Send Me a Sign (32 page)

The center of town had some traffic, but not much. The farther we got from the main street, and the closer to the boardwalk and sand, the more the cars dwindled. Ryan pulled into a parking lot with a ten-dollar bill in his hand, but the attendant’s booth stood empty. He idled there, his window half-lowered.

“Park anyway,” I told him. “We can leave the money under a wiper blade in case anyone comes—they’re not going to tow you.”

I should’ve told him to turn around. There was unease
growing in my stomach. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. Maybe it was a horrible one.

Ryan looked disoriented the moment he stepped out of his car—he surveyed the empty lot, and the empty lot next door, with a look of confusion.

On our walk to the beach we passed Spud McGee’s. It was shuttered. Hot Diggity had a sign taped to the window:
SEE YOU IN THE SPRING
.

When our shoes touched the sand, his grip on my hand tightened. He looked up and down the beach, taking in the choppy water, the same dull gray as school trash cans, and the vacant sand. I could see the pier from here. The roller coaster and Ferris wheel that glowed so brightly in his stories were unlit and unmoving. The track of the coaster stripped bare of its cars and stark against the mottled gray of the cloudy sky.

I pulled him forward a few steps, leaning into him and out of the wind. It was cutting through my clothes and raising goose bumps, which rasped against the fabric of my jeans.

The wind ruffled the ocean’s surface too. Making it look like it was being prodded with a million paint brushes—nothing like the smooth, easy, blue-green waves from the photos I’d seen of Ryan, Chris, and the girls spread out on crowded sun-drenched sand.

“This is it.” Ryan finally spoke, pulling me to stand in front of him as he did so. Wrapping his arms around me and rubbing his hands up and down my arms. I was grateful, not just for the warmth, but because I didn’t want to have to see the lost expression on his face. “But it doesn’t look anything like it did. I
guess I just thought … I don’t know what I was thinking. I know half the staff weren’t local and it’s hardly beach weather. Even the guard stands are gone. I guess they pull them in for the winter. I can’t even tell where mine was anymore.”

The wind turned wet. Spitting a fine mist of spray that made my lips taste salty and the flyaway strands of my wig frizz.

I felt cold. Colder than the temperature really warranted. Even this, even this good thing I’d tried to do, was just more ruin.

I couldn’t reclaim my summer any more than I could prevent my future. All I’d done today was taint the memory of a place Ryan loved.

“Let’s just go home,” he said.

My teeth were chattering too hard to agree, so I just nodded and slipped my hand in his.

Trips to Iggy’s made my before list too, and the next day when Mr. Bonura questioned me about making up a calc test, I told him I needed to go to the nurse. Instead, I got Ryan out of his class and we went for midmorning, midweek pie. He didn’t hesitate or deny me anything now, but asked often, “Are you happy, baby? Are you feeling okay?” I remembered Chris’s comments about Ryan never smiling, how he’d never seen him like this, and I was scared to turn these questions around and ask them back. Ryan wasn’t happy; he wasn’t okay.

I was doing the best I could to change this, doing the best
I could to prove that I cared for and appreciated him more than I could express. And needed him. There was a constant tugging in the back of my mind, saying that if I just tried harder, I could fall in love with him. I could just never quite reach it—and the night of our beach trip I spent half the hours until morning trying to convince myself I could. The other half I spent trying to sleep and trying to ignore the Gyver-shaped hole in my life.

I suggested we didn’t need to go to homeroom the next morning—it was Thursday, exactly one week since the tarot cards spelled out my future in five grim letters. Instead we went for coffee at Bean Haven, a chic bakery in Cross Pointe I’d always wanted to try. I ordered the largest size and drained the pink cardboard cup and—despite Mom’s warnings of its chemical poisons—it didn’t make me keel over. It did give me enough energy to make it to all of my afternoon classes and paste a placid smile on my face while I doodled in my notebook and ignored my classmates and whatever the teachers wrote on the board.

Chapter 41

“Mi, wait up.”

I ignored Gyver and kept walking. I didn’t want to be in the building. I didn’t want to think about school. I didn’t want to discuss what he’d walked in on Monday night either.

He caught up with me outside the school’s double doors, wrapping his fingers gently around my arm and pulling me to a stop. “Mi, I was calling you all down the hall. Didn’t you hear me?”

I shook my head.

“Don’t you need a ride home? I thought The Jock—sorry, Ryan—drove you, and it doesn’t look like you want to wait around for soccer practice to end.”

“Thanks.” I headed down the stairs to his Jeep.

“Wait a minute. You okay? I heard you had a big academic meeting.”

“Not so big.” I tapped my foot, anxious to keep walking. Standing still took effort.

“Mr. Bonura asked if I’d tutor you. Why didn’t you tell me you needed help?”

