Then Everything Happens at Once, page 12
“No way. The movie starts in like, ten minutes,” Pen says.
“Previews start then, not the movie.”
“But I love the previews, babe.”
I wasn’t sure they were a couple because of the space between them and the initial platonic vibe, but now I can see it, and I’m both jealous of what they have and relieved that the blond babe is already taken.
“Thank you so much for invading our space at the most inappropriate time,” Alex says. “Can you guys possibly, um, get the hell out of here now? You were supposed to be incognito.”
“Dude, we were incognito, right on the other side of the fountain, but then Blake’s all, ‘The eyebrows! The eyebrows!’” Pen pulls up a wrist to check her watch. “All right, I’m outta here. Previews are vital, dudes. Later.”
“Pen and I came here for our first date,” Blake says to me.
“Let’s go!” Pen says before taking off.
Blake offers Alex and me a wave, then scurries after Pen.
“Okay, well . . . ,” Alex says, coming up next to me as we both watch her friends walk away. “I think the ice is broken, right? We shattered that ice. We beat it back into being water. We can handle anything now, right?”
I turn to respond, but all I’ve got is a smile and a little shrug.
Alex hitches her chin at the restaurant entrance to my left. “Let’s get some dessert, shall we?”
Eighteen
Inside Sweet Little Things, we head for the counter, and I scan the overhead menu. At this point, I could order something ridiculous, which is what I really want because I don’t come here often, but I don’t want to be the fat girl with the big bowl of calories in front her. I settle on a slice of New York cheesecake, because it looks plain yet the slice is large, so it feels like a fair trade-off. I skipped eating today to dedicate myself to my makeup and outfit choices. I’d like to blame the fact that there just wasn’t enough time to eat, but in all honesty, I was afraid I’d give myself nervous diarrhea if I ate.
I don’t feel like I’m starving right now, but my fool of a stomach keeps growling. Deep twisting cramps right below my sternum lead to loud gurgles that kind of sound like thunder. Thankfully this place has a steady supply of music and loud voices, otherwise I’d have to fake some emergency to leave.
Is my stomach this angry that I’m not feeding it? Is it in withdrawal?
“I’ve got this,” Alex says when I reach into my purse to pay.
“You’re buying me dessert?”
“Indeed I am.”
“Wow—that’s really . . . sweet.”
Alex looks impressed. “That pun was aces.”
My cleverity was totally unintentional, but I flash Alex a coy grin.
While she pays, I take a sideways look at her, my attention moving to her hands, to the way she stands, to the way she looks down when she grins and chuckles a little at something the cashier says. I feel like I’m glowing pink right now and everyone could see it if they looked hard enough.
Once Alex holds both of our desserts, I lead the way by veering left, away from the booths I might not fit into, and choosing the tables with stiff but sturdy-looking chairs. My phone buzzes with what I assume are texts from Rianne and Lara about tonight, but I ignore them. Alex sits across from me and runs a hand through her hair, then does this quick nose-rubbing thing with thumb and index finger, a gesture Freddie does that usually makes me bite my bottom lip, which I realize I’m doing now.
Alex works on a mouthful of banana split.
“I’ve never seen anyone order one of those in real life,” I say.
“Really?”
Thunder erupts from my stomach, and I swear Alex makes a face like she heard it but doesn’t know where the sound came from.
“I am going to go use the loo.” My face heats up because I’m not British. “The facilities. Be right back.”
In the bathroom, I stand in a stall, trying to will my stomach to go ahead and burp or eat itself or freaking die already. Now it’s completely silent, even when I press hard into the spot where the growls are coming from.
I google “embarrassing loud stomach growls while on a date.”
Not that this is a date, but it’s what I imagine a date might be like.
I scroll through the populated results, skimming all about loud grumbling stomachs getting in the way during exams, first kisses, even funeral masses. High-anxiety situations, basically. And here I thought I was the fat girl who hadn’t fed in a few hours and was suddenly feeling the wrath of her empty stomach.
