The Way I Used to Be

Part 4 – Senior Year

I’VE BEEN WITH FIFTEEN different guys—sometimes it seems like too many, other times it seems like not nearly enough. But each one takes me just a little farther away. I’m so far gone now, sometimes I feel like maybe it’s almost enough. Because, honestly, there isn’t the slightest trace left of that frizzy-haired, freckle-faced, clarinet-playing, scared-silent little girl. And her big secret is really not such a huge deal anymore. It was all so long ago now, it practically never even happened.

After all, I’m only one month away from turning seventeen, twenty-two days to be exact, which means I’m almost eighteen, which means I’m practically an adult. Which means I’m allowed to be cutting my last class of the day. Which means it’s perfectly fine to be doing what I’m doing with this guy in the back of someone’s crappy old Dodge Caravan that smells like dog-chewed sneakers. And so what if I bombed the SATs last spring. It’s all fine—great, actually.

I slide the side door open and hop down onto the damp pavement.

I look at him once, trying to remember his name before slamming the door shut. It doesn’t matter anyway. I make my way across the student parking lot, boots clicking in time with my heart, pounding from that empowering rush of making out with some guy I don’t know or care about, already unable to conjure up his face in my brain. It feels like I’m flying. I check the time on my phone and pick up my pace. I know Mara’s waiting for me.

She smiles when she sees me coming.

“Hey!” I call out as I take my spot next to her, leaning up against the driver’s side of her car. And like every other day she hands me an already lit cigarette, complete with her lipstick print on the filter. We wait for the stream of cars to empty before entering the fray.

“Where you been, girlie?” She exhales a stream of smoke and laughs, because she already knows where I’ve been.

I shrug. “I don’t know. Nowhere, really.”

“Hmm,” she mumbles through the cigarette hanging out of her mouth as she picks a few pieces of lint off her sweater. “Nowhere with someone special, perhaps?” she asks, her voice all light and hopeful, thinking maybe I had finally found someone like she had.

“Not anyone special, that’s for sure.” I don’t know why I say that; I regret it instantly. This isn’t parking-lot conversation.

“Well, you know . . . ,” she starts, but looks away, not finishing. She flips her hair over her shoulder and looks out across the parking lot; she’d let the cranberry grow out and now she has these streaks of pink running through her dark hair underneath. She had somehow managed to seamlessly and fully segue out of her dork role into this new cool, unconventional, artsy girl.

And me, well, before it was like you had the girl and then you had the rumors about the girl, but now there’s only the girl, because the rumors aren’t just rumors anymore, they’re the reality—they are the girl.

“Edy, you know Cameron’s friend—” she tries again, but I interrupt before she can even finish.

“No, Mara.”

She flicks her cigarette against the side mirror over and over, not looking at me.

“Sorry, I just—I’m really not interested. Thanks anyway, though.”

“Okay. Yeah, I know. It’s fine. Whatever.” She slides her sunglasses from the top of her head to her eyes, letting her bangs fall down into her face. “What do you wanna do tonight?”

“I thought you’d be busy with Cameron—date night and all?”

“No. He’s hanging out with Steve tonight.” She pauses. “You know, Edy, Steve really is a good guy, and he —”

“Yeah, I know,” I interrupt again. “Really, I’m not looking for that. Not with anyone. And most of all not with Stephen Reinheiser, okay?”

“All right, all right. Girls’ night in, then?” She smiles, raising her eyebrows. “We haven’t done that in so long, it’ll be great. We can order takeout and have a movie marathon?” She laughs, staring out at the emptying parking lot. “Sounds fun, right?” she asks, nodding her head enthusiastically as she slides into the driver’s side, closing the car door on our conversation.

Like always, we split another cigarette and keep the music just loud enough to drown out our thoughts, to silence the things we should be saying to each other.

When we get to my house, she turns to face me. “How ’bout you come over after dinner? Maybe you could . . . I don’t know, procure us some refreshments?” she hints with a smile.

“Got it covered,” I assure her. The gas station guy has become more partial to me than Mara ever since her nose ring and pink streaks; his tastes are a little more conventional, I suppose.

My house is quiet. The sound of Mara’s car pulling out of the driveway fades to silence. And leaves everything feeling too still, too vacant. Empty, haunted—this house. Not by ghosts, but by us, by our own history, by the things that have happened here.

I choose the cracked ceramic mug from the cupboard—the one with flowers on it that no one uses anymore—and fill it halfway with the gin Vanessa keeps at the back of the spice cabinet, as if the mint leaves, and cayenne, and cream of tartar can hide the thick glass bottle, or its contents, or the reason she needs it to be there in the first place. I take my cracked mug into the living room, turn the TV up loud, close my eyes, and just float.

When my eyes open again, the shadows in the room have shifted. The mug is nearly tipped over, my hand slack around its cylinder body. I sit up to see the clock: 5:48. Vanessa and Conner will be getting home any minute. I take the last gulp of gin and swish it around my mouth. I carefully rinse out the mug and put it in the dishwasher. Then I dump my books out of my backpack onto my bedroom floor and throw in a change of clothes, my toothbrush, hair stuff, and makeup. I find the notepad on the kitchen table, with Vanessa’s note from last weekend scribbled in blue pen:

Went to the store. Leftovers in fridge.

Love, Mom

I rip out the page and begin a new one. Our preferred method of communication these days.

Sleeping at Mara’s. Call you in the morning.

—E