First There Was Forever (15 page)

“W
e’re going to let you in on a huge secret,” Meredith said.

“Take it with you to the grave, Court and Spark,” Walker joked, using his nickname for me.

We were sitting in their living room after a long and chaotic dinner that Friday night. Meredith had asked me to help her make ravioli from scratch, but she got so drunk on red wine during the process and took so many cigarette breaks, that we ended up making a box of mac and cheese instead. The kitchen was trashed, with discarded bowls of flour and eggs and butter sitting on the counter. Now, Walker was tuning his guitar and Henry and Lily were stretched out on the floor with their legs intertwined.

“We are obsessed with Justin Bieber,” Meredith declared, looking me right in the eye.

I laughed. “You are not.”

“We are,” Walker said, and started strumming his guitar softly while Meredith sang the words to one of his songs.

I clasped my hands over my mouth. “That actually sounds pretty when you sing it.”

“I know,” Meredith said. “He has an amazing songwriting team.”

Someone knocked on the front door and Walker answered it. I craned my neck, peering around Walker to see who was there and was surprised to see Ryan standing on the doorstep. And then my heart somersaulted when I noticed that lingering just a few feet behind him was Nate.

They came inside and said hi to the twins and then Nate walked over to me, his hands stuffed into the pockets of his jeans. I tried to smile calmly, but my nerves were jangling like crazy. Nate’s appearance had split the normal path of the evening into a million exciting possibilities.

“Funny seeing you here,” Nate said. “I didn’t know you hung out with these kids.”

“I do,” I explained. “I’m friends with Meredith. Have you ever been here?”

“No. Ryan comes here sometimes now ’cause his dad lives nearby. But his house is nothing like this.” Nate scanned the room. “This house is insane.”

“I know, it’s amazing,” I said.

Nate looked out the glass doors to the balcony. “Can we go out there?”

Nate and I cut through the living room and out the sliding doors to the back deck. He gestured to a stone staircase that led to a lower, private deck. “Let’s go there.”

“I don’t know if we’re allowed. I think that’s their dad’s area.”

“Is he home?”

“No, he’s, like, always away,” I said. “I’ve never seen him.”

“I’m sure they won’t care,” he said, and started down the stairs. I followed.

“So you and Meredith are pretty tight?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “She’s really cool.”

“Really.” Nate didn’t say it like it was a question.

“Don’t you think so?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” he said. “This scene doesn’t seem real.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know,” he said. “Not to talk shit. But they just try so hard to be cool.”

I thought about this for a moment, wondering if it could be true. Meredith had only ever seemed authentic to me.

“But I really don’t know them, so, you know, whatever,” Nate added when we got to the bottom of the stairs.

Unlike the upstairs deck, which was flooded with light from the house, the downstairs deck was completely dark. I couldn’t hear the sounds of the others at all now, only the buzz of cars below us on Mulholland Drive.

Nate looked out at the view and ran his fingers along the worn wooden banister.

“Isn’t it so pretty out here? Before I was friends with Meredith, I never got to come to this part of LA,” I said, rambling nervously. “But I love the views. You can see the Hollywood sign, like, perfectly clearly from Walker’s balcony. Have you ever been there? Walker said you can hike to it.”

Nate stopped fidgeting and turned to look at me.

“I never see you,” he said.

“I saw you this week at school,” I said.

“That’s not what I mean,” he said.

And something about the way he said it made me grow suddenly still.

“I’ve tried not to bother you. You’re always hanging around with Hailey and I got the sense that maybe because of her or because of something else, you didn’t want to—” he hesitated, searching for the words. “Talk to me.”

I had a choice. He had given me the perfect opportunity to say what I was supposed to say: You should go for Hailey.

Instead, I said, “I do want to talk to you.”

He nodded, taking in my words, his eyes fixed steadily on mine for a moment. And then, he stepped toward me, took my head in his hands, and kissed me.

It happened so quickly that my stomach dropped, giving me that half-seasick, half-amazing feeling you get from going down a roller coaster too fast. I closed my eyes and let myself kiss him back. His mouth was salty and soft and sweet all at once. Heat blossomed inside me.

