Don't You Wish (17 page)

I gather up all my common sense and step out. Despite the fact that I know this guy could be the closest thing to someone like me—real Annie me—that I’ve met since I arrived, I’m not telling him anything.

“Nothing is the matter,” I say. “Thanks again. You’re a lifesaver.”

A funny expression flickers over his face. “Not really.”

When I slam the door, he waits for me to walk to the house. I glance over my shoulder to wave thanks, blinking into the distinctive round, high headlights of his beat-up old Jeep.

So, now I’ve been to a homecoming dance. And the best part was the ride home.

Ryder changed his status to “single” on Facebook before I even got out of Charlie’s Jeep, so I lie low to avoid the avalanche of calls and texts (like, twenty from Jade) until late Sunday afternoon, when she shows up in person, unable to take the suspense anymore.

“OMG! OMFG!” She throws herself into my bedroom. “Tell me every single word. Are you okay? Why haven’t you answered my calls? Oh, my God, Ayla. I’ve been so worried about you.”

“I’m fine,” I insist.

“Fine? Look at you.”

“What?” I haven’t shed a tear.

“No makeup, your hair, and what did you do, borrow clothes from Loras?”

I glance down, not even sure which jeans and overpriced T-shirt I put on. Jade, of course, is wearing designer cropped pants and a rhinestoned tank top.

“What happened?” She drags me to the bed and forces me to sit. “I want to know everything.
Ev-er-y-thing
, Miss Ayla Monroe. No detail is too small.”

I can’t tell her everything. Can I? The temptation to confide in someone other than Ryder is burning, but I choose my words carefully. Jade will think I’ve lost my mind due to the breakup.

“There’s not much to tell. I mean, about Ryder.” I fall back on the bed. “I changed my mind about doing the deed, and he got royally pissed.”

“That’s not what he told Bliss.”

My fury fuse gets lit again. “Why is he talking to Bliss about it?”

She pales. “He called her when you left, and she went over there.”

“Jeez, at least wait until the body’s cold.”

“No, no,” she says quickly. “Nothing happened. I know that, and she swears. He just wanted to talk about you. About how much you’ve … changed.”

“Yeah, well, he could have talked to me about that.” I can’t keep the bitterness out of my voice. “I tried, but all he wanted to do was … it.”

“Well, you did promise him sex, Ayla. I mean, it was
scheduled
.”

That irks enough for me to give her a harsh look. “It’s not a freaking cruise reservation,” I shoot back. “I said I might, but that doesn’t mean it’s a binding contract, for God’s
sake. I just changed my mind. I changed … a lot of things. Which is what I tried to tell him. Did he tell Bliss a different story?”

“He just says you’re whack.” She fluffs some pillows and settles in for a chat. “What
is
going on with you?”

There. The door is wide open. All I have to do is walk right through it … 
now
. I swallow and close my eyes. “I’m not whack, Jade. But I do have some … personal issues.”

“Is it your parents’ divorce?” There’s a tenderness in her voice that’s like a warm hand on my heart.

“No, not the divorce. I mean, I’m not thrilled about it, but I want my mom to be happy.” I hadn’t really thought about it, but as I say the words, I realize that’s what’s important to me.

But Jade looks stunned. “Your mom? Since when do you care about her?”

“Since, like, I was born?”

She coughs a laugh. “Okay, you
have
changed. Ayla, you hate your mom only slightly more than I hate mine.” She pushes back a lock of thick black hair, her dark eyes pinning me. “Which is to say, a lot.”

“I don’t hate her.”

“Ayla!” She practically falls over on the bed. “How many times have you been in this room ranting about her nonstop desperation to be good enough for your dad and how she never can be?”

I stare back in disbelief, then take a deep breath and say, “That wasn’t me, Jade. That was some other girl who just looks like me.”

She kind of smiles, obviously not sure if I’m making a joke.

“I’m serious. I’m not the same girl you knew a week ago. You see, I woke up … different.”

“Different, how?”

“Inside. In my soul. I’m not Ayla Monroe. I’m …”
Annie Nutter, painfully average and unpopular band geek who lives in relative poverty with a hoarder dad
. “Different.”

