Forever for a Year(74)

ME


Carolina. I love you. We just need to talk about something. We can do it tomorrow night.





CAROLINA


You promise promise promise you are not mad at me?

I wasn’t mad at her, was I? I was sad. (Lily always knew.) But maybe I was mad that I was sad.





ME


I promise I’ll love you forever. I’m going to bed and turning off my phone.

Crap. Why did I do that? Why make her think I was mad at her? Even if I was, I shouldn’t let her worry all night I was mad. I shouldn’t. But … I wanted her to never text whoever she texted on New Year’s Eve ever again. And maybe she needed to worry all night so she never would. It’s a horrible thing to do, to torture your girlfriend like that, but maybe that’s what you have to do so she doesn’t take you for granted.





59

Carolina finds out who is sad

Trevor knew. He knew. Oh my gosh. How could he know? I quadruple-checked that I erased all of Alexander Taylor’s texts. He couldn’t know. But why else would he be mad at me?

He totally knew.

Oh my gosh. I was going to lose Trevor. He was going to dump me. If I were him, I would dump me. I deserved it. Even if all I did was text, it was still cheating. I knew it in my heart. I deserved to be dumped. I deserved to lose the greatest boyfriend I’d ever have. That ANY girl ANYwhere could EVER have.

At school on Friday, I tried to look really pretty. I usually didn’t try so hard for school because, well, I knew Trevor would love me no matter what, but today I tried really hard because I didn’t know if he loved me anymore. As soon as he arrived at biology class, I couldn’t breathe. I mean, I could. But it was like I couldn’t breathe. He sat down next to me.

I leaned over and I said, “Please tell me what’s wrong.”

“Not at school.”

“Oh my God, you hate me.”

“I don’t hate you.”

“Then why won’t you tell me?”

“Because.”

“Because why?” I whined. Whined. I thought I would never whine again. This is why I should never do anything wrong. I should never lie or cheat or even think bad thoughts because then I become this pathetic person. Like I was right that second.

“Carolina … tonight.” Then Trevor took out his notebook and just ignored me the rest of class. Then he ignored me in history. And he sat with his sophomore friends at lunch. I sat with Kendra, which was fine, but, oh my gosh, Trevor and I were breaking up. Weren’t we? Weren’t we?

*

“What’s wrong?” Kendra asked. She always knew when something was wrong. It was like she was Peggy, but the old Peggy.

“Trevor is breaking up with me.”

“What are you talking about?” Kendra scooted close to me and whispered, “He’s not really breaking up with you, is he?”

“I don’t know.… He’s not talking to me and he says we have to talk about something serious, but we have to do it not at school and I feel like I can’t even see straight.”

“Did you do something?” Kendra asked. Why would she ask that? Why couldn’t Trevor just be being a big jerk? Because he wasn’t. It was my fault.

“No!” I whispered in a yell. And lied. I just said I would never lie but I totally lied to Kendra when she was the one person in the world who never judged me.

“Carolina, it might be nothing.”

“It doesn’t feel like nothing.” Don’t cry. Don’t cry. I didn’t.

Kendra said, “I’ve never seen a boy love a girl as much as Trevor loves you. Even in movies.”

“Really?” Oh my gosh. That was true, wasn’t it?

“Really.” Kendra gave me a hug, and I felt better. Even if Trevor found out about Alexander Taylor, he loved me too much to dump me just because I was texting another boy.

Right?

Please, please, please let that be right.

*

That night, my dad drove me over to Trevor’s. I wore a short skirt that was super uncomfortable, but I wanted Trevor to think sex thoughts and not mad-at-me thoughts.

“Ready for finals?” my dad asked.

“Dad, oh my gosh, what’s wrong?” I didn’t want to think about anything except Trevor. Yeah, I was calling him Dad again. He liked it better. And he had been amazing for so long, so he deserved it.

“Why can’t a dad ask his daughter about school?”

“Because you never ask me about school.”

“Your mom is worried you haven’t studied as much as you used to.”

“You’ve always told me I studied too much!”

“Is everything all right?”

“Yes, Dad. I’m fine.” I couldn’t tell him Trevor was mad because then I would have to tell him about Alexander Taylor. And to tell my dad that I was cheating (but just text cheating!) would make him think his REAL cheating was okay. Which it wasn’t. At all. My dad parked outside Trevor’s house and said, “Okay. I’m going to see a movie. Text me when you need me to pick you up.”

“Trevor can drive me home.” Unless he dumped me!

“Trevor doesn’t have his license.”