Chapter 16
Chemo Made Me Emo
Trixy Moore:
I’ve got news
Cara Samuel:
The good kind or bad?
Willow Bagheri:
Did you get the results back from your screening?
Trixy Moore:
Yes…
NOT POSITIVE!!!
Two years cancer free, bitches!
Cara Samuel:
TRIXY!
Oh my god I’m so dang happy for you!
Willow Bagheri:
ARE YOU SERIOUS!
That’s amazing!
I’m already leaving to tell everyone on the floor
Trixy Moore:
Thanks you guys. That means a lot
I’m so overwhelmed but in the best way
Cara Samuel:
Are you busy right now?
Because you should come over
I have all the ingredients for cupcakes and a moral obligation to celebrate you
Trixy Moore:
That sounds perfect
See you soon
Willow Bagheri:
Rude
I’m jealous
Cara Samuel:
Relax, Frank’s RedHot
You’ll be out of the slammer soon
I can feel it
Willow Bagheri:
Not if I murder you first!
I rue the day I told you to call me Hot Sauce
“What in the world…” Trixy exclaimed thirty minutes later.
Although I’d been expecting her, she startled me so thoroughly, I nearly fell off the ladder I was perched on. “Oh my God, a little warning next time,” I said, clutching a hand to my heart. “Did Drew let you in? I didn’t hear the doorbell.”
When Trixy didn’t respond, I glanced over my shoulder to find her frozen in the doorway, eyes narrowed in suspicion.
“Who are you and what have you done with the real Cara?” she demanded.
“Your dad isn’t planning on introducing a stand-up comedy night at the Blue Groove, is he?” I asked, carefully climbing down one rung at a time. “I know karaoke did well, but let’s be real, Trixy. If all your jokes are as terrible as that one, you’ll be booed off the stage.”
Despite my teasing, I understood Trixy’s confusion.
For as long as she knew me, my bedroom wall had been plastered in pictures of the Heartbreakers.
Now, that very same wall was almost empty.
Over the course of the past two hours, I had painstakingly taken down the collage I had spent years curating.
The glossy magazine pages and fold-out posters were stacked in neat piles.
I could never throw them out, but I no longer felt comfortable having them on display.
If members of my favorite band were making a habit of dropping by my room, then I wanted to tone down the fangirl vibes.
“No, for real,” Trixy said. “What are you doing?”
I put my hands on my hips. “What does it look like?”
“I’d say it looks like your doppelg?nger dismantled a piece of your soul, but since you already have an evil twin, I’m at a loss for words right now.”
“I had to do it,” I said, glancing back to the wall. It looked wrong—empty and devoid of color—and my chest tightened with a sense of loss. “Things were starting to feel weird.”
Trixy finally dropped her act and grinned. “Because of JJ?”
“Because of everything.”
“But mainly because of JJ,” she said, throwing herself onto my bed and accidentally sending a pile of magazine clippings airborne.
“Yeah, okay,” I said while scrambling to collect the pages as they flitted to the ground. “Mainly because of him.”
Her lips curled, as if this news didn’t surprise her at all. “Figured as much.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Are you forgetting I spent an entire day with the two of you?” she said as I relocated the loose posters and cutout pictures to my desk. “That boy couldn’t keep his hands to himself even with all the dirty looks Drew threw his way. And you weren’t any better.”
“Excuse me?” I exclaimed, spinning back around to face her.
“Lie to yourself all you want,” Trixy said, eyes sparkling, “but you had hearts in your eyes every time you looked at him.”
“That’s not true!” She made me sound like a schoolgirl nursing a massive crush.
“Oh really? You stayed on the dock for ages after the fireworks. What exactly were you two up to?”
I blushed so fiercely, I probably looked luminescent, and I realized there was no point in responding. My flaming cheeks were answer enough.
“Ha, I knew it!”
“I hate you,” I shot back, snatching one of my alligator slippers off the floor and chucking it at her head.
Trixy ducked, laughing. “Okay, I need to know—is the fake dating situation just a cover for your real relationship or…”
“No, I really was pretending to be his girlfriend.”
“Was?”
