“Lacey and Noah are not together,” I say, my hands gripping the sides of the table.
“I should hope not,” she says. She leans closer to me and motions me forward. “I heard she has some kind of weird anxiety disorder, one that makes her keep wanting to sanitize her hands.”
“It’s not an anxiety disorder,” I say, rolling my eyes. Although, now that I think about it, it probably is. You don’t become convinced that you have every disease in the book without having some kind of anxiety disorder. But still. It’s the way Ava says it, like Lacey is totally crazy instead of just a little bit of a hypochondriac. So what if she sanitizes her hands? And so what if she’s always at the doctor? It doesn’t make her a bad person. It just makes her a little . . . different. Besides, Lacey’s getting a lot better. And Ava shouldn’t be so judgmental.
“Whatever.” Ava looks down at her salad and takes another dainty bite. “I’m just so glad that I’m back now, and that me and you are together. I missed you so much, I should never have gone away for the summer. I mean, Lulu was nice, but she wasn’t you. No one is you.”
“I missed you too,” I say. I take a sip of my soda, suddenly confused. This is what Ava does to me. One second I want to kill her, and the next second she’s being sweet and making me miss her.
“Now that I’m back, we’re going to get things normal again,” she says, her eyes all determined. “I’m going to find out whoever this slut is that Noah thinks he wants, and I’m going to have a talk with her. Noah and I are going to get back together, and then we’re going to find you someone, and then things will be great again.” She smiles.
“Sounds good,” I say weakly.
“What’s wrong with you?” she demands. “You’re acting weird.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Yes, you are.”
“I’m probably just tired,” I say. “I worked, like, fifty hours this week.”
“Ugh, you have to quit this ridiculous job.” She looks around the diner, like she can’t believe that anyone would voluntarily spend time here. Which makes sense. The diner is kind of gross. And hot. But let’s face it, this place kind of saved me this summer.
“I’m not quitting,” I say a little too quickly, panicked at the thought. If I quit, when would I see Noah?
“Yes, you are,” she says. “We can’t have a fabulous senior year if you’re at work all the time. Besides, you already got your car, and wasn’t that the point?”
“I’m not quitting my job,” I say. “I like it.”
Ava rolls her eyes. “Don’t be ridiculous,” she says. “You don’t like this job.”
“Yes, I do.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Yes, I do.” I pop another French fry into my mouth to keep myself from blowing up on her and saying something I shouldn’t. “You wouldn’t really know,” I finally say. “What I like and what I don’t. Because you weren’t here this summer.”
A look flashes across her face for a split second, like she can’t believe I brought up the fact that she took off and left me for the summer. But she doesn’t look guilty. It’s more like shock. Which makes sense, because I never really bring this stuff up with her, figuring it won’t do any good. Seeing things from other people’s points of view has never been one of Ava’s strengths.
“You only liked the job this summer because I wasn’t around,” she jokes, reaching over and taking one of my fries, probably as a gesture of apology since she’s suddenly so into eating only organic. “And now that I’m back, you won’t need to kill time here.”
“That’s true,” I say, before I realize I’m falling right back into our old pattern, where Ava makes me think that whatever it is she wants me to do is right, and I go along with it, because . . . I don’t know why. Because I don’t trust myself to know what I want? It’s like that night I made out with Jonah Mancuso. I didn’t really want to do it, but Ava said it was a good idea. So I did. And now it’s the same thing. She’s trying to get me to quit my job, which I don’t want to do, but she’s making it seem like it’s the best choice.
“And seriously, you probably only liked this job because you were trying to get over Sebastian,” she says. “You were trying to bury yourself in your work. Only usually when people do that, they’re, like, high-powered lawyers or something, not waitresses.” She laughs, but I don’t.
I just take another fry and eat it.
“We should do something fun tonight,” she tries. “We could go to Cure. Noah could probably get us in.”
I stare at her. “But you and Noah broke up,” I say. Has she forgotten the last few minutes, the last hour? Is she crazy?
