Saving Face (a young adult romance) (7 page)

            That night Alyssa sat in her room from the
moment she’d finished dinner until the moment she saw the light come on next
door.  Every five or so minutes she’d just about get up the nerve to call him,
but she always chickened out before hitting
send
.  With the light on she
knew he must be home, so there wasn’t going to be anymore avoidance.

            Alyssa crawled out of her window, and tapped
lightly on his.  He answered immediately.

            “Should I make you sit on the roof all night?” 
He joked lightly.

            “You probably could.  I think there is a
distinct possibility that I deserve it.”

            Brent pulled a face.  “Get in here Lyssa.”

            Alyssa climbed in.  Normally she would make
herself comfortable—maybe plop down on the floor, or even lounge across his
bed.  Now she just stood awkwardly shifting her weight from side to side.  “We
broke up.”  She finally managed.

            “I thought we might have.”  Brent was sitting in
his desk chair, watching her with those super intense eyes of his.  “Care to
tell me why?”

            “You’re supposed to be happy.  You hated being
my boyfriend.  And anyway things were getting a little confused.”

            “Okay.”

            That was it?  Two days of ignoring his phone
calls.  The entire school was mad at her for leading him on and then breaking
his heart.  Well maybe not the whole school, but some of them.  He was just
going to sit there and stare at her?  No. Way.  “That’s it?  That’s all you
have to say?”

            “What am I supposed to say, Lyssa?”

            “I don’t know!  Something!  How did you know we
broke up?  I mean that I told people… whatever—how did you know?”

            “Jenny wants to help me work through my broken
heart.”  He replied sarcastically.  “What
did
you tell people?”

            “I tried to keep it simple, but you know how she
is.  Now everyone hates me for leading you on, since you’ve been pining for me
since we were ten.”

            Brent laughed.  Was her imagination or did he
laugh at her a lot lately?  Of course laughing was better than some of the
other scenarios she’d been picturing.  Maybe this would be the end of it and
they’d be Alyssa and Brent again.  Just like before.

“That does clear up some of her
phone call.  Are we going to talk about Saturday night?”  He leaned back in his
chair slightly, his eyes unblinking.

            Damn.  Maybe she wasn’t going to get off that
easily.  “If you want to.”  He just tilted his head at her.  Clearly he’d been
expecting a little more from her.  “Was it real?  The date I mean, was it a
real date?”

            “Do you want it to be?”

            “Brent!  Now is not the time to play therapist
with me.  Have I been leading you on?!?”

            “What?”  Brent looked surprised.

            “Well I didn’t think so— I mean I know you
aren’t interested in me that way, but Jenn and Sue seemed so sure…”

            “How do you know that?”  He might as well have
been asking after the weather forecast.  His tone of voice gave nothing away.

            Stressful tears started pricking at Alyssa’s
eyelids.  Stupid girl hormones!  She fought them off.  “Well you don’t… I mean
it’s fine, but you’re not attracted to me so…”  He raised his eyebrows at her. 
“I ask you all the time.  You never say I’m pretty.  But that’s okay.”  Alyssa
rushed on. 

            “Come on Lyssa!  You own a mirror, you know you’re
gorgeous.”  Brent sighed at her.  She had honestly thought that relieving him
of fake boyfriend duties would get her out of sighing range.  “I didn’t think
you needed to hear that from me.  What was I supposed to say?  It would have
been weird if I mentioned it every time you took my breath away just by walking
into a room.  But okay.  Yeah, I’m attracted to you.”

            “Oh man!”  Alyssa crumpled to the floor.

            “See?  I told you it would be weird.”  Brent
sounded slightly amused.  “I don’t suppose you have anything you want to say to
me?”

            “Of course—I’m sorry.  I didn’t mean to lead you
on.  I swear I had no idea how you felt.”

            “What?”  Brent jerked his gaze to hers; his eyes
were—what?  Maybe angry?  “Lyssa I haven’t been…what did you call it?...
pining
for you since we were ten.  Is that why you’re here?  To apologize for breaking
my heart?”

            “No.  Maybe.  I didn’t?”  Alyssa looked up at
him.  “I don’t know why I’m here Brent.  I just want things to be normal for us
again.  What are the chances of us just pretending the last month never
happened?”

            “I think we’ve done enough pretending lately. 
Maybe you should just go, Lyssa.  You let me know when you’re ready to talk for
real.”

            “That is completely unfair Brent!  I
am
here.  We
are
talking.  Actually mostly I am talking and you get to sit
there and sigh and roll your eyes at me a whole lot.  You know what?  You’re
right, I am gonna go.  I think maybe we could use a bit of a break.”  Alyssa
scrambled out his window, and back into hers.  She stayed awake most of the night
waiting for him to come tapping at her window—but he didn’t.

            On Tuesday she left for school late.  This time
she was hoping for a breakfast ambush—she didn’t get one.  Whatever.  She
didn’t need all those extra calories anyway.  Brent put too much cheese in his
omelets.  At school she wandered around in her own world.  By the end of the
day Beth had taken to calling her
zombie girl
.

