My phone alerts me to a text, and I pause, make her wait, and read the message.
It’s Sandy from your NYE party. My friend gave me your number. I wanted to see if you wanted to get together sometime. Maybe grab a bite to eat?
I reply: Tonight? What are you craving?
I hope it’s cock because it’s been a long time since I’ve been with Laney, and I haven’t been with anyone since. It would feel like eating a frozen meal after a gourmet steak.
She writes back: Pizza.
Fuck irony in the ass.
“Lucas?” Laney’s standing now, watching me from above, her eyes squinted because her stupid purple glasses are too weak to make her see clearly. Or maybe she’s too weak. Maybe Cooper’s fucked with her head so much she can’t even see straight.
I ask, “What are you doing here?”
“I was waiting for you,” she says. She shuffles on her feet, and I get it because I felt the same way in her room. She doesn’t know if she belongs here and the truth is, maybe she doesn’t. I don’t want her on my steps, near my house, near me. I’m blocked, remember? But by the time I make my way up each step (twelve), she’s looking at me with those eyes, and swear it, those eyes hold a secret power that can bring me to my knees. “Are you busy tonight?” she asks, and she’s looking at my phone like she knows all my secrets. She does.
I want to tell her that I have a date with a girl I fucked on New Year’s Eve, but I can’t lie to her. Not when she has those eyes. “I can cancel.”
“Feel like hanging out?” she asks. “Like old times.”
Old times is a phrase that shouldn’t exist in an eighteen year old’s vocabulary because we haven’t lived enough to have “old times.” I tell her that as I open the door, and she laughs. Her laugh to my ears is what money is to the Kennedys—a tool used to manipulate reality. I know this. I feel this. But I’m as weak as her vision, and I concede, keep the door open for her to enter.
I shoot off a text to Sandy: Something came up. Sorry.
Lane’s already in my kitchen washing the dishes piled high in the sink, like old times.
Small talk shouldn’t seem like small talk when you’re with a friend. It should just be conversation, but my mind is buzzing, trying to come up with “small talk” and there are birds outside and they’re loud, too loud, and I can’t think. She finishes the dishes, turns to me. She’s wearing clothes that actually fit her, a little too well, skinny jeans and a loose (but not baggy) sweater, and I ask, “What happened to your other glasses?”
She shrugs. “It was time for a new pair.”
Why is she lying to me? “They look like the same pair you had a few years ago.”
Her eyes widen, her cheeks redden. Deer meet headlights. “They are. I mean, the same frames, not the lenses, though.”
I press my lips tight and make a show of looking anywhere but at her because it’s awkward as fuck and seriously, small talk can blow me.
She’s going through the kitchen cabinets, and I don’t know what she’s looking for. If it’s the good old days, she can forget it. She won’t find them here. She pulls out a bag of Doritos and salsa and goes to the fridge for the cheese. She’s making nachos because she’s desperate to find the old times, and I’m desperate to know what the hell she’s doing here. “How are things, like, with your brothers and stuff?” Lane asks. “How’s it all going?”
I don’t respond.
“My dad said that Logan got a slap on the wrist…?”
“Yeah. We’re lucky, your dad’s girlfriend vouched for him.”
She faces me, her lips curved. “Misty’s good like that,” she says.
Okay, so maybe her being here isn’t so much awkward as it is terrifying. She wants to go back to the way things were, and yeah, I want that, too. A little too much. But she has the power to take it away, to block me, and then what? What happens to me, Laney?
It takes two minutes for her to make the nachos and bring the bowl over to the couch along with two glasses of water. We sit on the couch, share the nachos (fuck yeah, nachos!), and she says, “I was thinking about the twins.”
“Oh yeah?”
“It’s because people are jealous. That’s why they bully them the way they do.”
“You think?”
She nods. “Think about it. I can’t ever recall them picking up a sport or an activity and not being great at it. And they’re great because they always have someone to practice with or compete against. Kids can be bitter and vindictive little assholes.” There’s a hint of anger in her tone, and it makes me smile. “You like this batch?” she asks, pointing to the bowl of nachos.
