A Week of Mondays (36 page)

Tristan was magic up there. He was so confident and charming, his voice throaty and masculine, his lyrics deep and poetic. His presence captured everyone in the room. Including me. All the way in the back.

I don't even remember the music. It was irrelevant. Tristan was the show, and I was a convert.

As soon as the set was over and he emerged from backstage, he was surrounded. He could barely move. Everyone wanted a piece of him. Everyone wanted whatever they had just felt from that stage, but he came straight for me. He pushed and swam and waded through the bodies like they were nothing but tall weeds.

When he reached me, he cupped both of his hands around my cheeks, stared deeply into my eyes for five long seconds before guiding my mouth to his.

He kissed me.

In front of everyone. In
spite
of everyone.

I'd never felt more significant in my life.

“I thought you were going to be up front,” he said, pouting.

I laughed. “There was no room. I would have had to drive a tractor in there to hack through all of your adoring fans.”

“You're the only adoring fan I care about.”

My knees gave out. It was a good thing Tristan's hands were still holding me up.

“I'll stand in front next time.”

“You promise?”

“I promise.”

First thing the next morning, I called the director of Camp Awahili and told him I wouldn't be coming this summer.

 

THE SIXTH MONDAY

 

I Look Inside Myself and See My Heart Is Black

7:04 a.m.

Bloop-dee-dee-bloop-bloop-bing!

I must be dead.

There is no other explanation. I've died and am now living in some kind of purgatory.

Please, just let me out.

Shut it down. Stop the ride. I want off. I can't do this anymore. I take back everything I said about wanting another chance. I take back everything I said about everything. Just don't make me do this again.

What if I don't open my eyes? What if I refuse to wake up? As long as my eyes stay closed, anything is possible, right? Owen is still lying next to me. The text message that I just received is a wrong number. The sun is shining outside my window.

Today is Tuesday.

The universe is not a cruel, devious prankster who thinks it's funny to trap poor, innocent teenagers in the same horrific day over and over and over.

Bloop-dee-dee-bloop-bloop-bing!

Don't do it,
I scold myself.
Whatever you do. Don't open your eyes. Let's just go on pretending.

I open my eyes. The space next to me is empty. I search for a stray strand of Owen's hair, a crease in the pillow, a lingering scent. Something to prove he was there. To prove that last night happened.

But there's nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

My life is one big meaningless cycle of nothingness.

See,
some nagging voice in the back of my head says.
This is why you don't open your eyes.

I shut off my ringer, roll over, and try to go back to sleep.

Maybe I can sleep through the rest of the day.

Maybe I can sleep through the rest of my life, which coincidentally is the same thing. My life
is
this day. There's no escape.

I'm trapped here forever.

What did I ever do to deserve this? Was it the candy bar I stole from the supermarket when I was six? The four dollars and eighty-five cents in fines that I've owed to the library since last year? That time I lied to my teacher about our dog being sick so I could get an extra day to finish my paper?

We didn't even have a dog. And now I'm paying for it.

My dad knocks on the door and sticks his head in. “Ells? Owen is on the landline for you.”

Owen.

My mind instantly flashes back to the Ferris wheel. To his lips brushing ever-so-slightly against mine. And then, to that thing he said just before I fell asleep. Was that real? Did that really happen, or was I dreaming?

I push the memory from my mind. I can't deal with that right now.

“He said he's been calling your phone but it goes straight to voice mail,” my dad goes on. “Are you sick?”

“No,” I correct. “I'm dead.”

My dad huffs out a laugh. “You look pretty alive to me.”

“It's an illusion.” I pull the pillow over my head. “I can't go to school. Call Owen and tell him he needs to find another ride.”

“What about softball tryouts?” my dad asks, disappointed.

I pound the pillow with my fist. “I'm not going to those either.”

“But it's your chance at varsity.”

I tear the pillow from my face. “You know what, Dad? Maybe I don't care about making varsity. Maybe I don't want to play softball. Maybe I don't want to do anything. Maybe all I want to do for the rest of my life is lie here.”

Comprehension flashes across his face. He sits down on the edge of my bed. “Ah. Is this about a boy? Is this about Tristan?”

Pillow. Face.

My father lets out a sigh. “Well, I'm sorry if you're having … boy trouble, but that's no reason to miss school. Junior year is incredibly important when it comes to colleges, and you can't let a little crush ruin your chances at a good future.”

“I'm not going to school,” I mumble into the fabric. “Ever again.”

“Well,” my dad says, “if you're not sick—”

“I
am
sick. I'm very, very sick.” It's not a lie. Clearly something is horribly wrong with me. It's just not something that's diagnosable on WebMD.

My dad stands up. “Okay. I'll bring you some toast and soup, and I'll call your coach and talk to him about rescheduling.”

7:59 a.m.

My parents argue downstairs. An untouched bowl of soup and plate of toast are sitting on my nightstand. I try to fall back asleep but it's pointless. The universe isn't even merciful enough to give me that.

For the rest of the day, I lie in my bed with “Paint It Black” by the Rolling Stones playing on Repeat, and watch the minutes tick by on my phone.

8:02 a.m.—Owen gets in the car and says, “It's really chucking it down out there.”

8:11 a.m.—I run the red light at Providence Boulevard and Avenue de Liberation and get a ticket.

8:42 a.m.—I take a horrible school picture.

9:58 a.m.—A kamikaze bird dive-bombs Señora Mendoza's classroom window.

11:20 a.m.—History quiz on the American Revolution.

1:22 p.m.—I give the world's blandest election speech.

2:10 p.m.—Mr. Goodman gives me another brochure. Pow! Pow!

