Bitter End (12 page)

Cole swung himself out of the car and loped over to the playground. He stood, looking out over the play equipment, kicking
the railroad ties that fenced it in. I followed him curiously.

“The merry-go-round!” I exclaimed, jumping up over the railroad ties and rushing to it. I hopped up onto the rusty metal platform
and stood in the middle, just the way Bethany and I used to do when we were feeling like daredevils. “Push me, Cole!”

He looked up. I motioned for him to come over. He
stepped up over the railroad ties and moved slowly toward me. I towered over him, my hands planted on my hips.

“Check it. No hands,” I said.

He cocked his jaw to one side and leaned over, grabbing the metal bars and giving the merry-go-round a healthy shove. I squealed,
the muscles in my legs and back tensing as I tried to keep my balance. The world began to spin away from me faster and faster,
until everything was a blur, just like I remembered it. Bethany and I used to take turns, see who would wimp out and grab
on to the bars first. I always won.

I laughed, straightening up and holding my arms up in a V toward the sky. “See? I told you, I’m the spinmaster!” I yelled.

“Really?” Cole said, somewhere near me. “How fast do you think you can take it, spinmaster?”

“Fast as you can give it, baby!” I laughed, and the merry-go-round lurched underneath me again. “Whoa!” I shouted, bending
my knees again and holding my arms out in front of me for balance. “That’s fast!”

The merry-go-round lurched again. And again. I could hear Cole letting out grunts of effort, he was pushing it so hard. And
the world spun around me faster and faster, till everything was a dizzying darkness. I could no longer make out the lights
of the parking lot, much less figure out where I was in relation to it.

Cole grunted and the merry-go-round spun faster. My right foot slipped a few inches toward the edge. My arms
wheeled as I tried to keep my balance. I tried to look down, to find the handles, but I was too disoriented. The world started
rocking up and down, as if I was on a ship in a storm.

“Cole,” I said, my hands groping in front of me. “Stop. It’s too fast.”

But Cole only grunted and the merry-go-round lurched again. Again, my foot slipped and my arms spun wildly in front of me.

“Stop!” I said, louder this time. “Really! It’s too fast!”

But if Cole heard me, he was ignoring me. My feet kept slipping backward, and I knew that soon they would have no purchase
left.

“Cole, stop!” I yelled, the wind pulling tears from my eyes and across my temples. “I’m gonna fall!”

I felt a bar hit my hip. I was lurching side to side now. I tried to grab the bar with my hands, but I was too confused to
find it, even though it had just been there.

“Cole,” I whimpered. “Stop.” But by then it was too late. My shoes were slipping across the slick metal, and I knew I had
to do something if I wasn’t going to get hurt.

I dropped down on my knees and groped with my arms until I found a bar, then wrapped them around the bar tightly and let my
legs slip out behind me. Almost immediately, the toe of my shoe caught the playground wood chips and I dug in, crying out
when my arms jerked hard to the crook at the end of the bar. The merry-go-round slowed down, and my legs collided with Cole’s.

“You fell off, spinmaster,” he teased, an edge in his voice. I’d stopped, but Cole didn’t make any move to help me up. I bent
my knees into the wood chips and slackened my grip on the handle, resting my forehead against the cool metal while I caught
my breath.

“It’s not funny, Cole,” I snapped.

He laughed harder. “God, Alex. Don’t be whiny,” he said, jostling me with his knee. Then he clucked his tongue disgustedly.
“Would it have been funny if it was Zack pushing you?”

I pulled up onto my elbows and wiped my eyes. “No,” I fumed, looking up at him angrily. “I was yelling at you. Why didn’t
you stop?” I held myself from asking the next question:
Were you trying to get me hurt?

“Oh, come on, Alex,” he said. I felt the merry-go-round shift as he sat down on it in the slot next to me. He reached through
the bars and pulled my hair out of my face. He put his hand under my chin and lifted it up so I was looking at him. “I wasn’t
going to let you get hurt.”

