The Art of Losing Yourself (35 page)

“Coach was right, you know.”

I looked up at him. “About?”

“You
are
beautiful.”

There was a pause. A hitch. A small stretch of electrified silence where I looked up at him and he looked down at me and it was like we were back on the hood of my car on Christmas Eve. Beautiful? Elias thought that I—Gracie May Fisher—was beautiful? That was a word that had only ever belonged to my mother and Carmen. The compliment turned me into reckless Gracie, the girl who acted first and thought later. The girl who stood on her tiptoes and pressed her lips against his.

Only Elias didn’t kiss me back.

He leaned away.

The flush drained from my cheeks. And with it, every good and happy feeling the night had brought. Vanished in one fell swoop. I was Gracie the Schmuck all over again. At a high school dance. Swaying to an incredibly lame song. Surrounded by classmates. All of whom had just witnessed Elias’s rejection.

With a sick feeling in my gut, I removed my hands from around his neck and hurried away. Outside and straight for Elias’s car. I didn’t pay attention to the chill in the air or the stars up above. And I didn’t look back, not even when I heard his footsteps closing in behind me.

“Hold up a second.” He touched my elbow.

I shrugged him off and kept going.

“Can you stop, please?”

“Why?”

“So we can talk.”

“I’d rather not.” I was too preoccupied with the deep, incessant need to burrow inside the earth until I passed through the core and came out someplace near Singapore.

“Come on.”

I pivoted on the heels of my Chucks. “Am I a pity project to you?”

Elias stopped. “What?”

I thought about Parker’s warning at the party, all the way back in the fall. At the time, I’d chalked it up to drunken idiocy. Whenever suspicion crept in, I did my best to shove it aside. Elias had never treated me like a project, and forget Parker. But now? “Do you get extra points with the big guy upstairs for befriending the loser new girl at school or something?”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about this.” I motioned from him to me. “Us. What am I to you?”

“You’re my friend.”

“Your friend?”

“Yes.”

“Well, guess what, Elias. Friends don’t call friends beautiful. And friends don’t flirt the way you flirt with me. Even Malik and Veronica noticed it.” I shook my head. He was a tease. And I was an idiot. I could dye my hair and join as many teams as I wanted, the old me was alive and kicking.

“You’re right.” He massaged the bridge of his nose. “I’m confused. I’m conflicted. I’m leaving for Mississippi State in June.”

His confession took a needle to the heated bubble ballooning inside of my chest. It popped and whirled away, leaving me empty and deflated in the Bay Breeze parking lot.

“Gracie, we’re a couple of high school kids. I don’t do casual. And you’re not even a believer.”

“What’s
that
supposed to mean?”

“No, wait—that didn’t come out right.” He folded his hands on the crown of his head and glanced up at the stars. “I like you. A lot, actually. More than I probably should. But all I can be right now is friends.”

Heat stung my cheeks. Maybe his confession should ease some of the sting, but it didn’t. Rejection was rejection was rejection. I was so tired of it. “I wish you would have told me that before the entire school watched me make a fool out of myself.”

“The entire school is not at that dance.”

“Enough that everyone is going to know on Monday.” I stared off into the dark, a heavy weight gathering on my shoulders. How was it possible that a half hour ago, I thought I’d float off the ground? “Can you drive me home?”

“Gracie—”

“I’m too embarrassed to be your friend right now, Elias.”

His eyes were sad, conflicted. He looked like he wanted to say something more, argue or ask a question. But he shifted his weight and nodded. “All right. I’ll drive you home.”

G
RACIE

We crushed Lake City in the semis. Malik, Veronica, and Fred were thrilled. I was getting an ulcer. Today, on this day after our victory, Malik decided to give us the afternoon off. Revel in our triumph and hit practice hard on Monday. They invited me to The Barbeque Pit to continue the celebrating from last night, but I opted out. I’d rather help Carmen spray-paint the last of the Adirondack chairs. Plus, I was pretty sure Elias was going to join Malik at The Barbeque Pit too.

Squinting against the sun, I walked between Carmen’s car and a white F-150 with splatters of mud on the hatch. A gust of briny wind swept across the beach and hit my side, tangling and twisting mahogany hair around my face. I peeled the strands from my cheek and headed into the front office, where conversation sounded from the hospitality room. Inside, a gentleman dressed in a suit, a shoestring necktie, and a cowboy hat gestured with his hands to Carmen, who sat across from him.

She caught a glimpse of me in the doorway and nodded at the man. “Thank you for stopping in for an interview, and for bringing a copy of your résumé.” She held up the sheet of paper. “I’ll be getting back with you shortly.”

He thanked her, tipped his hat at us both, and made his exit. As soon as he was gone, Carmen buried her face in her hands. She had interviewed at least five people now, and so far she found something wrong with each applicant.

“Not a good interview?” I asked.

“He worked on a dude ranch for five years.” Her palms muffled the words.

“Which means he has experience in the hospitality industry.”

“The place shut down three months ago.”

I snagged the empty seat the cowboy left behind. “So what—you think he’s jinxed?”

She looked at me over her fingers. “I don’t know.”

“Why don’t you just run the motel yourself?”

“Because I have a job.” She tucked a strand of curly hair behind her ear, her posture perking. “Hey, congratulations on making it to the state finals.”

“You congratulated me last night.”

“Not in person.” Carmen asked me to call her as soon as the match was over. So I did. By the time we made the long drive home in Malik’s van, Carmen was long asleep. “Does this mean I finally get to come watch you compete?”