She clearly doesn’t get that. “Like you come from a different place, and have a different perspective?”

“Yes!” I scoot toward her. “Exactly. Inside.” I tap my chest. “I’m not the same girl. I don’t even look the same. And my family is all different. I don’t really know what happened, but … Listen, Jade, this is going to sound really bizarre, but I went to sleep as one girl and woke up as another. Something
changed
me.”

“Oh, I totally know what you mean!” She leaps from the bed, her eyes wide. “Like, last year, remember when I tripped in front of Brock Easterhouse? I was so mortified, I was never the same. I changed, Ayla.”

I can merely blink in disbelief. “Um, no. This is a little deeper than that.”

“That was deep!” She’s painfully sincere. “I, like, legitly fell on my freaking face right outside the cafeteria. No one comes out of something like that the same.”

“Legitly? Now you sound like Bliss.”

“I’m serious. Like, one second I’m walking, I catch his eye. Oh, my God. You remember what a mad crush I had on him? Well, there he is, totally checking me out, and I’m
walking …” She walks. “I look at him.” She sends a flirtatious glance to thin air. “Then,
wham
.” She trips herself, arms flailing, then looks at me. “I was never the same after that, Ayla.”

She drops to her knees in front of the bed, practically begging me to share. “I’ve never told anyone how the Brock fall changed me. Now something happened to you. What is it? You can tell me.”

No, I can’t. I can’t tell anyone. “This is my burden to bear,” I say, sounding a little melodramatic, but feeling that way.

She sighs in sympathy. “There’s really only one thing to do to ease your burden, my friend.”

“Shop?” I can’t even fake enthusiasm for that. “I’m so over shopping.”

“Nah. You need a new man.” She pulls out her phone and gives me a sly smile. “Remember that guy that Bliss and I were talking to at Mynt the other night?”

“You were talking to twenty guys at Mynt.”

“I know, right?” She gives a self-satisfied grin. “He’s having a party on his yacht tonight, and we are so going. It’s going to be wild. I heard the guys are all, like, male models. Everyone gets a line of coke the minute you board.”

“Oh … fun.”

“Come on.” She’s already off her knees and headed to the closet. “Bliss is going with her Gulliver friends, and they’ll pick us up. Let’s dress like the rock stars we are.”

When she disappears into my closet, I just stay on the bed, digging for enthusiasm.

I’ve never been on a yacht. I’ve never met a male model.
I sure as heck have never done a line of cocaine. So, where is my sense of adventure?

I pick up my phone, grasping for an excuse not to go. What’s wrong with me that I don’t want to go? My fingers flick over the pictures, landing on the close-up Tillie took of me last night when I was walking out the door.

My finger grazes the screen and accidentally pulls up my apps, and one of them jumps out at me.

Famous Faces. I have that app my dad used to create that image of me in his mirror invention thing?

My finger slides down the list of names, to some faces I’ve never even seen, with names that mean nothing to me. These might be famous faces, but not all are perfect. Some are kind of ordinary.

I start picking some features that feel “familiar” and sliding them over my image until I’ve created a face that looks a lot more like Annie than Ayla. And the dumbest thing happens. My eyes tear up and that homesickness thing starts again.

I don’t miss my friends and family and home.… I miss
me
.

“Ohmigod, you’re crying!” Jade’s in front of me, armloads of clothes tumbling to the floor as she reaches out. “You’re really upset about losing Ryder.”

Not in the least, but I’ll take the excuse. “You go tonight, Jade. I’m really not up for it.”

She’s totally understanding—but not about to give up the yacht party—and an hour later, she’s off with Bliss and her friends, and I’m on my bed looking at my old pal Annie.

* * *

Later that night, the weirdest thing happens. I’m on Facebook and Lizzie Kauffman pops up in a chat box.

LizzieKauffman: i know we’re friends, but do I know u?

I stare at the screen, inching back like she has actually walked right into my room. I can hear her voice in my head, see her freckles as she scrunches up her face, imagine her in that T-shirt with the monkey she got at Justice when we thought it was cool to shop there, and she refused to stop wearing it even when it was too small. I can picture her dark hair falling out of a sloppy ponytail, hear her easy, happy laugh.