            “You gonna tell me what brought the zombie on?” 
She asked when practice was over and they were headed for the parking lot. 
“Did you fight with Brent?”

            “I told you yesterday that we broke up.”

            “Yeah, you did.  I just didn’t buy it until
today.  You are pretty out of it.”

            Alyssa considered lying, but she was tired of
lying.  Especially to Beth.  “Brent and I did have a fight.  At least I think
we did.  We were never really dating at all you know.  Jenn assumed, and I just
didn’t want people talking after that mess with Pete.”

            “I thought it might be something like that.  But
you seemed happy together.”

            “He’s my best friend.  We are always happy
together.  At least we were.  He really hates gossip; he only went along with
it because I basically begged him.”

            “So, why the fight?”

            “Who knows.  Things just got weird.  I kind of
accused him of being in love with me.” 

“And?”

“And—he’s not.”

“Oh.  Awkward…”  Beth’s eyes went
all sympathetic.

Alyssa was so tired of dealing with
this whole issue.  “Do you want to do something?  Get a smoothie at the mall
maybe?”

            Beth was very easy to get along with.  She
happily agreed and they spent the remainder of the afternoon on light topics
that didn’t make Alyssa’s head (or heart) ache.

            On Friday she got her Shakespeare paper back in
English class.  It was her first A in that class all year.  Of course there was
no way she’d have done so well if she hadn’t reworked the entire thing according
to Brent’s comments.  Twice she pulled out her phone to text him a thank you. 
He would be glad for her.  At least he would have been if they were talking to
each other—but they weren’t.  Apparently they were on a break.  And it was her
stupid idea.  The Shakespeare paper ended up in the bottom of her back pack.

            Saturday was the last Cheer meet of the season. 
All the girls went to a party at Jennifer’s house to celebrate.  A couple of
weeks ago a party at Jenn’s house would have been pretty low on her list of
things she’d like to do.  We are talking lower than swimming with leeches.  Now
she was looking forward to hanging out with Beth—besides her other option for
the weekend was to stay home alone not calling Brent. 

            “It’s kind of too bad we didn’t do a little
better.  It would have been nice to make it to the championships at least once
before we graduated.”  Beth was saying.  She and Alyssa were curled up on the
floor playing with the Pastings’ ancient German Sheppard.  Some Cheer teams
went on to compete through the winter.  They weren’t ranked well enough to
compete at a higher level.

            “I guess.  But I like having time off between
seasons.”  Alyssa wasn’t bothered by their low standings.  Now that she thought
about it cheering was one of the only things Alyssa didn’t feel competitive
about.  Usually she relished her open schedule during the holidays.  Of course
historically speaking she’d filled those open weekends with Brent. 
Thanksgiving was still two weeks away—surely by then Brent would be speaking to
her again.  Wouldn’t he?

            “I can’t tomorrow, my Hillfield man wants to go
to a movie.”  Jenn drew out the word Hillfield as if she was saying
sex god.

            Alyssa’s whole body spun around involuntarily. 
Jenn was walking past them with Sue.  Brent and Jenn were going to a movie? 
That was just terrific.  Great even.  He could do whatever he wanted; he wasn’t
her pretend boyfriend anymore anyway.  Of course this meant she’d be visiting
Pop alone again.  Poor Pop would be subjected to her subpar chess tactics. 
Maybe Brent didn’t care about that though.

            “Hey—you have to take everything she says with a
grain of salt.  You know that.”  Alyssa forced herself to focus on Beth’s
voice.

            “It’s fine.  I told you we aren’t together.  I’m
gonna go home.  I’ll see you on Monday.”

            Alyssa fled to her car.

            Thanksgiving arrived, and Brent still didn’t
call.  Alyssa hated mashing the potatoes; usually Brent did that part for her. 
Most years he would have been at the Maddow’s all morning.  Watching the parade
on TV, helping in the kitchen, and tossing a football in the yard.  He would
have gone home around 1:00 when his grandparents arrived.  So it was hardly as
though her holiday was ruined.  Pop was happy to watch the parade with her, and
chess was nearly as much fun as playing catch—anyway it was warmer.  During
dinner Alyssa kept glancing out the window to see if any extra cars were at the
Carter’s.  Like maybe Jennifer’s silver Jetta.   She didn’t see it, but that
didn’t make her feel any better.

            In school Alyssa tried to be her usual cheerful
self.  It wasn’t fair that Brent could ruin school days for her as well as
weekends.  They went to different schools—it wasn’t like she’d lost something. 
Of course her usual cheerful self was getting harder and harder to pull off. 
Actually she was pretty sure that no one was buying it.  During lunch Jennifer
was constantly hinting at her big evening plans—trying to bait Alyssa into
asking her what they were.  Alyssa started taking her lunch to the library. 
She needed the study time.

