The Way I Used to Be Read online

  I nod my head and breathe the words, “Yeah. I’m okay.”

  FOR THE SECOND MARKING period, Mara and I are placed in the same study hall. Which is the only way I am going to be able to spend any time with her at all. Of course, Cameron and Steve come with the package, a bonus feature I could do without.

  Me, Mara, Cameron, and Steve all sit at one table. And as luck would have it, Amanda sits at the table next to ours, giving me evil looks anytime I so much as glance in her direction. On the first day I waved and tried to smile at her, tried to silently tell her that I really don’t care if her lies turned me into the school slut. No big deal. I’m fine with it. In fact, I owe her one. She’s given me someone to be, after all, someone interesting and reckless, someone who doesn’t have to care so damn much. About anything. But her coal eyes just stare right through me, unchanging.

  She even trains her tablemates to shoot eye daggers at me as well. One of them, I know; that snarky girl who added “totally slutty disgusting” to my epithet on the bathroom wall. I try to be cool, ignore it, let it roll off me. Plenty of girls at school hate me, think I’m trashy, worry about their boyfriends. I’m not blind, I’m not deaf, either. I see the way they watch me like I’m dangerous, hear the way they talk about me, their smirks behind cupped hands and their whispers. I’m used to it. The other girls, they don’t matter. But Amanda’s different. Because what right does she have? I should be the one hating her. If I cared enough, that is. Which I don’t.

  Mara places her fingers against her lips and kisses them, and then lays her hand flat in front of her mouth, palm side up, and blows. The kiss is sent across the room. Cameron stops sharpening his pencil, catches her kiss in his fist, and then smacks his hand against his mouth.

  “So, you really haven’t—you know—yet?” I whisper to Mara.

  “Not yet, but soon. I think,” she says sedately, gazing dreamily at Cameron, who continues sharpening Mara’s drawing pencils like nothing in the world could make him happier.

  She’s been so busy with Cameron and dreaming about their future, she hasn’t even asked about my birthday. Every year we’re supposed to go out to eat, just the two of us. It’s tradition. This year’s pick, I’ve decided, is going to be the Cheesecake Factory, but she doesn’t know that yet because I haven’t had a chance to tell her, mainly because she hasn’t asked.

  “Mara, you do remember that tomorrow—”

  “Shhh.” Mr. Mosner, our study hall teacher, places a finger against his mouth. “Ladies, please . . . this is called study hall for a reason—it’s for studying, not talking.”

  “What were you saying?” Mara whispers to me.

  “Nothing.”

  That night I wait for my annual midnight happy birthday phone call from Mara. I wait and wait and wait. Maybe she just fell asleep. Or maybe we’re getting too old for midnight birthday calls.

  The next morning when I get to my locker there are no birthday decorations. That’s fine, maybe we’re also getting too old for birthday locker decorations. But then when I see her in math and lunch and study hall and four times in between classes, she never says anything that gives me any indication she knows it’s my birthday. And when she drops me off at home after school, she doesn’t ask where we’re going for dinner, she doesn’t say when she’ll be back to pick me up.

  “Edy? I thought you’d be out with Mara,” Vanessa says, walking in the house to find me lying on the couch. She sets down her purse and keys and the mail that was tucked under her arm, and then looks at me, almost too concerned. “We haven’t seen too much of Mara around here lately. You two haven’t had some kind of falling-out, have you?” she asks in that pseudocasual, too-high tone, which lets me know she’s trying really hard to do the whole worried-parent bit.

  “No, she just has this boyfriend she’s been spending everywakingminute with.”

  “So you’re still going out for dinner then? ’Cause I could make something—I don’t mind.”

  “No, yeah, it’s fine. I mean, we’re still going out.”

  “Well, good. Where are you going?” she asks as she thumbs through the envelopes, tossing them into junk and bill piles.

  “Cheesecake Factory,” I lie. “I have coupons,” which is technically true, even if I won’t technically be using them.

