“Hey,” he says, getting out of the car and walking up my driveway.
“Hey,” I say. The sun is completely over the horizon now, and it’s that perfect time of the morning, when it’s still sunny and bright, and you can almost trick yourself into thinking it’s going to warm up and be a nice day.
Cooper walks up onto the porch and kicks the toe of his shoe against the concrete.
“Oh my God,” I say. “What happened to your face?” Cooper has a reddish bruise under his eye, and it looks all shiny and a little bit swollen. I resist the urge to reach out and run my finger over it, to make sure he’s okay.
“Nothing,” he says. I give him a skeptical look, and he sighs. “Fine, Tyler found out I was the one who gave you our pledge book and let’s just say he wasn’t too pleased.”
“You guys got into a fight?” I ask.
“Not really,” he says. “It was more like a … a little scrape.” He looks away and I reach out and grab his chin, moving his face back so I can get a better look at the bruise. His skin feels warm and all scruffy under my fingers. “It’s fine,” he says. “The guys broke it up before it could really escalate.”
“Ouch,” I say. I pull my hand away from his face, and my fingers feel like they’re on fire. “I didn’t tell him. That you were the one who gave it to me.”
“I know,” he says. “I was there, remember?” But he doesn’t say it in a cocky way.
“So then how did he find out?”
“I told him.” He’s staring at me now, his eyes searching mine.
“Oh.” I swallow. “Are you … did you … Why did you tell him?”
“Because I didn’t want anything to do with them anymore,” he says. “After what they did to you tonight. The only reason I didn’t stop it before is because I knew they would have made it even worse for you.”
“Thanks,” I say truthfully. “You helped me a lot tonight.”
“You’re welcome,” he says. He starts to say something else, but I cut him off.
“I have to go in now,” I say.
“Oh,” he says. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah,” I say. I put my hand back on my key, which is still in the lock, and Cooper turns away and starts to walk down the driveway, and I think about how lucky I am that I didn’t have to tell him what I wrote about him in my notebook. And then my heart skips a beat. Because I wonder what would happen if I did tell him, if I stopped pretending that I didn’t care, if I just told him how I really felt.
“Hey,” I say, turning back around. “Why’d you do it?”
“Do what?” he asks.
“Ask me out,” I say. “Put my name on that list.”
“I don’t know,” he says, walking back toward the porch. “I didn’t … I didn’t want to. I just … I wasn’t looking at it the same way they were.”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“They thought it would be fun to mess with some girls, to get them to believe they were really interested in them… . And I …” he trails off and then shoves his hands into his pockets, looking down at the ground. When he looks back up at me, he says, “One time last year I saw you outside at lunch. You were reading something in your history book, and drinking a juice box, and you were wearing an iPod and a pink hoodie, and your lips were moving but no sound was coming out, and ever since then I wanted to talk to you.”
“If that’s true,” I say, “then why didn’t you?”
“Chicken,” he says. “I thought you were too smart for me.”
“You’re right,” I say. “I am too smart for you.”
He laughs. “Eliza,” he says, and takes a step closer. “I swear to God, I didn’t want to hurt you. After the first day, I completely forgot about the real reason I asked you out.”
“You could have told me,” I say.
“I know.” He’s really close now, and my heart is beating so fast and my stomach feels all crazy and wobbly. “I’m sorry.”
I take a deep breath and think about what I wrote about him in my notebook, about how badly he hurt me, about how much he made me cry. “You really, really hurt me,” I say. “I liked you so much, Cooper. I liked you so, so much.”
“I liked you, too, so, so much,” he says. “Can you … could you ever think about forgiving me?”
He’s so close now, and I can smell his laundry soap and the cologne I gave him and see where his sideburns fade into the sides of his face. His eyes are searching mine, and I open my mouth to say something, to give in, to tell him yes, not because I’m a sucker, but because I believe him, because he helped me tonight, because I think he’s telling the truth. But before I can say anything, his lips are on mine, and we’re kissing and it feels right and good and exactly the way things are supposed to be.
“You do know you’re in a lot of trouble with me,” I say, when we finally pull apart.
“I know,” he says into my hair.
“And you know that you’re going to have to spend days and days and months and months making it up to me before I forgive you?”
“I’ll do it,” he says. “I’ll watch hours and hours of cheesy eighties movies with you.”
“Do you promise?” I ask.
“Promise,” he says. And then he kisses me again.
Later, after I make Cooper leave (Um, hello! Yeah, I’m giving him another chance, but the boy has to grovel and work for my attention at least a little bit—plus, you know, I’m pretty exhausted) and we make plans to talk later that day, I head out onto the back deck with my notebook.
And I read the whole thing, cover to cover. My seventh-grade fears. My eighth-grade fears. Every single thing I’ve ever been afraid to do, right here in one book. I realize I did some of them tonight, and nothing horrible happened. I didn’t die. In fact, I learned a lot about myself and about the things I’m capable of doing. I realized that my friends are true. And that sometimes people make mistakes and deserve second chances.
I sit there on the lounge chair for a second after I’m done. The sun is completely up now, and the next door neighbors are in their driveway, getting ready to go to church. The birds are chirping, and the day’s getting warmer.
I pick up my notebook, and bring it over to the corner of our deck, where the fire pit is. Then I pick up the box of matches that we have out there, light one, and drop it onto the pages.
I wrap my arms around myself and watch for a few minutes, while everything I’m afraid of goes up in flames, turning into shades of red and orange and yellow and blue. I watch it for a long time, thinking about the night, about Cooper, about how everything can change so drastically in such a short period of time. My phone vibrates in my pocket, and I pull it out. One new text. “LOVE YOU TOO E,” it says. “TALK TMR XXXO, K.” I smile and slide the phone back into my pocket. And finally, when my notebook’s nothing but ashes, I put the fire out and head up to bed.
Inhoudsopgave
Cover Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Lauren Barnholdt, One Night That Changes Everything
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