Regret List (7 page)

Homecoming wasn’t until the fourth week of classes,
so the next few weeks were spent eating lunch with the boys,
discussing dresses with the girls, and spending every free minute
writing, or daydreaming about writing. I really only saw Asher when
we handed off the notebook, but our friendship lived on through the
paper. Anxiously reading what he had written, the characters coming
alive under the flow of my pen across the page, it was just another
type of communication between us. We left each other little
messages in the margins, laughing about something the other had
written, or suggesting how the story should unfold.

During those weeks, my mom started coming home at
random times and calling the house phone when I got home from
school and found the house empty. I knew she still believed there
was something between Asher and me, but there wasn’t much I could
do to dissuade her. Maybe if I had told her I was going to
homecoming with Jason, it would have helped, but I honestly didn’t
care too much about what she thought. Instead, when my friends
picked me up to go dress shopping one weekend, I told her we were
going as a group.

We waltzed through the store together, feeling like
champions. We were the chosen: the girls with dates. I enjoyed that
feeling, I honestly did. It was only when I thought of Jason that
my stomach lurched and my skin felt clammy. I hoped that the
feeling would fade, that I would get used to the idea of being with
Jason, because I knew that the idea of “us” made him happy. And
really, that had become my entire purpose in life. My only reprieve
was my other life – the one I wrote with Asher.

“How does this one look?” Sammy held a slinky red
dress up, jutting her hips to the side in a model-like pose.

Kandice nodded approvingly. “Sexy. Try it on.” She
pulled a sleeveless blue ball gown off the rack and stood on
tiptoe, checking its length. “Do you think this would give me
cleavage?” she asked.

Sammy and I laughed and shook our heads. “Kandice,
you have like, nothing there.” I giggled. “Get something
padded.”

She harrumphed playfully and turned away, acting
offended. “Well, Matt seems to like what I’ve got,” she said
slyly.

Sammy and I looked at each other. “Oh really?” I
asked. “Just what have you and Matt been up to?”

Kandice slid away between the giant racks of dresses.
“He hasn’t seen me completely topless or anything. I keep my shirt
on.” Her voice sounded muffled as she slipped away.

“Oh. All Robert and I have done is make out a
little,” Sammy said, sounding a little disgruntled.

“Tongue or no tongue?” Kandice asked, reappearing
behind us.

“Tongue,” she replied, sounding defensive.

“What about you, Paige?” They both turned to me and I
quickly turned my attention to the dresses, flipping through them
quickly.

“Oh, I don’t know. We’ve kissed.”

Kandice gave me a withering look. “Uh yeah, we know
that. We saw you, at the bowling alley.”

“Well,” I paused, “that’s all we’ve done.”

Sammy sighed. “You need to get together with him on
your own, Paige. We can’t schedule everything for you. You need to
invite him over to your house, or go on a date with him,
something.”

I knew they were right, but it didn’t make it any
less nerve-wracking. The thought of doing anything with Jason like
what my friends were doing with their boyfriends made me feel
queasy. I looked to Grace for support and found her half-pressed
into the dresses behind us like she was trying to disappear.
“You’ve been awfully silent, Grace,” I said, trying to change the
subject away from myself. “How’s it going with you and
Patrick?”

She shrugged. “He comes over to my house sometimes
after school. We fool around a little.” Kandice and Sammy whooped
and high-fived her, but I couldn’t help but notice how unhappy she
looked. I brushed it off, thinking she was just stressed about
shopping for dresses. She always fell into a funk when we went
clothes shopping together. I felt my phone vibrate against my hip
and I pulled it out then, glancing at the screen.

You busy? Come over for lunch. –A

Sammy read over my shoulder. “Is that from Jason?”
she asked excitedly.

Kandice appeared at my other shoulder. “A?”

“It’s nothing,” I replied, stuffing the phone back in
my pocket. “Just a friend.”

“A for…Asher?” Grace hazarded.

Sammy gave me a hard look. “Paige, you shouldn’t be
seeing two boys at once.”

“I’m not!” I desperately tried to defend myself.
“Asher and I have been friends forever.”

Kandice shrugged. “If she wants to play the boys, we
shouldn’t stop her. Just don’t let Jason find out.”

