One Less Problem Without You (17 page)

“It would have been some other woman sitting here with us right now,” said Prinny. “It would have been another woman in your place, but only if she was strong enough to get here. Otherwise…”

Thought filled the room, mixing with the spicy-sweet kava.

“Let's just round up all the jerks we've ever met,” said Chelsea finally, “put 'em in a room, and let them fight to the death.”

“And then we can kill the victor.”

They all laughed, but in the dreamy haze of her mind, Chelsea imagined who she would want dead. She might not have been clairvoyant, but she just knew they were all thinking along the same lines.

Wouldn't it be nice to really get revenge?

 

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Diana, Diary Entry, Twelve Years Earlier

Tonight, I am the happiest I have ever been.

The middle of October, in the middle of the night, in the middle of a college campus is the height of perfection for me. The skidding of the leaves across the chalk-ridden sidewalks (Vote for So-and-So! Clothes Swap Saturday, 11
A.M.
!) and cold wet grass are half the atmosphere, and the pounding bass pulsating from within the surrounding dorms is the rest of it.

I have never been happier.

Voices and laughter echo in the air, like I remember summer nights sounding when it was filled with conversations on the neighborhood porches. Except this is college, so there's a little more shouting, squealing, chanting, flirting …

Red Solo cups litter these perfectly manicured lawns. And on the wind, there is an undulating current of this beautiful, snaggable opportunity. There is a chill in the air that suggests impending change.

Ugh. I don't mean to get poetic on myself. It's just that every beautiful lyric from every beautiful song or poem I ever heard is coming to me now in full bloom. I keep imagining the beautiful lines—even the stupid clichés—and finally understanding their truth! Ahh …

See, this is why I have never really kept a diary. Every time I write anything, I end up looking back on it and criticizing it. It feels self-indulgent. Feels like it tries too hard. Why I give myself these criticisms, I'm not sure—it's not like I would
ever
allow anyone to read these entries …

So yeah, I rarely write in this thing. But—as I will obviously already know when I reread this cringe-worthy, love-goggled dribble later—it's a beautiful, red leather–bound book that sits on my shelf empty and really deserves to be written in. I am not even entirely sure where this book came from anymore. Maybe I got it for Christmas at some point? From someone? One of those nice but sort of “oh, wow, great” kinds of gifts.

Mom gave it to me, probably. She was always trying to make me more Virginia Woolf and less
Clarissa Explains It All
.

As little as I write in it, I do my best to put in my stand-out experiences. There are certain nights you want to remember every aching detail of, even if it makes you cringe to read later on. I feel sure that I will at some point, looking back on this one, because I am a giddy schoolgirl right now. Literally. I am utterly infatuated by a boy in a way that I have absolutely never been.

I have always been so distant with guys. Never really felt that exquisitely painful pull toward anyone. Which is good, I have always thought. I've never been hurt. Never been dumped. Never been heartbroken by someone. I don't mean to brag about this—I feel lucky
and
a bit gypped, if I'm honest. Maintaining a steady
nothing
is ultimately as unrewarding as having intense highs and lows.

Either way, no guy has ever done it for me in a way that shook me to my very core. I have had boyfriends, crushes, dates, hangouts (particularly in groups), and (many) (very) meaningless hookups. I have delivered the lies that get me out of further interaction so many times. I have snuck out while they pee. I have been awkward and then left giggling with a friend even though it probably hurt a guy's feelings.

Some of my disinterest, ambivalence, whatever, comes from my confidence. I have a healthy amount of confidence. I think I have earned it, so I refuse to be the kind of girl who apologizes for having it. I have made an active effort to be intelligent and an active learner in and out of school. I have a beautiful family who have blessed me with healthy, thick blond hair, nice eyes, and a smile that looks real even when it isn't. I work on my insides and I care about my outsides. I think it's okay to love yourself when you're making the effort and not just complimenting yourself for something that was always out of your control.

I'm a good listener. I'm not big on “let's talk about me” conversations, even when people ask.

One of the reasons I believe I've never quite found myself sinking my teeth into a guy, so to speak, is because I've never felt
seen
. Again—maybe that makes me sound like a brat … but aren't we allowed to be brats about the person we end up sharing our lives with? Especially when writing in a diary?

I think so.

I want someone to see me for exactly who I am and get what's so great. I don't want someone I'm with to
miss
the things I think matter about me, and then I also want that person to tell me reasons I'm great that I wouldn't have known if it weren't for him. And I would love to care enough to do that for someone else in a real way. But so far, I have not been able to really, authentically provide this for my boyfriends, nor any of them for me.

Which has been okay. I get that I'm still young and silly enough to be arrogant and in no rush. I have listened enough to my mom and her friends talk to realize that I am young, silly, arrogant, and on a timed schedule for all of these things.

As they've all told me:

Your metabolism will catch up with you!

Enjoy it now!
(This they apply to everything from romance to career to dinner choices.)

Eat up every experience life offers you—trust me, you will regret it if you don't!

NEVER. GET. MARRIED.

You'll remember the days when you had options!

To admit some weakness here, I have feared that lack of interest or enthusiasm was an actual missing puzzle piece within me rather than just a matter of time. But even if I am completely wrong and this guy ends up meaning nothing in the end, in the last few weeks he has shown me a side of myself that feels valuable.

Well, the last few weeks have shown me a guy that made me realize things about myself. Healthy, interesting things, because he's definitely no ordinary guy.

The first night I met him, I almost didn't even go out. (Ugh, can you believe that? Fascinating how one little choice can change everything…)

It was one of those nights where I had to decide to do it. I almost didn't. I almost stayed in with the essay that I had another week to finish, and a cup of my kava tea. Sometimes I feel I
need
to afford myself these nights, since ninety percent of my life is about social interaction. But on this night, I wisely made the choice to do what I “shouldn't” and sneak into the pool of a model home with thirty of my closest friends.