  “Good.” Junk. Bill. Junk. Junk. Bill. “Looks like you got a card from Grandma and Grandpa, oh, and one from your aunt Courtney in Phoenix,” she says, handing me a red envelope and then a purple one. She always does that—Aunt Courtney in Phoenix, Uncle Henry in Michigan, Cousin Kim in Pittsburgh—as if I have more than one Aunt Courtney, Uncle Henry, and Cousin Kim.

  I open the purple one first. From my grandparents. The front of the card has one teddy bear giving a balloon to another teddy bear; on the inside: “I hope your birthday is beary special.” The card was probably meant for a five-year-old, but it also contains a check for seventeen dollars, and on the memo line, in my grandmother’s shaky cursive, it says: “Happy 17th Birthday, Eden.” Last year it was a sixteen-dollar check, next year it will be eighteen. Aunt Courtney sent a twenty, which I graciously stuff in my pocket.

  Heaving my body off the couch, I go into my room, change my clothes, and make a big show of getting ready for my great birthday celebration. I have no clue where I am actually supposed to go for the next two to three hours.

  “Have fun,” Conner calls to me from the kitchen as I’m leaving.

  “Edy, wait, just in case we’re in bed when you get home, happy birthday again.” Vanessa proceeds to give me an awkward hug in the doorway. “We love you,” she adds at the last moment.

  They’re trying—I give them credit for that.

  I just can’t anymore. It’s too hard.

  IT TURNS OUT THE public library is the perfect hideout, even better that the school library. You can feel like a completely desperate, pathetic loser in solitude, without judgment.

  I have my phone out. Right there in front of me, waiting for her call. I can even hear the ring in my head, anticipating the moment when she realizes how silly she’s been to forget her best friend’s birthday.

  I idly flip through the pages of one of my school notebooks. Every page starts the same way, with the date and nothing else. I guess I attempted to take notes at the beginning of the year, but now it’s just the occasional “Does this pen work??” scribbled in the margin. With each turn of the page I notice my hands trembling more and more. I shake them out. I stretch my fingers in front of me, as far as they can go. Then I close them tightly in a fist. I do it over and over. I rub my palms against my thighs, trying to get the circulation going, or whatever the problem is. But it only gets worse. It starts to make me nervous, which only makes them shake harder. I slam the notebook shut and lay my hands flat against the cover. They will not stop.

  I’m breathing heavy as I pick up my phone and the rest of my things and head up to the reference desk to sign out a computer. Even if it’s a completely lame excuse, it would make me feel so much better right now. I check my inbox: No Mara, but there is a message from Caelin. The subject line reads, “happy birthday.” I double-click:

  Dear Edy,

  Happy Birthday

  —Cae

  Well, concise. But at least he remembered.

  RE: happy birthday

  Dear Cae,

  Thanks. Are you coming home for Thanksgiving next week?

  —Edy

  He responds right away:

  Yep—I’ll be there! Maybe we can spend some time just you and me next weekend, what do you think?

  I don’t respond. I gather my things. I need to leave. Need to go somewhere. Anywhere. Go home, if necessary.

  I walk. And walk. The cold November air licks my skin with its icy tongue. I walk and walk, without knowing where I’m going. Until I realize I’m there, standing on the sidewalk, in front of a house I used to know so well. I stand on the curb. I reach out and touch the red flag on the mailbox with my index finger, gently letting my hand flow
over the raised sticker letters along the side of the black metal box: M-I-L-L-E-R.

  I quickly pull my hand back. How strange must I look if anyone’s watching? The TV in the living room is casting a dim bluish glow against the walls. A light in his parents’ room is burning as well. His bedroom is, of course, dark. Because he’s not there. He’s away at college.

  Suddenly, in the shadows, I see his cat—her fast, smooth body darts out from behind the front steps. She walks toward me stealthily, down the driveway in a straight line, light on her feet like a ghost. I freeze. Because I have the strongest urge to pick her up in my arms and take her home with me.

  I actually consider it.

  “Get a grip, Edy!” I whisper out loud.

  I put my hands in my coat pockets and force my feet to keep moving down the sidewalk. I turn around. She’s following me.