“WE ARE JUST FRIENDS,” I hollered.

All three girls stared at me. “Sheesh, we’re just
kidding,” Sammy said, looking taken aback. “Don’t make a
scene.”

“I’m gonna try this one on,” I muttered, grabbing a
dress at random and hurrying off toward the changing rooms. I
locked myself in one of the stalls and let the dress fall to the
floor, pulling out my phone and tucking myself up on the seat. Now
what I should have done then is text Asher back, complaining about
the girls and telling him I would be over as soon as I got home. If
I had known what would happen later that day, that’s exactly what I
would have done. But instead, I ignored his text, rattled by the
girls’ comments. Instead, I texted Jason.

Ugh, dress shopping with the girls. Want to hang out
later?

A few seconds later, I held his reply in my
hands.

id love 2 you can come by my house whenever

Sighing loudly at his grammar (sure, it’s only a
text, but still), I watched as another text popped up with his
address. Snapping the phone shut, I felt a sense of triumph; I was
one step further in the relationship. I uncurled myself from the
seat and looked down at the dress on the floor. It looked rather
like a deflated ostrich. It wasn’t bad, really: mostly black with
white layers, fluffy, ankle-length. I quickly stripped off my
clothes and slipped it on, holding my arms high above my head as
gravity pulled it down into place. My hair stood out against the
black silk like fire. I thought back to what Jason had said about
my hair and smiled. It was perfect.

Much to the squealing of my friends, I asked Sammy’s
mom to drop me off at Jason’s house on the way home. She
tsk-
ed a little, but didn’t really seem to care, which was
fine by me. Standing in front of his house with my shopping bag
clutched in front of me, I listened to the girls drive off in the
car, leaving me alone on the sidewalk, miles away from my own
house. He lived in one of those houses that you buy one place and
get shipped to you. You could tell by the seam through the middle
where the two halves had been pushed together.

I walked up the stairs to his porch, trying to ignore
the sagging couch in the corner, probably home to spiders and
scorpions. With a deep breath, I opened the screen door and tapped
lightly on the door, almost hoping he wouldn’t hear and I could
begin the long walk home. Almost immediately, the door flew
open.

“Hey!” Jason pulled me in, looking exuberant. “Is
that your homecoming dress?”

I nodded as he shut the door behind me. “Do you want
to see it?”

He paused for a second, looking up at the ceiling. “I
don’t know. I suppose I should wait until the dance, but yeah, I
really want to see it now. I’m not very patient.”

I laughed, looking around. We were standing in a tiny
kitchen that was mostly taken up by a card table with dirty dishes
piled on top. “I’ll show it to you. Where can I change?”

“You can change in my room,” he said, leading me all
the way down the hallway to the back room. “I’ll be right out
here.”

Softly shutting the door, I sat down on his bed,
spreading out the dress next to me. The bedsprings creaked and sank
beneath me as I kicked off my shoes and quickly stripped down to my
underwear, pulling the dress on again. It was weird – it felt
scratchier and tighter, less magical than in the store. I softly
padded back over to the door and pulled it open, feeling
self-conscious.

“Wow!” Jason’s mouth dropped open as he looked at me.
“You look gorgeous, Paige. You look like a magpie.”

I considered that for a moment. “That sounds better
than looking like an ostrich.”

He laughed. “Seriously? You thought you looked like
an ostrich?”

I laughed, throwing my hands up in the air. “I don’t
know! It was the first thing that came to mind when I saw it.” My
laugh sounded too loud and I quickly silenced myself, glancing down
the hallway. “Is your dad home? Is it okay that I’m here?”

Jason nodded, leaning against the wall. “It’s fine.
He’s not around right now, so he won’t even know you were here, but
I doubt he’d mind anyway. He doesn’t care who I have over, as long
as we don’t destroy the place.”

“That’s how my mom is,” I said, wrinkling my nose.
“Or was. Sometimes she wants to know every little detail of my life
and other times she could care less.”

“It’s not that he doesn’t care about me,” he replied,
sounding defensive. “I mean, he’s just really easy-going. He knows
I wouldn’t do anything really dumb and he stays pretty busy.”

My face flushed as I realized I had implied that his
dad didn’t care about his life. “So where is he today?” I
asked.

