The Way to Game the Walk of Shame(72)

Dad waved the packet around. “I wanted to wait for you to come home to celebrate, but I couldn’t—wait, those aren’t happy tears. Taylor, what’s wrong?”

Without answering him, I ran right into his arms and burrowed my face into his shoulder. All I could do was hold him tighter as the tears poured out.





27

-Evan-

After I dropped Lauren off, I sat on the beach for hours to clear my head, but it didn’t work. For once in my life, not even the water could make me forget my problems. I was still pissed at Taylor, but I wanted to see her. To talk to her. My fingers ached—literally ached—to feel hers. Time dragged on until each second was like an hour, each hour was like a day, and—well, you get the point. And all because I missed Taylor. Really missed her. Like I was seconds away from writing sonnets about her. Yeah, I don’t know what the hell she did to me. God, I should have been annoyed at her for screwing up my life if I didn’t love her so much.

It was way after dinnertime when I finally got home. Mom attacked me as soon as I came through the door. Her hands were covered with flour. “Where have you been? I’ve been trying to call you for ages.”

“Sorry, I had it turned off.” So I wouldn’t be tempted to call Taylor. I grabbed an oatmeal cookie from the counter. “What’s wrong?”

“Taylor was here.”

The cookie crumbled in my fist as I stared at her. “Why? When?”

“She was looking for you earlier. Said she needed to talk to you about something.” With a sigh, she nodded at something on the counter. “And she wanted to give you back your necklace.”

“My neck—” On top of a pile of magazines, I spotted the silver chain nestled around the twisted coin. No. I grabbed it from the counter, not wanting to believe that this was really my necklace. That she actually gave it back to me. That it was all really over. “Shit. I screwed everything up with her.”

My fist hit the granite countertop in frustration. Maybe if I had just let her talk. Maybe I could have been able to change her mind. I bet stupid Brian would have listened to her. Stupid, tall Brian who’s always there for her.

God, I hated that dude.

Mom’s hand curved around my arm, leaving a dusty flour print on my forearm. “Then fix it with her. Go tell her you’re sorry for whatever you did.”

I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter. She picked Brian. She’s going to be with him now.”

“Are you sure? Because she looked really sad when I told her that you were moving in with your dad.”

My head snapped up to look at her. “You told her what?”

Her fingers laced together and white dust fell onto the tile floor. “Yeah … it was an accident. I thought you already told her about it yourself!”

I meant to. I was going to tell Taylor all about Dad and my plans and the fact that I actually had plans because of her. And that my plans for the future now included her. But when she told me about kissing Brian, everything just disappeared. I didn’t know what to do.

I was kind of hurt that she didn’t stay to talk to me. To tell me she was proud of me. To break up with me in person. But what did I expect? She tried, but I was the one who left first.

Maybe I shouldn’t have run away. I should have just stayed to talk to her. That would have been the responsible thing to do. At least then she could have given me back the necklace, and we could have said goodbye properly. And I could have hugged her one more time.

Or I could have gone to Brian’s house and kicked his ass. Yeah, that’s what I should have done.

Still not too late.

*

Later that night as I laid on my bed, I stared at the stars on my ceiling. My hand clenched the necklace so tightly that the edge of the coin cut into my palm. I didn’t care about the pain in my hand. I didn’t even care when Brandon came into my room earlier to gleefully drop off a calendar marking off the days until graduation, when I would move out.

There was another knock, and Mom poked her head in for the tenth time in the past hour. “You have company.”

I shot upright but scowled at the sight of Aaron instead of Taylor at the door. “Oh, hi.”

Instead of leaving, Mom just lingered at the doorway while Aaron sat down on the desk chair. It squeaked a little under his weight. “Your mom told me everything. Look, we’re all used to you making an ass of yourself, because that’s not really anything new. Usually, it’s kind of fun to watch. But this moping is just sad.”

Mom cleared her throat. “Honey, what Aaron is trying to say is that we’re just worried about you.”

“Yeah, worried.”

“Well, I’m fine. And I’m not moping. I just don’t feel like doing anything.” I flopped on my back and went back to counting the stars.

He rolled his eyes. “Dude, you’re the mayor of Mopetown. And for no reason. Taylor’s not with Brian.”

“How would you know?”

The chair squeaked even more. “Carly told me. I called her to ask.”

I rolled on my side to stare at him. “What else did she say?”

“Carly? She just told me that Taylor is definitely not with Brian and uh…” He coughed and glanced at Mom. “Basically, she told me to tell you to man up and get Taylor back before it’s too late. Or at least that’s the PG version of what she said.”