“They’re good.”
“Good is the enemy of great, Lucas,” she sings.
I give her a cheesy grin. “They’re great!”
She laughs, and my reality shifts, just an inch. And just like that, small talk turns to conversation. We finish the nachos, and she sets the bowl on the coffee table and sits sideways on the couch, her legs up, knees bent, toes poking my leg. “So, I have some news.”
I take her feet, settle them on my lap and turn to her, my arm resting on the top of the couch. Old times is good times. Great times. “What’s your news?”
“There’s a slight chance I’ll still be able to go to UNC.”
My heart races. “How? Did your mom—”
“No!” She shakes her head and scoffs. “Fuck that bitch.” I’ll give Cooper this—he’s boosted Lane’s confidence because before him, she’d never say anything like that. She’d make bullshit excuses for her mom until one day she started to believe them.
“So what happened?” I ask.
She sits higher, shoulders straight. Then she goes on to tell me about Cooper’s mom’s friend who’s the dean of admission at UNC and how they had a meeting over winter break and now she’s looking into a bunch of scholarships. “It probably won’t happen this year. I might have to take a year off or go to community college for the first year, but she thinks it’s very doable,” Lane says, her eyes bright.
“But if you skip a year, that means that you’re going to miss Cooper’s senior year.”
She looks at me like I’m stupid. “I’m no Felicity and Cooper is definitely no Ben Covington.”
I blink.
She giggles. “Never mind. The point is that Sue—”
“The dean of admissions?”
“Yeah. She says that to heighten my chances I need to add more school activities—show school spirit and all that, and I’ve literally done nothing so I’m trying to cram it all into one semester and so I signed up for the spring play.”
“You?” I ask, incredulous. “On stage?”
“God no.” She nudges my leg with her heel. “I’m designing and making the costumes.”
“That’s good,” I tell her.
“Good or great?”
“Great, Lane. It’s great.”
“And we have someone to design the sets but…”
Uh oh. “But what?”
Her words are rushed as if she already knows my answer. “We don’t have anyone to build them, and I know you can do it, Luke, it—”
“No!”
“But you’d be so great at it.”
I sigh, knowing I’m about to disappoint her. “Lane, we’re three days into the semester, and it’s senior year, and I have track meets and practice and—”
“And it’ll be the last thing we get to do together,” she says, and I’m listening again.
“How much time and how closely do we,”—I point between us—“work together?”
“Is that a yes?”
Those goddamn eyes.
She practically leaps into my arms and onto my lap and she doesn’t need a verbal response because she knows me. “This is going to be great, Luke. You’ll see!”
She has dinner with my family—old times—and Dad forces her to spend the night because Brian’s still in Savannah with Misty, and Dad doesn’t like the idea of her being in her house alone.
I didn’t know she was alone, or I’d have offered her my bed. I would’ve even gone as far as not sleeping in it with her. She agrees, eagerly. At 7:00, I do my one minute with Lachlan and head back to the apartment where she’s waiting for me. I sit on the floor between the couch and the coffee table and do my homework while she sprawls out on the couch and watches a movie. At 10:30, she’s fast asleep. At 10:48, I stop watching her sleep and get a blanket to cover her. Then I go to my room and send my sister a text:
Lucas: Do you know what a Felicity and a Ben are?
Lucy: OMGOMGOMGOMG. YES!!!! Why?
Lucas: Who are they?
Lucy: Who are they to YOU?!
Lucas: Laney and I were talking about UNC, and she said she was no Felicity and Cooper was no Ben.
Lucy: Well, duh. Cooper is more like her Noel (but an asshole version of him) or maybe even that artsy guy she had that fling with. Dude! YOU are her Ben Covington. Seriously.
Lucas: I’m so fucking lost.
Lucy: There’s this amazing thing called Google. Use it.
Lucy: PS - If Cooper isn’t her Ben, it’s a good thing, bro.
