Chapter 25
When I wake up the next morning, Luke’s still asleep.
I flash back through everything, confirming with myself that the last moments of the night did, in fact, happen. It’s eight
a.m. now, but Luke’s phone started buzzing and pinging around seven and hasn’t stopped since. Whereas the only text I’ve gotten
so far is from Mom.
Now his phone is buzzing insistently, like someone is calling him. Luke groans and sits up, rubbing his face. He glances over
at me to see if I’m awake, and when he sees that I am, he says in a froggy voice, “Jesus. I’m hungover.”
“We’re even now, at least,” I say, trying to act normal. Am I acting normal? Is there even a normal between us anymore, after last night?
“True,” he says as he ignores the call and scrolls through the notifications on his phone. He’s making a face like what he’s
seeing on his screen is causing him actual pain. He groans again, holding his stomach with one hand. He starts texting, and
I hear the whoosh of his texts being delivered. “Listen, I’m so sorry, but it’s looking like I have to get back earlier than
planned.”
I’m sitting up now. I had figured we would hang out with Nicky and Mara again, maybe get breakfast, and then hit the road, but I guess we hadn’t talked about it.
“Oh. Okay. If you give me ten or fifteen minutes, I can be ready to go.”
“No, don’t worry,” he says. “I’ll call a car. I don’t want to crash your weekend more than I already have.”
“You didn’t crash it. You were invited.”
But he keeps moving around, gathering his things, and putting on his shoes. He barely looks over at me as he does. “No, of
course. Right. Listen, this was fun. So fun. I’ll text you later today, okay?”
As soon as he’s gone, I lean back against the headboard. I am so relieved we didn’t kiss. Because I don’t know where things went wrong, or why, but it’s obvious they did.
I spend the morning with Nicky and Mara, who don’t seem all that surprised that Luke had to leave early.
“He’s in town to film a movie, right? That he’s starring in?” Nicky asks, buttering a piece of toast.
“Well, yeah,” I relent.
“Honestly I’m surprised he even found time to come at all.”
“Yeah, no, I know,” I say, focusing on my waffle.
“I liked him a lot,” Mara says. She’s got her hair in a huge messy bun on the top of her head, and her eye makeup is a little smeared, like she didn’t wash it off before she went to sleep.
She ordered a Diet Coke and a BLT for breakfast, which, I joke, is the one and only red flag I’ve seen so far.
“So, what was it like to be on TV? I want to know everything.”
Nicky stares at me in shock. “You told her?”
I shrug. “Yeah.”
“Wow.”
“Details, I want the details!” Mara says.
“It started because our dad was an actor,” I begin.
“Aspiring,” Nicky cuts in. “An aspiring actor.”
“He booked things,” I counter. Then, to Mara, “I guess I watched him go through the process and I fell in love with it, too.
I did some commercial work for the first two years and then I was cast for Bricks when I was eight.”
“Wow, you must have been talented if you booked a show when you were so young.”
“I don’t know about that,” I say. “I got booked for this show because I was such a little weirdo.”
Mara cocks her head at me. “What do you mean?”
“I was an awkward, strange-looking kid,” I tell her. “A total ugly duckling. It’s what they wanted for the show.”
“Respectfully, Gus? Get a grip,” Nicky says.
“You were talented. And you were a cute kid. It was your job to look weird, and you leaned all the way into that character with confidence. No one actually thought you were strange-looking.” He points his fork at me.
“I don’t know how many times you need to hear this, but I’ll keep saying
it. You’ve always been beautiful.”
He says it so intensely that I’m stunned into silence. “Wow, Nicky. That’s so . . . nice.”
He takes a bite of his scrambled eggs. “Yeah, yeah. Don’t get used to it.”
“Are you okay?” I reach out to check his temperature, but he swats my hand away. “Seriously, are you okay? Mara, does he feel
warm to you?”
Mara laughs and puts her head on his shoulder, wrapping an arm around his. “Hot as they come!”
