Heat of the Moment (19 page)

It's not until we're working our way through a melting cookie-dough sundae that Quinn says, “We should do it again.”

“Do what again?”

“We should make more promises. Why not? We're at the beach.”

It's such a weird request, coming from Quinn, that I almost laugh. She has to be joking. But her tone doesn't sound joking. In fact, it sounds kind of shy. And tentative, like she's afraid we're going to say no.

“Sure,” I say, shrugging like it's no big deal. “I'm in.”

“Me too,” Aven says.

We decide to skip the emails this time and go old-school, writing down our promises and making sure we get to work on them right away, instead of waiting four years. We buy paper, purple markers, and a lighter from a souvenir shop, then stand on the beach, each writing down one sentence.

I promise to
. . .

I think about it.

I'm 0-for-1 when it comes to promises to myself. But maybe that's because I set myself up to fail. Learning to trust is a big thing to promise yourself, especially when you didn't even realize how deep your trust issues went. And even then, I'd given myself four years to do it.

So I take the piece of paper and write . . .

I promise to . . . learn to be happy
.

When we're all done writing, we fold the pieces of paper in half.

“Ready?” Quinn asks, holding out the lighter.

I glance at Aven, wondering if she's going to ask us to all read them out loud. But even she knows that would be pushing it too far. We're not friends anymore. And even though we might have spent a few nice hours together, it doesn't mean we have the right to know what the others are thinking.

We watch as the papers flame and separate before burning out in the sand. The ashes mix with the ocean, then wash away into the sea.

The three of us sit down in the sand, not saying much, just watching the sun go down.

I promise to . . . learn to be happy
.

There won't be an email this time to remind me. I'm going to have to remind myself.

We stay on the beach until the stars start to peek through the dark cloth of the night sky. And then we stand up and head back to the hotel.

THE NEXT MORNING, WHATEVER KIND OF
peace was made between Quinn, Aven, and me is gone. It's like waking up from a drunken night where you've slept with someone and then you look over and realize what you've done and decide you must have been crazy.

(Not that I've ever had any drunken nights with anyone. But I've seen enough movies to know how it works.)

When I wake up, Quinn is standing by the dresser, fully ready for the day.

“Did either one of you take my hair straightener?” she asks, looking at us accusingly.

Aven's sitting on the side of her bed, in a T-shirt and a pair of cotton shorts, blinking sleepily while she checks her phone. “I didn't,” she says.

“Because it's missing,” Quinn says. “And since I haven't used it, it had to have been one of you.”

I rack my brain, trying to remember what happened to the straightener I used the other night. “I think it might be in the cabinet under the sink,” I say.

Quinn sighs, like it's the biggest offense ever, then marches into the bathroom and retrieves her straightener.

She places it in her suitcase, then turns to us. “You guys better hurry up. You're going to be late.” She wheels her suitcase through the door and out into the hallway.

I sigh and glance at the clock. Our class is meeting down in the lobby so that we can take the bus back to the airport. We're supposed to be down there in twenty minutes.

“Do you mind if I shower first?” Aven asks. “I won't take long.”

“No, I don't mind,” I say, deciding to just skip my shower. Why get all clean when I'm just going to end up on a disgusting airplane anyway? “Just let me wash up real quick.” I head to the bathroom, pee, wash my face, brush my teeth, and pull my hair back into a ponytail. Then I throw on a pair of yoga pants, a tank top, and a hoodie.

When I'm done, Aven's waiting outside the bathroom door, holding a container of body wash and a bottle of shampoo.

“See you down there,” I say awkwardly as she passes me by.

When I finally get down to the lobby, it's a madhouse. Kids are all over the place, running around, talking, joking,
and carrying on. I head to the corner and pour myself a cup of coffee from the carafe on the table. Usually I hate the taste of coffee, but I feel like I need something to do, something to concentrate on.

I spot Derrick in the corner, talking to Juliana. I watch them for a moment, at the way she's laughing at something he's saying. I think about how he was with her the other day when he just disappeared. I think about how he was talking on the phone when I came to his room, how he told me he was talking to his mom.

