The Start of Me and You (25 page)

“No—it’s fine,” my dad said. His voice sounded relaxed, but he kept his eyes fixed on the pan in front of him, scrubbing vigorously. “The answer is that I have no idea.”

I sighed in relief because that was the only answer I could handle. If he’d said no, I would worry that he was leading my mom on. But I wasn’t ready to hear him say yes either, unwilling to imagine that another signed marriage certificate could end in a second set of divorce papers.

“I think you should,” Cameron said.

“Cameron, seriously,” I hissed.

“What? I’m just letting him know that I don’t have a problem with it, even if
someone else
does.” She glared at me, in case there was any doubt that I was the
someone else
.

“Cami,” my dad said. “Cool it. Your sister was there for some stuff that you’re too young to remember. She’s earned her skepticism.”

Cameron looked stunned, like this was new information. She must not have believed me when I’d told her the same thing months before, and she huffed at her seat. “It’s, like, so unfair that everyone in this family knows what happened, and I apparently don’t or something.”

“Well, the divorce was mostly my fault,” my dad said. It was like he’d been waiting to say this the whole time, like he knew Cameron would ask. “You should know that much.”

“Dad, that’s not true.” I turned to Cameron. “It’s not.”

“No—it’s okay, Paiger. She should know,” he said, waving me off with a soapy hand. He placed a glass upside down in the dishwasher, wiping his brow against his sleeve. “I was young and immature. It was before my column, and I was jealous of your mother’s success in journalism. I felt inadequate because she was making more money and because she was a better parent than I was. I shut her out.”

“Dad, c’mon,” I said. I hated to see him like this, the most gregarious person I knew waxing introspective. Sure, he was introspective in his column, but in a jokey, self-deprecating way. “You don’t mean that.”

“I’m afraid I do, kiddos.” My dad smiled up at us, looking surprisingly at ease. “I’m not proud of it, but there’s a reason why I’ve always been ‘good cop.’”

“You’re a great dad, though. A fun dad,” Cameron said.

He smiled. “Thanks, kid. But I shouldn’t have stuck your mom with all the rules and discipline of parenting.”

“Hey, Dad?” I began. After Cameron’s inquisition, I felt guilty continuing to grill him. But I’d always wondered, especially now that he’d found self-awareness.

“Yeah?”

“Did you guys ever go to marriage counseling?” I asked.

“Your mom wanted to, but I wouldn’t go,” he admitted. I wasn’t expecting what he said next. “But I’ve been seeing a therapist for the past couple months.”

Cameron’s eyes widened. “Are you okay?”

“Of course I’m okay,” he said. The dishwasher whirred to life, adding some much-needed background noise to this conversation. “I just wanted to take every possible precaution so that I wouldn’t mess things up with your mom again.”

“Really?” I asked.

“Yep,” he said, winking at me. “You think I figured out all that ‘jealous of her success’ and ‘good cop’ stuff on my own?”

I sat completely still, stunned by my dad’s revelation: the person who was most worried about their relationship failing was my
dad
—not me. All this time, I thought I was the only one who saw this as the danger zone, a dizzying ledge between the past and future.

“Listen, girls,” he said, finally. “Nothing is more important to me than doing right by you and your mom. But relationships aren’t perfect, not a single one of them, and that includes your mom and me. The difference is that I’m fighting for us this time.”

I wasn’t sure what to expect next. Maybe the instrumental music they play at the end of family sitcoms, where the moral of the story is revealed. Maybe a group hug. Instead, my phone gave a shrill sequence of beeps, announcing a text message.

“Sorry,” I muttered, reaching into my bag on the floor.

K
+
E broke up
it said in Tessa’s cell phone shorthand.
My house. Now.

“Everything okay?” my dad asked.

“Um. Kind of. Kayleigh’s having a breakup meltdown at Tessa’s.”

“Ouch,” my dad said. “You need to head over there?”

“I mean … I don’t want to interrupt family time.”