We move on to other topics, other things. But this time, Nicky’s words have burrowed deep inside me, and I can’t stop thinking
about what he said. Because maybe he’s right. Maybe it is possible to spend your whole life believing something about yourself
that, in the end, isn’t even true.
Todd’s BMW is in the driveway when I get home.
Evie’s not coming over until later to get Big Bird, but as I sit there, trying to figure out if maybe I can drop it off and
walk the three miles home, the front door opens, and he comes out with his jacket on. Thisbe’s there, too, with a toy, slowly
wagging her tail, but she hasn’t noticed me yet.
Mom puts her arms around his neck and kisses him before she notices me.
She drops her arms and calls out, “Claire! Hi, honey!”
She seems brighter and more bubbly than usual.
Thisbe comes barreling over as I get out of the car. She’s wagging her tail so hard that her body is bending in half back
and forth like a flopping fish. I get down on my knees to pet her. “Hi, Mom. Hi, Todd.”
“Pretty nice of your mom to let you take a weekend trip without an adult chaperone, huh?” Todd says.
Judgment radiates off him, like I went to visit a sneaky link instead of my literal brother.
He never gave Nicky shit about this kind of stuff.
Nicky could have snuck out and come back fall-down drunk and Todd would have punched him on the shoulder and asked him about his “wild night.”
“Uh, yeah.”
“Todd was able to fix the faucet,” Mom says. “You know the drippy one upstairs?”
“Thanks,” I say to Todd.
Good ole Todd. Mom sure did a flip-it-and-reverse-it with him. Where Dad was funny, creative, and wildly untrustworthy, Todd
is dull, predictable, and dependable to a fault. I just wish she hadn’t swung so far to the exact opposite of the personality
pendulum. Not that I can blame her.
Once Todd is gone, Mom is all shiny and smiley, like a freshly polished penny. Thisbe must be picking up on her vibes because
even though I greeted her for a solid five minutes, she’s still amped up.
“What’s going on with you?” I ask her.
“Nothing! Do you want cookies? I can make cookies for later. I saw a recipe for brown butter pumpkin cookies that looked festive.”
“Sure. Thank you.” Brown butter pumpkin cookies do sound good. As she gets started, I head upstairs to my room, Thisbe right
at my heels.
After unpacking, I check my phone. I have a text from Luke.
LUKE:
You get back ok? Manage to not sideswipe anyone on the road?
ME:
Not only ok, but v v safely, thank u very much
A voice note comes through next. I press play.
“Hey. Sorry I had to leave like that this morning. Had a couple of fires I had to put out. So we’re officially starting the
shoot on November 5. Which means this is going to be our last full week together. We gotta make it count, okay?”
I flop back onto my bed next to Thisbe and hold my phone to my heart. The last week. Our last week. November 5 is only eleven days away. It’s funny, looking back at how I had it all planned out in the beginning.
That our time spent together would be nothing more to me than a professional exchange, ending with me continuing my life,
never thinking of him again.
Dream on, Claire.
Maybe that’s why he left in such a rush this morning. He’s trying to distance himself now, knowing that soon the real distance
is about to begin.
I spend some time searching online for “Lucas Cordova” to see if there are any pictures of him—or us—from this weekend, and bingo: there are.
My heart does that anxiety skip and then gallops hard.
It only shows up if you click into the “news” part of Google, and even then it’s not the first hit, but still.
I click on the Daily Mail link. I scroll fast, X-ing out of all the annoying pop-up videos and looking for the pictures and their captions.
The article is about Luke at the UConn game with “friends.” The pictures must have been taken after Mara slipped in between
us so she could duck down and add the tequila to their lemonades covertly, because in the photos she’s in the middle, between
me and Luke. My face is only in one of the photos, and even then, barely. With my hat and sunglasses on and Mara between us,
I look like I’m just a random person. Good.
To be sure, I click into the comments. There are only six or seven, and most of them are versions of “he’s so hot,” “who cares,”
or “UConn football sucks.” None of the comments mention anything about me, the girl on the periphery of the photos.
