Sloppy Firsts_ A Jessica Darling Novel - Megan McCafferty [89]
"I love Bethany, you know that. But she is so used to getting her way that it has made her a very spoiled, selfish person. And I’m partly to blame for that," she said. "Sooner or later, that’s going to catch up with her, though."
This all sounded very familiar, like dialogue straight out of the touching Parent-Bonds-with-Misunderstood-Teen scenes in my favorite flicks. Normally, a revelation like that would make me crack up. Or cringe. Or cry. Why? Because it proves that I’m just a cliché, and not the complex iconoclast I (deep down) like to think I am. But at that moment, I didn’t give a damn that my mom was being totally corny, and that I was being corny by association. She made me feel better.
When we got home, I decided to show Mom my editorials. If she really wanted to know what went on inside her second daughter’s head, so be it.
"You write for the school paper?"
"Yeah," I said. "It’s no big deal."
"Why didn’t you tell me?"
"Like I said, because it’s no big deal."
She put on her reading glasses and opened up The Seagull’s Voice. I had to leave the room because I couldn’t handle watching her reaction.
About ten minutes later, I heard a knock on my bedroom door.
"Boy," she said. "You are your father’s daughter."
That was not the reaction I’d expected at all.
"Me and Dad? No way."
She sighed and sat next to me on the bed. "You’re both perfectionists. You’re both hardheaded. You both have trouble dealing with people. You both get depressed when things don’t go your way. You both think too much. You both keep your feelings inside, then explode at inopportune moments," she said, tracing the triangles in the quilt with her shiny fingernail.
"If we’re so alike, how come the only thing we can talk about is running? Otherwise we don’t talk at all."
"It’s the one thing he feels he has in common with you," she said. "It’s his way of trying to connect with you."
"But he puts so much pressure on me! I start to hate him and the sport, and I don’t want to do it anymore."
"I know," she said. "Just try to remember that every time he talks to you about running, it’s because he loves you, not because he lives to torture you."
Deep down, I already knew that. But that’s so much easier said than done.
"Thank you for showing me your editorials," she said, getting up to go. "That’s the best birthday present I’ve ever gotten."
the twenty-sixth
Hope called tonight, gasping, choking, sobbing.
Heath would have turned twenty today.
The most upsetting thing about it was that she’d been so caught up in the minutiae of private-school life that she forgot her brother’s birthday until her parents called to ask her how she was coping on this sad occasion.
"How could I let my life go on so easily?" she asked me. "How could I?"
I was silently asking myself the same thing. How could I?
Yes. How could I talk to Marcus, someone indirectly responsible for the death of my best friend’s brother, someone so indifferent about it that he’s never once brought it up? Never once apologized or expressed any grief or regret or anything.
And to think I almost caved in and called him last night.
How could I?
the thirtieth
So I haven’t heard from you in a week. What’s up?"
Marcus had tapped me on the shoulder before History class. He had fresh, faint Mia lipstick smears on his neck, right above his shirt collar. Brownish enough to blend in with his still-tanned skin, but clearly visible.
"Nothing’s up. I just haven’t called. That’s all."
Truth was, I had wanted to lift my moratorium on Marcus before it even began. But the guilt of our midnight phone calls ultimately won out over the need for sleep. Plus, I just couldn’t handle getting the details on the homecoming dance. I was starting to feel like half of his perfect woman. Mia was the body. I was the brains. And when I saw him and Mia together, they reminded me of the Twin Towers. I was any anonymous curb.
"Oh," he said. "So does this mean that you want me to call you?"
Did I want him to call me? Did I want him to call me?
Yes. No. Yes?
"Don’t answer that,"