Just Like the Movies (21 page)

“Well, okay . . .” Coach Mason clutches a baton in one hand. Then he reaches out and gives my shoulder a light, encouraging pat. I rear back and stare at him. It's the first time he's ever made physical contact in the four years I've been running for him.

“I'm worried about you,” he says, looking me in the eye. “Don't push yourself so hard that you can't find a reason to love this sport anymore.”

“I, uh—”

I'm totally speechless. Coach just smiles and falls back to talk to Marcie, our discus thrower.

He's right, you know,
a voice says in my head.
Obsessing about things makes you crazy.

I brush off that voice, which is usually wrong anyway. I mean, she's the one who says that Tommy is cheating and ends up making me look like a possessive freak. And she's the one who thinks Tommy's lying when he says he's at band practice or out with his family. It's
her
fault we fight all the time. It's
her
fault I can't accept things as they are.

Not to mention she's the one who tells me Tommy doesn't love me after all.

I throw my shoulders back and try to put some purpose in my step. Lily's phone call knocked me off my game, but I can't let anything get in my way of winning the state competition.

Focus.
That's what I need to do.

I need to focus on running fast and loving Tommy and prom and graduation. I need to focus on the future.

Still, when Beth drops me off at home after practice, I stand in the driveway and stare at the front door for a good minute. The last thing I feel like doing right now is facing my parents. Unfortunately, when I come through the front door, I've got a full view of Mom and Dad sitting in the living room. I force myself not to roll my eyes. Instead, I plaster a smile across my face and move into the room, flopping down into a recliner.

“What's up, guys?” I ask them. “What's for dinner?”

“Uh, Marijke,” Dad begins, running a hand over his face, “your mom and I—we needed to talk to you. About something important.”

Great. I'd forgotten about this.

Since I already know what this is about, I attempt to head them off.

“I know what you're going to say—you're pissed that I haven't chosen a college yet. And I get it, I do. I'm just trying to be thorough and really think things through.”

But Mom's shaking her head. Her eyes look a little watery.

“No, honey. It's not that.” She takes a deep breath and looks over at Dad, then back at me. “Your father and I have decided to take some time apart.”

I blink at her, confused. “Time apart from what?”

My dad sucks in a breath and I turn to look at him. The pain on his face is evident. “Time apart from each other, sweetie. I'm going to be staying in a hotel for a while.”

There are times when the world just doesn't make sense—like those videos where tiger cubs are cuddling with golden retrievers or where Vegas magicians manage to levitate in the middle of a crowd in front of the Bellagio hotel. It's like the laws of nature cease to exist.

And right now, in this room, that's exactly how I feel.

“What are you talking about?” I finally manage to say, looking from my mom to my dad and back again. “I mean, you guys are so happy. You hardly ever fight. You come to all my meets, you support me—you're great parents.”

“And we'll continue to be great parents,” Mom says, attempting a soothing tone. “Your father and I . . . well, it's just time for us to get some space. To find some perspective.”

Dad sort of snorts at that, like he thinks Mom's words are a bunch of crap. She shoots him a dirty look.

“Do you have a better rationalization?” she asks him icily.

“Marijke's practically a grown-up, Mary Ann. She doesn't need coddling. She needs straight answers.”

“Oh, and you have those answers, I suppose? Please, lay one on me.”

Dad rolls his eyes. “This is what I'm talking about with you—the constant sarcasm.”

He storms out of the room, and Mom gets up and moves toward the fireplace. She puts her arm on the mantel and brushes the tips of her fingers along the edge of a silver frame. It's a picture of the three of us at a backyard barbecue. For a second, we both stare at that picture as if it's a reverse mirror. It's showing us the opposite of everything we are at this moment.

“Your dad and I were really young when we got married,” Mom says.

“So?”

“So,” she sighs, “I think that sometimes when you get married young, you don't have a chance to fulfill all the dreams you had growing up. Your dad always wanted to travel, and I thought about going to college more than once. But we never did those things.”

I blink at her and she shrugs.

“We've been together twenty years, but for the first time it feels like we're holding each other back rather than pushing each other forward.”

“You can live your dreams and be together.”

Mom shakes her head again. “I know this is hard to understand, honey. We've given it a lot of thought, and I think that it's time we tried a life apart to see if we can be happier than we are together.”

“Are you getting a divorce?”

The question hangs in the air. Mom won't meet my gaze.

Slowly, I move to standing and walk toward the stairs. Now, I notice the set of matching luggage stacked in one corner of the family room. Dad's luggage—the stuff he takes on business trips or vacations. They'd timed this presentation perfectly, I guess. Waited for me to get home from practice, planned to try and make it relatively painless.