I actually ache for her as I read her question over and over.

I know what she means, of course. She accepted my friendship but doesn’t have a clue who I am. The words swim a little as my eyes tear.

“Yes, Zie,” I whisper, using my secret nickname for her that I made up on some sleepover in another lifetime. “We’re friends and you know me.” Better than anyone.

I type slowly, but I know what I’m going to say. I’ve already imagined this conversation, but didn’t want to initiate it.

AylaMonroe: We’ve never met, but I found your profile.

LizzieKauffman: why?

AylaMonroe: Might be moving to Pittsburgh and searched South Hills High kids.

I wonder if my capital letters and punctuation will give me away. Lizzie always teased me because I used them in texts and chats.

But then I remember. How can they “give me away” when I don’t exist? At least, not as Annie, Lizzie’s BFF. Her response takes a second, and I find myself on the edge of my desk chair, a physical ache to reach into the computer and pull her out.

There’s no one on earth I trust more or need more at this very minute.

LizzieKauffman: cool. u live in miami, right?

That’s on my profile, of course.

AylaMonroe: I do now.

“But I haven’t always,” I whisper to her name on the screen. “Zie, do you remember me?”

LizzieKauffman: and u r going to SHH if u move here?

AylaMonroe: Maybe. Is it a good school?

LizzieKauffman: u will probably like it

A long minute passes with no text, and my chest clutches a little. I don’t want her to go away. But I don’t know what to say. It’s not like I can come right out and say, Hey, I know you. We were friends in … another … life.

But I have to say something.

AylaMonroe: You’re in orchestra, right?

Seriously lame, but it’s all I’ve got.

LizzieKauffman: yeah violin

AylaMonroe: I’ll want to join the orchestra at SHH.

Where did that come from?

LizzieKauffman: really???

Of course, she doesn’t believe it, either. She’s read my profile, looked at my pictures—at concerts, on yachts, at the beach—so she knows what I look like, what kind of friends I have.

AylaMonroe: Thinking about it. Who do you hang out with?

LizzieKauffman: other band kids mostly—how about you?

Popular girls who shoplift, smoke pot, and are mean to people like you.

AylaMonroe: Just … the usual crowd. Who’s your best friend?

Like, who replaced me?

LizzieKauffman: got a couple

She doesn’t want to name names, in case I’m some kind of stalker. I could check her friends list. Again.

LizzieKauffman: so let me know if u r moving here, k? gotta go

No!

AylaMonroe: Ok—can I ask you another?

LizzieKauffman: sure

I have to type fast. I don’t want to lose her. But I don’t know what I want to ask.
Do you miss me? Do you remember me? Is there a big fat hole in your life where you used to have a really fun best friend who you laughed with all the time and knew since kindergarten and shared a band stand with and kept a joint journal with since seventh grade full of nothing but our private inside jokes?

AylaMonroe: Can we talk again sometime?

LizzieKauffman: sure! shoot me a message gtg

And she’s logged off.

I hear footsteps outside and jump up, anxious for company. I push open the door to see my mom in baby blue pajamas, her hair pulled back, her face, I think for the first time since I’ve been here, completely washed free of makeup.

She looks so much like Old Mom, as I’ve come to think of her, that my heart aches. “Can you come in?” I ask, a little hesitant.

“Is something wrong?”

God, does something have to be wrong to talk to my mother? “I just … I’m lonely,” I admit.

Her eyes flicker, then shift to behind me. “Are you on Facebook?”

“Yeah.” Talking to a girl you once loved like your own daughter. “But I can talk to you.” I step aside and gesture for her to come in, and actually breathe a soft sigh of relief when she does.

She sits on the edge of the bed, giving me a chance to see how expensive and beautifully made those pajamas are. Mom’s favorite pj’s were Target sleep pants with hearts on them and an AT&T sweatshirt Dad got for selling the most phones in one month at RadioShack.

For a second, I wonder what Old Mom would think of these silky things that probably cost as much as Dad’s commission that month.