One Year (New & Lengthened Edition) (13 page)

A
n hour passes
, but I don’t see Tristan anywhere. I start to wonder if he had left and gone home and left me here at this stupid party all by myself. I wouldn’t put that past him. I text him a couple of times, and when he doesn’t respond, I decide to go to the bathroom and then go home. He clearly doesn’t want to see me.

The ball spans three floors of the brownstone and there are a few bathrooms on each floor, but they all have lines. Finally, I spot one where the line isn’t obscenely long and get in it. There are two girls ahead of me, both of whom are glued to their phones. And two other guys ahead of them. I lean against the wall and close my eyes in an effort to relax a bit. I’ve had a little too much to drink and the pounding music makes my head feel like it’s getting hit by a sledgehammer.

“So what do you think of Alice? That girl Tristan brought?” I hear someone say.

“She’s really hot,” someone else says.

I open my eyes and realize that it’s the guys ahead of me in line who are talking. They have no idea that I’m there and I creep a little closer to the girl next to me so that I can hear a little better. It’s always nice to hear things like that.

“I know, right? Like really hot!”

“I can’t believe that they used to date. Why the hell would a girl like that go out with Tristan?”

“Oh, he’s a nice guy? And pretty easy on the eyes too.”

“Oh, shut up, you faggot,” the other guy says and they both crack up laughing. Suddenly, the nice conversation that I’ve been enjoying eavesdropping on turns ugly and bigoted. I can’t believe that he actually used that word. I’m about to say something to him, but then I hear him say something else.

“I’m just glad that he listened to reason and didn’t bring that chick that he’s actually with to this place. The brothers would’ve never gone for that,” one of them says.

My heart sinks. They’re talking about Tea.

“I know! I can’t believe he’s actually with her. She must be amazing in the sack. ‘Cause that fat cow’s not good to look at.”

And that’s when I’ve heard enough.

“For your information, Tea’s a wonderful woman. Generous and kind and beautiful. And if you two can’t see that, then you’re fucking blind.”

I toss my drink in their faces and walk away.

A
s I search
through a bed full of coats for mine, I feel tears welling up in my eyes. I hold them back until I grab my coat, wrap my scarf around my neck, and run out of the brownstone. Luckily, no one notices and no one stops me. Once I get outside, a strong gust of cool New York wind bursts open my coat and chills me to my bones. Tears are already flowing down my cheeks and I struggle in zipping up the coat without getting the material caught in the zip line. I continue to walk down 116
^th
Street, but eventually give up on the zipper and just pull my coat closed. I don’t live far.

When I reach Broadway, I wait for the light even though it’s late and the street is deserted. I’m sobbing and tears are running down my cheeks. I can only imagine how my face looks with twelve hundred pounds of makeup on it. The foundation, all of Juliet’s careful contouring, winged liquid eyeliner, and gobs of mascara have probably combined to make some sort of puddle of cement all over my face.

As the light turns green, I suddenly pause to think about why I’m so angry. So mad. I’m furious at Tristan for not telling me the truth. For not telling me why he wanted to take me to this ridiculous masquerade ball. I’m furious at the fact that the only reason he didn’t take Tea is that his frat brothers wouldn’t approve. I’m furious at him for caring what they would think. But the tears that are streaming down my face aren’t just about Tristan. Or Tea. I would never admit it out loud, but I’m mainly crying for me. About how unfair the world is.

I was fat in middle school. I weighed close to 170 pounds in 8
^th
grade, when I was the fattest. But I was pretty fat even before that. I was fat, about 140 pounds, in 6
^th
grade and it just got worse the older I got. I don’t know what brought it on. All I remember was that it was this vicious cycle. I felt horrible about myself, about how fat I was, so I ate food to make myself feel better. Every night I promised myself to not eat so much the next day and every day I did. I would slip up at breakfast and then basically give up on the rest of the day out of disappointment and anger with myself.

Growing up fat was one of those things that I never talked about. My parents pretty much pretended that nothing was going on. They said that they wanted me to be healthy and encouraged me to participate in sports. But how could I? I was gigantic and embarrassed to be seen in any sort of workout clothes. This past summer, I flipped through some family albums and found the few pictures that exist of myself from middle school. Oh, how much I hated taking pictures! They felt like concrete proof of the person that I hated to admit that I was. To this day, I remember the hatred that I felt toward myself in every picture. But looking at them this past summer, I was surprised by one thing. I wasn’t as ugly as I had thought I was. I wasn’t even that fat. All of these years, I had convinced myself that I was basically the ugliest and the most disgusting girl that ever existed. But I wasn’t. I was chubby, yes, but I didn’t look horrible. And I was definitely not as big as I had thought I was.

And during all those years, Tristan and I were friends. He was pretty popular and a jock, but he still hung out with me. When we were together, I would somehow forget about how ugly I was because he made me feel beautiful and worthy. He made me laugh and he laughed at my jokes. And then, at the end of 8
^th
grade, he kissed me.

