Autumn's Kiss (13 page)

“Aha!” I cry, jumping out of her closet.

“¡Dios mio!”
she screams. She throws the mascara wand at me like it's a dagger. I scream when it hits me in the chest.

“Are you kidding me?” I wail, looking at the black scrape on my shirt. “This won't come out!”

“What are you doing here?” she asks, which I have to admit is a question I've been getting a lot lately. “How did you get in here?”

“
So
not important!” I claim, even though if I were her, I'd find it incredibly important. “Look at you! You're dressing up all alone because Denny won't let you do it when you're with him!”

“You're
loca,
” she says. “I'm just trying stuff on. It's my stuff. If I want to try it on, I can. What are you, the dress-up police?”

“No,” I say. “You're lying. It's Denny, and it started the minute you got together. You didn't go to Reenzie's party because he didn't want to. You stopped eating lunch with us because he likes going off campus. You stopped wearing makeup and jewelry and the clothes you like because he doesn't like you in them. You even stopped hanging out with us because he doesn't want you to!”

“He doesn't care who I hang out with!” Ames shoots back. “I'm with him and not you because I
want
to be with him!”

“Always?”

“When you were with Sean, didn't you want to be with him always?”

“I
am
with Sean,” I say, “which you would know if you ever hung out with us, which you don't because Denny won't let you!”

“You don't know anything about Denny and me,” she says, and that makes me furious because I know I'm right and I can't believe she's not seeing it. If any of us acted the way she does with Denny, she'd be the first to call us on it.

“I know you never would have gotten together without me!” I say. “And you know what? I totally regret it! If I could take it back, I would!”

“Take what back? Telling Taylor and I that Kyler Leeds was in town?” Ames asks. “I was the one who saw Denny in the window that day. I got him
myself.
You had
nada
to do with it.”

She's wrong again, but there's no way I can make her see it. I can't show her the map. That would be insane. I take a deep breath. “I'm not mad at you, Ames. I just think you're making a big mistake. You shouldn't have to change for this guy. You deserve someone who knows how amazing you are and likes you for that.”

Whoa. Did I just kind of quote J.J.? Weird.

“He's not right for you, Ames,” I continue. “Get rid of him. You'll be better off.”

Ames smiles sweetly, but I feel about as safe as I felt with the evil Pomeranian I tried to save from the hot car. “Aw,” she says, “you're not mad at me? You want to make me better off? That's so sweet.” Then her face morphs into an evil sneer. If she had fangs, they'd be bared. “But guess what?” she roars. “I'm mad at you! You think you can sneak in here and watch me, then tell me how to run my life?
¡Vete a la infierno! ¡Vamos!
”

She points to the door.

I guess she does have a point if she thinks I snuck in here, but still. I stare at her pleadingly, hoping we can talk some more, but her face is stone.

“Amalita?” her dad's voice comes from downstairs. “Is everything okay?”

Uh-oh. I have to get out of here before he comes up and asks questions. I run into the hall, but instead of going toward the stairs and Ames's dad's approaching feet, I make sure no one can see me and use the map to write myself home.

That went nowhere near as well as I'd hoped.

According to Ames, I no longer exist. I know this because J.J. and Taylor both tell me so. Neither of them has seen Ames either, but they text with her and keep me posted. It's small comfort to know that Reenzie is also on Ames's Does Not Live list.

It sucks, but I try not to dwell on it. I can't force Ames to give up her boyfriend, even if he is bad for her. Besides, I need to enjoy time with my own boyfriend, because I won't see him for a week. We have a week off for Thanksgiving break, and when Aventura High's football team is knocked out of the play-offs, Sean's and Reenzie's families decide they're going to travel together to this vacation rental home in Pensacola, on the other side of the state. They leave the Sunday before Thanksgiving and won't be back until late in the night
next
Sunday—a long, Sean-free week. Taylor's gone too—she and her family are spending the week in Vermont with Taylor's grandparents. Leo's relieved. He loves being Taylor's boyfriend but says studying everything she likes and will want to talk about is so exhausting he can use the break.

Jack's going away for Thanksgiving too, and while Ames is in town, well, I'm dead to her, so that doesn't help me any. I can always pop in and see Jenna, though. We even try to bring her back to my room in Aventura one night. She's the one who comes up with the idea.