After a moment, Nate stopped, took a small step back. His eyes were still burning into me.

“I’ve been wanting to do that for so long,” he said.

I stared back at Nate, unable to speak. I felt as if I’d been turned inside out. The air was velvet against my skin.

Nate’s phone beeped in his pocket. He pulled it out and read the screen. When he looked back at me, he frowned.

“Ryan’s looking for me,” he said. “He wants to go.”

“Okay,” I said, and my voice was a raspy whisper.

“So, what are you going to do with the rest of your night?” he asked. He reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear.

“Oh, you know. Waste it,” I said. My heart still pounded in my chest.

Nate laughed. “You’re so funny, Lima. I never know what’s going to come out of your mouth.”

“I am?” I asked shyly. I didn’t even think I had a sense of humor. Hailey had always been the funny one. I looked at the ground, unsure what to say next
.
So many things were happening so fast, I felt like I was dreaming.

“Hey,” Nate said, and he gently kicked my shin with one of his sneakers.

When I looked up at him, he wasn’t smiling anymore.

“Hey,” I replied.

“So, can I get your number?” Nate asked when we got to the front porch. I watched as he punched the numbers into his phone and slipped it back into his pocket.

He looked like he was about to say something else when Ryan stepped out through the front door.

“Dude, where’d you go?” Ryan asked. I looked at the ground, suddenly shy to be caught alone with Nate. I wondered if Ryan could sense everything that had just happened. I felt so changed by Nate’s kiss, it was impossible to imagine he couldn’t see that.

“Lima showed me around,” Nate said protectively. “Did you get your game?”

“Yeah. Not the one I wanted, but another one that’s supposed to be really cool,” Ryan said, not acting weird. Maybe he didn’t notice anything different about me after all.

“Walker has video games?” I asked.

Ryan laughed a genuine, satisfying laugh that made me giggle, too.

“Good question. You know, I think they’re his dad’s. He has all the newest games, and Walker lets me borrow them ’cause he’s never around. Anyway, let’s go. This place makes me paranoid.”

Nate ignored Ryan and turned to me.

“We’re going,” he said softly.

“Okay,” I said.

“See you around?” he asked. An amused, warm light flickered in his eyes.

I giggled, bit my lip, blushed, suddenly unable to find my voice, so I just nodded.

I watched the two of them walk down the driveway, Ryan talking the whole way. As they got farther away they began to disappear into patches of dark. After a minute or two, I saw one last streetlight catch on Nate’s shoulder and then they faded completely out of view.

My hand moved instinctively to my mouth. Nate’s lips had felt softer than air. As much as the kiss had begun to ease all the tightly wound tension that had built up between us, it wasn’t nearly enough. Now that we had started, all I wanted was more.

I wanted to savor this feeling and think about Nate, but I couldn’t push away the thought of Hailey. This thing between me and Nate was official now. Not a fantasy. Not a suspicion. There was no going back.

• • •

Everyone had moved upstairs to Meredith’s room while I’d been gone. They were all squeezed onto the bed watching TV, Meredith in the middle with Henry and Walker on one side and Lily on the other.

“Yay. Lima,” Meredith said droopily when she saw me. “Come here.”

I climbed onto the bed, next to Lily and tried to get comfortable.

“Lily, make room,” Meredith commanded.

“I’m trying,” Lily replied.

Leonard Cohen sprung up onto the bed and coiled himself into a shape like an
O
on Meredith’s stomach. Meredith stroked him, running her black painted nails through his fur and went back to watching TV. They were watching a rerun of
Law & Order
and I wondered why, with all the millions of channels they had, they would watch this. But all of the twins’ tastes seemed significant and carefully chosen, so I didn’t ask.

Besides, I didn’t care what we watched. My head was still spinning from the kiss. It had been perfect, seamless, almost unreal. And the feeling was lingering, like the first blissful hour after waking up from a good dream.

“Lily, can you stop chewing so loudly for like two seconds?” Meredith snapped out of the blue.

