Anything but Ordinary(17)

“Gee, thanks,” Bryce said.

Carter sighed, and shut off the engine. “The time you lost probably hits harder at some times more than others.”

“You think?” Bryce had a sudden urge to slap Carter in the face. Not because he had done anything, but because he was there, facing her like Greg had faced her that day at the lake. She wanted to go back to that day so badly now. She would swim away from Greg, and she would walk past Gabby under the tree. She would live the next five years of her life without them, as they had done without her.

“You’ll get through all of this,” Carter said. “You’re strong.” He was rubbing his chin again, thinking. His eyes darted from her boots on the dashboard to her face, back to the boots.

“I hope so,” Bryce said.

“No, you will,” Carter said. He spoke more gently now, evenly, like someone who would know because it was his job to make it that way. “Really.”

They sat there, listening to her take choppy breaths. She let tears fall on her lap, closing her eyes. She didn’t care about crying in front of Carter anymore. At that moment, she didn’t care about much of anything.

Through the dark red of her eyelids, Bryce felt Carter reach out to her, and that was how she met him in the center of the two seats, her head burrowing easily into a place in his chest, his arms fitting around her.

It was nice. She hadn’t been hugged like that in a long time. Nowadays people squeezed her quickly, just for a second, as if they might break her. This is nice, she thought again.

Carter loosened, Bryce leaned back, and somehow her forehead was right near his chin.

Oops, Bryce thought. She tilted her head to say sorry. But she didn’t end up saying sorry.

Her mouth had found its way to his. His lips were soft, but Bryce could feel pressure behind them. They moved again, to fit hers.

After a moment, Bryce pulled away. “Whoa,” she said quietly.

“Bryce…”

“Um, I should…” She opened the door without finishing her sentence. She kept her eyes down and stepped out onto the pavement.

“Bryce,” Carter called through the open door, but she shut it behind her before he could say more. Her heartbeat pulsed in her fingertips. She stepped slowly up the walkway and around the side of the house. She looked back as Carter finally pulled away. Night was coming, and fireflies started making dots in the tall plants lining the curb.

If a day like this happened five years ago, she would have immediately called her best friend. She would have said hi to her parents sitting in the living room with her phone already to her ear, gone down to her room, flopped on her bed with a handful of trail mix, and figured things out.

But she couldn’t do any of that. Her room wasn’t her room, her best friend wasn’t waiting at home for her call.

Bryce stayed in the middle of the lawn, surrounded by the stretching road and scattered houses, and realized River Drive was the only thing that hadn’t changed.

It was the people—the people settling into their houses, those people and the thick pastures that separated them, the GO TENNESSEE! signs on their long lawns—it was them Bryce had to ask:

“What the hell?”

Nobody answered, of course, and she went inside.





ryce found her mother in her home office at the back of the house, her face glowing blue from the monitor’s light. The office used to be the place where Bryce and Sydney kicked off their muddy galoshes or threw their coats, but now the small space was outfitted with a flat-screen computer and prints of some of the places her mother had designed. Out of habit, or maybe because she refused to acknowledge this wasn’t the mudroom anymore, Bryce kicked off her boots and set them in the corner. Her mother turned to face her.

“You knew,” Bryce said accusingly.

Her mom sat up in her Aeron chair, her spine stiff. “About Greg and Gabby? Are they… ?” She slumped. “I had heard they were dating,” she admitted.

“Engaged,” Bryce said, making her hands into fists. The sky outside the tall windows had faded to black. “Not dating. Engaged.” She tried to make her words hard. She wanted to hold on to the anger, to feel anything besides emptiness. But the anger was slipping away from her, out of her grasp, like water down a drain. Her lip began to quiver.

“No,” her mom whispered, getting up from the desk to put an arm around Bryce. “Oh, honey.”

At first Bryce tried to resist, but then she let her head fall on her mother’s shoulder. She used to do the same thing when she had done badly at meets, when her father’s face fell in disappointment. She felt that way now. Like she had lost.

Her mother’s voice sounded quiet above her. “I had hoped it was just a college thing. I didn’t want to say anything in case they weren’t still together, but…” With her head in the crook of her shoulder, Bryce could feel her mother shake her head. “I should have told you. It was stupid of me. I should have told you.”

She let her mother rock her back and forth, closing her eyes.

“It’s okay, Mom,” Bryce said, even though it wasn’t. It might never be okay again, but right now that seemed somehow beside the point.



“At least the toilet is clean,” Bryce called through the crack in the door. It was the next day, and she was standing outside the only indoor restroom of the Belle Meade mansion.