At 2 am and after numerous Google searches that would make any hacker assume I’m a (female) mildly obsessed, romance-drama circa late ‘90s TV junkie, I find out that Ben Covington was kind of a dick (me), but he loved Felicity (Lane), he just didn’t know what to do with that love (Me! Me! Me!)
Chapter Twenty-Two
LUCAS
The day after Laney’s visit, I tell Dad about the spring play and about not really having time for it but agreeing only because it meant spending time with Laney. “It’s like I’m a dog, and she’s just thrown me a bone,” I tell him.
He says, “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” Which is completely irrelevant, as are his next eleventy-three life-lesson analogies all related to dogs. Then he goes on to tell me about Rusty, the German Shepard he had growing up. When he’s done, I just stare at him. “Sorry,” he says, “Kind of went off on a tangent there, huh?”
“Just a tad.”
“So what are you going to do?” he asks.
I rub the back of my neck, already feeling the stress from the added workload that hasn’t even started yet.
“I have an idea,” he tells me. “It’ll be good. Trust me.”
His idea isn’t just good. It’s great. Brilliant, even.
He makes my brothers do it, too. School spirit and all. (Rah rah rah!)
I do my part, get Dumb Name in on it, too. “Just think of the girls, Garray. They change into costumes right there in the open. Some even show their tits!” They don’t.
Leo’s up for it because Angela, a sophomore and his current conquest, got the lead.
And Logan… Well, he has no fucking choice. Dad still has him on probation for his joyous time with a joint.
It’s been three weeks now and Garray, Leo and I have found a rhythm and we work well together. Logan’s fucking useless until you get a paintbrush in his hand and give him direct instructions.
“Logan, do something, bruh!” Garray says. He spent the winter break visiting his grandparents in California, and now he calls everyone “bruh.” It’s so fucking cringeworthy, but you can’t tell him that.
I give Logan a brush, tell him to paint the particle board I just cut to size the reddest red he can find. He does it, no questions. But he chuckles, mumbles to himself the entire time. “Dude,” he tells me. “This is so fucking therapeutic and shit.” … Okay?
The next day, I have a conversation with Coach Anderman about Logan, and he gives me a cup. “Tell him to piss in it and bring it back to me. I’ll take care of it.”
I make Logan piss in the cup.
It comes back positive for marijuana.
“It’s so fucking therapeutic and shit, bruh,” Garray mocks when I tell Logan the results. Logan throws a swing at him. Garray ducks it. Leo laughs. I sigh.
The truth is, I don’t really care if Logan smokes weed. I personally don’t do it because being clean is a requirement to be on the track team, and track is my ticket to UNC. As long as he’s not breaking the rules at home and burning down the house, it doesn’t bother me. It bothers Dad, though, and his reasoning is justifiable. Dad had been on the wrong end of addiction with alcohol when Mom passed away, and so he thinks it might run in the family. Addiction is scary because it’s unsteady, uncontrollable, and has the potential to damage everything in its path. I tell Lane all this while she sketches out a costume for Juliet (our school is big on Shakespeare) as we sit outside for lunch. “You know what you should do?” she says, looking up at me, her eyes bright against the spring sun. “Come over for dinner tonight. Misty’s cooking. Talk to her about it. She might know a way to help.” She looks back down at her sketchpad and smiles at her work and I stare and I stare and I wonder if maybe Logan’s good, great even, and I’m the one who needs help because I’m addicted to you, Laney.
I go to dinner and Misty says she’ll drag Logan’s ass down to one of the volunteer counseling sessions she does for drug addiction, and the people there will scare the weed right out of his system. She’s also going to talk to my dad, ask permission to collect a sample of Logan’s piss every day for twenty-one days.
Dad agrees.
Logan gets so mad.
By the final day, his urine is crystal clean.
Yay, teamwork!
Between building shit for the set, track meets, training, family, I barely have time to breathe, but you know what? Laney was right. I am great at it, and Laney and I do get to spend a lot of time together.
