The Start of Me and You (20 page)

“
Bleak House
,” I muttered. “I forgot
Bleak House
. That was on my flash cards, too!”

“I know,” Max told me. “You had me quiz you with them!”

I stuck out my tongue at him, but I wasn’t really mad. In fact, I was grateful that they happened to stop by on the night when I could most use the company. They had turned what could have been an awful game night into a fun Friday. We played another round, and my parents emerged victorious.

“This was so fun!” my mom said. “When are you going to let us come to one of your QuizBowl matches, Paige? Max, she keeps telling us that parents don’t go.”

“
Mom
…,” I said.

“That’s true, actually,” Max said. “Because it’s right after school and just in a random classroom. But parents are allowed to come to regional semifinals, if we make it.”

“Well, if you do,” my dad said, “we’ll definitely be there. Front row!”

Great. I shoved another one of Mrs. Chase’s sugar cookies into my mouth.

“I’m really glad you came,” I told the guys when I walked them to the door. “I was in need of the company.”

“Yeah, Kayleigh told us,” Ryan said.

I cocked my head, confused.

Max laughed. “She texted me to say we should crash your family’s party.”

This situation sort of made me sound like a loser, but it was a good night all the same.

“This was fun,” Ryan said as he wrapped one arm around me. “We’re leaving for our ski trip tomorrow, so … Happy New Year, Paige.”

He kissed the top of my head before starting down the driveway.

“Happy New Year,” I repeated, almost dumbfounded. Sure, it was a tiny peck—totally platonic—but it felt like a day-after-Christmas miracle.

“Happy New Year, Janie,” Max said, smiling.

Soon, I’d put the New Year’s refill into my planner—another fresh start. I held out my arms and hugged him through his coat. “Happy New Year. Be safe.”

They waved as they backed out of the driveway. Max honked twice before driving off, and, even amid the falling snowflakes, I had never felt less cold.

That night, I startled awake to the sound of my phone vibrating. The screen blared in the darkness, glowing with Kayleigh’s name. “Kayleigh?”

“Paige?” She sounded tearful or near to it.

I sat straight up. “What’s wrong?”

“I was at a party with Eric in Carmel, and the cops broke it up.” There was a pause, and I could hear her muffled crying. “Everyone went running, and I think they must have caught Eric because he isn’t answering his phone, and—”

“Tell me where you are.” I spoke as loudly as I dared. If my mom heard, she’d call Kayleigh’s dad, and Kayleigh would be in so much trouble.

“In a neighborhood in Carmel. Where the party was. I’m like, hiding in some random woods.” Her voice broke, giving way to a sob. “My phone battery is low, and I just don’t know what to do.”

Call Tessa—that’s what she would have done, if Tessa wasn’t in Greece. Tessa could have handled this.

I considered calling a cab, but I’d never even seen a cab in Oakhurst. Maybe one could drive here from Indianapolis, but that would take too long. And riding with a cabbie at 2:00 a.m. didn’t seem safe. I swore in my mind, long strings of the worst words I knew, as I paced the carpet and worked up a sweat.

“Paige?” Kayleigh’s voice was small.

“Give me a sec,” I said. “I’m thinking.”

I knew the McMahons’ garage code. And I had Tessa’s spare car key. When she gave it to me, she said it was in case I left anything in the car that I needed during the school day. The only time I used it was when she misplaced her own keys in her massive purse.

“If I can get you home, can you sneak back in without waking your dad up?”

“Yeah,” Kayleigh said. “For sure.”

My feet hit the floor, even though my plan was basic
at best. Sneak out of the house, use Tessa’s garage code to get in, and take her car. “Drop a pin and send me the closest address to you. Then stay there, in case your phone dies.”

“You can’t tell your mom, Paige! She’d call my—”

“I know,” I whispered, cutting her off. “I’m not telling my mom. Trust me, okay?”

“Okay. I’m so sorry, Paige. I didn’t know what else to do.”

“Don’t be sorry. I’m on my way.”