I glared at him.

But the more I narrowed my eyes at him, the softer his face got. He stroked a thumb over my cheek. “I love you.”

At that moment, it was like nothing else mattered. In an instant, all of my anger melted away under his touch. Cole’s eyes
had an intensity about them that I’d never seen before—as though he was admiring something precious, something he couldn’t
comprehend. His face was filled with tenderness and somehow managed to glow in the dusk. Had
my heart not already been pumping furiously, it would have started just then. He’d never told me he loved me before.

Nobody had ever told me they loved me before.

I was struck with a memory of once when I was a little girl, asking my dad if he and Mom fell in “love at first sight.” We
were in the garage, where I’d been helping him fix the car. He had been twisting some car part around and around under a towel
in his hands, and had stopped and kind of stared out into space for a second. Then he jerked back into motion really quickly
and snapped, “Alex, I don’t have time for… Hand me that wrench,” and shoved his head back under the hood of the car he was
working on, case closed.

So later, over the dishes, I’d asked Shannin if she believed in love at first sight, and she’d looked me right in the eye
and said, “No. Because you only truly love your soul mate, and since your soul mate is the other half of you… you’ve seen
’em before, you know, in heaven.”

I’d thought about what she said long and hard, trying to make sense of it all. Meeting up in heaven, as though heaven is one
big junior high mixer or something. Shannin’s explanation of love at first sight and soul mates and heaven made no sense to
me whatsoever.

Until now.

Suddenly it didn’t matter anymore that he didn’t stop pushing me on the merry-go-round. It didn’t matter that he was irritated
about Zack. It didn’t matter that he’d scared me and said I was whiny. He loved me. Now I knew that much for a fact. And I
loved him, too.

For an agonizing few minutes, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to answer him. I could smell his cologne. I could see the muscles
in his jaw working anxiously, earnestly. I could feel his hand warm against my chin.
Pinch me
, I wanted to say.
Make sure I’m not dreaming this. Wake me up now before this goes any further
.

But instead, Cole’s hand found mine and he pulled upward. I stood up, my eyes never leaving his. He scooted back on the merry-go-round
and I sat on his lap, feeling tingly and like… well, like this kind of moment just doesn’t happen in real life. Not to ordinary
girls like me.

“I have something for you,” he said. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small stuffed bear, fuzzy and white, wearing
a red shirt that said “I
YOU.” He handed it to me. “It’s our one-month anniversary,” he said.

“It’s so cute,” I whispered, finally finding my voice. I pressed the bear to my chin. “I love you, too,” I said, wrapping
my arms around his neck. A sentence I’d never uttered before, not to Dad or Celia or Shannin. Not to Aunt Jules. Not even
to Zack and Bethany.

“Don’t go to Zack’s tonight,” Cole whispered into my neck.

“No way,” I whispered back. “It’s our anniversary.”

“Happy anniversary, spinmaster,” Cole said.

“Happy anniversary,” I said back.

We kissed, Cole’s feet working the wood chips, pushing the merry-go-round, and spinning us lazily through the night air. And
even though we’d kissed before, this one felt
different somehow. There was something more behind it. He pushed a lock of my hair back behind my ear, and then we kissed
some more, the little bear pressed between our hands, and I knew right then that this was what I’d been looking for my whole
life. I wanted this. And I wanted it to be perfect. Untouchable. No fires, no cackling, no rushing off to the mountains.

What Cole and I had would be like the happy photos in that box under my bed. Only what we had would be so much better.

Celia and I sat at the kitchen table, papers spread out in front of us, the phone in the middle of the table set to “speaker.”
Dad was at work, and we made Shannin skip her afternoon sociology class so we could talk to her about the party.

“I’ll be in charge of the cake,” I said. “Chocolate on chocolate, with ‘Happy Fiftieth Birthday, Michael,’ right?”

“Yeah,” Shannin’s voice rang out over the speaker. “And, Celia, you’re calling the grandmas, right?”