“Hey,” he said. “Kayleigh’s family, too. If she needs you, you need to go.”

I couldn’t help but smile at my dad, thinking that there’s a difference between “good cop” and “good heart.” I knew exactly which he was.

By the time I made it to Tessa’s house, Kayleigh’s face was already puffy from crying. Her hair was in a sloppy ponytail, with wild flyaways framing her head. Even more distressing, she wore a white T-shirt and black yoga pants. Kayleigh, in all the years I’d known her, had never looked so underdone. She even wore makeup during gym class, with sneakers that matched her sports bra.

“
Finally
,” Kayleigh said when I walked in the side door. “Here’s the CliffsNotes to a book called
Kayleigh’s Life Sucks
: we broke up.”

There were two reasons to hold crisis meetings at Tessa’s house. The first: Tessa stocked junk food like she was preparing for a sugar apocalypse. The second was that, with no parents around and Gran McMahon fast asleep sans hearing aids, we could swear up a storm.

Tessa had pulled out the emotional-eating big guns: a package of Oreos, two open rolls of raw cookie dough, three types of ice cream, and a buffet of toppings. Kayleigh held a big spoon, gesturing with it like a metal scepter as she held court over her relationship postmortem.

“I know you always hear about how awful heartbreak is,” she said through a mouthful of ice cream. “But seriously, it physically hurts.”

None of my friends had ever experienced a big breakup before, and I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to say. In the meantime, I concentrated on not giving her That Look. She deserved better than that. I ventured a question. “Did he tell you why?”

“Why what?” Kayleigh asked, sniffling.

It sounded cruel, spelled out. “Why he broke up with you.”

“He didn’t. I broke up with him.”

I glanced at the others to see if they could fill in the gaps. Morgan bit down on her lip, and Tessa popped a chunk of
cookie dough into her mouth, chewing thoughtfully. “
You
broke up with
him
? Why?”

“Because …” Her eyes filled with tears. She let her spoon drop back into the bowl with a clank. “Because he’s a jerk. Which you wouldn’t know because you barely met him. Because he always wanted to hang out alone or with his friends. He wanted everything on his terms. Because he’s a
jerk
.”

“He was an asshole to Morgan tonight,” Tessa added.

“Oh yeah.” Kayleigh glanced over at Morgan, who became very invested in pushing her ice cream around. “I planned this whole thing—like, hey, we should all go to dinner so you can get to know Morgan. And he brought one of his friends and spent the whole time talking to him. I had a freaking epiphany in the middle of the restaurant, like … he doesn’t really care about me. If he cared about me, he’d also care about the people
I
care about. He’d want to know them! I can’t believe I didn’t put it together before. It was like I went along with whatever he wanted to do because he’s older and kind of out of my league.”

“
No one
is out of your league,” Morgan said fiercely.

Kayleigh shoveled more ice cream into her mouth as I fumbled with my next lines. Tessa shot me a look—eyebrows up—but I had no idea what she was trying to tell me. I kept searching, finally landing on another touchy question. “So, shouldn’t we be kind of … happy? About the breakup? If he was such a jerk?”

“We
are
happy,” Kayleigh said miserably. “But I’m also upset that I wasted my time on him. And I’m, like, embarrassed that I made him out to be this awesome guy when he so isn’t.”

“Overcompensating,” Tessa commented. She meant it as a paraphrase, not a condemnation, but Morgan gave her a warning look all the same. “Wait. Did you break up with him at the restaurant tonight? Like, immediately following your revelation?”

“Yeah.” Kayleigh sniffed. “Because, like, once I realized he treated Morgan that way, I realized he treated
me
that way half the time, unless we were alone.”

“It was awesome,” Morgan said. “She walked out to the car with him, talked to him for a minute, kissed him on the cheek and walked away. Oh my gosh, the look on her face, strutting away. Awesome.”

