My furrowed eyebrows rise as my eyes widen with the shocking confirmation that he knows.
Luke knows. For a moment, it’s almost a relief. I don’t have to work so hard. I don’t have to…
Wait, Luke knows?
Then, I realize. For four months now, the boy before me has been lying to me.
He’s as bad as my mother.
Is there anyone in my life who isn’t deceiving me?
The relief is gone; the anger is here. My shoulders fall and my arms draw close, as if to protect myself from the world. Blood rushes to my face and my ears pound. My heart races.
I find it difficult to speak. But finally I’m able.
“You knew?” I ask, boiling.
“Yes, London, I knew,” he says, smiling hesitantly, as if he doesn’t know whether he should.
The smile sends me over the edge. My hands tighten into fists, and I feel the urge to scream at the top of my lungs.
“For how long?” I hiss, putting a hand on the counter to steady myself. I think of the cards from my father. The betrayal from my mother. And now this.
“Since we were eleven,” Luke says matter-of-factly, fueling the fire that’s already raging in my veins.
“Luke, what the hell are you talking about?” I shout. I stare at him, feeling wronged. I want him to leave. But I want him to explain first.
“Okay,” he begins. “Do you remember…” He sweeps his hand over the pile of papers. “Do you remember me mentioning that I spent a few summers with my aunt and uncle?”
Glad that I took the time to study my notes today, I mutter, “Yes.”
“And do you also remember that you went to day camp at the YMCA when you were younger?”
“No.”
“Well, you did. And so did I. My aunt and uncle live here, London. Or at least my aunt does. They’re going through a divorce. One of the reasons we moved here was so my mom could be closer to her sister.”
I exhale loudly. I’m still gripping the counter with one hand; the fingernails on the other are about to draw blood from my palm. Jaw clenched, I imagine myself biting through my own molars. Luke reads my body language and gets the hint.
“All that’s beside the point,” he says. “The point is that we went to the same camp for a summer. We were friends. You were my only friend. And I’m pretty sure I was your only friend back then, too.”
Luke pauses to make sure that the information is settling in. I stare sharply at him, and he takes my silence as a cue to go on.
“None of the other kids gave me the time of day, because I didn’t live here. And of course, there was the dodgeball incident.”
I raise my eyebrows slightly without speaking a word. I am livid, but also curious.
Luke shrugs like it was no big deal. “We were all playing dodgeball and one of the bigger kids purposely hurled the ball at my face when the counselor wasn’t looking. My nose broke, but I have a high tolerance for pain, so I picked a fight with the kid and smiled as he pummeled me. I thought it would make me look cool. Instead, everyone thought I was a freak. Everyone except you.”
I roll my eyes at the compliment. I’m not giving in that easily.
“I noticed you the first day of camp. I watched you reading alone in the corner, keeping to yourself. I wanted to talk to you but I was chicken. And I seriously wanted to touch your hair back then, too. I wasn’t kidding about that earlier.”
Remembering our conversation on the rug, I experience a different kind of heat for an instant. Then I remember that, just like my mother, my boyfriend is a liar.
I cross my arms over my chest, and Luke anxiously clears his throat. I think he knows he’s about to get kicked out, so he races through the rest of the story.
“Anyway, you came up to me after the fight and helped me. You gave me your sweater to stop the bleeding. It was totally ruined. I thought it was poetic or something to give you my sweatshirt that day outside the gym,” he says as an aside, gesturing to the hoodie I’m wearing. “But of course, you didn’t get that,” he adds.
“I can’t help it!” I shout.
“I know,” Luke says. “I didn’t mean it like that.” He shifts and I check the clock. I hope with all my might that my mother doesn’t come home and interrupt our conversation.
“It’s almost ten,” Luke says.
“I can tell time,” I fire back at him.
“Do you want me to leave?”
“Yes,” I say harshly. “But finish first.”
“Okay, well, anyway, at camp, the day after the fight, I came up to you and said hello, and you didn’t remember who I was. At first, I was hurt. I thought you were pretending not to know me. Like you were too cool or something. But you were nice, and chatty. So, I thought you had amnesia or something. I asked you if there was something wrong with your brain. You said, ‘No, is there something wrong with yours?’ ”
One corner of Luke’s mouth turns up a little as he remembers the exchange. He waits a beat, and then continues.
“Anyway, I kept asking in different ways, and finally you pulled me to a corner and told me that you had a big secret. That you remembered the future but not the past. You made me swear not to tell anyone, and I never did.”
Luke pauses, and I stare at him silently. Realizing he’s not getting props for secret keeping, he goes on.
“So, every day, we’d meet each other again. We had a lot of the same conversations over and over. But we had a lot of new ones, too. Sometimes we’d sit in the bottom of one of those climbing things that looked like Swiss cheese, and try to figure out who the kids were by the shoes they had on. It was really fun. You were good at that game.”
I am taken aback by the realization that the “foot game” I’ll play forever came from my childhood relationship with Luke. I’m curious about that, but I hold back. Anger is easier right now.