T
ristan had
the starring role in our 8
^th
grade play,
Romeo and Juliet
, and he gave an amazing performance. During the play, he got to make out with the hottest girl from our school, Natalie D’Achille, and I was certain that they would start going out soon. I’d had a crush on him for close to a year by then, but of course I was too chicken to act on it. So instead, I just remained his friend. Quiet and supportive. Always there.

At the wrap party, after the final performance of the year, Tristan and I were hanging out, drinking too much soda and laughing our heads off. We were backstage, somewhere in a dark corner with no one around and, suddenly, out of the blue, he leaned over and kissed me. I barely managed to swallow the last gulp of soda that I took before I felt his tongue in my mouth. I was naïve that I didn’t even know if people kissed with tongues yet, but I will remember the feeling that ran through my body forever. It was like little sparks of electricity went off within me, everywhere, and light bulbs were turned on where I didn’t even know light bulbs existed.

I couldn’t sleep a wink that night. Whilst the kiss played on loop around in my head, I had a revelation. An epiphany. I suddenly felt like I was worthy. Like I mattered as a person. That maybe, I wasn’t as ugly as I felt. And the next morning, I didn’t pressure myself to only eat a certain amount of calories that day and then gorge on food when I failed. I didn’t make any promises except that I said that I’m going to try to eat only when I was really hungry, and only healthy food. And if I failed, I wasn’t going to chuck the whole day out of the window and eat myself full to drown my feelings. Instead, I would accept that failure is the required for success and move on. No harm done.

And after that change of attitude, everything in my life changed. I wasn’t successful every day, but never binged again. Not like I used to. And slowly, I started to lose weight. A month later, I lost five pounds. Another month later, I lost ten. And by the beginning of ninth grade, I got down to 120 pounds. I still wasn’t very thin, I was only 5’1’’ back then, but the change was amazing. I’ve never been prouder of myself. And I owed it all to Tristan. He had showed me that I was lovable and that was enough to get me started.

So why was I crying now? Why was I so upset and angry? I ask myself, walking to my building. Because he had changed. For the worse. Instead of showing Tea the same kind of love and respect, he rejected her. I don’t know if Tea knows about the ball or why he didn’t invite her, but that didn’t matter to me. What mattered was that he didn’t want to take her out of fear of what other people would think. He didn’t want to be embarrassed. He didn’t care about stuff like that when he was younger; he knew that his popularity would survive hanging out with the likes of me. And that was in middle school, for crying out loud! There’s no population on earth that’s more cruel and heartless and subject to trends than middle schoolers.

Tristan’s such an asshole! I can’t stand him, and a new reserve of tears start to flow down my face again. There’s no excuse for this. This is why he’s embarrassed to be seen with her, why he won’t say that they’re dating. My heart goes out to Tea, but mostly it goes out to my 13-year-old self.

“Alice? Alice? What’s wrong?” Simon runs up to me. He grabs me and puts his arms around me. When I look up at him, I burst out crying.

“What’s wrong? What happened?”

Through a flood of tears and ugly sobs, I tell him everything. I tell him how Tristan kissed me, about the masquerade ball, and finally about what I’ve overheard. The words come out in a stream of consciousness and I’m not sure if I’m making any sense. I then tell him that I’m sorry. How very sorry I am. And that I hate my ex.

“He just has some sort of effect on me, where I fall in a daze. But now, I’m clear. It’s gone. No more daze,” I say. “But I understand if you don’t want to see me anymore. I just wanted to tell you all this.”

I start to walk away. It’s over. But the relief that I feel in getting this off my chest is worth it (almost).

“Wait,” he says. But I don’t turn around. “Wait up.” Simon catches up with me. I look into his wide-open eyes and those beautiful eyelashes that frame them. I wait for him to tell me that he just wants to be friends. But he doesn’t. Instead, he scoops me up, pulls me close, and kisses me. He tastes of lavender and mint. His kiss says everything’s going to be okay. And I know he’s not lying.

“Do you want to come over?” he whispers through the kiss. His lips are soft and inviting and I can’t resist. I nod, follow him to his place.

We kiss going all the way up the stairs. We kiss as he fumbles with his keys and finally opens the door. We start to pull off each other’s clothes in the doorway and we are entirely naked by the time we reach his bedroom.

In the morning, everything’s a blur. I wake up early and get dressed quietly so as to not wake up Simon. I’ve never thought I would be one of those girls who sneaks out of bed while the guy she has just slept with is still asleep, but there’s a first for everything.

I’m not entirely sure why I’m sneaking out. It wouldn’t be a big deal to talk to him, but for some reason, I don’t want to. Simon looks so peaceful sleeping with one of his arms tucked under his pillow that I don’t want to disturb him.
I will text him later,
I say to myself as I pick up my shoes and tiptoe out of the room.