Was he really talking to Juliana? I'm surprised to find that I don't really care. Derrick isn't mine anymore. He's not my boyfriend. And if he was talking to other girls while we were together this weekend, well, then, I really have no right to be mad. I was kissing another guy.

I take my coffee and head outside, waiting on the bench in front of the hotel until it's time to get on the buses. I concentrate on my coffee as we board, making sure to keep my eyes down. I don't want to see Derrick with Juliana, but most of all, I don't want to see Beckett. I don't want to know if he's on the same bus as me, I don't want to know if he's with Katie, I don't want to know anything about him.

I repeat the whole process at the airport, and on the flight, making sure to always have a drink or a snack to concentrate on, always making sure to keep my eyes on the ground. All I want to do is get home. Traveling under any
circumstances is extremely tiring, but this feels like a marathon. Bus to the airport. Flight back to the Northeast. Bus to school. And then waiting for my mom to come and pick me up.

I texted her earlier to confirm the time, but when our bus is finally pulling into the school, she texts me back to tell me she got held up at meditative yoga, and she's going to be a little late.

Everyone else is happy and chatty and sunburned. They're all hugging their parents and telling them all about the trip, and I'm just standing there feeling sorry for myself. I head to the back of the bus, where our suitcases have been unloaded onto the sidewalk.

But when I get there, Beckett's standing by my suitcase.

“Oh,” he says, like he's surprised to see me. “I was going to . . . I mean, I was going to bring this to you.”

“Thanks,” I say, “but I can handle it.” I grab the handle and start to roll it away, down the pavement and back toward the craziness of the traffic circle.

“Lyla,” Beckett calls.

I have another one of those moments—the kind where things are about to go one way or the other, and I feel if I don't make the right choice, I could mess everything up. I could keep walking, leaving Beckett behind. Or I could turn around and listen to what he has to say. But why would I do that? Beckett's a jerk. He told me himself that he doesn't
like to have expectations put on him. When someone tells you who they are, you need to believe them. I heard it from Oprah, who heard it from Maya Angelou. Why would I want to set myself up for more of that torture? I feel horrible enough already.

Before graduation, I will . . . learn to trust
.

But isn't knowing who to trust part of trusting? Beckett has proven to me that he can't be trusted. He showed up with Katie right after kissing me.
Oh, come on. He hasn't done anything worse than you did, and you know it. You had a boyfriend and you kissed Beckett anyway and then you blew him off and blamed everything on him. Just like he said. In fact, you're kind of being a spoiled brat, using any excuse to get mad at him because you're afraid
.

I turn around.

“Fine. Say what you want to say.”

WHEN I WROTE IT—THE EMAIL TO MYSELF—IT
had nothing to do with my dad. It was one of the first days of high school, more than a year before my parents were even going to tell me they were getting divorced. (Not that I thought their marriage was that great—I knew my parents didn't sleep in the same bed, and I knew my dad worked way too many hours for it to be possible for him to have a healthy marriage.)

Anyway, my dad was the last thing on my mind when I wrote that email. It was right at the beginning of freshman year, right after Evan Winters kissed me at a back-to-school party and told me I was the prettiest girl in the whole school, which was obviously a lie but I didn't care. The next day, he completely blew me off, cruising by me in the halls and acting like nothing had ever happened. Fourteen-year-old me, who didn't know any better, was devastated. I didn't
understand how Evan could do that, and honestly, the whole high school thing was starting to feel like a big rip-off. Aven, Quinn, and I were extremely disappointed by how it was going. We'd thought high school was where we'd make our mark, where we'd finally have a chance to
do
something.

But it was the opposite—the school felt big and overwhelming, and all the kids seemed more cliquey than ever, and the guys were obviously jerks.

We decided it was going to be up to us to make sure we made our mark. So we went to the beach the next weekend and decided to come up with goals we wanted to accomplish before graduation, write them in an email, and send them to be delivered four years in the future.

I wrote that I wanted to learn to trust. At the time, I remember it being all about Evan. I had no idea what was about to happen with my dad. I didn't know that my dad was going to leave, that he was never going to mention the fact that he'd asked me to come with him, that he'd pretty much ignore me after he left.