  “Get away!” I yell. “Go home!” I shoo at her, but she just keeps walking toward me.

  I practically run, my heart pounding fast.

  “YOU’LL NEVER GUESS WHAT I did last night!” Mara says as I get in the passenger side and buckle up. Face-to-face with her, right now, I’m angrier than I thought I would be. Angrier than I thought I was. She’s practically erupting with giddiness, so I know the thing she did last night must involve Cameron. She backs out of my driveway, then shifts into drive. “Well . . . we did it.” She glances over at me, so excited.

  “That’s great.” She had sex with her boyfriend, and I almost stole a cat. “Really great,” I repeat.

  “What, I thought you’d be happy for me? Excited?”

  “Congratulations.” I slowly clap my hands together twice.

  Her smile inverts itself as she slows to the stop sign. “What’s your problem?”

  “My problem is you left me all alone last night!”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Think, Mara. What was yesterday?”

  “I don’t know, Thursday?”

  “You know what, just forget it, it doesn’t even matter.”

  “Fine,” she says shortly. She floors the gas as we pull out onto the main road.

  We don’t say anything the rest of the way to school. The air in the car is stuffy, filled with all kinds of sour unspoken words and the things we’ve been stifling for too long. The pressure is enough to crack the windshield. When we finally park in the student lot, I throw my seat belt off and just as I’m about to open the door, the valve that will keep us from exploding in here—

  “Wait, Edy,” Mara says. I stop. “I wasn’t going to tell you this, but . . . well, I am now.” She takes a deep breath and exhales. “You’re really hard to be around lately. It’s really, really hard to be around you. It seems like ever since I started going out with Cameron, you’ve been such a—” She pauses, searching for a diplomatic word.

  “What, such a bitch?” I laugh as I say it—very bitchy indeed.

  “Yes,” she slowly agrees.

  “Well, ever since you’ve been going out with Cameron, you’ve been a shitty friend. And it’s been really hard to be around you too, because you’re so completely self-centered and oblivious to anything and anyone else outside of yourself! And no one is forcing you to be around me, Mara, so if you have better things to do, then please, don’t let me get in your way—” I only stop because I have to catch my breath.

  “Wow. Are you really that jealous?” she accuses.

  “Jealous? That’s a laugh!”

  “You just can’t stand to see me happy, can you?” she asks, as if I’m supposed to answer a question that’s that hurtful. “Well, I’m not going to stay miserable just because you are, and if you were really my friend, you wouldn’t want me to—you would be happy for me!”

  “I’m not miserable. And I don’t want you to be miserable either—God, I can’t believe you would even say that to me!”

  “Yes, you are, and you always need to drag everybody else right down with you. I’m not going to do it anymore—I’m out, all right? Go ahead and be unhappy if you want, but leave me out of it from now on, okay? I’m in love with Cameron and I’m finally happy and you act like that’s a bad thing, like you think I’m an idiot or something!”

  “Yeah, well, maybe you are. Maybe it’s pathetic to let some guy totally control your life!” I shout, my blood racing into every cell in my body.

  “And maybe you’re the pathetic one! I’d rather have someone in my life who really cares about me than—” But she stops herself before she says what she really wants to say, what she’s been wanting to say to me for a long time.

  “Hey, finish now, Mara—you’re almost there!”

  “Face it,” she says, her words hard, “all you have to do to get over a guy is take a shower—that’s pathetic!”

  I’m out of there before my brain even processes, slamming the door so hard, I feel something rip in my shoulder.

  We don’t talk or even look at each other for the rest of the day. And then Saturday goes by with nothing. She calls on Sunday. I let it go straight to voice mail but listen to it immediately:

  “Hi. It’s me. Look, I’m really sorry I forgot your birthday. Maybe I have been a shitty friend. I’m sorry about what I said to you. I mean, I’m sorry about the way I said it. I was serious though, Edy. And I think we should probably talk about it. So, just call me back when you get this. Okay, bye.”

  I WALK TO SCHOOL on Monday, getting there way too early. I use the time to clean out my locker. I hear footsteps walking lightly—I know it’s Mara without even needing to look. I pretend I don’t see her, even though we’re the only two people in the entire hall.

