Sarah Dessen (23 page)

“Where we going?” Lissa asked, turning her head and glancing back at me.

“The Arbors,” I said. “There’s a party there.”

“Now we’re talking,” Chloe said. She reached forward and cranked up the radio. And just like that, it could have been old times: the four of us, on the prowl. Earlier I’d been the odd girl out, Miss Committed, having to warm the bench while they set out into the game. But no more. And there was still so much of summer left.

We were almost out of the parking lot when I heard it. A voice, yelling after us. Chloe turned down the radio as I twisted in my seat, already wondering what I’d say when Dexter asked why I was leaving, what was the deal, how exactly I could refute that automatic assumption that this was just jealous girlfriend behavior. Which it wasn’t. Not at all.

The voice yelled again, just as I peered through the back window. But it wasn’t Dexter. It was the guy Lissa had been talking to. He called her name, looking confused as we pulled out into traffic and drove away.

“Hey!”

There was someone behind me. I felt my whole body tense, then run hot, as I turned around. My full Diet Zip left my hand before I even realized it, sailing through the air at warp speed toward the head of the person who was standing in the middle of the lawn. It would have hit square on, perfect target, except that he moved at the last second, and it flew past, crashing against the mailbox and bursting open, showering the curb with Diet Coke and ice.

“What is your problem?” Dexter shouted.

“My problem?” I snapped. I could feel my heart beating, thunk thunk thunk, in my chest. Who lurks around neighborhoods past midnight, sneaking up on people? “You scared the
shit
out of me.”

“No.” He walked up to me, shoes leaving a trail across the damp grass, until he was right in front of me. “At the club. When you just took off, no explanation? What was that all about, Remy?”

I had to take a moment to collect myself. And mourn for my Diet Zip, which I had refilled just minutes earlier. “You were busy,” I said, shrugging. “And I got tired of waiting.”

He stuck his hands in his pockets and looked at me for a second. “No,” he said. “That’s not it.”

I turned my back to him and dug out my keys, shaking them until I found the one that fit the front door. “It’s late,” I said. “I’m tired. I’m going inside to go to bed.”

“Was it the song?” He stepped up even closer to me as I stuffed the key in the lock. “Is that why you freaked out and left?”

“I did not freak out,” I said flatly. “I just figured you had your hands full with that girl, and—”

“Oh, God,” he said. He stepped back, down the steps, and laughed. “Is that what this is about? You’re jealous?”

Okay. Those, as far as I was concerned, were fighting words. I turned around. “I don’t get jealous,” I told him.

“Oh, right. So you’re not human, then.”

I shrugged.

“Remy, for God’s sake. All I know is that one minute I’m telling you I’ll be done in a second and the next you just vanish, and the last I see is you talking to some old boyfriend about meeting him later. Which was kind of surprising, considering we’re seeing each other. Or so I thought.”

There was so much erroneous information in this statement that it honestly took me a second to decide, outline style, what to address first. “You know,” I said finally, “I waited around, Ted said you were deep in negotiations with this girl, my friends were ready to leave. So I left.”

“Ted,” he repeated. “What else did Ted say?”

“Nothing.”

He reached up and pulled his hand through his hair, then let his hand drop to his side. “Okay, then. I guess everything’s fine.”

“Absolutely,” I said and turned around again, turning the key in the lock.

And then, just as I was about to push the door open, he said, “I heard you, you know.”

I stopped, pressing my palm against the wood of the door. I could see myself in the small square of glass there, and him reflected behind me. He was kicking at something in the grass with his toe, not looking at me.

“Heard me what?” I said.

“Talking to Scarlett.” Now he did look up, but I couldn’t turn around. “I wanted to tell you I’d be done in a minute and to wait, if you could. So I walked over, and I heard you. Talking about us.”

So that had been what had surprised Scarlett. I reached up and tucked my hair behind my ear.

“It’s nice to know where I stand, I guess,” he said. “Summer boyfriend and all. Set ending. No worries. A bit surprising, I have to admit. But maybe I should just admire your honesty.”

“Dexter,” I said.

“No, it’s okay. My mother did always say I’d make a lousy husband, so it’s good to get a second opinion. Plus I like knowing you don’t see us going anywhere. Takes the guesswork out of it.”

I turned around and looked at him. “What did you expect? That we’d stay together forever?”

“Are those the only options? Nothing or forever?” He lowered his voice. “God, Remy. Is that what you really believe?”

Maybe, I thought. Maybe it is.

“Look,” I told him, “honesty is good. I’m going away to college, you’ll be gone by the end of the summer, or maybe, after tonight, even sooner. Ted made it sound like you were leaving tomorrow.”

“Ted is an idiot!” he said. “Ted probably also told you I sleep with every girl we meet, didn’t he?”

