Forever for a Year(20)

*

After health class, Carolina tried to say something to me. I’m not even sure what—I was concentrating on ignoring her—but I let her know with one look that I knew she and her stupid friends were trying to manipulate me and I wanted nothing to do with any of them.

Except, after I walked away, the look on her face kept creeping back into my memory. It wasn’t the look I expected. What did I expect? I don’t even know now. Maybe for her to roll her eyes or give me a wicked grin like Katherine, or something that would have made it easy for me to think she was one of them.

But her look was so vulnerable, and deep—like her whole being could see me, not just her eyes—that I left wondering if maybe I should have listened to what she had to say.

No. No. No.

Trevor. Listen: Nobody will ever understand you. Nobody will ever make you feel you’re not alone. Stop trying to trick yourself into thinking anything else. You’ll be a lot happier when you accept that you’ll always be miserable.





13

Carolina makes some important decisions

So, like, study hall on Tuesday … yeah, okay, remember that I have study hall last period on Tuesday and Thursday because we have club soccer practice the other days? Anyway, so I was kind of excited about study hall because, you know, it’s not a real class, and we could get homework done, and it would be Peggy and Kendra and maybe some new people but people just like us. It would be this society of student-athletes. I would belong to something, you know? All summer Peggy and I talked about how amazing study hall would be. It sounds stupid to think study hall would be amazing, but we thought it anyway.

But after Peggy sat between me and Kendra, right away she said, “I’ll be right back,” told the teacher she needed to go the bathroom, took sooo long, and then when she came back she sat next to this sophomore volleyball boy named Thomas something. Peggy and this Thomas kept whispering to each other. I knew this because I was staring at Peggy the whole time. I mean, I was having a major crisis with Trevor caused by HER sister and she was talking to some boy I didn’t even know she knew existed? Huh? What?

About halfway through study hall, the teacher said, “Shouldn’t you be getting some work done?” Right! To! Me! I was mortified. Oh my gosh. Mortified. I mean, Peggy was flirting with a boy, I wasn’t saying anything, and I get in trouble? Oh my gosh. Everything was ruined.

So I pretended to do work, but I couldn’t concentrate, so it wasn’t real work. It was just me writing a long letter to Peggy that I knew I would never give her even before I finished.

After study hall, we met Katherine by her car in the parking lot. She would be driving us home on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Which was great. I mean, it was better than the bus, but even better than that would have been if I could have gone home with Kendra and her mom.

Anyway, the first thing Katherine said as she walked toward us at the car was, “So I talked to the new boy—”

I KNOW YOU DID, I screamed from behind my teeth, but I was silent. Obviously. I would never yell at Katherine, unless I wanted my face broken.

“Turns out he likes Peggy,” she said, just like that. Like it was nothing. Like those words could have been anything. Like those words didn’t just destroy ALL MY DREAMS AND HAPPINESS AND EVERYTHING.

“He does?” Peggy said, confused, but also smiling. It was a super-small smile. Most people wouldn’t have noticed. But I was her best friend so I could see it. I could see her smiling because the first boy I had ever really liked … liked her instead.

Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry. It didn’t matter that I told myself a gazillion times not to cry. I did.

“Carrie, goddamn,” Katherine started, rolling her eyes, “you can’t cry over boys. Seriously. There’s a million of them.”

“Yeah, Carrie, there’s a million of them,” Peggy said. I nodded and tried to stop, but all I could think was that Trevor Santos, this boy who was supposed to be different from all the boys in junior high, was the same as them. No, it was worse. Because in junior high the boys didn’t like Peggy either. So at least we were geeks together. But now I would be a geek alone.

I got in the back seat of Katherine’s car, buried my head against the window, and ignored them. They probably didn’t even try talking to me. They probably forgot I even existed by the time we pulled out of the parking lot.

*

When I got home, my mom was already in her bedroom watching television. There was a note on the fridge that said there was leftover pizza from her lunch but that she was tired and would probably fall asleep soon. It wasn’t even four o’clock. I mean, she worked a five a.m. morning shift, but still, my mom never went to sleep this early.

I called Kendra, just to hear someone’s voice, but I didn’t tell her about Trevor liking Peggy, or about anything I was really feeling. When I thought I would cry again—for no reason!—I got off the phone. Then I just started bawling. I was such a mess. It was only the second day of my entire high school career, and nothing, nothing, nothing was what I wanted it to be.

*

On Wednesday morning before Katherine and Peggy picked me up—which I was looking forward to not at all!—and after my mom had left for work, my dad stopped by with donuts even though I’ve told him one thousand times that donuts are terrible for me. But I ate two in, like, two seconds anyway.