The only thing I had left that connected me to him was my tigereye bracelet. He'd given it to me a couple of months before he left—he told me that whenever I was feeling upset or down, to remember I had the eye of the tiger. At first, I was confused. I wasn't going through a particularly hard time at that point. But then my dad reminded me that when I was little I used to love that song, that we used to blast it in
his truck whenever we drove anywhere together.

I had vague memories of that, but it wasn't, like, our thing. At the time I remember thinking he was just being a normal parent, idealizing the things we'd done together when I was younger, like when my mom bought me a DVD copy of
Follow That Bird
for Christmas one year, and then told me I used to love watching it when I was three.

I put the bracelet in my jewelry box and forgot about it. But now I think maybe my dad knew he was eventually going to leave. It was his way of giving me some kind of parting advice before he was gone forever. The day Quinn and Aven and I got into that fight, I went home and slipped the bracelet on. I haven't taken it off since.

These are the things I'm thinking about while I wait for Beckett to tell me why he called my name, why it is that he stopped me.

He's certainly taking his time.

The problem is that there are still cars pulling up to the school—parents arriving to take their kids home from the trip. The traffic circle is filled with cars, and now the line is snaking farther down, more toward where Beckett and I are, making privacy impossible.

I'm sitting on the curb, and he's sitting next to me. My suitcase is on the other side of me, and I'm gripping the handle protectively. If I decide to take off in a hurry, I'm ready. Finally, after most of the cars have cleared out, and the only
people left are some stragglers way up by the front door, Beckett speaks.

“I owe you an apology.”

“For?”

“Actually, not really an apology. More of an explanation.”

I wait, but he doesn't say anything. “Go ahead,” I say. “I'm listening.”

“I need to explain to you about Katie,” he says after another beat of silence. He takes in a deep breath and reaches down and fiddles with his shoelace. It's the first time I've ever seen him do something that even remotely made it seem like he was nervous. Is Beckett anxious? About talking to me?

“Katie and I . . . I'm sorry I brought her into the club with me. I knew you were going to be there, and when I saw you with Derrick, I don't know . . . I guess I was
hoping
it might hurt you a little bit to see me show up with another girl.”

I still don't say anything.

“After I kissed you on the beach, and you . . . you just . . . came to my room and were looking for Derrick, I kind of freaked out.”

“You freaked out? Why?”

“Because I like you, Lyla.” He fiddles with his shoelace some more, and then he turns to look at me. “You're interesting and gorgeous and smart and you don't put up with any of my shit. It's why I came to your room to tell you about
Quinn, even though I pretty much knew she was okay.” He shakes his head. “I was trying to make you jealous with Katie. It was a horrible, shitty thing to do and I'm sorry. I just . . . I really felt like maybe if you saw me with someone else, you might decide you wanted to be with me. But it was a stupid idea, and I shouldn't have used Katie like that.”

“Did you apologize to her, too?”

He nods. “That's what I was doing when you found her in my room yesterday. I wanted to apologize to her for the way I'd treated her, and tell her that I wanted to be with you. I'd already told her we kissed, that I liked you, but I guess she didn't quite believe me.”

My first instinct is to tell him he's a shithead. “What you did wasn't right,” I say instead.

He nods. “I deserve that.” He's been moving closer to me on the curb as we've been sitting there, so slowly that I don't even notice until his leg is pressed up against mine. “But don't I get points for being honest?”

I shake my head no. “I can't . . . I mean, how could I ever trust you?”

He tilts his head like he's actually thinking about it. Then he reaches out and takes my head. His palm is warm and comforting, and I don't pull away. “Trust has to be earned, that's true,” he says. “But do you think . . . I mean, could you give me a chance?”

Before graduation, I will . . . learn to trust
.

I think about the stuff Beckett said about how I only see things in black and white. Is it true? Do I see things in just one shade, either good or bad? And if so, is that really the way I want to live my life?