It was warm still—actually a bit warmer than the surrounding nights—and we had a keg of some cheap beer, two handles of raspberry vodka, and another of Captain Morgan. No food, but who needs it? Our parties don't involve crockpots full of meatballs served on toothpicks. At best, someone remembers they have a bag of potato chips in their car and everyone crowds around it and empties it like vultures with a carcass.

Real drunk vultures.

So anyway! I was in my black bikini with the gold fastenings, the one that always makes me feel good. I have no crush, I have no person of interest. (This can be such a relief, while all of my friends stress about unanswered calls, possibility of appearance/nonappearance of said love interest, etc.) My intention is to go out, have fun, and probably field interest from several different people. It's a high that I enjoy, one that I prefer to any drug-induced ones. I revel in the compliments or harmless flirtation and then go home feeling clean and happy.

(This is something that wins surprising favor from people. I don't do any drugs at all—simply not my thing. Not that I'm judgmental about it, because there are a whole lot of us with trouble getting through the night and I
get
it, I just don't get it.)

So this party. It was typical. Loud, drunk, music blasting, girls singing along to music, guys watching girls, girls watching guys. Except we were in an uninhabited pre-residential development with no neighbors to worry about. And in an exciting turn of events for me, there were actually people there that I didn't recognize. I feel a bit like I've run through my gamut at school (and come up with nothing but a few horror stories). So it was a nice feeling to see a group of guys I didn't know.

They were evidently athletic from their build, charming, destined for good jobs, big fans of beer. And I had enough self-assurance to walk over to the keg where they stood and just
be
in front of them before wandering back to my friends. One of them captured my attention right as I finished filling my cup.

He was sitting on a three-foot stone wall that held in the landscaping. He was in a gray T-shirt. His body was tan and sculpted—that is the word, because the angles of his body follow the meter of the word. Curved with sharp angles. He had straight eyebrows, piercing eyes that seemed to be x-raying me, and a beautiful ease in his relaxed stature. He was so obviously completely comfortable in his own bronze skin; that was something I couldn't realistically imagine.

I could tell he was a bit older; that his friends were a bit older. They had this “down to have a good time” but “thank God we aren't this age anymore” vibe about them.

And then, of course, there's the thing I couldn't quite put into words that had me wholly startled. I had smiled and glanced at the guys when I started filling my cup, but hadn't locked eyes with him until after I dropped the keg tap and was already walking away. He was looking at me in the way that told me he'd been staring at me the whole time. I wanted to turn back and look at him too, but you can't do that. I tossed a glance back to see him still watching me, but that was it.

No matter what anyone says, a person's apparent interest in
you
can be extremely appealing. Or irretrievably unattractive. But it really just depends.

For a while after this, I could feel his eyes on me. I felt his interest, and almost saw myself through another set of eyes. I laughed and talked, but I sat a bit straighter and smiled a bit broader knowing that he was watching me. Knowing it was only a matter of time until one of us had enough nerve to go to the other and say something. I was pretty sure it would be him, but knew that if it wasn't, I needed to make it happen.

In the end, it was him (thank God). I emerged from the pool and threw my head back to get some of the water out of my hair. As my luck had it, he walked up during this movie-moment. He had two cups in his hand.

“Would you like to do a shot with me?” he asked, handing me a cup.

I smiled. I could feel now the gaze of my girlfriends. Surely envious. Surely giggling. Surely they were going to be willing to dissect this later with me. (They totally were, we totally did, we talked about it for forever afterward.)

“Sure,” I said, and took the one closer to him instead of the one that he held out. “You never know. You could be trying to drug me.”

“Or maybe I'm pulling a
Princess Bride,
and I put the drugs in
my
cup.”

“Could be. Or perhaps in both, and like Rasputin, you've made yourself immune. All I can do is try to be cautious. There are endless risks here.”

He grinned. “Or I think you're stunning. And I'm a dumb guy who could think of nothing more creative than a shot of shitty rum to come over and start a conversation with you.”

I laughed. It truly made me laugh. Especially because of the tiny hint of nervousness in his voice—a voice you could just tell was usually brimming with confidence.

It turned out he
was
a bit older. He was only there because he lived down the road and he and his friends had picked up the beer so his friend's little brother could be the Hero with the Booze Connection. When they got there, they decided to hang out and make sure everything was cool.

That explained why they were so much better composed than the other guys there.

I maintained my composure that night. I could tell
I
was transfixing
him,
and hid my own fascination as well as I could. I could tell that
he
could tell that I was different. We both knew that I wasn't the same as so many of the shrill, simpleminded girls that surrounded us. I could tell that he was on a slightly elevated level compared to his friends. We knew that we were the outliers. There was something the same that we spotted in each other, and I was so excited to find that in someone else for once. Especially when—as is always promised by the cliché—I was definitely least expecting it.

We talked all night, suddenly on a different schedule of drinking than our peers. We had shots and refilled cups in time with the meter of our conversation, as opposed to that of the party. It felt good. I don't even know what we talked about. I knew that he was funny and biting, with moments of truly insightful—unpretentious—observation mixed in with moments of being delightfully, relievingly
normal
.

He was the way that I always like to think of
myself,
or that I aimed to seem. Smart but not irritatingly so. Able to blend in with the crowd, but able to stand out to those who cared to notice. Funny without trying to be a calculated laugh-a-minute. Intriguing and nice without being sickly, saccharine sweet. I didn't care one bit about the rest of the party from the first second that we sat on that wall together, legs slung over the sides, facing each other.