Out of Nowhere (21 page)

“It’s okay.” I put the article aside and looked at her, waiting. May as well get it over with.

“Are you okay, babe? You’ve been awfully quiet today.”

“I’m fine,” I said, hugging my legs to my chest. “What’s up?”

“Well,” she began. Her hands, I noticed, were clenched in her lap. “The thing is, Riley…God, how can I start this. Okay, so you know Jeff and I have been seeing each other for a while. We have Tristan together and he stays here every weekend and…well, we both feel it’s time to take our relationship to the next level.”

I raised my eyebrows, feigning surprise. “Oh?”

“Yeah. And things are going really well so…oh hell, I’m just going to come right out with it. Jeff gave me this.” Suddenly she opened her right hand, revealing a diamond engagement ring.

“Oh,” I repeated, leaning over to examine it. I didn’t know much about rings, but this one looked expensive. The diamond was twice the size of the one on the ring my father had given her, back when they got engaged at nineteen. Then again, they’d been dirt poor back then.

“Jeff and I are getting married,” Mom said, her eyes beseeching me to be okay with this. When I didn’t say anything, she added, “Not right away, of course. It probably won’t happen until sometime in the spring but—”

“When did he propose?” I asked. I already knew the answer to this, but I wanted to see if she’d lie about it.

She gazed down at the ring, touched it lightly with her finger. “A couple of weeks ago. I wanted to tell you right away, I really did, but I needed time to think it through first. I mean, it’s a huge commitment that will affect the entire family. I had to be sure I was making the right decision.”

I was barely even listening to her. My mind was too preoccupied with the notion that Jeff was going to be my stepfather. Jeff, with his big muscles and corny nicknames and protein shakes. He’d be here permanently, living in the house I grew up in. He’d be the first person Tristan would run to when he woke up in the morning. He’d be here at night, sleeping right across the hall, next to my mother in her bed. His clothes would hang in my parents’ bedroom closet. He would sit at the head of the table, occupying the chair that once belonged to my dad.

“We’re not even going to live together fulltime until after we’re married,” Mom was saying, her words tumbling out like marbles, bumping into each other. “Maybe it’s my strict Christian upbringing talking, but I just want to make it official first.”

I almost laughed at this, because when had her strict Christian upbringing ever influenced her decisions before? We’d never been a religious family. Maybe my grandparents reprogrammed her at some point during the anniversary party. At least
they
would be thrilled about this marriage. After all, unwed mothers—along with pink hair and diaper-dependant toddlers—were an embarrassment to the family.

Mom was looking at me like she expected some kind of denial or violent tantrum. And maybe she would have gotten one too, if I hadn’t overheard her conversation with Michelle. Now, I just felt numb.

“Do what you want, Mom,” I said, picking up my article and flipping through the pages. “I’m not going to tell you not to marry Jeff. It’s your decision. You don’t need my blessing.”

“I’d like it, though.” She laid a hand on my knee. “I know how hard this must be for you, Riley, but you need to know that Jeff would never try to take the place of your father. And just because I’m getting remarried doesn’t mean
I’ve
forgotten him either. He’ll always be with me.”

“I know,” I said tersely. I couldn’t handle more tears right now. Mine or hers. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter. I’m going away to college.”

“What? Since when? Going away where?”

I shrugged, keeping my eyes on the medical terms in front of me, none of which registered in my brain. “I decided a few days ago.” Actually, I’d decided a few hours ago, when I was hiding in my grandparents’ bathroom. “I’m not sure where I want to go yet.”

“Oh.” She let go of my knee. “Well…if that’ll make you happy, Riley.”

I looked up, meeting her eyes. “It will.”

A flicker of hurt crossed her face and she looked down at the ring sitting in her palm. After a pause, she slipped it on the ring finger of her left hand. She held up her hand for a moment, admiring it, and then leaned over to kiss my forehead. “Good night, babe,” she said. Then, without another word, she got up and left my room, officially engaged at last.

Alone again, I climbed under the covers and went back to my stem cells. With each new paragraph I felt calmer, more in control, more distanced from the events of the day and all the changes that lay ahead. I read for hours, until my eyes burned and the words blurred and I finally felt tired enough to sleep.