“Already did it,” Celia said, leaning over the phone. “And Aunt Jules knows. She’s doing some calling, too.”

“What about food?” I asked, rubbing my temples. We’d been at this for an hour, and I was ready to be done with it. I had better
parties to think about. Like the one at the lake shelter tonight that I’d gotten off work to go to, for instance. “How’re
we gonna get food here without Dad knowing it?”

“I’m still working on that,” Shannin said. “But I’m pretty sure if Celia asks the grandmas, they’ll take care of it. Grandma
Shirley lives for that kind of thing.”

“I’ll ask,” Celia said.

I rifled through some papers. “Well, then, I think we’ve talked about everything.”

“Yeah,” Shannin said over the phone. “I think we’ve got it all done. And with plenty of time to spare. We’re in good shape.”

I shot an I-told-you-so look at Celia, who glared at me. She leaned over the phone. “You sure you don’t want to go over it
again? Just, you know, in case?”

“No, I think I can still make my last class if I go now,” Shannin answered. “We’re good, Ceel. We’ll talk again before I come
home, okay? You can calm down about it now.”

“Great,” I answered, before Celia could say anything. “Talk to you later, Shan. Bye!”

Celia gave me a wounded look and snatched up the handset before Shannin could hang up. While she said her good-byes to Shannin,
I gathered together the papers, took them to my room, and hid them in my desk drawer under my Colorado paperwork.

I felt a pang of guilt. It’d been weeks since our last Vacay Day, the one when Cole walked in on Zack tickling me. I knew
Bethany and Zack were taking it personally, but it wasn’t on purpose or anything. It was just that, between work and homework
and making Celia happy with planning Dad’s party, I barely had time to do anything else. Plus,
Cole had made the basketball team and was busy with practice almost every afternoon. I barely had time to talk to Cole, and
they couldn’t expect me to blow off my boyfriend just to talk to them, could they? It wasn’t my fault Zack hated Cole for
no reason. He shut himself out, if you asked me.

Besides, Cole was so amazing. Always so romantic. Always calling me “just to say I love you.” Always bringing me things—a
stuffed animal, a rose, a charm bracelet. Always waiting for me at work, at my car, at my locker. Always.

I tucked the birthday papers in securely and shut the drawer, pushing away my guilty feelings. I’d see Zack and Bethany at
the party tonight. We’d talk then. Maybe I could even make Zack and Cole like each other. Maybe they’d become friends. I knew
it was a long shot, but I had to keep trying.

My fingers idly found my collarbone and ran up and down the necklace as an idea formed. Yeah, that’s exactly what I would
do tonight. I’d bring everyone together, make us all friends, so I wouldn’t feel so torn between them anymore.

Two hours later I was showered and dressed and standing on Zack’s front porch. His mom answered the door.

“Hey, long time no see, stranger!” she said, hugging me and pulling me into their house simultaneously. “Where’ve you been
these days, Miss Alexandra? Zack says you have a new boyfriend.”

I nodded and followed her into their living room, which was bright and cheery and dusted and smelled faintly of
lemon and pine. So different from our crappy living room. In a way, Celia hadn’t been too far off that day when I was cleaning
it up—I wouldn’t mind borrowing Zack’s mom just a little bit. If for no other reason than to make our living room smell so
good.

“Is Zack here?”

“Sit down, sit down, yes, he is,” she said. Zack’s mom always had this way of running sentences together like that. She was
sort of known for saying things like,
Why, yes—would you like a drink—I did in fact get new carpet in here—have a soda—thank you for noticing, do you like it?
Sometimes it was hard to follow her, and her habit of mushing sentences together really annoyed Zack, but I always found
her to be an amazing, perfect mom. I always thought Zack was so lucky and he didn’t even know it. “Getting ready for a party—this
is a surprise—have a seat—he didn’t say you were coming over.”

“Yeah,” I said, easing onto their couch. “He wasn’t expecting me. But since we’re going to the same party, I thought I’d see
if he wanted to ride together.”