This Will Only Hurt a Little(33)

When we came out of the club, it was super late and starting to rain. Freezing rain. We hopped into a cab, and before I could really think about it, I was making out with him. I know, I know. You hate it. I get it. It was a shitty thing to do to Craig. Not just on my part. Jeff knew how his little brother felt about me. But you know, I was in NEW YORK. Starting to LIVE THE DREAM. And Jeff was super cute. And it was raining and we were in a cab and we were mostly drunk and for sure young and maybe Craig wouldn’t have to ever know? It wasn’t like he was my boyfriend. He wouldn’t commit to that, remember? It made him uncomfortable. He was basically just like my best friend. You know, a best friend who I was in love with and who was in love with me, except we didn’t say that probably because we didn’t really know it yet. And who wouldn’t fuck me, even though I wanted to. So I would fuck other people (not that I particularly enjoyed it). And now here I was making out with his brother in the back of a cab in New York City. Ugh. Busy. Get your shit together, girl.

We went back to Jeff’s dorm and made out some more but didn’t take it much further, mainly because as we both started to sober up, I think it dawned on us how truly fucked up this was, what we were doing to Craig. We promised we would never tell him—this was a what-happens-in-New-York-stays-in-New-York situation.

I finished the toy fair and went sadly back to Arizona with my mom. My Mattel toy reps told me that I would be joining them at the E3 expo in a few months to help them with the Clueless CD-ROM that was going with the doll. And the pre-toy fair would happen again in the summer, before I went to college.

When I got back to Arizona, I was really excited to see Craig and Brett and get back to school. I had to do that weird government class online, but it was so insanely easy that I finished it in ten days, which apparently had never happened before, since the only ones who had to take the online class were usually burnouts and kids who had been kicked out of regular class for behavioral issues. I was called back to Mrs. Weber’s office.

“Well, clearly you cheated on this,” she said, giving me a disapproving look over her glasses. “You couldn’t have done it in this short of a time. It’s a whole semester of work.”

I looked at her blankly. I mean. What the fuck was I supposed to do here? I obviously finished it in ten days because it’s for stupid kids and I wasn’t stupid.

“I didn’t cheat,” I insisted. “I wouldn’t even know how to do that. But what do you want me to do? There’s no way to prove it to you.”

I was so fucking done with high school and all this bullshit I knew didn’t mean anything. I just wanted this to be over.

“You’ll have to do it all again,” she said. “And we’ll make sure the teacher is watching your work.”

I rolled my eyes. “Great. Thank you so much.”

I flounced out of her office as only a privileged kid who knew she was destined for better shit could do. You want me to do the online government class for stupid kids, again? Fine. And acting isn’t a viable career? Well, I guess we’ll see about that.

The Saturday night after I got home, Craig, Brett, and I had tickets to see the Cardigans. An hour before Craig was supposed to pick me up, my phone rang.

“Hey. What’s up??”

“I just got off the phone with my brother . . .”

His voice was shaky. Oh, fuck. THANKS, A LOT, JEFF! Of course his brother broke down and told him everything. “Riddled with guilt” is how Craig described him. Look, it wasn’t like I felt great about it. But I’d been willing to keep up my end of the bargain. I guess Jeff couldn’t.

Craig was (rightfully) super pissed at me and didn’t want to go to the concert, but he was also kind of cheap and the tickets to the Cardigans were like twenty-five dollars, so he begrudgingly agreed to still go. I spent the show trying my best to get him to look at me or let me put my arm through his but his gaze was withering. I even cried a bit when they played “Lovefool.” Not to be manipulative, but truly because I just wanted him to love me and I knew I had done something reckless and stupid and I should have known better, but couldn’t he understand it didn’t mean anything??? I guess not. Not that night, anyway. I got him to agree that he didn’t want to throw away our friendship over this and I worked very hard that next week to make sure he understood how sorry I was. One week later, he was in my bedroom, sitting on my bed, when I cuddled up next to him and he kissed me again. I was so relieved. He was annoyed at himself that he caved so soon after declaring it was over for us, but I was just so happy that he was back that I vowed not to do anything to hurt him again. At least, nothing that he could find out about.

I had to fly to L.A. for my CalArts audition, and Brett’s older brother, Eric, agreed to pick me up from the airport and drive me out to Valencia for it. He also was going to show me around LMU afterward, and then take me back to the airport that night. I didn’t really have the grades to get into LMU. I mean, my grades were fine and my SATs were okay, but they still left a lot to be desired. I worked really hard on my essays, though, and even put together a picture collage to submit with my application. Instead of mailing it in, I just figured I’d drop it off in person while I was there.

My CalArts audition went great. I did a Shakespeare monologue—I think from Romeo and Juliet, although it’s possible it was from Hamlet—and I also did a dramatic monologue from some play in which I was a girl talking about being raped, but using birds being killed as a metaphor or something? Who knows? I really thought I was going to be a VERY SERIOUS DRAMATIC ACTOR. The CalArts people were seemingly impressed, and I felt very confident that I would get in. (Why wouldn’t I? WHO WOULDN’T WANT ME IN THIER SCHOOL?)