Luke’s smiling wistfully, which makes me even madder. I roll my eyes and let out my breath, and he gets it. Nostalgia wiped clean from his face, he goes on. “When I moved here I thought maybe you’d remember me. But then, especially that night we fell asleep in the van… I knew for sure.”
There is a little tug on my heart when I hear the sadness in his voice. But I hold my ground.
“Is that it?”
“London, I’m really sorry for not telling you sooner,” he says, taking two slow steps toward me, like he’s approaching a wild animal.
Instinctively, I edge backward, away from the guy I couldn’t get close enough to minutes ago.
“You mean you’re sorry for lying,” I say harshly. “For betraying me. For taking advantage of my situation.”
“That’s a little extreme,” Luke says with a small laugh. “I mean, you’ve pretty much been lying to me, if you think about it.” He almost smirks now, which sends me into a tailspin.
“It’s not the same!” I shout at him. “You have no idea how it feels to completely forget every single day. I wake up not knowing what I wore to school the day before, let alone what stupid things I may have said or done. I remember things that no one—no one—should have to anticipate experiencing. Horrible things. Things that are going to happen to me…”
Tears are streaming down my face now. Luke takes another step toward me and I put up a hand to stop him. I keep ranting through the sobs.
“I’ve got enough going on, and now this. My best friend has gone off the deep end. My mom is lying to me, and apparently you’ve been lying, too.”
Something hits me and I interrupt myself.
“Wait, if I knew you, why didn’t my mom tell me that when she met you again? Or was that just another one of her lies? Were you in this together?”
Luke looks down and away. His cheeks flush.
“I never met her in person, and she wouldn’t know my name because I went by something else back then.”
“What?” I ask, curious despite my anger.
“L.J.” Luke says sheepishly. “I thought I was tough, and that all tough guys went by
their initials.” He takes another step.
“Stop,” I command, finding no amusement in Luke’s childish confession. “Whatever your name is or was, the point is that you lied. You could have pieced together some of my past for me. You could have actually helped me, Luke. Can’t you see that? But you didn’t. You willingly deceived me. I can’t believe you’d do that to me. To someone you supposedly love. To someone who thought she loved you.”
Luke’s face falls and he’s silent for a few seconds. Then he brushes away two tears that escape his blue eyes. He looks helpless, and part of me wants to hug him.
Instead, when I can control myself enough to speak again, I say, almost choking, “Just go.”
“London, I’m so sorry. I didn’t think it would upset you this much. I wasn’t trying to…” His voice fades and his head hangs for a moment. Then he looks up at me and our eyes hold steady. “I just didn’t want you to have to feel self-conscious around me.”
I shake my head and back out of the kitchen doorway so that he can leave. His shoulders are slumped as he walks by me on the way to the foyer.
From the kitchen, I hear him put on his shoes and then open and quietly close the front door behind him. I hear the van start and rev; when its gentle hum fades into the night, I crumble to the kitchen floor.
Despite it being after midnight, my hushed ringtone sounds from beneath the pillow for the third time in an hour. There are voice mails waiting to be deleted once I can touch my phone without accidentally answering his call.
It’s amazing how much stuff one can accumulate after dating someone only four months. A mini-mountain of notes and photos are piled high in the fancy hatbox from my closet. The hatbox is meant for mementos. Instead, it will be a time capsule never intended to see the light of day.
Girls the world over will be envious of my ability to dole out the perfect heaping of revenge to the boy who wronged me. Done crying now, I summon the ability that I and I alone seem to possess, and channel what surely would be Jamie’s sound advice were she here to give it.
“Forget him,” she’d say.
“Good plan,” I say aloud.
Sweeping away the sweetness and focusing on the bad, I smash the hatbox pile to make room for the last few items. Before closing the lid, I add the note scratched in barely dry ink, explaining what he did to deserve this fate should I uncover the box in the future.
The note for my mom is on the kitchen table: the one that summarizes the breakup and instructs her never to speak of Luke again.
The job is almost complete.
I delete the voice mails without listening to them and erase his number from my cell. When I’m positive that my mom is out cold, I sneak to the basement to hide my failed relationship among old kitchen appliances, boxes of notes from years gone by, and worn toys littering the junk closet beneath the stairs.
I don’t linger to consider the ramifications of erasing Luke from my thoughts. Instead, I switch off the basement lights, hurry back up the stairs, and scoot deep beneath the covers. I think of Luke until I fall asleep.
Sleep comes too quickly tonight.
28
A hand grips my left elbow just as I’m getting ready to retrieve my Anatomy book from the depths of my locker. The note said I didn’t finish my homework this weekend, so I need to do it in study hall.
I wince at the elbow grip, not because it’s rough but because my arm still hurts from when I managed to fall on it during first-period PE, playing volleyball, of all things. You don’t even move that much in volleyball, yet I dislodged a tiny piece of elbow bone. At least that’s what it feels like. It’s probably just another bruise.
“Ouch,” I say, spinning to face the grabber. I don’t know who I was expecting, but surely it wasn’t him.
The gorgeous boy drops his grip on my arm and recoils like he’s been burned. In his perfect blue eyes, I see confusion, anger, hurt, and even a touch of pleading. I don’t recognize him, but I wish I did.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” he says softly. His voice is smooth and oddly relaxing.
