Chapter Twenty-Eight
No matter how much I turn up the volume on my headphones, I can still hear the noise from Elliott’s prom party next door.
It’s so loud, it’s like I’m there, stretched out on the couch cheering on the stupid game they’re playing on Elliott’s Xbox, shrieking for another shot of whatever cheap paint thinner masquerading as liquor that they’re drinking.
Not for the first time, I reach for my phone, the complaint already fully formed in my head, before I remember I don’t actually have anyone to text.
The knock on my bedroom door is nearly drowned out by the sound of what is almost definitely someone falling down Elliott’s stairs. I pull out my AirPods and pause the movie that’s playing on my laptop as my mom slips into my room, eyeing the wall that separates ours and Laura’s houses.
‘Do you think we should be worried about the structural integrity of the building?’ she asks.
‘I think you should be worried about the integrity of the people in that building.’
She snorts. ‘What’re you watching?’
I sit up straighter in bed and slide my laptop off my legs so my mom can catch a glimpse of the screen. On it, Winona Ryder’s face is reflected in a carving knife.
‘Heathers,’ I say, shutting the lid. As I wasn’t really in the mood for romance, watching a toxic couple butcher their high school bullies seemed like the best option for movie material.
My mom nods. ‘How uplifting.’ When the sound of glass shattering echoes from next door, she cringes. ‘I think I’m gonna take Laura up on staying at Donnie’s tonight after all,’ she says. ‘I thought I could tough it out here, but I think it might kill me. You wanna come?’
As part-apology, part-gesture of goodwill, Laura offered for the two of us to stay with her at Clown Guy’s penthouse tonight, seeing as nobody within a four-block radius of her house was likely to get any sleep. Clown Guy – Donnie – is in Richmond for the weekend.
‘No, I’m good,’ I say. ‘I feel like someone should be here to call the fire department when our street lights up, or at least stick around to douse the flames.’
My mom is wearing a long burgundy cardigan over beige linen pants. It’s surprisingly straight-laced for her. She pulls the sweater tighter around her and nods over her shoulder.
‘I think I heard Sammy going in there,’ she says. ‘Why don’t you go and hang out for a few minutes? Sounds like they could use a Sober Sally.’
I contemplate giving my mom some fake excuse – gesturing down to my sweatpants and empty bag of Sour Octopuses, raising my eyebrows and saying, Does this look like a party outfit, Maggie? But something tips me towards honesty.
‘I don’t think Sam really wants to see me right now,’ I say.
My mom nudges my legs over and takes a seat on the edge of my bed. ‘Did something happen?’ she asks.
I sigh. ‘She’s mad that I didn’t want to go to prom.’
It’s not a complete lie, but my mom frowns anyway. ‘That doesn’t sound like Sam,’ she says.
More honesty, then. ‘I also may have said she was being pathetic.’ I swallow. ‘Aaaand, told her the guy she likes was just gonna screw her over in the end.’
‘Ah.’ My mom nods. ‘That doesn’t sound like you either. Not my girl who once told me she’d know she’d met her soulmate when they rescued her from a renegade dumpster flying down the streets of San Francisco.’
My muscles tense with a full-body cringe. That was during Sam’s and my Wedding Planner era.
‘God, I don’t know how you didn’t just want to punch me in the face all the time.’
She chuckles and says, ‘You and Sammy were so cute! Always planning your weddings and dream dates. I loved it. I loved how much you loved love.’
Sam’s voice rings in my head: But you love love.
My cold, hardened response: I did.
‘But it must’ve been so crappy,’ I say, swallowing down my rush of sadness, the devastated look on Sam’s face, ‘watching me get all excited about love when you couldn’t.’
What I’ve said occurs to me too late. My mom and I haven’t talked about the curse since Laura’s birthday, since doing so made her cry.
But instead of tearing up, my mom just tilts her head, as though she’s not quite sure if I’m being serious.
‘Just because I can’t be with the person I love doesn’t mean I’d wish that on you,’ she says with a breathless laugh.
‘That’d make me just as bad as Austin. I mean, don’t get me wrong.
Is it hard sometimes, listening to Laura talk about how so-and-so took her on such-and-such incredible date?
Sure. But I want her to have what she wants, even if it’s a man who drives a Ferrari with a custom-made polka dot interior. ’
‘Does – does Donnie …’
‘Yes,’ my mother says stoically. ‘Yes, he does.’
My mom and I collapse into a heap of cackling. It’s at least a minute before either one of us can breathe again.
‘Look,’ she leans forward to wipe the tears of laughter off my cheeks with her thumbs, ‘I know you think I’m some sad cat lady, but I’ve been lucky enough to have the great love story everyone dreams of.
And I want you to have that chance too, to go out and experience love in all its greatness and awfulness. If that’s what you still want.’
I glance down at my lap. ‘I don’t know what I want,’ I say softly.
Liar, Sam tuts in my head.
Mom shrugs. ‘And that’s okay too. But don’t let me sitting at home stop you from finding out.
’ She gropes around my bed, searching for my hand.
When she finally finds it, still buried underneath my comforter, she gives my fingers a squeeze.
‘Are you sure I can’t convince you to come to Donnie’s place with me?
Laura says he’s got HBO. I’ll buy us more of,’ she glances down at the empty bag of Sour Octopuses I ripped open with my teeth after my desperation to drown my sorrows in sugar made me impatient, ‘whatever the heck those were.’
My eyes land on a wrinkle in my comforter where a lone Sour Octopus has escaped, its tiny, sugar-coated body slumped over, legs up. A green-and-blue one, Sam’s favourite.
‘No, I can’t,’ I say, staring at it, determination crystallising in my veins. ‘There’s something I need to do.’