“
S
o you had a wild night
, huh?” Juliet asks when I walk into our room. “How was the walk of shame?”

The walk of shame is the process of walking home in your evening clothes the following morning, after spending a night at some guy’s house. It definitely wasn’t great. It was after 8 am when I woke up, which basically means that the whole city was already awake. I tried to cover up the gown as best as I could with my coat, but it was pretty obvious anyway. The homeless man who likes to hang out on 116
^th
Street and Broadway even whistled at me.

“So what happened?” Juliet asks. “Tristan’s really mad at you, you know that right?”

I roll my eyes. I can’t bear to even hear his name.

“I have to wash my face,” I say and head to the bathroom.

Juliet follows me inside, refusing to give me privacy until I give her some of the gory details. At first, I refuse. I wash my face. My eyes look swollen and tired with black bags underneath. No, I can’t be seen like this. I apply a small coat of foundation, some eyeliner, and a bit of mascara. I look in the mirror again. Much better.

“Okay? So what happened?” Juliet pesters me again. This time, I give in and give her the broad strokes.

“I’m so happy for you!” she claps with excitement when I tell her about sleeping with Simon.

“It’s not that exciting.” I shrug and walk back into the living room. Suddenly, the door to Dylan and Tristan’s room swings open.

“Where the fuck did you go?” Tristan asks.

“What’s it to you?”

“Because I was worried, Alice. You don’t just leave and don’t tell your date. This is New York City. I thought you’d been kidnapped or raped or something!”

His voice is tense and tired and angry. But I’m angry, too.

“You were the one who left first. I couldn’t find you anywhere!” I scream. I don’t yell often, hardly ever, but I’m too tired to keep this conversation civil.

“I just went to cool off.”

“Well, you were gone for an hour before I overheard your brothers there talking about how hot I was and how glad they were that you didn’t bring Tea.”

“So?”

“So? You didn’t bring your girlfriend because she’s fat? Because you’re embarrassed of her? Do you know what that makes you, Tristan?”

“No, what?”

“An asshole. A real asshole!”

“Oh, please.” He shrugs.

“And even now, you’re not even sorry. You don’t care. I don’t even know who you are anymore, Tristan. When did you become such a dick, exactly? Because I remember when you were a nice guy. A really nice guy.”

I walk back to my room. He follows me.

“Listen, I’m sorry about Tea,” he says. But it’s too little, too late.

“I never want to see you again, Tristan,” I say quietly. My voice is calm now. Certain. “I know I will; we’re roommates after all. I just want you to know that I never want to see you or talk to you again.”

He stares at me in disbelief. And then I take it a step too far. I feel myself creeping over the edge as the words come out of me, but I can’t stop them.

“And I hope you lose all of your stupid money,” I say and slam the door to my room.

T
ristan
and I don’t speak for weeks. At first, I actively ignore him and don’t respond to his attempts at conversation. And after a while, he gives up. What forms between us is a kind of Cold War. We pass each other in the living room and the kitchen without speaking a word. We talk only to our roommates, but never to each other. I’m actually impressed that we keep this up. The four of us engage in whole conversations in which he and I speak to and respond only to Dylan and Juliet, but never each other.

Juliet and Dylan pester me about it for a while, but by the end of the second week, they too give up on us. And our Cold War is embraced.

It is after we reach this place of equilibrium that I finally write him a thank you card. I’ve been meaning to do that for some time, but I wanted some of the anger to die down within me. When I feel I’ve reached an appropriate level of apathy, I finally pick up a pen and write the thank you card.

D
ear Tristan
,

Thank you. Thank you for showing me your true colors at the masquerade ball. That moment, when I realized what you had done to Tea (and in a way to my old self), freed me from your grasp. It allowed me to finally let you go. We are completely different people now. I do not much like this new person you’ve become, but it is no longer my place to talk about him. Sometimes, I still miss my friend, Tristan, who made me feel like I was the prettiest girl in school even though I wasn’t even the 100
^th
prettiest girl there. But he’s gone, isn’t he? You’re someone else right now. Someone that I hope you don’t stay for long. But that doesn’t matter now, either. I’m just writing you this note to thank you for finally showing me your true self, at this point in your life. I don’t think we will ever speak again (I’m not sure if that’s right or wrong, it just happens to be the case), but I’m okay with that.

I hope you have a nice life and remember that there was a time in your life when you weren’t so cruel.

A
lice

I
reread
my thank you card. I have no intentions of sending it, but I’m still apprehensive about how snarky it sounds. But snarky is just the kind of mood that I’m in right now. And I’m not apologizing for that either. I’m done apologizing.

I’m not sure, but the card feels strange in my hands. It feels a little like a good-bye.

Perhaps this is the last card that I’ll ever write him. Wouldn’t that be something?