“I can’t,” she said. “Amy and I can only stay for a few minutes.”
“Oh,” Mel said, and looked at me. “I didn’t know you were coming.”
Classy. “Nice to see you too.”
“That’s not what I meant. Sorry.” He ran a hand through his hair, looked out at everyone carefully pretending they weren’t watching, and then looked back at Caro. “Just a few minutes. Please.”
“Are you feeling okay? Do we need to go?”
I looked at Caro and realized she was talking to me. I realized she was going to tell Mel she couldn’t talk and that we had to go. Not because she didn’t want to talk to him, but because she’d realized I was freaked out and was willing to leave so I could get out of there.
I know she was terrified of running into Beth too. But she did mean it because when I said, “No, go talk to him,” she shook her head and whispered, “I’m sorry. I should have realized—this must be so hard for you.”
“Go,” I said, and plastered what I hoped was a smile on my face.
“Ten minutes,” Caro said, and then she and Mel disappeared into the crowd. I forced myself to look around even though my hands were shaking. Even though all of me was shaking.
This was what I saw:
People were dancing. People were making out. People were drinking. People were talking.
That was it. That’s all there was to see.
Just people having fun, and I knew it was stupid to worry about being there. It was stupid to be scared.
But I was scared. I wanted to get out of there.
But more than that, I wanted a drink.
And since I was at a party, I knew I could get one. There was a keg and a bunch of bottles on a makeshift bar not too far away, in the corner of the room. Twenty steps, maybe. All I had to do was walk over there.
I couldn’t.
I couldn’t because if the people were less lame and the music was louder and the room a little darker, I could have been at the last party I went to. I could have been with Julia.
I walked away, tottering in my flat-soled sneakers like they were a pair of those monster shoes Julia would strap herself into, the ones with the stacked heels that made me so tall I smacked my head into her bedroom door the time she dared me to try them on.
I walked away, but I didn’t leave. I wanted that drink, I wanted to forget, and I’d been to enough parties to know where to look for the parental liquor stash, for those bottles that had been hidden because they’re the ones that are monitored.
Even wobbling and sweating, J’s face at that last party all I could see, I found it in less than five minutes. Mel’s parents had a very nice liquor cabinet, with a tricky lock, but when I got it open it was empty.
Mel might have been dating Beth, but he’s still pretty smart.
I could have left then. Probably should have. But I knew where to look next, though, and headed upstairs, pretended not to see the bedrooms with their closed doors, pretended J’s face wasn’t all around me, and went straight for the bathroom.
I found the liquor cabinet stash and a set of monogrammed glasses in the bathroom hamper, under a pile of dirty and wet towels. There was scotch, bourbon, and a nice bottle of vodka, the kind that’s good enough to come in glass, not plastic.
My hands were shaking when I opened the vodka, but not because I was scared. No, I wasn’t scared anymore. I wanted a drink, I wanted that escape from my thoughts. From everything. God, I wanted it.
I poured myself a cup and then put the bottles back, my sweet little secret.
I was never labeled an alcoholic. Not even at Pinewood. Why? Because I didn’t drink all the time. I drank too much, too often, but I didn’t drink every day. I could stop, and had.
Binge drinking, I was told over and over again. It’s dangerous, but common in teenagers, especially girls. What I did wasn’t a sickness, wasn’t a disease, and one day, when I was of legal age and much more sound mind, I would be able to drink normally. I think hearing that was supposed to make me feel better.
It’s bullshit. It’s so easy to label people, to look at a list of symptoms and say, “This is who you are. This is what you are.” Everyone—teachers, J’s mother, even people at school—they did that to Julia. She lived life fast and loud and fun. She didn’t listen when people who were used to being listened to talked. She had sex. She took drugs. Sometimes she drank. Checklist marked, she was trouble.
Except she wasn’t. She had a huge laugh, an even larger heart, and just needed to live in a world where it was okay to be under eighteen and have a mind of your own.
I will never be able to drink normally. I don’t want to. When I think about drinking, it’s release from myself I crave. I don’t need to drink to get through the day, to smooth over problems, or because I want the drink itself.
I want to drink because I don’t want to be who I am. My problem, my disease, is myself, and I stopped drinking because Julia was dead and I wanted to feel exactly who I am. I wanted to remember what I did.
I knew I should put the drink down. Thanks to Pinewood and Laurie, I knew I was supposed to stop and think about what led me here. That I needed to think about what trying to outrun myself gave me. What it had cost.
I knew I should put the drink down because of Julia. Because she was gone, and even if I hadn’t made it happen, even if driving was her choice, I was still living with mine.
I didn’t put it down. I drank. I didn’t even notice the taste of the vodka. I didn’t care about it. I never have.
I drank, feeling that familiar heat on my tongue, in my throat, warming my stomach, a sign that soon I’d stop feeling so small, so stupid, so me. I drank and then walked back toward the stairs, ready to face the party. I knew it wasn’t a big deal. I knew it because I could walk back upstairs whenever I wanted and fill the glass I held over and over again.