3:25 p.m.—Coach tries to fool me with a curveball.

Round and round it goes.

I get three text messages from Tristan and five from Owen. I don't read or respond to any of them. What's the point? It won't make one bit of difference tomorrow.

4:34 p.m.

I hear the front door slam and my sister trudges up the stairs. She'll be soaking wet but I still have no idea why. I count her footsteps down the hall and then she disappears into her bedroom.

I turn on my TV and flip through the recordings on my DVR. The season premiere of
Assumed Guilty
is at the top of the list. It's the episode Owen has been bugging me to watch for the past five days. I press Play.

Owen was right. The episode is pretty amazing. It's about a woman named Simone Hudson whose identity gets stolen by this other woman who looks uncannily like her. The real Simone Hudson ends up suing the fake Simone Hudson for stealing her identity, but then in a fourth-commercial-break twist, the fake Simone Hudson
countersues
the real Simone Hudson, claiming
she
was actually the victim of the identity theft, not the other way around. The fake Simone Hudson's attorney does such a convincing job at arguing her side that by the end of the episode, you actually have no idea
who
the real Simone Hudson is.

The episode is so intense that by the time it's over, I feel breathless and light-headed. How scary would it be if someone stole your identity and then turned around and claimed that
you
actually stole theirs? Both Simone Hudsons had birth certificates and social security cards and passports with their names on them. Obviously one of those sets of documents was fake, but which one? And does it even matter? How do you
really
know that you're you? Is it because your name is on a piece of paper?

I reach for my bag and pull out my wallet. I stare at my driver's license for a good five minutes, studying the girl in the picture and the text printed next to it.

Ellison Beatrice Sparks.

546 Briar Tree Lane.

5′4″.

109 lbs.

Birthday: July 15.

The picture certainly looks like me, and that's definitely my name and my birthday and my address. But what if it's
not
me? What if the real me is out there somewhere living some other life? At some other school?

I bet that Ellison Sparks has it all figured out. I bet her boyfriend never broke up with her in the first place. I bet
she
never almost kissed her best friend on top of a Ferris wheel. She's probably not even afraid of heights.

I bet, for her, it's Tuesday.

I watch the episode again. When it's finished, I watch it again. I search for clues, something to help me figure out my own twisted existence, but I only end up more confused.

Eventually I lose track of how many times I've seen the episode. All I know is, it's dark outside my window now. My mom comes knocking at my door to tell me that Tristan is here and wants to talk to me.

“I don't want to see him,” I tell her. “He's just here to break up with me.”

An hour later, my phone vibrates nine times in a row. I glance at the messages.

Tristan: I'm sorry to have to do this by text.

Tristan: But you won't answer your phone or talk to me.

Tristan: I don't think I can do this anymore.

Tristan: Us, I mean.

Tristan: Something is broken and I don't know how to fix it.

Tristan: I don't know if it can be fixed.

Tristan: I'm sorry. It breaks my heart to do this.

Tristan: I wish I didn't feel this way. But I do.

Tristan: And I have to stay true to what I feel.

I shut off the phone and toss it onto the floor.

I'm about to press Play on the remote to watch the episode of
Assumed Guilty
yet again when someone knocks on my door. It's my sister.

“I was about to put on a movie. Do you want to watch it with me?”

I smile and push myself off the bed. “Sure. But not
The Breakfast Club,
okay? I've seen that too many times.”

She looks at me in surprise. “How did you know I was going to watch that?”

I shrug. “Just a hunch.”

My sister runs back to her room to get the movie ready and I walk over to my window and stare out at the lonely tree in our front yard. The one Owen climbs on so many other versions of this Monday. I don't know what will happen tonight. I've already messed with every single moment of the day.

But I crack the window open anyway.

Because despite being dead and stuck in purgatory, it turns out I still have some hope left.

 

Break On Through

9:45 p.m.

Hadley chose
Some Kind of Wonderful,
another teen movie made in the eighties about a guy who empties his entire college savings account to take the popular girl out on a date, but then discovers that he's actually in love with his best friend.

As the credits roll, I turn to my sister. “Hads, what happened today? Why did you walk home from school soaking wet?”

Flustered, she searches for the remote in her tangle of blankets and presses Stop. “How did you know about that? Did they put it on the Internet?” She grabs her phone off her nightstand and swipes it on. “Is there a video?”

“What?” I ask, confused. “Did
who
put it on the Internet? Hadley, what happened?”

But once again, she completely shuts down. “I'm tired. I need to go to sleep.”

I know this is my cue to leave but I don't budge. “Hadley, you know you can talk to me about this, right?”

“No!” she screams and I flinch. “I can't!”

“Why not?”

“Because you wouldn't understand. You have everything figured out.”

This makes me laugh, and I immediately realize what a mistake that is because Hadley clearly thinks I'm laughing at her. “I have
nothing
figured out!” I tell her.

She crosses her arms, evidently not believing me.

“Do you know why I stayed home from school today?” I ask. “Why I
really
stayed home from school?”

“You were sick.”

“No. I was scared.”

This was obviously not even in the same galaxy as what she thought I was going to say. “Of what?”

“Of my life. Of facing it. Of being me. The same old stupid me, day after day.”

“But your life is perfect,” she argues.

“It's not.”

“You get perfect grades and all the teachers like you and you're going to be on the varsity softball team.
And
you have the cutest boyfriend in school!”

I sigh. “Actually, I have none of those things. And Tristan broke up with me today.”

Her jaw drops. “Because of one fight?”

“No, because…” I trail off. Because why? Six breakups and I still don't seem to have a straight answer to that question. “I guess things were just broken between us.”