“It
was
kind of awesome.” Kayleigh dabbed her eyes. “But I’m still bummed. All right. I need to eat more cookie dough and watch a movie or something.”

“TV guru?” Morgan asked, turning to me. “What do you prescribe?”

“
Sex and the City
,” I said. “No question.”

Kayleigh fell asleep on the couch within fifteen minutes, exhausted from grieving her expectations. While it hurt me to watch one of my best friends feel so low, I was glad to have her back. It felt right, the four of us—like balance restored.

Chapter Nineteen

Considering my drowning phobia, Whitewater Lodge was my worst nightmare. Add in the necessity of a swimsuit, and Whitewater Lodge was my personal hell.

Every April, on the last Friday before spring break, the Oakhurst School Board funded a field trip. Honor roll students got to miss a day of school for a semieducational outing known as Honors Excursion. The name sounded official, but the event itself really was not.

We went to Kings Island my first two years of high school. Mr. Varp gave us a fifteen-minute, halfhearted lecture on the physics of roller coasters before setting us free for the whole day. Honors Excursion was the sole reason why Kayleigh dragged herself to math study group every week since freshman year.

This year, because of budget cuts, Honors Excursion would take place at Whitewater Lodge, an indoor water park in the next town over. I considered going; I really did. But I thought of all the eyes on me, watching my face as people plunged from the slide’s drop-off to the water. I thought about how many times I would receive That Look, while in my bathing suit. I thought about the water that used to look clean and relaxing, now oily and threatening in my mind. My mom wrote me an excuse note and even offered to let me stay home from school for the day.

Though I was embarrassed that people might notice my absence, it was nice to have a day off. I slept in, ate a big breakfast, and took a long shower. The house was quiet, free of Cameron’s incessant cell phone noise. It wasn’t even two when the doorbell rang, and I nearly jumped out of my reading chair.

My mind raced through non-serial-killer examples of who might be at the door in the middle of a weekday. I decided it was probably UPS or door-to-door evangelists—harmless. I peeked out the lens and saw Max, hands in his pockets. I pulled the door open.

“Hey!” I was too surprised to hide my excitement, even if I did sound a little overeager.

“Hey, girl.” The wind tossed his hair, and his hand made a futile swipe to tame it. His button-down shirt fluttered against his chest.

“What are you doing here?”

“I skipped Honors Excursion because I’m sick. Cough-cough.” He gave me a wry smile. “I don’t like to be seen next to Ryan in a bathing suit.”

Smiling, I leaned against the door frame and the fresh air hit my face. I took a deep breath in. “It’s
warm
.”

“I know.” Max closed his eyes for a moment. “It smells like spring.”

“It
is
spring. Spring break.”

“Exactly.” He looked down at me. “Do you want to go somewhere?”

My heart hammered. “Sure.”

I didn’t bother to ask if he had someplace in mind. I ducked back into the house to leave my mom a note, scribbling a generic “Be back soon.” This was the same note I left anytime I walked over to Tessa’s, and I hoped she’d assume that’s where I went. She was driving a few hours away to interview someone for the magazine, so I had some time. If she found out I left without her permission, I would be grounded until graduation. Before I could talk myself out of leaving, I grabbed my purse, locked the door, and followed Max to his car.

He drove with the windows down, and my hair whipped all around me. It did smell like spring, like soil and rainstorms, and he took the back roads at full speed. I breathed in, possibility tingling in my lungs. In that moment, I was
free of worry about my parents, my sister, my grandmother, everything. I wanted to spread my arms wide out of the sunroof, like flying.

“Are we going somewhere specific?” The wind ripped through the windows, and I yelled so he could hear me. “Or are we just driving?”

“Somewhere specific,” he called back.

I wondered where somewhere was. I wondered if this was a date. I wondered if he had planned all of this and what it meant. But most of all, I wondered if a person could actually burst from so many feelings at once.

We were still on country roads, past any area that I recognized. Finally, Max turned onto a gravel drive and put the car in park.