            After school Alyssa was too busy to notice if
Brent’s car was in the drive or not.  Her Mom and Dad were going to regret all
their eating out when their blood pressures were through the roof.  So she
started going to the market, and she took charge of dinners.  Her pasta was
never as good as Brent’s, but she made a fabulous turkey pot pie and her
chicken tacos were to die for.  As it turned out not having Brent around all
the time wasn’t so bad after all.  Her grades shot up—probably because he
wasn’t always there distracting her while she tried to study.  And she didn’t
have nearly as many sleepy mornings now that he wasn’t keeping her up until all
hours playing video games.  For the first time in memory all of her Christmas
shopping was done early. 

Sometime in December, remembering
actual dates had become less important to Alyssa lately, Beth was waiting to
ambush her outside her last class of the day.  They sly smile on her face made
Alyssa nervous even before she noticed the small thin box covered in Santa
Claus faces in her outstretched hand.  “Christmas isn’t for, umm… 8—no 9 days
yet.”  She objected thinking of the not yet wrapped Rihanna CD she’d chosen for
Beth—still at home in her bedroom.

“I know.  But this is a time
sensitive gift.”  Beth shook the box at her with impatience. 

Opening the gift, Alyssa lifted one
of several tickets from the layer of tissue paper.  “Billy Joel?”

Beth grinned.  “I know you are a
fan.  The concert’s this weekend… so time sensitive.”

“I am.  A fan I mean.  There are
four tickets here.”  Alyssa was pleased.  Billy Joel was a favorite of hers. 
She didn’t remember telling Beth that.  She was such a good friend.

“Well Tommy and I are going too, and
his cousin, Spencer, is a big Billy Joel fan—so he makes four.” 

Alyssa nodded.  “Wow this is great
thanks!”

“Actually I’m kind of excited too. 
I looked him up—he did all the music for
movin out
.  I loved that show”

“I know.”  Alyssa fought a memory
of Ms. Carter taking her and Brent to see the Broadway production a few years
before.  

            Beth and company picked her up Saturday afternoon. 
“Alyssa, Spencer, Spencer, Alyssa.”  Beth was saying when she reached Tommy’s
car in the driveway.  “Spencer is at Penn State.  Didn’t you say you applied
there?”

            “Yeah, I guess so.  Do you like it there?

            “It’s alright.  School is still school though.” 
Spencer was very nice looking.  A little taller than she was, with short dark
hair bright twinkling eyes, he’d been leaned against the passenger side of
Tommy’s car and now was holding the door open for her.

            “Thanks.”  She slid into the back seat.

            “Alyssa is a big hockey fan.”  Beth continued
when she and Spencer had settled into their seats and they were headed towards
the arena.

            “But she’s a Flyers fan.”  Tommy put in.

            “So definitely not the perfect woman, huh?” 
Spencer joked.  “We are strictly Pittsburg fans in our family.  Shame too—you
being so pretty and all.”

            Hockey was something Alyssa could talk about all
night long.  And she almost did.  Beth didn’t even seem to mind that she was
being excluded from the conversation.  It was a nice idea, Alyssa thought, for
Beth to have invited Spencer.  This way no one felt like a third wheel.

The show was terrific.  Their seats
more or less qualified as nose bleeds, but it was still a lot of fun.  She sang
along with every song, and they all danced in the isles during
uptown girl.
 

“I had no idea I would know so many
songs!”  Beth exclaimed after the concert.  They’d ended up in a corner booth
of a campy old diner on the highway ordering pie and milkshakes.

“I told you he was famous—my mom
listens to his stuff all the time.”  Tommy teased her.  “C’mon let’s check out
the claw machine.”  He tugged Beth out of the booth and off into the small
arcade area next to the hostess station.

“So.  Good concert huh?”  Spencer
asked when they were alone.

“Yeah.  I’ve never seen him live
before—I think he hit all my favorites.  How about yours?  What’s your favorite
Billy Joel song?”

“Oh, well I like
uptown girls
I guess.  This isn’t my usual style.”

“Oh.  Beth said you were a fan. 
That’s why she invited you.”  He just looked at her.  “Oh.  My.  God.  They set
us up!  This is supposed to be a
date
.”

Spencer’s eyes crinkled up a little
and he nodded slowly at her.  “I think that’s pretty obvious.”

“You knew?”

“Umm, yeah.  Music.  Food.  Date. 
Anyway I broke up with my high school girl friend over the summer and I think
Tommy’s been feeling bad for me.  Happy couples are always trying to put
together more happy couples.”  Spencer clearly thought she was insane for
taking so long to figure it out.

“I’m sorry.  I wasn’t thinking…
along those lines.”

“It’s fine.  Now that you know—what
do you think?”

“About being on a date with you?” 
Panicked, sad, and a little sick to my stomach Alyssa answered to herself. 
“I’m sorry.  I’m just not in a dating place right now.  Sorry.”

Spencer was looking at her
strangely.  “You don’t need to apologize three times.  You’ve hardly broken my
heart.” 

“It seems I’m
not
breaking a
lot of hearts lately.”

Alyssa was saved from the
embarrassment of having spoken out loud by the return of Tommy and Beth.  At
the end of the night Alyssa was very glad to be going home.  Being on a
non-double-date was pretty awkward once you actually knew it was a
non-double-date.