes, not her motivational quotes—and maybe there’s more I can do about Tyler than my busted battery.
It hits me with such certainty that I groan and let my head fall to my steering wheel.
Tyler’s the only person I want to call right now. Tyler, with his capable hands and steady gaze and unflinching presence. With his insistence that he wants to help and the way he’s constantly shown up to do so.
I try really hard to be a trustworthy guy. I keep my word. I have my friends’ backs. It kinda hurt that none of that counted for anything in the end.
My reactions are tangled up in all sorts of things that aren’t about Tyler at all. He’s shown me over and over that he’s different—that he listens, and cares, and puts others first—and it still counts. Of course it counts. All he ever wanted was the benefit of the doubt.
He deserved so much more from me.
I should have given him a chance to explain. I should have trusted him.
Before I can talk myself out of it, I dial his number.