I shouldn’t be keeping track of how many days it’s been. I shouldn’t care if he ever speaks to me again or not. It was just sex, and I shouldn’t even be writing about him. But I—
I keep thinking about him. His skin. His voice. The way—listen to me! It’s like I’m in some freaking romance novel. It. Was. Just. Sex. What is wrong with me?
I have spoken to Mel. It was just once, two days afterward. The last time I wrote to you.
He came up to me after English and said, “You know why I asked you all those questions, right? And why 234
I brought Patrick to the movies?” an odd note in his voice.
“What?” I said, and looked around for Patrick before I could stop myself. He wasn’t with Mel. In class, he’d sat at his desk (all the way across the room, now that our group project is over) staring at the door. He never looked at me, not once.
“Patrick,” Mel said. “He’s my friend, he likes you, and I thought that if I talked to you, asked all the questions I knew he wanted to, that maybe he’d get to the point where he’d talk to you himself. But—look, I don’t know what happened, but I saw you two talking after our presentation, and whatever you said to him, you need to do something about it, take it back or whatever, because he’s acting really strange now.”
I walked away. What else could I do? What could I say? “Well, actually, Mel, I did more than talk to him. We had sex. And I can’t really take that back, can I?”
This is insanity. A couple of minutes of someone grunt-ing over you is just that and nothing more. You thought you were supposed to have feelings about it, about the guy.
You couldn’t see sex for what it is, a random moment with someone, a moment that has meaning only if you let it.
I can’t believe that’s what I used to say to you. That I said it whenever you were upset about a guy. I said it a lot 235
to you about Kevin, didn’t I? “This is insanity,” and “it has meaning only if you let it.” No wonder you always rolled your eyes and said I didn’t understand.
I thought I did, but I didn’t. I so didn’t. Even though Kevin was a total ass because he cheated on you and lied about it (badly), he still meant something to you. When you were with him, it was always more than a random moment to you, and meaning wasn’t something you could put there if you wanted to. It was just there, and you felt it.
I wish I’d gotten that before now. You don’t know how much I wish it.
236
T W E N T Y - O N E
THIS AFTERNOON I went to Caro’s after school, and her sister came over to show her a picture of the bridesmaid dresses. They were hideous, a weird orange-pink with ruffles everywhere. Plus there were matching hats.
I bit my lip so I wouldn’t laugh, and Caro said,
“Please tell me the hat has ruffles on it too, Jane. I don’t think I can be in your wedding looking like a diseased piece of citrus fruit if I don’t have a hat with ruffl es to wear.”
“I like the hats,” Jane said. “And no, they don’t have ruffles. Yet.” She smiled at me, and then said, “And Caro, I love your hair,” as she left.
“See?” I said, and Caro rolled her eyes at me, but she was smiling too. The other day I’d dragged her to the 237
drugstore to get some temporary hair color because she’d mentioned it like eight hundred times.
It turned out pretty good—I made her get purple—
and this morning I heard Beth telling her how great it looked in the bathroom. Of course, it was a Beth compliment because she said, “Caro, your hair actually looks really nice for once!” Caro just smiled, but as they were walking out, she glanced at me and whispered, “Is it wrong that I want to jam a fork in her face?”
When we were waiting for the hair dye to process, I told Caro what Patrick had told me in the library, about Beth and the things she’d said to Mel. I thought she’d be surprised but she wasn’t. She just sighed and said, “I know.”
“You know?”
“Well, not exactly know, but it figures,” Caro said.
“See, back in September, right after school started, I got really drunk at a party and ran into Mel. We went outside and were standing around, just the two of us, and he looked so good that before I knew it, I told him I liked him. Then I ran off and threw up. I thought—
he was drunk too, so I figured he didn’t remember. I mean, he never said anything. But I was still so 238
embarrassed I couldn’t even look at him until we ended up in that group in English. And then it was like . . .
I don’t know. The way he talked to me, I thought maybe he liked me too. But then Beth said she liked him, and—”
“And that meant you couldn’t.”
“Yeah,” Caro said. “But . . . okay. If I tell you something, will you be honest with me? I mean, will you tell me what you really think?”
“Yes. Beth’s a complete shit.”
She laughed. “Besides that. Remember when Beth told me to ask Mel if Joe was going to a party, and I told Mel I thought Joe was hot and acted like I—?”
“Wanted to hook up with him?”
Caro nodded. “Right. Beth did all that for a reason.”
“Because she wanted Mel to think you liked Joe instead of him.”
“Yeah, but here’s the thing. I never told Beth what happened with Mel. I didn’t tell anyone because it was so humiliating. So Beth never knew I liked Mel, which means—”
“Crap,” I said. “It means Mel remembers what happened at the party—and told Beth about it. Why would he do that?”
239
“I don’t know. But I guess when he and I talked in English and stuff, it was just talking. I guess he’s always liked Beth.”
I shook my head. “I don’t think so. That one time he asked me to go to the movies with him, I could tell he liked you.”
“Well, it doesn’t really matter now,” she said. “And, okay, what exactly was that movie thing about? Not that you aren’t—I mean, it was just—”
“Very random?”
“Yeah.”
I shrugged. I knew why Mel had asked me to the movies. He’d done it for Patrick, just like he’d asked me all those questions. No wonder he’d never looked interested in my answers. “I think your hair’s done.”
Caro looked at me, and for a second I thought she was going to say something. That maybe she had an idea of what had happened with me and Patrick.
But she didn’t say anything, and we just rinsed her hair out.
“It looks good,” I told her when it was done.
“Thanks,” she said, and I made a face at her.
“No, for real,” she said. “Thank you.”
240
I knew what she meant. She was thanking me for being there, for listening.
“It’s not a big deal,” I said, but it kind of was to me.
For me. No one has said thank you to me for real in a long, long time.
241
152 days
J—
There’s some other stuff I need to tell you, okay?
Caro and I are still talking. I’ve even gone to her house a couple of times. Don’t get me wrong—it’s not like I tell her stuff or anything like that. I know she’s Corn Syrup, who trails Beth around school like a whipped loser. But she makes fun of herself for it, and . . . I don’t know. She’s not that bad.
God, this—just doing this, just writing to you—it’s hard. I’ve never been nervous talking to you before, but I am now. I’ve wanted to tell you everything, but I would look at this notebook and think of what I said to you before and hate myself.
Talking to you used to be so easy and now . . . now I don’t know. I don’t know anything.
242
I wish I wasn’t so angry. I wish I was a stronger person, a better one.
Mom and I talked the day after . . . after Patrick.
She picked me up from school and drove me home.