“Am! I meant am.” Sinking onto my computer chair, I paused and made myself take a calming breath before continuing. “I am pretending to be his girlfriend.”
Of course, Trixy saw straight through me. “But?”
“Argh, I don’t know,” I replied, throwing my hands in the air. “I haven’t spoken to him about it since we came up with the plan. This thing with JJ wasn’t supposed to be complicated. I went into it with the intention of helping him and that’s it, but now I’m afraid of ruining everything.”
“How?” she asked.
“By wanting more.”
“I fail to see how that’s a problem. The guy has it bad for you. Why don’t you just tell him how you feel?”
Smiling, I shook my head. “No, you don’t understand. All that flirty stuff? That’s the DNA of JJ’s personality. He made it clear he doesn’t have time for a relationship, and if I’m being honest, I’m not sure I’m ready for one yet.”
She snorted. “Your utter lack of perception about his feelings is frightening, but we’ll put that on the back burner so we can address the real mystery here. If you’re unsure about getting into a relationship, then why are you talking about wanting more?”
My cheeks flushed again. “Um, well, I meant…physically.”
Two weeks had passed since my birthday, and no matter how I tried to distract myself, I couldn’t stop my mind from circling back to the moment we’d shared on the dock.
One minute, I’d be in the middle of making lunch or watching Dapper Daddies, and the next, I’d find myself lost in the memory of his hands on my skin.
Trixy’s eyes went wide, and she pretended to faint, throwing an arm across her forehead and collapsing against my mattress. When she popped back up, there was a wide grin on her face. “Yes, girl, get it! I’m one thousand percent on board with this. You two have so much chemistry it’s disgusting.”
“Well, I don’t know about that…”
Her smile was quickly replaced with a frown. “Okay, what gives? I know you well enough to recognize that you’re in your head about this.”
The question gave me pause. How could I articulate my fear without upsetting Trixy? If I explained things the wrong way, she might blow a fuse. The two of us finally felt like real friends again, and I didn’t want to jeopardize that.
The way I saw it was like this: In a perfect world, I’d have a clean bill of health, JJ would be some cute guy I met in the dorms and not a celebrity with a packed schedule, and the two of us could have a relationship.
Normal. Straightforward. Simple. But that wasn’t the case.
The situation was far from straightforward, our lives would never be simple, and I was realistic enough to accept that.
Unless I was willing to walk away from JJ, I only had one option—to take what I could get.
I wanted to, I really did, but I was so darn worried about how I would feel afterward.
If I went through with this, would I be setting myself up for the emotional trauma of heartbreak?
Because that was the last thing I needed. I made that vow to myself for a reason.
Even though I missed him, I was almost glad the band was back on tour. JJ would be gone until the end of August, and that gave me plenty of time to sort through the mess I’d created for myself.
“If the next words to come out of your mouth are ‘He’s not interested in me like that,’ I’m going to smack you upside the head,” Trixy said, misreading my conflict.
“You’re too smart to be that naive, so I’m going to refer you to the earlier part of our conversation where I mentioned how the guy could not keep his hands off you. ”
“That’s not what I’m worried about,” I said with a snort. JJ couldn’t have been more up-front about his desire to turn our arrangement into something physical. “It’s just… I like him, okay? What if this changes things between us? What if I ended up liking him more than I already do?”
Trixy stared at me as if I was being clueless, then offered me a sad smile. “Does it matter?”
At first, I didn’t understand what she was getting at, so I took a moment to consider.
For JJ, the answer was probably not. He was the biggest flirt I’d ever met.
The two of us were having fun together, and he was super nice, but eventually he’d get bored.
It was a hard pill to swallow, but once I did, I realized it was okay.
In fact, it was probably for the best if he moved on. No mess left behind.
“Cara,” Trixy said, shooting me a pointed look when I didn’t reply. “You took down your collage for this dude. I think that says it all.”
I turned to my nightstand. There, positioned in front of a framed photograph of me, Trixy, and Willow was my tiny glass alligator.
As I stared at the gift JJ had given me, it finally occurred to me that she might be right.
Maybe it didn’t matter what decision I made, because it was already irrelevant.
Maybe I’d already fallen too far.