Lily was systematically working her way through a bag of Twizzlers. She froze, stopped chewing for a second, and then swallowed uncomfortably.

“I’m just chewing. What am I supposed to do?” she asked. An embarrassing pink blush bloomed up at the base of her neck.

“Just, I don’t know,” Meredith said. “Haven’t you had enough? You ate like that whole bag.”

Lily’s face was bright red now, but she acted cool. She scooted down to the edge of the bed and stood up. “I’m going to get some water. Anyone want anything?”

Walker and Henry shook their heads.

“I’d love a ginger ale. They’re in the second fridge in the hallway behind the kitchen. You know the one?” Meredith asked. She didn’t even lift her eyes off the screen to address Lily.

After Lily had gone, Henry propped himself up on his elbows and leaned across Walker to ruffle Meredith’s hair.

“You’re so bad,” he whispered. Meredith didn’t look at him, just swatted his hand away, but there was a wicked smile painted on her lips.

Without Lily, I rolled closer to Meredith and let my head rest on her shoulder. I tried to watch the show but it was halfway over and I had no idea what was happening. It really didn’t matter though. In my mind, I was still standing on Meredith’s balcony, Nate’s fingers brushing against my cheek.

T
he first thing I thought about when I woke up the next morning was the kiss. I spent the whole day Saturday reliving it, playing it over and over in my mind like pushing repeat on my favorite song. It took double the usual amount of time to finish my homework, and that night I couldn’t even stay focused long enough to sit through a half hour TV show with Mom and Dad. The kiss was a magnet, sucking me back in time.

Mom and Dad were having a dinner party on Sunday night, and I offered to make a flourless chocolate cake. I hoped the challenge would be engaging enough to distract me from thoughts of Nate. The recipe was tough. I had to figure out how to sweeten the chocolate, how to use a double boiler, how to balance the chemistry just right.

I was standing over the stove, stirring together the butter and unsweetened chocolate mixture, when the doorbell rang.

Hailey was standing on the stoop in an oversized sweatshirt and baggy jeans, like the old Hailey.

I froze.

She heard about me and Nate, I thought. She’s here because she knows.

“Did we have plans?” I asked, knowing that we didn’t.

“No we didn’t have plans,” Hailey said. “I just really needed to see you, and I was worried that if I called, you’d say you were busy.”

Panic spiked inside of me. I felt as if I was about to lose my balance.

“Where are your parents?” she asked.

“My mom is at the market getting bread for tonight, and my dad is on the beach. They’re having a dinner party tonight.”

“Oh, that sounds so nice.” Hailey sighed, her eyes glossing over with genuine sadness. “I miss them.”

I smiled a little, slowly letting my guard down. Hailey did love my parents. Maybe I wasn’t in trouble after all.

“Can we go upstairs?” she asked.

I tried to remember the last time Hailey had been over. It must have been around Thanksgiving. Now it was almost March. I wondered if my room had changed. She looked uncomfortable in it.

“There are so many things I need to say to you,” Hailey said. “I’m so sorry about everything.”

I sat cross-legged on my floor, and Hailey sat with her back against my bed, her legs straight out in front of her.

“I’ve been a fucking horrible, terrible friend to you,” she said. “I can’t believe I didn’t come to Nana’s funeral. I can hardly think about it, it makes me feel so awful. Do you think your parents will ever forgive me? Will you ever forgive me?”

I looked at the floor. I couldn’t manage to look at her.

“This is really out of the blue,” I said. “That was, like, months ago.”

“I know,” Hailey said. “You might not get this, because you’ve never fucked up, but sometimes when you do something really bad, it’s really hard to apologize. It’s, like, acknowledging it makes it so much worse.”

My eyes snapped up and met Hailey’s. That I understood completely.

“I know it’s stupid,” she said. “But I’ve just been having such a manic year. I’m, like, I mean, you must know. You’ve seen me. I just don’t know who I am anymore.”

I nodded a little. I understood that part, too.

“And you,” she continued, “you know me so much better than anybody else. Sometimes it’s hard to be around you because I just feel like you see through everything I do.”