After we hung up, I glanced out the window. The snow hadn’t stuck to the ground, so I was safe from a footprint trail. I tugged on clothes from the hamper, mind racing. My first instinct was to arrange pillows as my sleeping form, like they always do in the movies. Instead, I left a note on the end of my bed just in case.
Mom—had to help a friend out of a bad situation. I promise I’ll be back soon. Call me if you read this
.

I extracted my key ring from my purse as quietly as I could, clamping down so the metal couldn’t jingle. I held my breath, turning my doorknob as slowly as possible. I used to sneak downstairs for midnight snacks in the weeks after Aaron died, when I was barely sleeping. My mom never knew.

I stepped lightly into the hallway, and every rustle of carpet—a sound I’d never even noticed before—made my heart race faster. I didn’t exhale until my feet found the foyer’s hardwood floors. It was a wonder I didn’t pass out.

With nerves short-circuiting, I made it out the back door. Only there, in the cold stillness of the night, did it sink in that I was really doing this. I locked the door behind me and took off running for Tessa’s house, through the back of my neighborhood. The stream water was freezing against my shoes, but I kept going, up the hill. Nothing moved but me.

Breathing hard outside the McMahons’ garage, I cringed as I entered the password. The garage door lurched open, far too loud.

I stood there, at the mouth of the garage, and waited for a neighbor to appear, screeching about burglary. It remained quiet.

Even the sound of the car starting made me wince—like my mom could hear it somehow—but I backed out. I closed the garage door behind me.

My hands shook on the steering wheel as I made my way out of Tessa’s neighborhood.

One half of my brain took action, doing what needed to be done. The other half was flipping out and screaming,
What the hell are you thinking? You snuck out and stole your best friend’s car? You’re going to be in so much trouble!

But I pushed my focus to Kayleigh, scared and cold and alone. My right leg quivered as I braked at stop signs, following as my phone spoke the directions. I tried to control my
breathing, but all I could think was that my mom would call any second, panicked and furious.

When my phone announced that I’d arrived at Kayleigh’s location, it felt like an hour had passed instead of only twelve minutes.

Around me was a suburban neighborhood like mine, dark but for the moon and porch lights.

I pulled the car over, scanning for any sign of life. My finger touched the brights, nearly flashing them twice in case Kayleigh was watching. Before I could, a figure darted out from the trees, in a coat I recognized. Kayleigh flew into the passenger’s seat and slammed the door. She threw her arms around me, hugging me across the car’s center console.

“You came!” she cried. “Oh my God, I was so freaked out, Paige. I’ve never been so relieved in my life.”

I hugged her back, the familiar scent of her hair product undercut by beer and the woodsy smell of cold earth. Her presence made me fully believe it: I did the right thing. Even if my mom found out and grounded me, I wouldn’t take it back.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“Yeah. I guess. I mean, now I am. Eric’s okay, too. He was just hiding in the basement so he couldn’t answer my calls until just a minute ago. And like, it wasn’t even that big of a party. The cops are so dramatic.” She sat back,
taking in the space between us. Her brows furrowed. “You took Tessa’s car.”

“Yeah,” I said.

She gawked at me as I directed us out of the neighborhood.

I didn’t ask any more about the party. Kayleigh didn’t need me to tell her that this whole night was probably a series of unsafe choices. She couldn’t have known that going in. She just wanted to spend time with her boyfriend and his friends. And running from the cops and hiding in the cold woods was a more lasting educational experience than anything I could say.

Besides, sneaking out with a senior boyfriend to a party seemed so foreign to me, especially a party with drinking and cops. It wasn’t that I wanted to be invited, exactly. I just didn’t want to feel like such an outsider to Kayleigh’s new life. Morgan’s recent mood made a lot more sense to me in that moment.

“It’s different from what I thought it would be,” Kayleigh said quietly.

“What is?” I asked.

“Being in love.” When I glanced over, she was looking out the passenger’s-side window. “The highs are so high. But the lows are even lower. It’s like he can make or break my entire day.”

