Crash Test Love (23 page)

But maybe Garret never felt that way about me. Maybe she never ached for me. I thought she did, but I could be wrong. And does it even mat er? I don’t know if she felt the same way that I did, that I do, but surely she felt something. She must have. You can’t fake a connection—that much I know.

I guess she just didn’t feel enough.

So Garret was never real y my girlfriend and she was never real y my friend. I can accept that. Only why, then, am I hurting so much? I barely know this girl. She’s been in my life a very short amount of time. Shit, though, did it mean a lot. Why does she occupy every second?

How can you so desperately miss something you never had in the rst place?

Ben, al of my ex-boyfriends … that was just dating. That’s nothing at al like what I feel for you, which is something I have no experience with.

Was she lying? I don’t think so, but if that’s true, then how can you throw it al away? Why aren’t I good enough to add to her list of previous boyfriends? What was so great about them?

But I’ve been in relationships before that have ended real y badly. Al of my relationships, actual y. Doesn’t every relationship end badly until you nd The One? And how could things possibly end worse than this: me feeling broken and used, the two of us not speaking.

What if we’ve lost each other forever?

I replay our last conversation like a scene in a lm I’m obsessed with. I wonder if someday she wil ever want me. But here’s the thing: when you press Rewind and start again, al you’re doing is seeing the same thing over and over and over. It never changes. I can think about al the things Garret said to me, and her previous boyfriends, and what I wish could happen between us, or I could draft a mil ion e-mails begging her to change her mind, or send her a text, or even pick up the phone and cal , but none of that alters the essential ingredient in the recipe of whatever these past few weeks have been. I want her. I want her so badly it’s maddening, I want her so badly I can taste her and smel her and see her with my eyes closed. But she doesn’t want me—at least, not like I want her.

I must accept this.

I must move on.

I make a list of things I need to do and chant them to myself like a personal mantra. A list of goals and where I want to be emotional y a month from now, six months from now, a year from now. I have never real y thought about stu like this. I have never real y been this vulnerable.

INT.—EAST SHORE HIGH SCHOOL, WEDNESDAY

Girls in movies (and in high school) forever talk about get ing their hearts broken. I’ve always felt that phrase is incredibly stupid. A heart cannot break. It’s muscle and esh and arteries and veins. And yet, now, I get it. I completely understand.

My heart is broken.

I’m not sure it wil ever be the same—like a vase or a ceramic gurine you drop and then glue back together. It may stil be functional, but it’s no longer beautiful. You can see al the cracks.

I take a few days o from school. When I return, the entire place is di erent. I barely recognize anything. That’s not to say that anything has actual y changed—same lockers, same hal ways, same random freshmen, same douchey teachers—but, it seems, I have changed.

Before Garret , I walked the hal s like I was in a movie. Like I was living someone else’s life. I saw people, but I never real y saw them. I just sort of watched them go by. But now, after Garret , I see them; they come at me from every direction; they rush past me and bump into me and knock me around. Each time someone brushes my shoulder I feel it. Each time someone says my name I hear it. It’s completely disturbing. It’s like I’ve been living my entire life in black-and-white and nal y someone has turned on al the color at once.

“Earth to Henry!”

I turn around. It’s Duke.

DUKE

Good to see you’ve nally resurfaced.

“Yeah,” I say. “I guess.”

“Yeah,” I say. “I guess.”

I stare at Duke. He’s the same as always, of course, but also so di erent. Or maybe it’s just that I’m di erent.

“You get my messages?” he asks.

“I did. Thanks.”

He puts a hand on my shoulder. “So, how are you? Holding up okay?”

“I’ve been bet er.”

“You’re gonna be just ne,” he assures me, leading me down the senior hal way and toward the back entrance of the school.

“Where are we going?”

“Out for lunch. Nigel’s get ing his car. We thought it’d be good for you to … ya know … not be in the cafeteria on your rst day back.” I’m glad. I can just imagine how awful it would be to sit around a table and hear people whispering about me and my so-cal ed tragic breakup (i.e., pret y much how al of my morning classes went).

“Thanks, man,” I say.

“No problemo. That’s what friends are for.”

Duke and me order burgers and fries and a soda at Wendy’s. Nigel gets a salad. “I’m watching my gure,” he says, pat ing his stomach.

We mess around and eat and I almost feel … normal. Wel , normal isn’t the right word. But I feel okay. Recently, Garret was my entire life; I completely ignored Duke and Nigel. Even though my relationship with them is in no way comparable to my relationship with Garret , it feels good to know there are stil people who care about me. Who enjoy my company and want to see me happy.

What we talk about: the song Destiny was lip-synching to when one of her boobs accidental y popped out of her dress and the color of the BMW

convertible her parents bought her for her birthday (even though she doesn’t even have a permit yet).

“So, what’d the big prank end up being?” I ask.

Duke shrugs. “No prank.”

“Why not?” I ask. “You guys were so psyched about it.”

“We, uh, couldn’t do one without you,” Nigel says sheepishly. “It wouldn’t have been the same.” I’m touched. I owe these guys so much. I don’t even know where to begin.

“Also, we couldn’t think of anything good,” Duke says, laughing.

Final y, the inevitable topic comes up. We have a few minutes before we need to get back to school for sixth period.

“Have you spoken to her at al ?” Nigel asks.

“Dude,” Duke says, “let it be.”

“It’s okay,” I tel them. “I haven’t. She wants to be friends but I just … I don’t think I can do it.”

“Why would anyone want to be friends with a girl?” Duke asks. Then he goes to high- ve Nigel, but Nigel just shoots him a look that says You are a complete moron.