It’s not a hunger thing. I’m not sure if that makes me feel better.
When I get back to the table, I start eating my piece of cake because according to one of the Google articles, feeding the anxiety is the only way to quiet things down.
“So tell me about Pen and Blake,” I say. “You seem pretty close.”
“Pen switched over to Castlehill Alternative from St. Peter’s halfway through last year. Blake is still at St. Peter’s.” Alex does that low chuckle, her dimple piercings pulling in as she smiles. “The first day Pen showed up at my school, she walked right up to me and went, ‘Dude! Finally someone who looks like me!’ Then she started asking me if I was into video games or Ninja Turtles, which I am very much not into, but we became best buds anyway. Blake just came along as a package deal, but it’s cool because she’s pretty great.”
“She’s magnetic,” I say, forcing myself to push Blake out of my mind to avoid falling back into my insecurities again. “That’s a really nice story.”
“How about you? How did you and your friends come together?”
“Just . . . school.”
“That’s it?”
“Well, Rianne and I met a long time ago, like Grade Five. We sat next to each other and always got paired off for group assignments. I met Lara when we got to high school. She was best friends with this evil girl named Taylor,” I say. “But Lara and I started talking about makeup in French class, and even though she seemed super snobbish and above everyone else, we just clicked. We used to hit all the cosmetics stores on a weekly basis, and we were like, barely fifteen. I didn’t have money to be buying anything, so she’d let me take what I wanted from her older stash.”
“That’s nice of her.”
“She can be pretty thoughtful.”
“What happened to the Taylor girl?”
“She sort of faded away when Lara and I started spending our whole weekends together. Hanging out with me is a lot more fun than sitting around with Taylor doing Instagram Lives to attract a bunch of guys.”
Alex scoops bites of her banana split, looking totally riveted by my ramblings. “What do you and Lara like doing, then?”
“Usually I make up ridiculous activities that are so much fun. Like I came up with this Five-Minute-Crafts Sunday thing where we pick one of those disgusting crafts—you know the kind of IG pages I’m talking about, with those stupid crafts that are either so ugly or they take, like, two weeks and a table saw to accomplish?” I say, and Alex nods. “So we’d pick an idea to reproduce, like maybe a melted-crayon thing, or painting over a set of thrift-store heels, and we’d post about it on Instagram.”
“You guys were meant to be.”
“That’s what you’d think,” I say.
“What do you mean?”
“It’s just—no, never mind. I’m just rambling.”
“You can tell me, though. I’m curious.”
“Okay, well,” I start, exhaling while the words arrange themselves in my mind, “it’s like she thinks I don’t know why she ultimately chose me over Taylor, but I know why.” Then I add, “Or maybe she’s not even, like, consciously aware of it herself, but I am.”
“So what is it? What are you aware of?”
“I don’t even know why I’m talking like this,” I say. “I’m kind of embarrassed.”
“Don’t be,” Alex says. “I guess I can be kind of pushy sometimes, but that’s because I’ve got therapy every other week, and I’m just used to having to grasp a thought and run with it to figure out where it leads. We can talk about something else, if you’d rather.”
“You go to therapy?”
“Yeah, for the last year.”
Therapy is like a banana split: it’s this thing that I know of, but it’s not real. It’s on TV.
“How does that work?” I ask. “I mean, I just write in my journal to figure things out for myself.”
“It’s cool that you do that. Writing is a great way to get feelings out and gain perspective,” Alex says. “So for me, a year or so ago, I decide to change how I looked—obviously. You saw the yearbook.”
“I wouldn’t even figure the two versions of you as siblings, you look so different,” I say. “Your makeup was fire, though!”
She laughs. “Makeup was kind of my thing then.”
“Can you please teach me that liner application?”
“Anytime. Although I’m kind of rusty now.”
“So, what happened? How come you changed?”