I frowned. That didn’t quite sound right. Handing
someone else the only set of keys to your happiness—it seemed like too much to part with, even for love. A little voice in my head whispered:
That’s not how it should be
. Maybe it was my intuition talking, but the voice sounded an awful lot like Morgan’s.

A part of me resented Eric—that he would put Kayleigh in a position to run from the cops. I’d only met him once, and he was subdued. Not like I thought he’d be. Kayleigh chattered extra, prodding him with questions like, “Tell them about that night,” and he’d give us a halfhearted explanation.

I didn’t say anything, though. Because what did I know? My expertise on romance included grieving your first real boyfriend and desperately crushing on someone from afar. And I wasn’t even doing either of those things very well.

When I pulled onto Kayleigh’s street, every nerve in my body coiled up all over again. I had to return Tessa’s car and sneak back into my house.

She reached over, clutching my arm. “You’re the best, you know that?”

“I just did what Morgan or Tessa would have done.”

“No.” She smiled in an almost sad way. “I mean, they might have picked me up. But Morgan would have lectured me about making safer choices, and Tessa would have judged me in silence for being, like, immature or something.”

That was probably true.

“Anyway,” she said, “I owe you one.”

“No, you don’t,” I said, and she blew me a kiss as she went around the back of her house.

I thought about that on my hurried walk home, after I’d put the car back in its place and shut the garage. In friendship, we are all debtors. We all owe each other for a thousand small kindnesses, for little moments of grace in the chaos. How many times had Kayleigh laced her fingers through mine when people were pity-gawking at me?
They’re only staring because they’re jealous of our love
, she’d say, and I couldn’t help but smile.

I slipped back into my quiet house and crumpled the note I’d left on my bed. Huddling under my covers, I felt a little bit proud.

Because with true friends, no one is keeping score. But it still feels good to repay them—even in the tiniest increments.

Chapter Fifteen

As winter forged on, the doldrums found me. School was back in full force after break, and it seemed like I was the only one who wasn’t busy. Kayleigh was with Eric, Tessa was racking up yoga hours for her certification, and Morgan was in overdrive with her many school activities.

A few weeks after break ended, I decided to venture out in the snow on a Friday night so I could spend a gift card I’d been hoarding since Christmas.

My parents were cuddling on the couch when I asked my mom if I could take the car.

“To where?” She hit Pause on the romantic comedy they were watching.

“Just Alcott’s.”

“With whom?”

“No one,” I said. “I want to pick something out with the gift card you guys got me.”

She frowned, glancing over at my dad. “I don’t know. Is it still snowing?”

“Nope.”

“Well, there could be black ice,” she said. “We can just take you.”

I hung my head. As I often did when my mom imposed psychotic restrictions, I tried to remember her expression at Aaron’s funeral. She looked physically ill, watching the Rosenthals’ pale faces after losing their son. It was an image that wouldn’t leave me, and I knew it wouldn’t leave her either.

“Your car has all-wheel drive,” my dad said. “It’s only a few miles.”

“I suppose that’s true.” My mom looked at me intently. “Drive slowly and text us when you get there and when you’re leaving. Understood?”

“Sure,” I said, trying to sound nonchalant. The more excited I got about something, the more skeptical my mom became about allowing me to do it.

She reached for the remote, and I mouthed
thank you
to my dad as she hit Play. He nodded, giving me a wink.

I drove as carefully as I’d promised, staying a bit under the speed limit and braking evenly. But I did blast the
radio, singing along with whatever lite-rock radio station my mom had set as the default. The parking lot was more crowded than I’d expected—other people with cabin fever finally braving the weather.

Alcott’s looked warm, the front window glowing with soft light. Inside, there was a line at the coffee counter, curling around the pastry display case. I hurried in, the cold nipping at my face. When I pulled the door open, the smell of fresh coffee and cured paper hit me. As it often did, Alcott’s Books and Beans felt like coming home.