“You always bring your backpack with you….Why can't you hold my hand and bring me?”

It makes sense…but apparently it doesn't work that way. I hold on to Jenna's left hand while I write
Home
with my right, but I pop back to my room without her.

I'm just glad it doesn't turn into a horror wreck, with me clutching her hand in Aventura, while the rest of her body's back in Maryland. That would be a tough one to explain to her parents.

J.J.'s in town for Thanksgiving break, though, and that's fantastic because my mom puts her foot down and demands I take driving lessons. Even when I finally tell her flat-out that I'm not comfortable with it because of what happened to Dad, she still says I have to.

I'm stunned, to be honest. I thought the Dad thing would be the ultimate trump card. Not that I'm using it that way—I'm genuinely terrified of getting behind the wheel of a car—but I thought for sure she'd be moved enough to let me put it off. I mean, seriously, it's only been a year. This week will be our first Thanksgiving without him. Is she not as ripped up as I am about it?

She tells me she of course is but that I need to learn to drive regardless. She has the instructor come the first Monday of vacation, and I score because I have to get my permit first, and to do that I have to first pass an online test about traffic and substance abuse laws.

The good? I stay out of the driver's seat. The bad? The test is soul-crushing, especially since I have to stare at the computer screen for around four hours and every letter jumps around like crazy. I have to bribe Erick to come in and read the stuff to me because at a certain point I just can't deal with it anymore. But I pass, and on Tuesday the instructor comes back to take me to the DMV to get my permit, then start me on my driving instruction.

I make J.J. come with me. He rides in the backseat. The instructor's up front in the passenger seat. Ten minutes into our two-hour lesson the instructor is hyperventilating, but J.J. stays calm.

“You know what, Autumn?” he says. “You're doing great. Just stay in the middle….Okay, not on the median, I mean in the middle of your lane….Uh-huh…Now flip the turn signal….That's the windshield wipers, but it's good, it was getting a little dirty….Okay, don't hit the blind man…or the children…or the cat…”

I get better. I do. It just takes a while. By the last ten minutes, the instructor even takes her hand off the phone, where she had entered 9-1 and was just waiting to see if she needed to dial that last digit. When J.J. comes with me for more instruction on Wednesday, I do even better. Honestly, at that point I feel pretty good about the world. I even take a selfie of me behind the wheel to send to Sean.

No, not while I'm actually driving.

He sends one back of his feet and the ocean, like he took it while lounging back on the sand.

He totally has the better deal for this vacation.

I miss him. As much as I gave Ames a hard time for always being with Denny—and totally stand by that—I love being with Sean. Even though we've only been back together a couple weeks, I'm used to it now. I'm used to having his arm around me when we walk, and holding his hand, and kissing him during the day, and getting together in the evenings to hang out. We text each other all the time, but it's not the same, and I've never been so excited for vacation to end and school to start up again.

I'm especially depressed Thursday. It's Thanksgiving, our first without my dad. Mom invited people over, and she told Erick and I we could too, but everyone has plans. It's just going to be the three of us plus Eddy, and we're going to eat pretty early, like fiveish, because that's already late for Eddy. Any later and she wouldn't be able to handle it.

I'm only just awake, but I hear Mom and Erick bustling around downstairs cooking. They have a whole plan to make a ton of food—way more than we need—and bring it to a homeless shelter after we take Eddy home. Mom says it's the perfect way to take our minds off our own problems and make us thankful for what we have. I get it and I'm all for it…I'm just too depressed to go down and help right now. I'd love to pop over and see Jenna, but I know she's doing some Turkey Trot race this morning, and the last thing I need is to show up in the middle of the course and trip her. I have a bad track record when it comes to breaking people's legs.

I hear the TV downstairs. They're watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, just like we always did when Dad was alive. I turn it on in my room.

It makes me smile, actually. The giant Mickey Mouse float, the giant Snoopy, the big dance numbers from Broadway musicals.

That's
what we should have done this year, I realize. Forget staying at home and cooking. We should have gone away somewhere exciting and amazing and different. We should have gone to New York. We should have watched the parade in person. Now we're stuck here.

A thrill runs through me as I realize something.

They're
stuck here. Mom and Erick.

I have the map.

The two of them are downstairs. They think I'm still asleep. As long as I don't stay away long enough for them to miss me…

Keeping one eye on the TV, I pull out the map and write
Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade
across it.