  “Hi,” she says, standing next to me. “I stopped by your house. Your mom said you left early.”

  I don’t respond. Just continue rummaging through the papers that have gotten crammed into the bottom of my locker.

  “What, you’re not talking to me now?” she asks, her voice sharp.

  I finally turn to face her.

  “Thought I’d hear from you over the weekend,” she continues. “Didn’t you get my message?”

  “Yeah, I did,” I finally answer.

  “Okay, so you were just never going to call me back?”

  “Well, that wasn’t quite the apology I was looking forward to, Mara.”

  “You don’t think you owe me an apology too?”

  We stand there opposite each other, our arms crossed, both waiting for the other to say it first.

  “Okay. I really am sorry about what I said,” I admit. “I don’t think you’re pathetic for being with Cameron. And I do want you to be happy, I promise. You just—you really hurt my feelings.”

  “Edy, I know. I have felt so guilty about what I said to you, really, I didn’t mean it the way it came out. I’m just worried about you, that’s all. And I am the biggest effing idiot in the entire universe for forgetting your birthday. I still can’t believe I did that!”

  “No, it’s okay, really. I overreacted.”

  “No. It was really, really shitty of me. It’s unforgivable.”

  “It’s not unforgivable,” I tell her. “We’re allowed one fight in seven years, right? How about I forgive you if you forgive me?”

  “Deal.” She smiles.

  “So . . .” I knew she’d been dying to tell me. “How was it?”

  She takes a deep breath and sighs, falling against the lockers, gazing up at the ceiling dreamily. “Amazing. It was so great, Edy, really. I never thought I would feel this way about anyone. Wait, I can’t talk about this here. Let’s get outta here before anyone sees us—we’ll go get breakfast, sign in late. My treat, okay?”

  I slam my locker closed. “Hey, you had me at ‘Let’s get outta here,’ ” I say with a laugh. We run for the nearest exit.

  CAELIN COMES HOME FOR Thanksgiving as planned. He tries to act like things are fine between us, but we both know better. After dinner on Friday he comes to my room, knocking on my door. He pokes his head inside, and says, “So, Edy—tomorrow? You and
me. We still on?”

  “I guess.” I shrug.

  “Great.” He smiles, then stands there awkwardly. “Well, I’m heading out, so . . .” He raises his hand to wave, starts to walk away.

  “I’m heading out too,” I call after him, like it’s some kind of competition.

  He reappears in my doorway. “You are?”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “Nothing,” he says, but he gives me this grave look. “Just, you know, please be careful, okay, Edy?”

  I roll my eyes and go back to picking out clothes from my closet.

  There’s a buzz, a vibration in the air, as Mara and I, and Cameron and Steve, drive to this party at the dorm of a friend of a friend of a roommate of a friend who knows Steve’s cousin. Which is almost like being invited. And that’s good enough, because everyone has been trapped in small, confined spaces with their families for more than two days and is about to spontaneously combust. Or maybe that’s just me. We hold a one-two-three-not-it contest in the car to see who will be our designated driver. Cameron was the slowest; thus he must remain sober.

  “I don’t care, I just want to be with Mara,” he announces. “I don’t have to get wasted to have a good time.”

  Steve opens the damn car door for me. I ignore him.

  “That’s nice, Cameron. I, however, do have to be wasted to have a good time, so can we just get in there already?” I start walking ahead, toward the music. Steve laughs. It wasn’t a joke, I almost tell him. In fact, I couldn’t fucking be more serious. Not only do I need to be wasted to have a good time, I need to be wasted to even be conscious right now, knowing I still have the whole weekend ahead of me before Caelin leaves, and Kevin along with him. I feel like I need to go shoot heroin or something. If only I knew where to get some, I just might.

  Mara catches up with me. “All right. So, are you interested or not?”

  “In him?” I nod my head back at Steve. “No, of course not.”

  “Come on, Edy, why not?” she asks, looping her arm in mine so our elbows are locked.