Forever for a Year(89)

*

So many people texted me that night. Even gross, disgusting Alexander Taylor. So many people. But not Trevor. I texted him five hundred times. That’s not even an exaggeration. I mean, maybe. But it was close. It felt like ten million … ten million texts to the one person I could ever love and no texts back. I even sent him a sexy picture. Except I looked so sad it wasn’t even sexy. I shouldn’t have sent it. But I had to. I would have done anything to have him back. I’d have done anything he asked. Anything. But Trevor is so nice he’d never ask me to do anything gross or dumb. Unlike Alexander Taylor and every other boy on earth. See? SEE? I had the most amazing boyfriend in history and I kissed another boy in his dumb truck just because … just because … I don’t even know anymore. Just because I’m a horrible person, I guess.

*

So I had to take the bus Monday morning. My mom had an early shift. My dad was gone because I told him to be gone. Peggy and Katherine had stopped driving me to school after homecoming. And Trevor, whose parents had driven me the most this year, was not going to pick me up. Not ever. Not ever again. Oh my gosh, I have no Trevor, no Peggy, no Dad. And I have to ride the bus with a bunch of people who look at me like I’m a psycho slut. And it smells like plastic and it’s slow and it’s loud and I need to transfer schools.

Biology was like torture. No, not like. It was torture. GIRLS SHOULD BE ABLE TO STAY HOME WHEN THEIR BOYFRIENDS DUMP THEM! Or at least not go to classes they have with them! He sat on the other side of the room. Like, one desk away from Peggy. Peggy talked to him. Smiled at him. She’d texted me that he was boring, and now she was flirting with him? Humans are all terrible people. I cried the whole class. Not loudly. I would have been kicked out. But this low, shaking cry that I tried to keep quiet, but everyone knew. Everyone in class knew. And they kept looking at me, either like I was so pathetic or funny-looking. But not Trevor. He didn’t look at me once. If he looked at me, wouldn’t he fall back in love? Wouldn’t he remember all the good things and forgive me and take me back and then everything would be amazing again?

But he didn’t. He didn’t want to remember, I guess. I don’t blame him. I wanted to forget.

*

So that’s how all of school went. History was almost as bad as biology, and my other non-Trevor classes were terrible in a different way because I couldn’t see him there and dream he would look at me and love me again.

Lunch was terrible too. Duh. Boys laughed at me, and girls whispered stuff. Only the soccer girls sat with me. Kendra sat the closest. She kept saying, “It will be okay,” over and over. I knew it wouldn’t be. I knew my whole life was ruined—YES, RUINED! IT’S FINALLY TRUE! SO I CAN SAY IT AND IT’S NOT ME BEING IMMATURE OR EXAGGERATING AT ALL! CUZ IT’S TRUE! RUINED! RUINED! RUINED!—but anyway … gosh … anyway … yes, so it was nice of Kendra to say it would be okay even though it was a horrible, terrible lie.

*

I sent Trevor texts, like, every five seconds I had my phone on. He didn’t respond. Even if he had cheated on me, I would have responded. I would have wanted to yell at him! Why wouldn’t he yell at me? Why? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? If he yelled at me, I’d know he still loved me. But he doesn’t. He doesn’t look at me or talk to me or text me or think about me. I bet he doesn’t even have one thought about me. I bet someone today said, “What’s happened with you and Carolina?” and he said back, “Who?” Yep, I bet he’s forgotten every beautiful thing we ever did and having sex and saying we loved each other. I bet he’s already looking at new girls and thinking about them and kissing them and he’ll probably think the new girl is his real soul mate. But I am. I’m his real soul mate. And he doesn’t remember. He has amnesia. He has to remember. If he would just remember, he’d forgive me. He would. Then everything would go back to normal. My life would be fine. I don’t need Peggy or my dad or good grades or a job or anything besides Trevor. Just him. Oh, please, please, please, please let me have him back.





80

Trevor has pizza with his dad

After I got back in the car with Lily Sunday night, she asked, “What happened, Trevor? What happened?” She was so scared. She cried a little. Not a big cry. But a real cry. Our parents sucked. She knew it. But I think she, maybe me too, wanted Carolina and me to be her real parents. The real couple. The couple who loved each other so much we could take care of anyone else too. Like Lily. So Lily didn’t have to be so goddamn old when she was just seven.

“We broke up,” I said. Face twitched. Twitched bad. Like my skin was about to peel off and this monster was going to take over. Like I was always a monster. Like only Carolina kept the monster from taking control.

“Get her back, okay? Please! Please!”

“I hate her.”

“You love her! You love her! Trevor! Don’t say that! You love her!” And she just kept saying I had to get her back, but I pulled out of the driveway and started driving.

*

Eventually Lily stopped talking. Eventually my body stopped feeling like it was just one huge raging piece of flesh, and I realized I had driven halfway to Wisconsin. I pulled over into the next gas station. Lily, who looked like a ghost, said, “Where are we?”

“I don’t know.”

“Dad should be home by now,” she said. “Can we go see Dad?”