Bright Before Sunrise(22)

I want to hit Jeff’s party. To drown myself in noise and beer and people I know. But do I know them anymore? What has Carly told them? If my own girlfriend assumed I was cheating, can I really expect any of them to believe me?

Did the guys know what Carly had planned? Jeff’s hooking up with her friend, Maya—he should’ve given me a heads-up. He’s been my friend since grade school—but now Carly knows more about him than I do. His house, this town, it had been my domain, then ours. Now is it just hers? I clench my jaw and point my car back toward the suburban hell that others refer to as Cross Pointe.

It’s thirty minutes from Hamilton to Mom and Paul’s house. By the time I reach the highway the speakers aren’t the only things shaking in the car; I’m trembling with rage. How dare she?

And how dare my mom! Moms aren’t supposed to change. They’re not supposed to be one person for seventeen years and then sit you down one day and tell you they’re divorcing your father. Oh, and they’re pregnant with your physical therapist’s baby and they’re getting married. That was all bad enough, but how dare she make me move for the second half of senior year? And expect me to be okay with walking away from my life and think that a bigger house or expensive things with remote controls made up for leaving behind everything that made me happy?

I’m just supposed to accept it all—and swallow the fact that my father’s definition of divorce involves walking away from me too.

Playgroups and pediatricians and everything Sophia—these are Mom’s priorities now. Me, her leftover kid, the doggy bag of her first marriage, I’m supposed to adapt. It’s only one semester and then you’re off to college. You’re never home anyway. Hamilton isn’t that far. We’ll buy you a car …

And now Carly’s gone.

I stare at the highway barriers blurring outside my automotive bribe. I could jerk the steering wheel just a little to the left, turn my Accord into a scrap-metal smear. But I don’t really want that; I want others to hurt. I’ve been hurt enough.

If mercy exists in Cross Pointe, Paul will be out with his bowling team and Mom will be home watching TLC. She’ll let me escape upstairs without an inquisition about how my date went and why I’m home so early.

But I don’t expect mercy—I expect them to be brooding because they missed their dinner reservation. Mom will be nursing some imagined slight by one of the neighborhood ladies: not being invited to join a walking group or insufficient praise of her flower beds. Paul will be brainstorming ways to solve her drama. And when I walk in, all that fix-it energy will be focused on me. Why don’t you still play baseball? Have you joined any clubs? I heard about this great charity project the high school is doing—that pretty Waterford girl is running it—why don’t you sign up? Do you know the average CP teen spends three hours a week volunteering? When was the last time you spent three minutes thinking of anyone but yourself? How about we all go to the art fair on the town commons tomorrow? Mrs. Glenn’s son, Patrick, will be there—you boys could do something afterward.

Why can’t the town leave me alone? Why can’t Paul and Mom leave me alone? Why can’t Brighton? Haven’t they all taken enough from me—my address, the second half of my senior year, my identity—did they really need my girlfriend too?

I just want to make it to graduation. Fourteen days, that’s it. A few more months beyond that and I’m gone. I’ll be in a dorm on the other side of the state. I don’t think anyone has ever looked forward to going away to college as much as I am.

When I reach the exit for Cross Pointe, I accelerate. I blow by the exit for Green Lake too. I’d keep driving all night, except in East Lake the highway becomes something with traffic lights, and my rage and red lights aren’t a good mix. Since the forty dollars from Mom is the only cash in my wallet, I need to park before I impatiently rear-end the SUV in front of me. I end up sitting in a diner with a forced-retro decor, picking at a half-decent burger and plate of salty fries.

It’s fine. I can direct my anger at the pink stars on the tabletop and the obnoxious jukebox music while the grease congeals on my plate. At least I can until a teen mob comes in and crams themselves into the booths on either side of mine. They aim conversations over my head and annoyed glances in my direction.

This makes three towns where I’m unwanted. I signal for my waitress.

The teens overflow into my booth before I’m out the door.

In the car, I call Carly. An hour later the breakup doesn’t make any more sense, doesn’t make me any less angry. It’s probably a good thing I get her voice mail. And that I hang up instead of leaving a message I’ll regret.

A horn honks, then a car flies past me. I glance at my odometer—I’m driving ten miles under the speed limit. When I reach my exit I can’t think of a good excuse not to take it. I can’t think of anywhere else to go.

The looming cul de sac makes my muscles tense. I hate this town: a “planned community” constructed at the intersections of Hamilton, West Lawn, Green Lake, and Summerset. Everything about Cross Pointe is artificial and obnoxious.

Mom and Paul still love exclaiming that they’re “so lucky to have found a house here! No one ever moves from Cross Pointe!” as if that justifies the insane cost of one of the super-sized matching colonials laid out in straight lines with sidewalks that are too perfect to meander and meet at right angles under streetlamps with hanging flower baskets.