Patrick was sitting at the top of the stairs. He was looking down at the party through the railing, watching everyone below us. I knew the look on his face. The “why” look: Why can’t I have fun like they are? Why can’t I just be normal? Why am I here?
When he turned and looked at me I froze. There he was, right in front of me, and everything—that night in the basement, all the things he’d said to me, that afternoon in his room—came rushing in all at once, filling my head.
I tightened my grip on the glass. I saw him see it. Saw him look at it, then me.
I was able to move then. I lifted the glass for another sip.
He didn’t say anything. I didn’t say anything. I drank.
He watched me. I closed my eyes so I didn’t have to see him. When I opened them, my mouth and throat on fire, my closed eyes stinging, he spoke.
“Can I have some?”
I stared at him. Fifteen days and what he said, it wasn’t—it wasn’t what I expected him to say. But then, he never said what I thought he would.
The thing is, deep down in a part of me I wish I didn’t have, a strange stupid soft spot full of hopes I try so hard to pretend away, I’d thought maybe he’d say something else. That maybe he could be someone to me. That I could be someone to him.
Deep down I thought I created the same spark in him that he did in me.
I held the glass out to him. He took it, careful not to let our hands touch. I wish I hadn’t noticed that, but I did and it stung.
He closed his eyes when he drank too.
“God, that tastes like shit,” he said when he was done. “Are you sure you want it back?”
I didn’t say a word, just held out one hand for the glass. He didn’t give it to me, but that was okay. I was going to take it and march back to the bathroom for a refill—no, the whole bottle. I was going to take it and then ignore Patrick like he was a bad dream, go down to the party and…nothing.
I didn’t want to go to the party. There was nowhere I wanted to go. No one I wanted to see. My hands were shaking again.
“Give me the glass,” I said.
He closed both ha
nds around it. “Remember when I told you I once talked to Julia? I talked to her about you. It was last spring, the Monday after—after that party in Millertown. I went up to her right before third period. The halls were so crowded. I can still see it, all those people, but I went up to her and I told her—”
If I’d still been holding the glass, I would have dropped it then. He’d talked to Julia, and she’d never told me. I couldn’t believe it.
“She never said anything. You told her about what we…you told her what happened?”
He shook his head. “I told her I’d talked to you at the party. That I…that I liked you. I thought maybe she’d help me talk to you. That night, you—you just disappeared. I even went into the party looking for you, but you were gone. When we…when we were in the basement, it was the only time in I don’t know how long that I hadn’t thought about how screwed up I am. But when I was done talking she—”
I could guess what happened then. Julia hated third period because she hated history, and anyone who tried to talk to her beforehand usually got their ass handed to them. I met her at her locker before and after every class except that one.
“She didn’t say anything, just slammed her locker shut and walked off, right?”
“No,” he said. “She said, ‘She never said anything about you.’ And then she looked at me. It was just for a second, but she had the strangest look on her face. Then she slammed her locker shut and walked away.”
That’s when I knew I was an even worse friend to Julia than I thought I was. That I’d let her down before I made sure she saw Kevin cheat, before I took her hand and led her to her car. When he mentioned the look on her face.
Julia had asked about Patrick. The Monday after that party, we were walking down the hall after fourth period and she said, “Hey, did you meet some guy at the party?”
I’d glanced over at her, and she was looking at me. I couldn’t read the look on her face.
“No,” I said, freaked out by how hard my heart had started pounding from just the mention of that party. That night. “At least, no one worth mentioning.”
That look stayed on her face. I didn’t get it, but I knew I wanted that guy and that night and the way I’d felt—so unsafe, so raw—gone, so I said something I knew would grab J’s attention. “Hey, I think I see Kevin at the end of the hall.”
It worked, but that strange look on Julia’s face took a while to fade.
She was hurt. That’s what that look was. I’d promised to always tell her everything, the kind of promise little kids make and forget, but she didn’t. She needed it.
Julia needed to know there was one person who’d always listen to her. Who she could tell anything, and who’d tell her everything in return. I knew her so well. How could I not know what that look on her face meant?
Because I was afraid. Not of her, but of me. Of what I felt that night, of how for a moment I felt like myself in a way I hadn’t ever before.
I swallowed, my eyes stinging.
“She did talk to me about it,” I whispered. “She asked me about the party. About a guy. You. And I—I said there wasn’t anyone worth mentioning.”
“Oh,” he said, and took another sip, eyes closing once more.
When he was done, he looked down at the party and then held the glass out toward me. “I figured that. I mean, I knew what happened didn’t mean what I—I knew it wasn’t a big deal. It’s just that the other day, I thought that you—that we…” He shook his head. “Never mind.”
I stared at the glass. I stared at him. I wanted the glass but I wanted to touch him too. I wanted to touch him so bad it hurt. I didn’t want feelings like that. I’d never wanted them, but I hadn’t known—I hadn’t known how they really felt.
I’d never let myself know what it was like to want someone and know they want you too. It’s a terrible feeling, makes you open yourself up, expose all the soft places you wish you didn’t have.