“I wish I could be friends with her,” I say. “I want her in my life so badly, but … as much more than a friend. So much more. And I don’t think I can handle anything less. I’m real y sorry I shut you guys out.” I look at Duke, then Nigel. “You were both there for me when my mom left, and I couldn’t have survived without you. Real y. I should have been honest with you about Garret from the start. I don’t deserve friends like you guys.”

“Yeah, man, you do,” Duke says. “We love you, Henry. We just want to see you happy. It sucked you didn’t tel us what was happening because we couldn’t help you. But now we can.”

“Not to get al sappy on your asses,” Nigel says, “but my dad has this saying that’s like, ‘In mat ers of love and living situations, you’ve got a put yourself rst.’ If you don’t think you can handle being friends with her, then don’t.”

“But I’m real y worried about her—”

“Dude,” says Duke, “you’ve got a worry about yourself. Not her. She’s a bitch.”

“She’s not a bitch,” I say.

“It doesn’t mat er if she is or she isn’t,” Nigel says. “She hurt you, and you need to heal. And that’s going to take time. So take al the time you need.”

“Or you could just get a random sophomore to give you an HJ,” Duke says, leaning back in his chair. “That always makes me feel bet er.” Nigel punches his arm, and I laugh, knowing that the only time that has ever happened for Duke is in his dreams.

“And you know,” Nigel continues, “even though you probably feel like complete shit … there’s something, I dunno … alive about you today.

You seem like you’re real y here with us, you know? Not a mil ion miles away thinking about some random movie you watched last night on IFC.

You’re gonna be just ne.”

Alive. I like that. I do feel alive. I feel like I’ve been asleep for a mil ion years and I’m nal y awake. I am nal y ready. For what? I have no freaking clue. But I know that I can never go back to the old me. I can never go back to crashing Sweet Sixteens and hooking up with girls who mean nothing to me. Sex and intimacy, I’ve learned, are not mutual y exclusive. I want a connection. I want romance. I want, I don’t know, love.

And now that I know what it is to love someone, I want to know what it is to have that love returned. Garret supplied me with a taste, but that’s al it was. A hint. A start. And if I’ve gained anything from having her in my life, it’s realizing that I have a fucking lot to give. The fact that I don’t have my mother anymore, and I don’t have Garret anymore, doesn’t mean I’m going to die. It means I’m going to live. I have to, real y. I’ve got no other choice.

One night, a few weeks ago, I was talking to Garret on the phone (it was probably around one or two in the morning) and she was saying something about her dad and I made a comment about my own, and what she said was this: “You’re both hurting and you need each other. If he’s not going to reach out to you, then you have to reach out to him. You have to push him. It wil be hard but I promise you that eventual y it wil al work out.”

At the time, I thought it was kind of bul shit y advice. Why should I be the one to go to him? He’s the adult. If he wants to run away and sulk every time I even try to mention my mother, that’s his problem.

It’s not just his problem, though, which I guess is what Garret was trying to say. It’s our problem. I only have a year left—less than a year, actual y—before I move out of the house and go to col ege. Sure, I’l be back on breaks and stu , but it won’t be the same. Even though I’m dying actual y—before I move out of the house and go to col ege. Sure, I’l be back on breaks and stu , but it won’t be the same. Even though I’m dying to get out of Long Island, I don’t want to leave and have things stil be so shit y; I don’t want to feel like I have no idea who my father real y is or like he has no clue about me.

Here’s what I know: I swore I’d never fal in love but I did. And it has messed me up and who knows when I’l actual y recover. It could be days, it could be weeks, it could be months—or maybe I’l be thirty and stil reminiscing about the time I shared with Garret Lennox. Maybe not. What has been revealed, though, is that I have the possibility to change, to become whole, when for so long I have felt so half. Everything until now has been a test, and I have crashed and I have burned and I am weak, but I wil come out stronger. I don’t have to live my entire life hiding behind a computer or a television or a movie screen. I can step in front of one. And I know just where to start.

I go downstairs to where my father is sit ing on the living room couch, watching a col ege basketbal game on the at screen.

“Dad,” I say.

DAD

What’s up?

“Not much.” I grab the remote and shut o the TV. I take a long, deep breath. “We need to talk.” He looks at me with weary eyes. He sees me. Then he pats the empty spot on the sofa next to him. “Okay.”

GARRETT

This is o cial y the swiftest my life has ever come “Ful Circle” (Miley Cyrus, 2008).

I feel like it’s my rst day at East Shore al over again, only worse. Then, no one real y paid me any at ention. Now, I’m de nitely get ing at ention, but not the kind anybody wants. Some people, I think, are impressed that I was the rst girl to real y crack Henry Arlington. It’s important to remember, though, that Henry is as popular as you can be at East Shore; most people—the girls, at least—are pissed at me for breaking his heart. The guys don’t want anything to do with me for fear of being ostracized by Duke and Nigel, the leaders of the Hate on Garret parade. I can’t real y blame them. Only, I wish someone would understand this isn’t easy for me, either.

When you break up with someone, there is, for the most part, a winner and a loser. The winner is the one who initiates the breakup, who’s already moved on or has confronted his or her feelings. The loser is the one who is sideswiped, who has no control over the fact that something that once seemed so stable has been decimated.

But anyone who has ever dumped someone knows that it sucks for the winner, too, and real y the winner hasn’t won anything at al —the only accomplishment is having hurt someone’s feelings. Which sucks no mat er how it happens.

I hate that I hurt Henry. I hate myself for lying to him and for let ing the charade go on as long as it did. I hate myself for developing actual feelings for him and for being unable to express them properly and make him understand that I real y do care about him, that I have never known anyone like him before, and that I doubt I ever wil .

But I don’t hate myself for ultimately being honest. I don’t hate myself for trying (and failing) to make girlfriends for once in my life, for put ing my own feelings before a boy’s, for trying to have some semblance of independence.