Old times have become now times and small talk is purely conversation. Even when it comes to Cooper. “You heading to UNC this weekend or is Cooper coming home?” I ask, sitting opposite her, our legs crossed, making flowers out of tissue paper and wire. Hers look like they belong in a museum. Mine look like dog shit. Meanwhile, Leo, Logan and Garray attempt to piece together the set for the infamous balcony scene.
“I’m not sure,” she mumbles, looking at the time.
I look at the time, too. It’s 4:48 on a Thursday afternoon and my crew, she, and I are the only ones left in the drama room. Miss Lepsitch, the drama teacher, should be here, too. But she’s probably sucking face with Coach Anderman in a broom closet somewhere. “Are you waiting for him to call?” I push.
She shrugs, focuses on the flower that’s already done. She doesn’t really talk much about him anymore, at least not to me, and whether that’s a conscious decision she’s made or the hype of him has worn off, I’m not sure.
“You guys are still together, right?” I try, digging for more information.
“Yeah,” she says quickly. “We’re still together. It’s just hard… you know…” She glances up at me, searches for a reaction. She won’t see anything. No anger. No spite. Hell, it took Ben and Felicity what literally felt like an eternity to finally get their shit together. Four seasons and one abrupt ending and I still don’t have closure. But I did learn that my best tactic was to wait. And so waiting is what I’m doing. Plus, my mom was a big believer in fate. If it was meant to be, it would happen. Eventually.
“Are you missing him?” I ask.
She clears her throat, looks up at me, her eyes glazed.
Shit. “Did I say something?”
Her head moves, side to side, slowly, slowly. “There’s so much I want to tell you,” she breathes. “But it’s…”
I shuffle closer, place my hands on her knees. “It’s what, Lane?”
Her throat bobs with her swallow and she looks away. “It’s…”
I hear footsteps approaching, but I’m too focused, too addicted to turn to the sound. “Lane?” I push, squeezing her knees.
“Lois?” Fuck you, Cooper Kennedy.
Her eyes are huge, her breath caught in her throat while Cooper stands above me like an angry giant, clenching and unclenching his fists. “Get your hands off my girlfriend, Preston.”
Laney pushes my hands away. “I didn’t know?
?? you didn’t say…” She stumbles to her feet and stands between Cooper and me, her hands on his chest, protecting me. “Let’s go, Coop.”
I don’t need her fucking protection and I stand, my chest out, shoulders square and look down on him. “We’re just friends, asshole!”
“You touch all your friends like that?” he spits, his words echoing through the room.
The guys hear his bullshit and come running. Leo gets between us. “Leave it alone, man,” he says to me, his tone calm. He should be Leonardo, the ninja turtle. The smart, tranquil, leader of the brotherhood.
“What the fuck’s going on?” Garray snaps.
Lane tugs on Cooper’s arm, forcing him toward the door. They’re almost out when Logan shouts, his hands cupped around his mouth, “Pedophile alert!”
I wait three hours and forty-six minutes to text Lane from Leo’s phone.
Leo: I’m sorry about what Logan said. He was out of line. Are we still on to finish up the set tomorrow afternoon? -CK
That’s what our friendship has become, sneaking in text messages and signing off in code (CK = Clark Kent) to settle her boyfriend’s jealousy and keep the peace with them.
It takes her nine minutes to respond.
Lane: It’s okay. It’s not your fault. It’s mine. I shouldn’t have let Lucas touch me like that. I know that now. I’ll see you tomorrow at 3 pm. Great job, today! Thanks for everything, Leo.
I give Leo back his phone and don’t bother with a reply, because what the fuck, Lane?
She doesn’t show the next day.
She doesn’t call, doesn’t text, doesn’t email.
She’s not at school Monday, so I make contact with her.
Leo: You sick or something? Need me to come around? - CK.
Lane: No.
Lane: I’m not home.
Lane: I won’t be at school for a couple of days, but I’m okay. Thanks for checking in, Leo.