Dad walks back in from the kitchen, his eyes a little red.

“Marijke,” he says, “please, we need to finish discussing this.”

I turn around and glare at him, shaking my head until I can hardly see clearly.

“I can't believe you'd just give up like this,” I practically spit. Then I turn to look at my mom. “And I can't believe you'd let him. Love,
real
love—it's worth fighting for, you know? It's worth doing
everything
you can to save it. Even if it means making a fool of yourself. Even if it means losing the person you love in the end. As long as you've really tried—well, then you know that you've done all you can.”

I whirl around and hurry toward the stairs.

Once I get to the second floor, I fly into my room and slam the door as hard as I can. On one side of the wall, the impact sends a tremor through everything that's hanging there, including a variety of track medals. I move to grab them and, with a sort of wail, yank them down off their places of glory.

I flop facedown on my bed and stare at the pattern on my comforter. I can't believe this is happening. My dad is moving out? Just like that? I blink back the tears, but unlike earlier, I can't keep these ones at bay. The sobs begin to wrack my body like a tide that's pulling me under. I've forgotten how to tread water. I've forgotten how to breathe. I need someone to tell me it's going to be okay. I need someone to reassure me and hug me and hold me.

I need Tommy.

I try his cell, but he doesn't answer. I send him a text and wait a few minutes until he responds:

* * *

I don't know when I fell asleep, but when I wake again, it's morning. I sit up and look around. My alarm clock says 6:00 a.m. and the sun is just coming up. I push the snooze button and fall back against my pillows. I can't believe I slept almost twelve hours. I must have been exhausted.

And then it comes crashing back—the reality of yesterday. Lily's phone call. My crappy track practice. My parents' faces as they tell me that they're seperating.

I close my eyes. Maybe I can fall back asleep and pretend none of it ever happened.

Then I remember texting with Tommy. He was supposed to come over last night. Did I sleep through his visit? Had my parents sent him home?

Frowning, I grab my phone and slide my finger over the screen. There are no missed calls. There are no missed texts.

I move to the Facebook icon and click once. Scrolling down to Tommy's profile, I scan his last status update.

He didn't call. He didn't text. And he didn't even bother showing up, even after I'd told him I was a mess. Even after I'd practically begged.

What else do you need to see?

The voice in my head is right this time, isn't she? What else
do I
need to see? What other evidence do I need?

Tommy's always been my number one priority. I've put off making choices about my future because I so desperately wanted to be with him. Yet when I ask him to be here, he flakes.

My mom's words from last night come rushing back.

We've been together twenty years, but for the first time it feels like we're holding each other back rather than pushing each other forward.

I swallow, blinking back hot tears.

I can't believe I got it so wrong. I thought it would be
so easy
to get Tommy to fall in love with me. But I forgot the most important part—the part that Lily understood when Joe rejected her and the part my parents understand too, since my dad is moving out.

Falling in love means two, not one. You can't get someone to love you through sheer effort or desire—not unless that effort or desire is mutual.

And it's not. You know that now, don't you?

“Yes.”

I say it to my empty bedroom, but it doesn't make it hurt any less.

A breakup is something physical. I never understood this until I felt my own coming at me like a freight train. The breakup of my new friendship with Lily, the breakup of my parents' marriage, and now the breakup of my relationship with Tommy. All of them combined into one speeding vehicle, ready to blast through my body and leave my heart a twisted, mangled mess.

That's when I realized why they call it a breakup—it isn't just the way it leaves your relationships in tatters. It's also about the way it tears your heart into pieces, the way it makes you ache from the inside out.

For the rest of the week, I manage to disappear—or, at least, I manage not to be seen.

It sure as hell wasn't easy. I've gotten used to meeting up with Marijke in the morning or at lunch. I've become accustomed to walking by Joe's locker during the day. Now I've had to switch up my routine to avoid these two people. It sort of reminds me of the plug-in GPS my mom keeps for road trips and the mechanical voice declaring that it's “recalculating the route” when we've made a wrong turn.

My route recalculation involves a couple of strategic moves, but I manage to keep it going. The library turns out to be my salvation, which I guess isn't that surprising. I spend mornings before school and every lunch sitting at the same round table in the back corner, partially hidden by a shelf of obsolete
National Geographic
magazines.

By Friday, I've managed to adjust to a new version of my daily routine. It feels less like hiding and more like reliving my past. I try not to think about that—about how things were before when I was invisible. If I'm being honest, I know that it felt good to be a part of something, even if that something was a failed plan at finding love. If I'm being even more honest, I really miss Marijke.