“You know when you try on an outfit, and you’re like, ‘Oh, this is nice,’ and you wear it awhile but then you’re like, ‘This is nice, but not for me’?” Alex says. “I was never really girly as a kid, but I loved makeup. I was fiercely dedicated to that girl’s gender expression for a solid year. I had like, forty-five hundred Instagram followers for my makeup looks and ideas at one point.”
“And no more makeup, just like that?” I ask.
“Sometimes I still think about the makeup artist thing, but not as much as I did before. I’m still trying to figure things out.”
“Me too,” I say. “So, then you started therapy?”
“Well, my dad was like, ‘Hey, kid, I’ve got psychotherapy covered under my work benefits. You wanna go talk to someone about stuff?’ And I was like, ‘Okay?’” Alex says. “So I met with Kristy to see what the vibe was like, and here we are. Honestly, I don’t understand how everyone doesn’t see a therapist. Talking to someone else who is trained to help you dig and understand yourself is a game changer.”
“I kind of want to see one now. I didn’t realize that’s what it was like.” I don’t want to admit that I thought you’d have to be rich and next-level messed up for therapy to be an option.
“Maybe your mom’s work benefits are like my dad’s?”
I shake my head. “Doubt it. And even if they are, whatever stuff she gets through them would go to my sister.”
“Oh, well, maybe you could ask your mom?” Alex offers. “Do you mind if I ask why your sister would be the one to get any support stuff?”
“My sister has special needs,” I say.
“Oh, okay. That makes sense, then.” Alex smiles. “Maybe you could tell me about her sometime?”
I nod, and Alex goes back to the rest of her banana split. We talk about school awhile, which brings us back to friends.
“Your friend Pen seems kind of . . . generally annoyed,” I say.
Alex laughs. “She’s a little rough around the edges. Like, to Pen, everything is either black or white, but she’s clearly neither, and life is clearly neither, so she’s just constantly in this state of being ready for a fight. My theory is that she thinks that if she doesn’t keep putting her foot down on everything, then someone or something will come along and like, mow her down.”
I can’t speak for a moment, because it’s like I’ve been presented with a person who is just so much more than I thought people could be. It makes me feel like a really immature, shallow turd.
“Well, my theory on Lara is that . . . ,” I start, staring at the wood pattern of the table, thinking about some of the things I’ve never said out loud before. “She needs someone who can’t outshine her. Someone she’ll always be better than, you know? Someone safe who will never compete with her,” I say, stabbing my fork into my cheesecake and letting it stand there. “That definitely wasn’t going to be Taylor, so . . .”
Alex’s gaze pierces through me, and maybe this explains why I’m rambling about things I’ve only ever hinted at in my journal.
“I feel like maybe that’s one perspective,” Alex says, “but there’s no way you don’t outshine her. I’ve known you thirty-nine minutes and I can already tell that much. Trust me.”
We have this moment of smiling and locking eyes, and I start thinking that maybe this is a real moment. But then my stomach starts to twist, the precursor to the thunder, so I shove a chunk of cheesecake into my mouth and crunch myself down in an effort to squish the noise or strangle it. “Yum, I mean, wow. Cake is so . . . cakey. I love it.”
“Cakey, huh?” Alex reclines against the back of her chair, shuffling her feet. “Mine’s banana-splitty.”
“That’s perfect. That’s how it should be, right?”
Nineteen
On the bus back toward Castlehill, I stare out the window, replaying my meeting with Alex. In an alternate universe, I might’ve thrown her an invite to Rianne’s. But in this universe, I am not bringing a brand-new crush—a girl I just met—to meet my friends. If I can barely keep my awkwardness at bay when it’s just Alex and me, how paralyzing would it be to have Lara, and Freddie, and Trey around me at the same time?
There’s also a fear I don’t want to spend too much time acknowledging: the fear that with Rianne and Lara next to me, Alex might come to her senses and realize that I—and all my awkwardness and newbieness—am not worth it.
A shudder moves through me at the thought.