“Oh, no, it’s not your fault,” I say, rubbing my elbow. “I fell on it in gym class. I’m a bit of a klutz.”
The boy smiles a sad smile then, and a hint of a dimple appears on his right cheek. My stomach flips over, and suddenly I’m very aware of myself. I shift awkwardly from one foot to the other.
Realizing that I’m staring, I break my gaze and turn back to my locker to get the book I was after in the first place.
“Can I help you with something?” I ask, still facing the locker in an effort to appear nonchalant.
“I need to talk to you,” the boy says quietly.
I stuff the book, a notepad, and a spare pen from the top shelf into the oversized gray and white striped shoulder bag I found in the hall closet this morning, and slam the locker door shut. The hall is crowded now, and the girl with the locker next to mine exhales loudly as she tries to get to her own belongings. The boy is blocking her way.
“Oh, sorry,” he says to her when he realizes his blunder.
“Whatever.” She shoves her way past him.
The boy has moved to block my way now, and I begin to rethink my desire to remember him. There’s a slightly creepy sense of urgency about him.
“Are you okay?” I ask, wondering whether there’s something wrong with him. Is this kid going to freak out on me? Is that why I don’t remember him?
Gripping my bag like a security blanket, I take a step to the right to try to move around him, but he anticipates my move and blocks me again. He bends slightly and looks directly into my eyes before speaking.
“No, London, I’m not okay. We have one fight and that’s it? You won’t return my calls. You weren’t home yesterday when I came by. We need to talk about this.”
When he finishes, he straightens slightly but doesn’t stop with the eye contact. I don’t know what to do, so I opt for honesty.
“I’m really sorry, but I have no idea what you’re talking about. I don’t even know you.” I smile weakly as if to console a friend.
It’s like a lightbulb turns on in the boy’s head. He stands completely straight and his eyes narrow. He shakes his head and then looks at me with even more venom.
“Real mature, London. Thanks a lot,” the boy hisses. He turns and strides down the main hall in the direction I need to go.
The girl with the locker next to mine giggles as she passes; she’s heard the whole conversation. “I’ll take him if you don’t want him.”
I wait until there’s no sign of the boy before I weave my way to study hall. As I move, I review what happened and end up just as confused. I open the massive library doors and walk through the metal detectors, happy to have one whole class period to ponder the situation.
And, oh yeah, do my Anatomy homework.
But then, as I approach the bank of tables reserved for study hall, I realize my bad fortune.
The brooding boy sits alone at the only table with any free seats.
Of course he does.
Surprisingly, the gorgeous freak is otherwise engaged all period long, so I manage to finish my homework with time to spare. Even so, I can’t help but notice the huffs and snorts coming from the boy as he writes furiously in his notebook. Angry much?
Now, as I sit packed and ready to leave the moment the bell rings in forty-four… forty-three… forty-two seconds, the boy is still writing. I can’t help but watch the muscles on his toned left forearm flex as he moves the pen across the page. His worn T-shirt looks baby-soft and hangs perfectly across his shoulders and chest. I find myself wanting to touch the waved lock of hair that peeks out from behind his right ear….
“What?” the boy snaps as he looks right at me. Several other clock-watching students turn in our direction.
“Nothing,” I whisper, looking back to the industrial wall-mounted clock that tells me I’ll be free from this uncomfortable situation in twenty… nineteen… eighteen… seconds.
&nbs
p; I hear the boy rip the pages he’s been working on from his notebook, which strikes me as odd, since I’d think he’d want to keep them safe until class.
Finally, the bell rings, and I stand so quickly to leave that I practically knock my chair back.
“Wait,” he says in a softer tone. Instead of running, I turn to face him.
“Please read this,” he says, offering me what I realize now is a letter. It’s folded in half, with my name written on the outside.
“Okay,” I say as he brushes past me, leaving me confused and alone in a barren library with a warm and oddly familiar scent lingering behind him.
I skip the trip to my locker before math, opting instead to arrive early and see what on earth this boy could be so mad at me about.
Minutes later, I realize that being early was a good choice.
Dear London,
First off, let me just say that I love you. Keep that in mind as you read on….
My name is Luke Henry and I’ve been your boyfriend since I started at Meridan in October. You don’t remember me in your future for some reason we haven’t sorted out yet, but I’d like the chance to find out why.
You’re really mad at me right now, and rightly so. I never told you that we’d met, but we had. When we were younger, we went to camp together. I was fascinated by you and how, every day, you’d befriend me again even though you didn’t remember me from the day before. You were my first real crush, and now you’re my first real love.
After the Winter Formal on Saturday night, I found the notes that you used to remember me and I told you the truth. You were right when you said that I’d been lying to you for all this time. I’m so sorry, London, and all I want is the chance to redeem myself. I have no idea why I did it. Maybe I thought you’d think I was a stalker. Maybe I just wanted to see if you’d ever wake up and know who I was.
You didn’t.
But, London, we’re good together. I don’t want to lose you. I made a huge mistake, but I hope that you can consider forgiving me. Because like I said in the beginning, I love you, London Lane.