Later, Evie comes over to get Big Bird and stays to hang out. I still don’t say anything about Luke. Unless she’s looking
him up every night, which I highly doubt, she won’t see the article. So I show her pictures of Mara and the videos of her
singing on her musician page on Instagram, and Evie is just as amazed as Luke and I were.
“Nick’s dating her?” she says incredulously. “Like . . . her? I mean, I love Nick, but wow. She’s, like, cool cool.”
“I know!” I say. “That’s what I thought, too.”
When Evie leaves, I feel empty. Empty as a friend. Empty as a person. Empty because there are so many things I still haven’t
told her, whereas I confided in Mara, who I just met this weekend. Evie is my best friend for a reason, and I have to stop
lying to her.
November 5 isn’t only the end of whatever is going on between me and Luke, I decide. It’s the deadline for me to tell the
full truth to Evie. About everything.
Later, in the evening, my phone lights up.
Dad, it says.
I hesitate, considering letting it go to voicemail. But I don’t; I pick it up.
“Hi, Dad,” I say.
“Hey! How’s it going, sweetie?” His voice is distant, and I can tell I’m on speaker.
I sit on my bed. “Good. Fine. What’s up with you?”
“Oh, not much. I’m on the Five stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic.”
“Oh, sorry. That sucks.”
“Yeah, you know LA traffic. Anyway, I thought I’d give you a call to check in. See how you’re doing.”
I grip the phone hard. “Honestly, Dad? Not so great.”
“Oh.” He doesn’t say anything for a second, like he’s jarred that I’m veering away from our normal script. In fact, I’m jarred. “I’m so sorry to hear that. What’s going on?”
“As you know, I’m a senior, which means I’m applying to college. And some of the ones I’m interested in are out of state,
which means they’re pretty expensive.”
“Okay,” he says.
“I know there’s no easy way to talk about this. And I feel sick that I have to ask. But I was thinking that maybe we could
talk about, like . . . I don’t know. A payment plan or something.”
“A payment plan?” Dad repeats. “For what? For college?”
“I mean, yeah, that’s what I would use it for. But I mean a payment plan in general. For the Bricks money that’s owed to me.”
All year, Mr. Frank has been mercilessly trying to stamp the passive voice out of our writing. He’d hate that sentence. But
sometimes, it’s too hard to say out loud what direct action the subject performed.
You stole my money. You, the subject, owe it back to me. You, the subject, should have protected me.
I squeeze my eyes shut, waiting for him to say something.
He lets out a long breath. “I wasn’t exactly expecting this right now.”
Now it’s my turn to wait for him to get on with it.
“It’s . . . I don’t know. Here I am trying to maintain a relationship with you, constantly begging you to come visit me—which
you never do, by the way—and you want to make it about money? Money that was only lost, by the way, because of the addiction
I was struggling with?”
“I’m not trying to make it only about money,” I tell him. “And I’m proud of how far you’ve come. I just think—”
“I didn’t fight for custody because I didn’t want your mom to have to pay a single legal bill. Did you know that? Do you know
what a big sacrifice that was for me? To let her have you full-time, to let her move my babies across the country because
that’s what she wanted?”
I don’t say anything.
“I’m doing the best I can. I’m trying. Truly, from the bottom of my heart, I am. All I ever wanted was to make you a star,” he says, his voice breaking. “And I
hate myself for messing it up so badly.”
“No, yeah. Sorry. And I appreciate that.” I don’t want to lose the thread. “But college is expensive, and . . .”
He sighs. “I know, Gus. And I’m trying to get booked. I’m on the way back from an audition right now. On a Sunday evening.
I promise you, I’m hustling. As soon as I’m in the green I’m going to help with your college fund. It’s going to be the first
thing I spend a dime on. I promise.”
Finally, I relent, though I hate myself for it. “Okay, Dad. Sounds good.”
“I love you,” he says. “I love you so much. You’ll always be my little girl, no matter what happens.”
Usually, I tell him I love him, too. But tonight I just hang up the phone.