“Yeah, but we’ll be back together by the end of the day.” She says it with such certainty that, suddenly, my blood is boiling. It’s like a switch—one second I’m on a low simmer and the next I’m at a full-blown boil, like one of those stoves that can boil water in thirty seconds.
“No you won’t,” I say quietly. And it’s not even that I believe it, even though I do. And it’s not that I feel the way I did a few minutes ago, and think I need to tell her what happened because she’s my best friend. It’s that I want to hurt her, to let her know that she can’t just come back here and pretend like everything is the same. She left us this summer, she pushed me to do what I did last night, and she’s the one who should be feeling horrible about herself.
“Yes, we will,” Ava says confidently. But there must be something in the way I’m looking at her that makes her nervous. Because she looks at me and asks haltingly, “Why wouldn’t we be?”
“Because,” I say, relishing it. “Noah did meet someone over the summer. And that someone was me.”
The Summer
Sebastian’s wearing a pair of jeans and a T-shirt that looks soft and worn from being washed so many times. And even though I just said that I was over him, that it was the first day in a long time I hadn’t thought about him, when I see him here, so close, my heart catches in my throat, and suddenly, I feel like I can’t breathe.
“Um, yeah,” I say. “We can talk, just . . . wait for me by the door, okay?”
He nods, and then heads back toward Cooley’s. I watch him go, his strides long and easy, and I remember how I would see him coming from down the hall, down the street, from far away, wherever, and I could recognize him just from his walk.
Noah leans down in the driver’s seat and looks out the passenger-side window, watching as Sebastian walks away. “You okay?” he asks.
“Yeah,” I lie. “I’m fine.” A rush of emotions are pulsing through my body, and suddenly I’m back at Jenna’s party, remembering what it felt like that night when I was standing there by the pool in my bikini with my clothes in my hand, watching Sebastian kiss another girl.
“You sure?” Noah asks. He reaches over and squeezes my hand, and another pulse of electricity goes through me. I pull my hand back like it’s on fire. What the hell is wrong with me? How can I be getting all crazy thinking about Sebastian kissing another girl one minute, and then freaking out when Noah takes my hand the next?
“Yes,” I say. “I’m okay. I . . . I better go talk to him.” I open the door to the car and walk right past Sebastian into the diner. He follows me, like I knew he would, and Noah stays in his car, I guess to give us some time alone. Lacey must be here, but she’s probably in the back cooler getting stuff ready or outside talking on her phone, which she does a lot in the morning, especially if she’s trying to arrange an appointment with a specialist.
“Hannah,” Sebastian says.
I whirl around. “Do you want a table?” I ask, suddenly not really in the mood to hear his bullshit. “Because we don’t really open for another fifteen minutes, so technically you should probably be waiting outside.”
“No,” he says, shuffling his feet on the floor. “I don’t want a table. I came here to talk to you.” His eyes seem sincere, but I’m too smart for that.
“Why?” I ask. My voice is somehow strong, which surprise
s me since my whole body feels like it’s about to break out into shakes any second.
“Because we never talked. About what happened.”
“There’s nothing to talk about,” I say. I turn my back on him, walk behind the counter, and start filling the salt and pepper shakers that are in front of each stool. I’ve imagined this moment so many times. Sebastian coming to talk to me, Sebastian coming to tell me he made a mistake, that he wants me back. And now that it’s about to happen, I’m not feeling any of the things I thought I’d feel, like relief, or happiness, or contentment. All I’m feeling is angry.
“Yes, there is,” he says. He takes a couple of steps behind the counter then, which is so totally against the rules. Cooley is always telling us that no one is allowed behind the counter except for employees. Something about liability and how if someone gets hurt back there, they’re not covered by his insurance.
Which sounds like a load of bullshit to me, but I would totally pay right now for Sebastian to, like, slip on a banana peel or something. Which is actually almost impossible since we don’t serve that many banana-flavored dishes. Unless you count banana splits, but hardly anyone ever orders those. Maybe I should offer one to Sebastian. Or maybe I should just injure him myself. I wonder if that would be a liability.
