Forever for a Year(97)

“Don’t, Trevor,” I said. I shouldn’t have said that. It makes me so weak. I shouldn’t have.

“Don’t what?” he said.

“I don’t know,” I said.

“I … don’t think we should be boyfriend and girlfriend anymore.”

I started nodding. Oh my gosh. Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Don’t cry. But I cried. Not like this pathetic crazy cry. Just, you know, tears and sniffling. But I stopped not too long after I started.

“I love you,” he said again.

“Then why are you breaking up with me?”

“Because you cheated on me.”

“You said you forgave me! If you didn’t forgive me, you shouldn’t have gotten back with me!” I don’t even know why I was saying this. Really. I didn’t mean any of it. It just came out because.

“You’re right.…”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“It’s … I love you so much it doesn’t feel good anymore,” Trevor said. That didn’t make any sense but I loved it. It felt like a poem. Trevor should be an artist. He should. He’s deep and crazy like that. I’ll be CEO of a huge company and he’ll be a famous artist or writer or something. Except we’re breaking up. So we won’t know each other. We’ll be strangers. We’ll never think about each other ever again. Except I’ll think about him every day until I die.

*

The sandwiches arrived and he ate, and I looked at the sandwich and I looked at him and I could see he didn’t want to go to the party with me. So I said, “You go to the party.”

“I want to go with you.”

“I don’t want to go with you,” I said. Which was true. But only true because I knew he didn’t really want to go with me.

“Want me to drop you at home?”

“No.”

“You can’t stay here,” he said.

“Why not?”

“How will you get home?”

“I’ll walk,” I said.

“You can’t walk by yourself,” he said.

“Yes, I can.” And I tried to smile so I looked amazing.

*

He left. I didn’t think he would. I guess I hoped he wouldn’t. But it’s okay. I’ll be okay. I lost the greatest love of my life, but I’ll be okay. I’m really smart and strong. I forgot I was for a while because I was so in love. But I remember again.

I sat there in Uncle Josh’s for an hour, staring at my uneaten sandwich. I had nowhere to go. No person to go anywhere with. My mom was working. Kendra left for Nashville on a family vacation an hour ago. Peggy … oh, I don’t know … my best friend Peggy was back in junior high forever and high school Peggy was a stranger.

And then … my phone beeped. It was sitting on the table, just sitting there. I hadn’t even been looking at it. Who could text me? Who could I text? But then there was this beep, this text:





UNKNOWN NUMBER


Miss ya, rock star Oh, oh, oh, oh, my eyes started watering. Oh, oh …





ME


Shannon?

SHANNON SHUNTON’S NEW NUMBER

Yep ;)

I wanted to ask a million things, like why and how and where, and then tell her all about Trevor, and I almost just started letting it all out, like the old Carolina would. But the new Carolina, the new, new Carolina with the broken heart, she just wanted to say:





ME


I miss you too SHANNON SHUNTON’S NEW NUMBER

Sorry I disappeared. Just had to make a big change so I could breathe again





ME


I understand. I so understand.

You okay now?

SHANNON SHUNTON’S NEW NUMBER

Yeah, better. Still want to be best friends?





ME


Yes :)

SHANNON SHUNTON’S NEW NUMBER

Cool ;)

And then we started texting back and forth like we had been best friends for years and not ten seconds. She told me after taking a train to New York by herself to meet a girl she’d met online, she was now down in Florida with her mom and sister. I told her about Trevor. Everything about Trevor and sex and everything. Even told Shannon about my dad and Trevor’s mom. She then texted, “Parents try to pretend they aren’t, but they’re just humans,” and as soon as I read that, I knew it was time for me to make a big change too.

So after Shannon and I stopped texting, I called him.

“Carolina?” he answered after one ring, saying my name right even.

“Hi, Dad.” Big breath. “Trevor broke up with me.” It was the first time I had called him or anything since I found out about his affair with Mrs. Santos. He had never come by the house. He had never tried to contact me.

He said, “Can I take you to dinner so we can talk about it?”

I said, “Okay.”





86

Trevor goes for frozen yogurt

When I got into my car after breaking up with Carolina, I thought I could fly. Seriously. As I was driving down the street, it felt like my car was a spaceship and I could blast off into space and visit other planets and stars and anywhere in the universe that I could imagine. I had never felt so free in my existence. Never.