I think about that email, about how it kept appearing this weekend, about how it's now stuck on my phone. Do I really know how to trust? Or was it just that Derrick didn't really make me have to learn? Everything with him was so . . . easy. We never had to work through things, we never even had a real fight. Was I with him just because he didn't challenge me, because he didn't make me see things in another way? Looking back, our relationship seems so surface-y. I feel like Beckett and I have gone through more in a few days than Derrick and I did in a couple of years.

“Lyla,” Beckett says again. I turn to look at him, and his face is just a few inches from mine. “Please, I . . . I'm not going to hurt you. I promise.” I can tell that he means it. I can see the sincerity on his face, hear the vulnerability in his voice. I can sense he's never been this real with a girl before, never really put himself out there in this way.

“I don't know,” I say, pretending to think about it. “I mean, what is everyone at school going to think?”

“They're probably going to be shocked that I've turned into some kind of lovesick puppy.”

“What are they going to think about me?”

He leans even closer and then breathes into my ear. “I
don't care what they think. All I care about is what I think. And I think you're perfect.”

And then he kisses me, and the moment fades away into everything I could ever imagine.

I call my mom and tell her that I'm getting a ride home. Of course, I don't mention who it's with. Thank god she doesn't ask questions—when she answers the phone, her voice is all whispery, like she's still at her yoga class and doesn't want other people overhearing. She probably assumes Derrick's taking me home, and she's probably relieved she doesn't have to come and get me.

Beckett drove his motorcycle to the school from the airport, but my suitcase won't fit on the back—so he kisses me one more time and takes off for his house, where he's going to drop his motorcycle off and then return in his dad's car—a Dodge Durango, which seems a lot safer.

Even though the sun is starting to go down, it's warmer than I would expect it to be this late in the afternoon. Spring is coming. You can feel it in the air. The days are getting longer and warmer, and there are only a couple of months of school left.

And then I'll be off to college. What will happen with me and Beckett? Whatever. I can't really worry about that. That's months away, and besides—I have to trust myself
that I'll figure it out. That
we'll
figure it out.

I don't even realize that I'm humming a little tune to myself until I'm standing in front of the school and one of the few kids who's still waiting outside gives me a weird look.

“Sorry,” I say. “I'm just really happy.”

My phone beeps with a text, and I pull it out of my pocket.

Hey, it's Aven—I'm locked in the bathroom by the gym, can you please come and—

The rest of her text is blocked out by the email that's frozen on my screen.

I sigh. Why is Aven texting me if she's locked in the bathroom? Doesn't she have any other friends to call? And how did she lock herself in the bathroom anyway? And how does she know I'm still even here?

I'm tempted to just ignore it. But what if she's in real trouble? What if she's locked in the bathroom and she can't get out? Well. She'd get out tomorrow morning. We have school, and someone would find her.

But do I really feel okay just leaving her there overnight? How humiliating. And besides, what if there's a fire or something?

I sigh and haul my whole suitcase into the school with me. When I get to the bathroom by the girls' gym, Quinn is there.

“Hey,” she says.

“Hi.” I frown. “Are you . . . did Aven send you a text, too?”

“Yeah, about being locked in the bathroom?”

We both look at each other in confusion. I shrug.

“Whatever,” Quinn says, then pushes open the door.

I follow her inside, but the bathroom is empty.

“Aven?” I try. I have a vision of her drowned in one of the toilets, unable to come up for air. I'm not sure exactly how that would happen. But still.

I start pushing open stall doors, and Quinn follows suit.

But before we can get to every stall, the door to the bathroom opens and Aven comes sauntering in.

“Aven!” Quinn says. “Why the hell did you tell us you were locked in the bathroom?”

“Yeah,” I say. “I was worried about you.”

But Aven doesn't answer us. She just turns around, and then calmly locks the door behind her.

“What the hell are you doing?” Quinn demands. She walks to the door, but Aven just smiles and puts the key back in her pocket. How the hell does Aven have a key to the bathroom anyway?

“I'm sick of this,” Aven says. “I'm sick of not being friends. I'm ready to make up.” She takes in a deep breath and looks at us, determined. “And none of us are leaving this bathroom until we do.”