“I’m sorry,” Sebastian says. “I didn’t want things to end like this. I didn’t want things to end at all.”
“Is that what you told the girl you were with in the pool that night?” I say, which is totally bitchy. I’m kind of proud of myself for saying it, actually.
“That’s over,” he says simply, and shrugs. Like he can just move on from it like it’s nothing.
“Sebastian, you cheated on me,” I say, just in case he forgot.
“No I didn’t,” he says. “Not really. I mean, we only kissed. And it was only that one night.” He’s lying, obviously, because I saw the pink Jeep parked in front of his house that day. Of course, I can’t tell him that, since that would tip him off that I’m a stalker. Which I’m not. At least not anymore.
“Hannah, are you okay?” Noah asks from the door. He takes a step into the diner, toward the counter, and Sebastian’s eyes flick over to him.
“Yes,” I say. “I’m fine.”
“Are you done talking?” Noah asks, setting his jaw in a straight line and looking at Sebastian, even though the question is directed at me.
“No,” Sebastian says.
“Yes,” I say.
“Dude, you should leave,” Noah says. His tone is slightly threatening, but more in a we-can-all-handle-this-without-any-problems kind of way. But underneath you can tell he really means without any problems as long as you do what I say. And of course Sebastian loves problems and hates doing what people say. My stomach clenches, and I take a deep breath to try to slow my heart rate down. But it isn’t working. And I think it’s because part of me is really excited that Noah is sticking up for me.
“I’m talking to Hannah,” Sebastian says.
“She said she’s done talking to you,” Noah says, taking a step closer to the counter.
“Yeah, well, I’m not done talking to her.” Sebastian takes a step away from me and toward Noah even though he just said he wasn’t done talking to me. I guess he isn’t done arguing with Noah either.
“Yes, you are,” Noah says, then takes another step.
“Says who?” And now Sebastian is taking another step toward Noah and they’re only a few steps away from each other. The whole thing is totally surreal, like some kind of weird gangster movie, or something, where you just know something is about to go down. Are they going to fight? Is Noah going to punch Sebastian? Is Sebastian going to punch Noah? Is one of them going to get really hurt? Should I try to break it up?
Adrenaline is coursing through my body, and I’m so tense I feel like I could explode. I’m not sure how I feel about this—about Sebastian being here, Noah barging in, and all of us standing here waiting to see what’s going to happen. It’s a strange feeling, to be completely on edge, your heart pounding, and really having no idea what you feel about anything.
“What’s going on?” Lacey asks brightly, as she comes out of the back. “I didn’t even hear you guys come in, usually you’re so loud and . . .”
She trails off when she sees Sebastian. But something about her presence suddenly diffuses the tension in the room, and Sebastian turns away from Noah to look at me. “I’ll call you later,” he says, and then pushes past Noah, brushing against his arm angrily as he goes out the door.
“Ohmigod, ohmigod, ohmigod,” I say. I rush around the counter, collapse onto one of the stools, close my eyes, and take deep breaths.
“Are you okay?” Lacey asks, rushing up to me and giving me a hug. “What was that asshole doing here?”
“He came to talk to me,” I say.
“Are you serious?” She pulls back and looks at me incredulously, then reaches out and gives me another hug. “What a jerk! I cannot believe he would come to your work like that. And first thing in the morning?”
“He was probably out all night, partying and/or drinking.” I turn around and look at Noah. “Thanks,” I say.
I expect him to look at me and give me some kind of indication that he’ll always have my back when it comes to Sebastian, or to at least say you’re welcome or something like that, but all he does is nod and then heads into the back room without saying a word.
And he doesn’t say a word to me for the rest of the day. Not when I’m giving him my orders. Not when someone finds a piece of burnt potato in their corned beef hash that they insist is a fly and I have to bring it back to him. Not when Cooley comes in and holds an employee meeting about food safety. And not when the people at table five send their meals back three times until Noah gets their burger perfectly medium-well.