Hailey dropped her head and covered her eyes with the heels of her hands. Bright red polish was chipping off her nails, and they made little misshapen blobs.

“My dad and Rachel are getting married.”

“Oh, wow,” I said softly. “When? When did he tell you?”

Hailey’s hands collapsed in her lap. When she looked up at me, her eyes were wet. She pursed her lips, probably trying to stop herself from crying.

“He told me on Christmas,” she said.

“Christmas?” I repeated. “That was so long ago.”

Hailey ignored me and continued. “Rachel is pregnant.”

“Oh, wow,” I said again. And then I added, “Wow.”

Hailey’s dad left her mom for Rachel, his secretary, when we were nine. I had never met Rachel, only seen her once when they were dropping Hailey off. She was sitting in the passenger seat and I couldn’t make her out behind all the reflected light on the windshield.

Hailey blinked, and wiped more tears away with the tips of her fingers. “I’m such a crier. I cry about everything.”

I know Hailey was trying to be light, but I could tell she was faking.

“I don’t know why I care,” she went on. “It’s not like I see them ever anyway. It’s just that I’m gonna be, like, the weird old half sister who doesn’t really exist in anyone’s mind. It’s like me and my mom won’t even exist now that he has a new family.”

I uncrossed my legs and reached forward to give Hailey a hug. She let me hug her, but then she kind of gently pulled away.

“I didn’t come over here to make you feel bad for me, Li,” Hailey said. “I was a bitch to you on New Year’s and horrible about Nana, too. I just, I’m really sorry. I don’t ever want to lose you. I don’t want to push you away like that.”

“I know,” I said. A wave of guilt so gigantic and dizzying was swelling inside me. I felt like I might throw up. “I don’t want to lose you either.”

“Nobody knows about Rachel,” she said. “I haven’t told Skyler anything. I think it’s gross. I’m so embarrassed. So can you, like, not tell your parents?”

“Why? It’s not embarrassing,” I said. “Lots of people’s parents get divorced and remarried. Don’t people say that half of all marriages end?”

“Just don’t tell them, okay?” Hailey pleaded. “You don’t understand because your life is perfect.”

I felt suddenly defensive. What did Hailey know about what it was really like to be me?

“Fine, I don’t understand,” I said. It came out sounding hard, so I added, in a softer tone, “But you’re gonna be fine.”

Hailey wiped away a couple more tears. “I’m sorry. For everything shitty I’ve done. For the shitty things I said on New Year’s Eve. You are the most important person in my life.”

I inhaled and exhaled slowly. “Do you want to stay for dinner?”

Hailey rested her head on my shoulder, and I could smell her unclean hair.

“You’re so generous,” she said. “I’d love to stay. I love you.”

“I love you, too,” I said. I knew what I had to do. I had to tell her about Nate. “And I have something I need to tell you, too.”

Hailey looked perplexed. “Okay. What?”

Where do I start?
I wondered. I couldn’t start by telling her about the kiss. The kiss was only a part of a longer story. I’d have to start with all the conversations we’d had after school and at Clean the Bay, or the time he had touched my shoulder on the roof, or even the way we had studied Spanish together at the beginning of the year.

“Lima, what is it? You look insane,” she scoffed.

“Nothing,” I said quickly. If I tried to explain to her what was happening with Nate, she would shred it. She would minimize it and distort it, tear it up, and scatter all the pieces in the air like confetti. And what did I owe her, anyway? She couldn’t just march in here and decide we were best friends again. I felt trapped.

“I know what it is.” Hailey smirked. “I know your secret. You like Walker Hayes.”

I let out a surprised gasp and then I laughed.

“No!” I squealed. “I don’t.”

“It’s okay, Li,” Hailey teased. “You’re allowed to like whoever you want. No matter how dirty they are.”

After our talk, we went downstairs, and I told Hailey what she could do to help me with my cake. I watched her back while she made the whipped cream. Everything was so twisted between us now. My feelings formed an intricate map of anger and guilt and sympathy. There were scars where she had treaded so carelessly across our friendship. Even with a big Hailey-style, bottom-of-the-heart apology, I wasn’t sure if the damage would heal.