“I think he’s at some church thing,” he said. “I used
to see you at those events back when we were younger, you know.” I
shook my head. I hadn’t known. I didn’t remember anyone from
church, except Asher. Oh, and that stupid girl who stole my
glasses, but she doesn’t really count. That was back in Chicago,
anyway. “How come you don’t go anymore?” he asked.

“Hey, you’re not there, either,” I pointed out.

He rolled his eyes and walked over to his bed,
sitting down and beckoning me over. I carefully picked my way over
my discarded clothes and plopped down next to him. “Make yourself
comfortable. I normally go to the church events, but you texted a
little while before we were leaving, so I decided to stick around
here.”

“Sorry,” I said quickly. “You should have gone. I
could’ve come over a different time.”

He shook his head. “It’s not a big deal. Hanging out
with you sounded like a lot more fun. So why don’t you come to
church anymore? I see your mom there every week.”

Ugh. Of all the subjects he could have brought up.
Remember the story about Coyote? Well, my mom and I had come into
conflict about religion a long time before that. And well, I guess
I kind of misled you with that earlier story. Sorry about that. You
see, my mom wasn’t totally overreacting when she lectured me about
God and tried to get me to stop hanging out with Asher. The
troubles started a long time before that.

Like I mentioned earlier, after my dad died, my mom
and I became regular church-goers. And believe it or not, I loved
it. I wasn’t so big on the whole religion side of it, but it was
the one day of week full of relief, so different from our life at
home. At home, anything and everything set my mom off: the sound of
a car’s tires squealing off in the distance, a forgotten pill
hidden in the corner of the bathroom, or even something invisible
that I couldn’t see or hear.

I was walking on tiptoes through the house, trying
desperately to distract her from her memories with little success.
I’m not saying she was much better at church, but at least I wasn’t
the one in charge of taking care of her there. At church, when she
burst into tears for seemingly no reason, she was surrounded by her
friends who hugged and comforted her. They swept me away to play
with the other kids or talk about school, so I didn’t have to see
her break down. I loved those days.

Things between church and me started to go downhill
few years after my dad died, when I was ten. It was around
Christmastime, which was the worst time of year for my mom. She was
okay for most of the year then, but around Christmas, she started
shutting herself in her room and quietly crying again. I was a
nervous wreck for most of the holiday season and I think everyone
at church knew it, because they paid me an extra amount of
attention.

Like probably every church everywhere, we were
holding a Christmas show where they picked a bunch of the kids to
sing in front of everyone, dressed up like angels. I was one of the
angels (with a solo, even) and I was ridiculously excited. Part of
it was the attention, but most of it was just seeing how my mom’s
face lit up as she listened to me practice. If I could just
practice hard enough, be perfect enough, maybe we would actually
have a happy Christmas.

It was an awful lot of stress for a little kid.

During the first couple practices, Asher and his mom
faithfully sat in the second row, listening to us all sing our
little hearts out. I watched them as we sang and noticed how
irritated he looked, but shrugged it off. He nearly always looked
that way. The important thing was that he was there. And then, just
like that, they were gone. No warning, nothing. It might not seem
like that big of a deal, missing a rehearsal, but I had come to
rely on their faces. I was frozen in fear without them. I managed
to mumble my way through it all, but even my mom commented on the
way home that I hadn’t been myself.

I went over to Asher’s house that night, two days
before Christmas (Christmas Eve eve as I’ve always called it). His
mom greeted me with a plate of gingersnaps and a kiss on the cheek
as I entered the front door. “I’m sorry we missed your rehearsal,”
she said, but I detected something strange in her voice, something
hard. “We just weren’t able to make it today. Take these cookies in
to Asher, will you?”

I nodded wordlessly and hurried down the hall to his
room. He was lying on his bed, arms folded under his head, facing
away from me. He jumped when I tapped his shoulder and offered him
the cookies. “They’re from your mom,” I said simply. He nodded and
sat up, taking a cookie, but just fingered it without taking a
bite. I clambered up next to him and set the cookies between us.
Even for Asher, he was being unusually morose, especially for
Christmas Eve eve. “So why weren’t you at practice today?” I asked.
He turned away again and I could tell something was really wrong.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, scooting closer to try and get him to look
at me.