It makes you hope.
“I lied,” I said. “I lied to Julia. I didn’t know what else to do because you—you make me feel…” I had to stop. Not because I didn’t have words. I did. But I was afraid to say them.
He looked at me, and I knew then I could love him. That if I let myself, I would.
“You make me feel too,” he said, and held out one hand. I looked at it. I looked at the glass in his other hand.
I reached out and closed my hand around the glass. It fit in my hand like it belonged there, and I knew if I drank from it I wouldn’t have to say another word.
January 20th
Dear Julia,
I know it’s been a while. I just…I had some things to work out. Things I had to do on my own. Things I had to do without you.
I put the glass down, J. I put it down and took Patrick’s hand. Are you surprised? I was. I didn’t think I could do things like that, take chances by myself, for myself. But I did. I did and I’m glad.
I don’t know where we’re going. Neither of us is very good at thinking about what might happen, about the “future.” We just focus on now and it’s enough, more than enough, because when he touches me I think of all those stupid love songs you used to sing and am glad I know the words. (Don’t tell anyone I told you that.)
Your mother moved away about a month ago. She sold your house. No one knows where she went. She called my parents right before she left. She asked to speak to me.
She wanted to know what you said after the crash. She wanted to know your last words. She said I owed her that. She said I owed you that. She was crying.
You never said anything. You were already gone by the time I opened my eyes.
I told her you asked for her. That day in the cemetery, she said she’d give anything to hear your voice one last time, and I wanted her to have that. I wanted her to know you loved her. She was silent for a moment, and then she hung up. I don’t know if she believed me or not.
Caro and I went to the mall today. We hang out a lot now. Mel asked her out the night of the party. He said he knew what Beth had told him was a lie, that he remembered the night Caro told him she liked him, and that he knew she meant it. He said he never meant to tell Beth about it, and was sorry he ever had. He said he wanted to be with her, not Beth.
She said no.
Beth found out everything, and didn’t care that Caro said no. She trashed her and Mel all over school. A week after the party, when we were sitting together in the student resource center avoiding lunch, I asked her what she was going to do about Mel, who’d been calling her.
“Nothing,” she said. “I liked him, and he knew it. He always knew it, he even said so—and he still chose to go out with Beth. He picked her, and even though he changed his mind, I want a guy who will pick me first. Mel can call all he wants, but I deserve better.”
“You do,” I told her, and I meant it. She’s not you, J, but she’s—she’s becoming a friend.
At the mall we looked for a gift for Jane. The wedding is in about a month, on Valentine’s Day. It’s so cheesy it’s sort of sweet. Caro says Jane’s fiancé’s cousin, who is in the wedding party, is flying in a few days early. He’s in his freshman year at Cornell, but they met at a shower a few weeks ago and have been talking ever since. She says he’s really nice.
I was asking her about him when we passed a girl with long, honey-colored hair. She was laughing loudly, freely. I stopped and stared. You know who I thought I saw. She smiled at me—it wasn’t your smile—and then turned away.
I hated you for dying. For leaving. I hated you so much. I hated you almost as much as I hated myself. But I can look in the mirror now and face what I see. I’m even happy now, sometimes, and I can think of you and smile.
I won’t lie and say everything’s changed, though. I’m not a better person, a stronger one. I’m still me and I know what I did. Yeah, I wasn’t driving the car, and I see the choices you made now. I even see that I can’t make them mine, but I’ll always remember making sure you saw Kevin.
I’
ll always remember taking your hand and telling you that everything would be okay.
Wherever I go, I’ll always see you. You’ll always be with me. And there’s no happy ending coming here, no way a story that started on a night that’s burned into my heart will end the way I wish it could. You’re really gone, no last words, and no matter how many letters I write to you, you’re never going to reply. You’re never going to say good-bye.
So I will.
Good-bye, Julia. Thank you for being my friend. Thank you for being you.
Love,
Amy
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks to Tara Weikum for believing in me and this book—and for her incredible heart and talent.
Thanks also to Katharine Beutner, Clara Jaeckel, Shana Jones, Jess Lewis-Turner, Amy Pascale, Donna Randa-Gomez, Nephele Tempest, and Janel Winter for their insightful comments and kindness.
Extra special thanks to Robin Rue for all her support.
About the Author
ELIZABETH SCOTT grew up in a town so small it didn’t even have a post office, though it did boast an impressive cattle population. She’s sold hardware and panty hose and had a memorable three-day stint in the dotcom industry, where she learned that she really didn’t want a career burning CDs. She lives just outside Washington, DC, with her husband; firmly believes you can never own too many books; and would love it if you visited her website, located at www.elizabethwrites.com.
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Also by Elizabeth Scott:
STEALING HEAVEN
Credits
Jacket art © 2009 by Gustavo Marx/MergeLeft Reps, Inc.
Jacket design by Ray Shappell
Copyright
LOVE YOU HATE YOU MISS YOU. Copyright © 2009 by Elizabeth Spencer. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.