I drummed my fingers against the table. Veronica had already invited her entire family, extended relatives included, as well as the whole of Bay Breeze’s marching band. Fred even invited his dermatologist. Malik planned on inviting everyone from youth group, which included Elias. My stomach twisted at the thought. I’d been avoiding him since the kissing fiasco on Saturday.

Carmen raised her eyebrows, waiting for my response.

“Yes, you can come.”

The smile on her face erased some of the tiredness around her eyes. “You know who else I think you should invite?”

“Who?”

“Mom.”

My lips pursed. A reflex reaction, I guess, when it came to our mother.

“She misses you, Gracie.”

“She misses drinking.”

“She’s trying.”

She’d tried before, and I’d let myself hope before. A girl could only be let down by her mother so many times before that hope shriveled up and died. But even I had to admit that Mom was making an effort. She continued calling, anyway. No longer every night, but at least once a week—asking about my schoolwork, the motel, my job, the academic bowl team, Elias. Lately the conversations had been different. Filled with more silence. As if Mom was—as my sister insisted—missing me and no longer knew what to say. Carmen had given me another chance back in November. Could I give my mother the same?

Everything in me resisted the pull toward stupidity. Warned me not to put myself out there again. Still, the tiniest sliver of hope remained. One I could
not extract. And that tiny sliver of hope asked a very loud question. What if this time, Mom really had changed? I sighed. “I guess I can make a surprise visit to Apalachicola.”

Carmen smiled. “She would love that.”

My car needed a new muffler. The engine grew increasingly louder the farther east I drove on Highway 98. “Come on, girl,” I said, patting the dashboard. “We’re almost there.”

Several weeks ago, Elias named my car Wanda, which had somehow led to me referring to an inanimate object in the feminine. My attention wandered to my phone sitting in the console. No, I would not call him or text him or stalk him on social media. I refused to be that girl. Absolutely one hundred percent refused.

I flicked my blinker and turned onto Twenty-fourth Avenue, appeasing the worst of Wanda’s grumbling. Five minutes later, I idled in the driveway of my old home. After all these months, it was weird, being here. Except for the long grass and some unwieldy weeds in the flower beds, everything looked the same. I gave my keychain a twirl around my finger and stepped outside, trying to decide whether or not to knock. I’d never knocked before, but I also hadn’t told Mom I was coming.

I raised my fist and gave the door a self-conscious tap. She didn’t answer. Maybe she wasn’t even home. For all I knew, she was out running errands. Or maybe working a Saturday shift at her new job. I tried again, harder this time. Still nothing. I stuck the house key on my key chain into the lock, gave it a twist, and stepped inside a dark house with shades drawn.

“Hello?”

A bottle of wine and an empty wine glass sat abandoned on the coffee table. I was so used to seeing them in our home that they didn’t register—not at first. Then Mom appeared in the living room dressed in pajamas, her hair a tangled mess, as if she’d just woken up.

It was almost lunchtime.

Her hands moved to her hair in an attempt to cover what I’d already seen. “Gracie? What are you doing here?”

I stood there in shock, unsure why I should be. This was my mother, after all. “We won the semis. I came to invite you to the state finals.”

“Really? That’s wonderful. Here, come on in.” She removed the crumpled blanket from the couch cushions and waved me inside. “It’s so good to see you.”

My muscles recoiled from the invitation, the feigned nonchalance of it, as though nothing at all was wrong with this situation. I told myself to turn around and walk away. Go back to Wanda and her loud motor and pretend today hadn’t happened, but there was that desperate, stupid sliver inside of me that wanted to be wrong. That said not to jump to conclusions. Maybe she had a friend over last night and that wine glass didn’t belong to her, even if the guilty way she picked it up and hurried it into the kitchen, out of sight, said otherwise.

I didn’t move from my spot in the entryway. Not when she was in the kitchen clunking around, not when she fumbled around inside the bathroom, and not when she returned and wrapped me in a trembling hug.

“I’m so glad you came.”

She reeked of alcohol and mouthwash.

A lump of revulsion built in the back of my throat.

She let go and fiddled with the hem of her pajama top. When she looked up, tears swam in her bloodshot eyes. “Please don’t tell Carmen.”

No “I’m sorry.” No “Don’t be mad.” All she cared about was hiding her secret from my sister.

“She’ll be upset,” Mom said.

“And what about me?” The question shot from my mouth like a missile—a fiery accusation that made her flinch. “Don’t you care if
I’m
upset?”

“I was fired a couple weeks ago, for no good reason at all. And I miss you, Gracie. It’s hard being alone here.”

“Don’t.” I shook my head. The phone calls that had changed? The bouts of silence I mistook for sadness? That hadn’t been sadness at all. That had been my mother trying to sound sober. Or pausing to take another drink of her wine. “Don’t you dare put your drinking on me.”

She cupped her hand over her mouth, the glossy sheen in her eyes thickening. “I’m sorry. I don’t know how it happened. After I was fired, I went to the grocery store and I came home with one bottle. I was just going to have—”

“One drink? Really, Mom?” How much more cliché could she get? “Save your story for somebody who cares. I’ve heard it enough.”

“You don’t understand, Gracie. My life is hard.”

“Join the club.” I spat the bitter words at her feet, then walked outside and slammed the door, disgust blistering under my skin—more toward myself than her. I knew better by now. The sliver of hope needed a date with the tweezers. My mother could try all she wanted. It didn’t change a thing.