Chapter Sixteen

“You are seriously embarrassing me right now.”

Eva glanced down at her outfit, checking for stains and open zippers. “What?”

“Unsalted sesame seeds?” Sydney said, shaking her head as she drowned her popcorn in “butter” topping. “I mean, who takes a bag of unsalted sesame seeds to the movies?”

“Do you have any idea what’s in movie theater popcorn? Not to mention that so-called butter flavoring? No thanks.” She grimaced and shook more seeds into her palm.

“Why do I have to know what’s
in
everything?” Sydney asked. She rattled her popcorn bag so each piece was fully coated. “All I need to know is that it tastes good.”

Eva rolled her eyes. The only kind of popcorn she ever ate was organic, cooked in an air popper, no butter. You could tell a lot about a person by the way they liked their popcorn. Sydney went for maximum indulgence—large popcorn, a mix of different flavorings, and so much butter it practically pooled at the bottom of the bag. Lucas always got a regular size, butter just on top. As for me, I also chose regular but I liked to meticulously layer the butter so I hit patches of it as I ate. That way it didn’t start to get sickening.

“Eves, you’re so crunchy,” Lucas said when Syd finally stopped dousing her popcorn and the four of us were walking toward the ticket taker.

Eva nodded toward Sydney, who was licking a stream of yellow oil off her wrist. “I’d rather be crunchy than greasy.”

I laughed, and all three of them smiled at the sound. The reason they’d dragged me to this Saturday matinee was obvious—they were trying to cheer me up. I’d spent the last two weeks either working or shut up in the house, researching colleges and student loans. The results were discouraging. It really did make the most sense to stay at home and try for a full scholarship to Kinsley. Not that I’d admit that to my mother. As someone who was
still
paying off her student loans, she was dead set against that route. As usual, she wanted something different—something better—for me.

We arrived at our movie early and found four seats in the back row, the perfect place to make scathing remarks without annoying too many people. We’d purposely chosen a corny, unfunny romantic comedy just so we could heckle the screen. As a bonus, the movie had gotten such bad reviews that the theater was almost empty.

“Good,” I said, glancing at the only other occupants—a middle-aged couple who were sitting in the front. “We have the place to ourselves. Maybe we won’t get kicked out this time for being too disruptive.”

Eva, on my left side, said, “Yeah,
Sydney
.”

“Hey, it wasn’t my fault!” Sydney said through a mouthful of popcorn. “Riley wouldn’t stop laughing.”

“Only because you spit Coke on that man’s jacket,” Lucas—who was on my other side—reminded her.

“It was an accident,” Sydney insisted. “The Coke shower, I mean. It went down the wrong way and I choked.”

“A likely story,” Lucas said, nudging her.

“It’s true.” She wiped her greasy fingers on a napkin. “Holy crap. Do you guys realize that happened last
winter
? Has it really been that long since we all went to the movies together?”

Eva frowned. “And we’ve hardly seen each other at all this summer.”

“Again, not
my
fault,” Sydney said. “Lucas is always busy, Riley turned into a hermit, and you’ve been super-glued to Sebastian ever since you got back together with him.”

“Well, we’re all together now,” I said before Eva could shoot back a response. “Thanks, guys, for convincing me to come out. I needed this today.”

That shut them up. “Anytime,” Lucas said, pressing his shoulder against mine.

“Your mom still driving you nuts with the wedding stuff?” Eva asked me.

I nodded, sipping my root beer. “She’s obsessed.”

Po
ssessed was more like it. Now that the engagement was finally out in the open, she was in a planning frenzy. Jeff had left on Monday for a two-week gig, leaving me as the sole sounding board for my mother’s wedding chatter. In the past two weeks I’d received more education than I could ever need on flowers, dresses, caterers, and photographers. She’d gotten quotes from virtually every wedding-related service in town, recording all the info in a pink spiral notebook along with ideas for color schemes and music. In addition to listening and providing the occasional opinion, it was my job to locate that notebook whenever she misplaced it, which was often.

Because I loved my mother and truly did want her to be happy, I tried my best to generate some enthusiasm. I wasn’t jumping for joy, obviously, but I had to realize that some things were out of my control. I guess that was Cole’s influence on me.