Next thing I know, I'm standing next to a grinning goldfish that's twice my height. The air rings with music—Kyler Leeds music!—and beyond it I can hear the roar of a million voices hooting, clapping, and screaming. And floating all around me…bubbles!

FUN!

I prance around, leaping up to pop bubbles as they soar by. I realize I'm moving—I must be
on a float,
which would explain the giant goldfish.

I laugh out loud. I'm instantly giddy—this is so cool!—and I can't wipe the smile from my face. The cold air bites through the long T-shirt I wore in bed, but I'm too happy to care. As I prance around leaping for more bubbles, I play with the other giant sea creatures in my path. I take the hand of an enormous starfish and bow as if he were my prince; I put my head in the mouth of a grinning shark and flail around like it's eating me; I climb on top of a seahorse and rear back like I'm riding him through the ocean. Then I skip around to the other side of the float…

…and nearly collide with a group of men and women in fish costumes, kicking and swirling their way through a choreographed dance. I duck to avoid flailing arms and legs and stay low to climb to higher ground, away from them. There's some kind of huge pink volcano-thing, and I scale it like a mountain climber. It's tall, and the float itself is already rolling way above the ground, so I'm pretty high up. I peek down to see how far I've come, which is when I realize a few things:

In addition to the cameras, I notice some security guards darting along the street toward the float. I think the fish dancers somehow reported that I wasn't part of the show. This is bad. Getting arrested will definitely put a damper on Thanksgiving. Getting arrested on live television in Manhattan…that's going to make for an interesting one-phone-call conversation with Mom.

Grasping for grip-holds for my hands and feet, I scurry around the pink volcano, trying to get away, but there's really no place to go. The guards are coming, and one of them has already leaped onto the float. He doesn't want to interrupt the dancing fish, so he's moving slowly, but he'll be able to grab me any second.

I need to write myself back home, but the map is in a little over-the-shoulder bag and I can't pull it out without letting go of the volcano, which would involve plummeting to the ground. “Plummeting” in general is something I want to avoid.

Not sure how I'm going to get out of this.

“Autumn?”

My name echoes all around me, and I realize that while the music of the Kyler Leeds song is still going, his voice has stopped. I look over to the side and see that I've clambered my way to the edge of the float's stage…on which the actual
Kyler Leeds
is standing, microphone in hand. He's dressed for the weather in a thick parka and looks stunned to see me on his volcano.

I notice the security guards have stopped moving toward me. They must think I'm with Kyler.

Okay, then.

I smile wide. “Kyler!”

I hold out a hand to him, and he helps me climb from the volcano to the stage with him. I grab his microphone. “Kyler Leeds, everyone! Put your hands together!”

The crowd loves it. They roar and start to clap. Kyler's staring at me with his mouth wide open.

“What are you—” he starts, but I don't let him finish. I put a hand to my ear, listening to the music; then when the chorus kicks in, I shout, “Sing it, Kyler!”

I give him the microphone, and I have to hand it to the guy, he's a professional. He smiles wide and sings, then slings an arm around my shoulders and holds out the microphone so I can sing with him, which I do. I even try to harmonize, but I have no clue what I'm doing. Maybe the noises I'm making will come off like on-theme dolphin squeaks.

As Kyler goes into the next verse, I look at the crowd and flap my arms up and down, rallying them to cheer more and louder. They obey. They're in the palm of my hand. I'm delirious with the power and excitement.

With a flourish, I swing both of my arms toward Kyler, and as the crowd focuses back on him, I race off the stage and climb down to the off-camera side of the float. I duck behind my old friend the giant goldfish, pull out the map, and write
Home
.

I'm standing on my bed. Someone's pounding on my door. “Autumn?” my mom calls. “Autumn?”

She rattles the knob and I thank the universe I locked it last night. Erick had threatened to make his own documentary of our first Thanksgiving in Florida, and I hadn't wanted to risk him filming me while I was asleep.

I rumple my hair and rub my eyes so they look especially bleary. I'm about to open the door when I think about my nightshirt…which was just featured on television. I quickly whip it off and pull on sleep-shorts and a tank, then open the door and make my voice sound half-asleep.

“I'm up, I'm up,” I mumble. “Did I miss Thanksgiving?”