I shrugged. “It doesn’t—”

“I knew it,” he said. “I knew there was some Ted factor involved in this. The Ted curve. What did he say?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

He sighed, loudly. “A year ago I got involved with the girl who booked bands for this club in Virginia Beach. It ended badly and—”

I held up my hand, stopping him. “I don’t care,” I told him. “I don’t. Let’s not do the true confessions thing, okay? Believe me, you don’t want to hear mine.”

He looked surprised at this, and for a second I realized he didn’t know me at all. Not at all.

“I do, though,” he said, and his voice was softer now, conciliatory, as if all this was fixable in some way. “That’s the difference. I’m not in this just for a week, or a month, Remy. I don’t work like that.”

A car drove by, slowing down as it passed. The guy behind the wheel was blatantly staring at us. It took all I had not to flip him the finger, but I resisted.

“What are you afraid of ?” he asked, coming closer. “Is it that bad that you might actually really like me?”

“I’m not afraid,” I said. “That’s not it. It’s just simpler this way.”

“So you’re saying we should just decide now that this summer doesn’t mean anything? Just use each other and then when you go or I go it’s over, see you later?”

It sounded so bad when he said it that way. “I have worked all my life to get out of here scot-free,” I said. “I can’t take anything else with me.”

“This doesn’t have to be a burden,” he said. “Why do you want to make it one?”

“Because I know how things end, Dexter.” I lowered my voice. “I’ve seen what commitment leads to, and it isn’t pretty. Going in is the easy part. It’s the endings that suck.”

“Who do you think you’re talking to?” he said incredously. “My mother’s had six husbands. I’ve been related to half the country at one time or another.”

“It’s not a joke.” I shook my head. “This is how it has to be. I’m sorry.”

For a minute neither of us said anything. After so many years of only thinking these things, saying them out loud felt so strange, as if now they were officially real. My cold, hard heart exposed, finally, for what it truly was. Fair warning, I thought. I should have told you from the start. I will let you down.

“I know why you’re saying this,” he said finally, “but you’re missing out. You know, when it works, love is pretty amazing. It’s not overrated. There’s a reason for all those songs.”

I looked down at my hands. “They’re just songs, Dexter. They don’t mean anything.”

He walked over and stood right in front of me, taking my hands in his. “You know, we only sang that tonight because we were dying up there. Lucas heard me humming it the other day and got all inspired and came up with that arrangement. They don’t know it has anything to do with you. They just think it’s a good crowd pleaser.”

“I guess it is,” I said. “Just not for me.”

I felt it then. That strange settling feeling that meant the worst part of breaking up was over, and now there were only a few pleasantries to exchange before you were done for good. It was like the finish line coming up over the hill, and knowing that what lies ahead is all within your sight.

“You know,” he said, rubbing my thumb with his, “it could have gone either way with us. All those marriages and everything. Another day, you’d be the one who believed, and I’d be sending you away.”

“Maybe,” I replied. But I couldn’t even imagine believing in love the way he did. Not with the history we shared. You had to be crazy to come out of it and think forever was still possible.

He leaned forward, still holding my hand, and kissed my forehead. I closed my eyes as he did so, pressing my toes into the grass. I took in everything about him that I’d grown to like: the smell of him, his narrow hips, the smoothness of his skin against mine. So much in so little time.

“I’ll see you around,” he said, pulling back from me. “Okay?”

I nodded. “Okay.”

He squeezed my hand one last time, then let it drop and started across the grass. His feet left fresh tracks: the ones from earlier were gone, already absorbed, as if nothing had happened up to here.

Once inside I went up to my bedroom and got undressed, pulling on an old pair of boxers and a tank top and crawling under the sheets. I knew this feeling, the 2 A.M. loneliness that I’d practically invented. It was always worse right after a breakup. In those first few hours officially single again the world seems like it expands, suddenly bigger and more vast now that you have to get through it alone.

That was why I’d started listening to the song, in the beginning: it took my mind off things. It was the one constant in my life, however I felt about it, the one thing that had remained a part of me as stepfathers and boyfriends and houses shifted in and out. The recording never changed, the words staying the same, my father’s voice taking the same breaths between lines. But now I couldn’t even do that. It was now stuck in my mind the way Dexter had sung it: mocking and sweet and different, carrying a heavier and stranger weight than it ever had before.

I kept thinking about how he’d kissed my forehead as we said good-bye. It had to be the nicest breakup ever. Not that it made it any easier. But still.

I rolled over and pulled the pillow tight under my head, closing my eyes. I tried to distract myself with other songs: the Beatles, my current favorite CD, old 1980s hits from my childhood. But Dexter’s voice kept coming back, slipping easily over the words I knew too well. I fell asleep with it still playing in my mind, and the next thing I knew it was morning.