I obsessively check my phone, hoping for a text from Alex that hasn’t come yet, but the possibility of it keeps me giddy.
[Rianne] I’m SO sorry, Baylee. I think the party’s off.
[Baylee] What do you mean?
[Rianne] The power’s out in my entire neighborhood!
[Baylee] No way! What is happening?
[Rianne] A generator blew or something. It’s been out a whole hour. I was hoping it would be back on soon, but my dad called the power company and there’s an automated message estimating 2 to 3 hours!!! Everyone’s supposed to be getting here in an hour. WTF!
[Baylee] Oh no!!!
[Rianne] It’s already FREEZING! Is the power out at your house?
[Baylee] I’m not sure.
[Rianne] Where r u?
[Baylee] I was in Crestonvale. Going home now.
If the power was out at my house, chances are it will be back on by now, since my mom had us put on priority power restoration due to my sister. Outages in my area are usually over quickly.
[Rianne] Ok, well, LMK! Text me later. This SUCKS!!!!!
When I get back to my fully powered house, my mother and sister are in the living room, my sister curled up with her pillow and a rolled blanket keeping her from accidentally falling off the couch. The TV is on, and judging by the lack of reaction my entrance causes, I’m guessing Mom’s dozing. When I get to my room, the relief of not having to go out and hang with a ton of people really hits me. I need time to process today.
My phone buzzes, and it’s Lara’s house line.
“Hello, Baylee. This is Mr. Kariyawasam. Could you be so kind as to ask Lara when we are to come get her? I have to send Kavith for her. I must head back to the hospital, and she is not responding to my messages.”
“Um . . .” But Lara isn’t here. We were supposed to be headed to Rianne’s right about now. My mind goes wild, trying to come up with an explanation. “I’m sorry, Mr. Kariyawasam. I’ll just ask—”
“Oh, I’m so sorry! One moment,” he says. I hear muffled voices, then he comes back. “So sorry. I thought she was at your home, but her mother says she is with Rianne. My apologies, Baylee! Thank you!”
“Oh,” I say. “That’s okay. No problem.”
I wander the top floor of my house, firing off a series of texts to Lara that go unanswered. Then I text Rianne.
[Baylee] Lara’s still en route to your place?
[Rianne] No. I texted her at the same time I texted you about the party being off.
[Baylee] Her dad just called thinking she was here, but she told him she was going over to your house.
[Rianne] ???????? Guess they’ll be calling HERE next.
[Baylee] She’s not responding to my texts.
[Rianne] WHAT?! I’m not about to get in trouble because of her!
Some time passes while I stand at my bedroom window, scoping out Lara’s social media to see when she last posted, looking for clues. No reply comes from her.
[Baylee] Did you get ahold of her yet?
[Rianne] Yeah. She’s calling her parents.
[Baylee] She’s not responding to my texts. Is she mad at me?
[Rianne] 🤷 She didn’t seem too thrilled when I called her four times in a row until she answered. That’s what you get for being a scheming little LIAR!
Walking through the upstairs hallway, I send a bunch of question marks to Lara’s phone.
While I pad around my mother’s dark bedroom, I peer out the window at Freddie’s house. His bedroom light is on, and he moves through his room. I’m being a total creeper, spying on him in his room, but I can’t help it.
I decide to send him a text.
[Baylee] Hey. Can we maybe talk about all of this weirdness?
I keep thinking I’ll see him pick up his phone to text me back, so I continue staring.
Then I see another figure in Freddie’s bedroom. The figure wanders closer to the window and there’s a flash of dark hair. There is no response to my text.
I fire off another set of texts, this time to Lara.
First my heart slows down, and then it pounds each beat as it accelerates.
Please don’t let it be her.
I can’t see that well from all the way across four backyards, and my texts go unanswered. Still, I know it’s her.
Lara is in Freddie’s room.
Twenty
There is literally no way this can be happening right now.
How dare she?
How dare he?
The rage creeps up my throat, forcing some kind of growl out of me.