By the end of the night, I’m starting to get a little nervous that Noah might be mad at me for some reason. And then I have a horrible thought: What if it has nothing to do with what happened with Sebastian? What if Noah knows what I was thinking last night? Or about how my body had a weird reaction this morning when he took my hand? But that’s impossible, right? Unless Noah knows my secret thoughts, how could he tell? And if he’s weirded out by it, why did he pick me up this morning and act like nothing was wrong?
Unless he just did it to be polite. Maybe he even told Ava about it, and she told him he should be nice to me, because I’m obviously broken-hearted and deluded. But then at some point, he realized he couldn’t do it anymore, so he decided to just ignore me.
I think about this all day, and I’m still thinking about it after we close and I’m resetting the tables for the next day with napkins, forks, and knives.
“Those people really might have found a fly in their hash,” Lacey’s saying as she works next to me. “Because I have bug bites all over me.”
“Flies don’t bite,” I tell her.
“Yes, they do. Not common houseflies, I don’t think, but, like, pinscher flies.”
“Pinscher flies?” I ask, setting a knife down next to a spoon and making sure the ketchup bottle on the table is full.
“Yeah, you know, pinscher flies?”
“No,” I say. “I’ve never heard of them.”
“Well, look at this,” she says, pulling up her sleeve. “That’s a pinscher fly bite if I ever saw one.”
“That’s a mosquito bite,” I tell her firmly. Then I go behind the counter to start rinsing out the coffee pots. I’ve learned that the best way to handle Lacey when she’s like this is to be forceful and tell her there’s nothing wrong. If you show even a little bit of weakness, she’ll freak out and start googling. And once she starts googling, forget it. She starts getting all sorts of worked up.
My phone starts vibrating, and I pull it out of my pocket to look at the screen. Ava. I send it to voicemail, deciding I’ll call her back as soon as I’m done here. It’s been so busy that I haven’t had a chance to talk to her even though she’s been texting me all da
y.
I think about how different my summer would be if she was here. We’d be at her pool every day, hanging out and reading magazines, gossiping about celebrities, and listening to music. Maybe we would have even prank-called Sebastian a couple of times, or spray-painted something on his lawn. I wouldn’t be here in the sweltering diner, listening to Lacey talk about her bug bite, and wondering if Noah is mad at me or if Sebastian is coming back.
My phone rings again. Ava. Again. She tends to do that—keeps calling if it goes to voicemail, hoping that you’ll think it’s an emergency and pick up the phone. Whenever I do give in and pick up, she always just says, “It’s about time” in a really annoyed voice, and then I get annoyed with her and with myself for falling for her trick. But what if she did talk to Noah? What if Noah told her how weird I was acting, and now she’s calling to yell at me? What if it really is an emergency this time?
No, I tell myself again as firmly as I told Lacey her spot is just a bug bite. That’s crazy. I send the call to voicemail, but the phone starts ringing in my hand almost immediately. I sigh.
“I have to take this outside,” I say.
“Sure,” Lacey says. “Take your time, I got it in here.” Noah, of course, shows no sign of hearing me.
“Hey,” I say into the phone as I push through the door of the diner and go outside to the sidewalk. I force myself to sound bright and cheerful, like haha, nothing to see here, I wasn’t fantasizing about your boyfriend. “What’s going on? How are you? I miss you?” The last one comes out as a question, which sounds weird, even to me.
“Why are you being weird?” Ava asks.
“I’m not being weird.” I plop down on a bench, then reach down and roll up the shorts I’m wearing so that they’re a little shorter than they already are. If I thought it was hot in the diner, it’s about a million times hotter out here.
“Yes you are,” Ava says. She sounds exasperated. “You’re being all falsely cheerful, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” I say.
“You’re lying,” Ava says. “Noah told me all about it.”