Tease(74)

“Sounds like she did a lot of jobs,” I say, and Brielle and Noelle nearly do spit takes from laughing so hard. But my heart isn’t really in it. I kind of just want to get out of here—suddenly I just want to see Dylan, make sure everything’s okay. I mean, I’ve wanted to see Dylan since I woke up, but now I’m starting to feel a little panicky. Did this change things? Will he be . . . what? He’ll be happy, right? Because nothing else matters now. It doesn’t matter what happened in his car on Friday, or all the stupid stuff Brielle put online yesterday. We can just be together, and no one has to know anything else.

Brielle is talking, Noelle is laughing, but I can’t hear them anymore. The nervous feeling in my stomach climbs into my head, making everything sound like fuzz, like it’s at the other end of a long tunnel.

“I should . . . go,” I say, but they’re ignoring me. Brielle is back at the fridge, getting something out, and when she turns back around I see it’s a bottle of champagne.

“Mimosas!” she’s saying, and Noelle is pulling out glasses. I notice she’s only holding two.

But I’m getting off of my chair anyway, picking up my keys. “I’m gonna go find Dylan.” I finally manage to speak loud enough for them to hear me, for the words to reach my own ears, and Brielle just raises the bottle up high.

“To getting your man back!” she cries.

“Hear, hear!” Noelle says, holding up the two empty glasses.

I think I smile at them, but I’m not sure. All I know is, I’m back in my car and pulling out of the driveway and driving, hoping that when I finally find Dylan, when I see him, when he touches me—maybe then I’ll be able to breathe again.





October


“IT’S TOO COLD to be wearing that, Sara.”

“You let her dress this way to go to the lawyer’s office? To any office?”

“She’s seventeen, Doug, relax.”

“You both need to relax. I’m fine. Natalie’s seen my knees before, okay?” The truth is I’m still freezing—I found an old hoodie in the trunk of my car, but I didn’t have time to go home, so I’m still wearing the shorts I stupidly put on this morning. But I’m also still numb from talking to Dylan, so what difference does it really make?

“Here you are!” Natalie greets us at the door, looking organized, for once. She waves us all in with a big smile and I’m relieved to find that her personal office is a lot warmer than the rest of the building.

But then I notice that the cold had been distracting me from the waves of panic, the beating thrum of last time, last time. Last time I’ll be in Natalie’s office before . . . Last time I’ll see Dylan before . . . Last time I—

“Everyone have a seat, great, right over here is good.” Natalie’s talking a little too loudly, but she seems excited. Not only is the heat on, someone cleaned up in here—we can actually all sit down at the table without rearranging any boxes, and it turns out there’s a coffeemaker on the side table. Natalie goes over to it and pours two cups for my parents and I try to remember what’s usually sitting on that spot. Piles of paper, I guess, like everywhere else. Normally.

“Sara, you don’t take coffee, do you?” she asks brightly. “I guess with Starbucks, kids are starting younger and younger . . .” She carefully sets the other cups on the table, then turns back to pick up some sugars and a little container of milk.

“I sometimes—” I start to say, but I’m cut off by my dad.

“Kids think they’re drinking coffee, but those things are more like milkshakes with a little caffeine in them,” he gripes. I’ve heard this one before. “For six bucks a pop,” he adds.

“They do make a mean Frappuccino,” Natalie says with another big smile.

I pull the sleeves of my sweatshirt over my hands and tuck them under my knees. Natalie turns her smile to me and I know what’s coming next.

“Sara, I don’t think I’ve gotten your letter yet—did you have a chance to email that over?” she asks, just like I knew she would.

I can feel Mom and Dad turn, on either side of me, to see what my answer is. “Not yet,” I say, and my voice is barely a whisper. I try to take a deeper breath before adding, “I can get it to you la—”

“This is important, young lady,” my dad says firmly. He just can’t let me finish a sentence. “Natalie needs to see that in plenty of time before we’re in the courtroom. She’s our attorney, she needs to advise us on these things.”

“What us?” I ask, but I’m whispering; no one hears me.

“It’s all right, Mr. Wharton, I’m sure Sara just needs a little more time to figure out exactly what she wants to say,” Natalie says smoothly. “It’s not the official allocution statement, of course. We should go over that while we’re all here—shall we get started?”

She gets up again from the table and grabs a bunch of file folders from her desk. Dad’s still looking at me, his lips pursed angrily, I can tell. I don’t have to look back to know he’s annoyed, waiting for something else to yell at me about.

But I haven’t finished the statement. I wish I had; it’s like the worst possible homework assignment that I just can’t get done. I think about the notepad Teresa gave me, stuffed under my bed. I’d finally given up on trying to write the thing longhand. Now there’s just a bunch of words in a document on my laptop at home. Words that don’t fix anything, don’t change anything, don’t say anything. Don’t fix what happened, what went so completely wrong.