“They’re, like, old,” Sydney said, propping her feet up on the seat in front of her. “Why don’t they just elope?”

I’d asked the same thing. Apparently, my mother craved the kind of wedding she missed out on the first time. My parents’ wedding had been a small affair, just family and close friends. A reception at my grandparents’ house, pictures taken by a relative, a hand-me-down dress. Even in their wedding pictures, my mother’s disappointment was evident. She loved my father but she also loved the idea of a fairy tale wedding, one that wasn’t thrown together to save face and please others. This one would be on her own terms.

“Makes sense,” Eva said after I’d explained this to them. “Are you going to be a bridesmaid?”

“Maid of honor,” I told her. I still wasn’t exactly sure what this entailed.

“Are we invited?” Sydney asked, leaning across Lucas’s lap to see me better. “Oh, please? I want to see Jeff in a tuxedo.” She gave me a wicked grin. “You’re so lucky you get to have him for a stepfather. My mother only dates trolls.”

“You don’t have to live with him.”

The lights dimmed and then the trailers started, but we didn’t stop talking. The couple in front was too busy smooching to notice.

“Riley, he is not that bad,” Eva said, her voice getting higher like it did when she was exasperated. “You act like he’s that guy in that movie…you know, the one we watched on TV a few Halloweens ago with the psycho stepfather who kills his entire family.”

“You guys don’t get it,” I said, crunching a piece of popcorn. “My father was a really smart guy. Quiet. Always reading and watching documentaries and things like that. But Jeff? He can barely work the washing machine, he only reads Men’s Health, and he watches football. Loudly, I might add. How can my mother go from someone like my father to someone like Jeff? It just doesn’t make any sense.”

Lucas snorted. “Says the girl who went from Mr. Perfect Preppy to Mr. Sexy Surfer.”

“Whatever,” I said, even though he had a point.

“I get it, Riley,” Eva said, patting my arm.

I gave her a grateful smile. Of course she’d understand. Eva and I met in second grade, so she was the only one of my friends who’d actually
known
my father. I wouldn’t have survived going back to school after his death if it hadn’t been for her. Unlike everyone else in our sixth grade class, she wasn’t scared to talk to me. She was just normal, which made me feel normal.

“All I know is,” Sydney said, shaking her popcorn bag in search for the soggiest piece, “I wouldn’t mind having a stepfather who makes my mom happy
and
puts up with all my crap. Decent men like that are hard to come by.”

The movie started then, saving me from having to comment. I didn’t want to burden my friends with all this, anyway. It was enough to just sit there, together, laughing and throwing popcorn at the screen until the usher showed up and threatened to kick us all out.

* * *

The next night Cole and I were at his house, hanging out in his room while his parents watched TV upstairs.

“Did you know,” I said, rolling over on my side, “that right-handed people supposedly live about nine years longer than left-handed people? Also, women live about five years longer than men. So that means I’ll probably outlive you by almost fifteen years.”

Without opening his eyes, Cole replied, “Not unless you plan on killing me.”

I made a scoffing sound and turned back to his laptop, on which I’d spent the last twenty minutes perusing bizarre medical facts. All I had at home was a slow, clunky desktop computer that I shared with Mom, so cruising the internet while lying down was a luxury to me. The laptop—along with the car and the bike and the fact that we’d been down here for two hours without any interruptions at all—was yet another indication that Cole was indeed spoiled.

“A human brain generates enough electricity to power a ten watt light bulb,” I read. “Wow. I wonder if that’s true for everyone.”

“I bet yours could light up an entire city.”

I tossed him a smile, even though his eyes were still closed and he couldn’t see it. Still, he smiled back in response, like he sensed my gaze on him. Then again, I’d been periodically staring at him for the past half hour. He was stretched out on the bed beside me, shirtless, his hands resting on his stomach and his face tilted slightly to the side, toward me. Just the sight of that little hollow space between his throat and his chest was enough to drive me crazy. He was beautiful.

I shut the laptop and snuggled in beside him, my cheek resting against his shoulder. As usual, my eyes were drawn to the small, faded scar on his neck. Only when I was really close like this did I even notice it. “Do you know where your jugular vein is?” I asked, tracing the scar with my thumb.