“I don’t. It’s not a big deal.” I was in danger of failing history and calculus. My English and science grades weren’t much better. “Can we go?”

The progress report from Principal Baker was wrinkling in the bottom of my bag. I’d already forged Mom’s name and would turn it in on Monday.

Gyver froze, oblivious to the roadblock he created at the stop of the stairs.

“Home? Us? Now?” I prompted.

He followed me down the steps, then tugged me over to the wall. “What do you mean it’s not a big deal? Last year you obsessed over hundredths of GPA points. Don’t tell me you’re giving up and handing me the valedictorianship. Did something happen?”

I shrugged. “It’s just not a big deal. Not so important anymore.”

“Why not?” His eyes narrowed. My fingers were drumming restlessly against my thighs until he trapped them in his cool hands. “What happened? Tell me.”

It seemed pointless to resist; he wasn’t going to give up. “I went to see a psychic.”

“You what?” His voice was loud and angry; people turned, then turned away when there wasn’t anything to see. He lowered
it to a growl. “Let me guess, she gave you a dire prediction and now you think you’re not going to get better.”

I pulled my hands free and met his eyes. “At least now I know.”

“You believed her? So what? You’re giving up and waiting to die?” He stepped closer, shaking his head in anger and disbelief.

“I’m going to enjoy however long I have. Do what I want to do, make sure I don’t miss out on anything. What choice do I have?” My voice quivered; the rest of me shook. I’d fought so hard to make peace with this idea, leaving all second-guessing in the parking lot at the lake.

“You fight! You stay healthy … you try! Are you seriously giving this crazy person more credit than your doctors?” He put his hands on my shoulders and shook me lightly.

“There’s no point.” He wouldn’t understand.

“Mi—how many times do I have to tell you, you create your own luck. Look at me. You’re not going to self-destruct. I’m not going to let you. You’re not going to die.”

I ducked my head and he pulled me toward him, capturing me in an iron hug. “I won’t let you,” he repeated.

“Maybe I deserve this.” I hadn’t meant to say it; the words escaped through the crack he’d chiseled in my composure.

“No! Don’t ever say that. Ever.” Gyver rocked me in his embrace.

I was still shaking, only now it was with fear, not frenzied energy. It’d been easier to just know, even if it was bad news; at
least I wasn’t wondering. I needed to escape from him and the conclusions he wanted me to question.

“Leave me alone, Gyver. Just let me—”

“Isn’t this adorable. And in-ter-est-ting!” The voice was loud, high, and syrupy-sweet. “Mia, are you double-dipping? I thought Ryan’d be enough.”

“What?” I stepped out of Gyver’s hug. His intimidating stare was back, aimed at Hillary.

But Hil wasn’t intimidated. She was furious. Probably, she’d expected me to track her down and grovel by now, but I hadn’t. I wouldn’t. There was no point.

She pointed a dark-purple nail at us, waving it between Gyver and me in a sideways tsk-tsk. “I always thought you guys were hooking up, but I didn’t expect you to look so cozy right outside the gym where Ryan’s practicing.”

She wasn’t alone—I hadn’t noticed at first, but Lauren, Emily, Monica, and most of the squad were behind her.

“I wasn’t … We weren’t … We’re just friends,” I stammered.

“You don’t need to justify yourself,” Gyver said. “Especially not to the queen bitch.”

“Of course not,” Hil simpered. “Because we all know what we saw. Soon Ryan’ll know too. But that’s okay, right?”

The two people who used to be my best friends—attacking each other, attacking me. I was used to playing mediator between them, but I couldn’t handle that today, and what was the point anymore? The panic from my conversation with Gyver spilled
over. “We’re friends. Neighbors. Gyver doesn’t think of me that way … He couldn’t.”

“Mi—” Gyver warned.

“Couldn’t? Why couldn’t he? Ohhh. Wow. I get it now.” Hil’s face lit up like she’d just solved a complex choreography dilemma. It made me nervous. “God, it finally makes sense why you two never got together.” She laughed and adopted a faux whisper. “Gyver likes guys.”

“What?” I squeaked. I hadn’t stopped shaking; Gyver’s “I won’t let you” rolled through my mind like a threat.

“Not that I’m judging,” she continued. “I think that’s great, Gyver. I should’ve known. All Mia’s unrequited, angsty pining. And her insistence that you were ‘just friends.’ But you’re gay! That is what you were saying, right, Mia?”

“I …” The cheerleaders were watching expectantly; Hillary standing in the front with hands propped on her hips. Escape! Every part of my mind demanded it. Instead I stared her down. “First, you’re wrong. Second, stalker much? You’ve made it clear we’re not friends anymore, so why do you even care?”

She blinked, and for a moment her glare slipped to a wince.

I slid my gaze from her to Gyver, offering my next words to both of them. “My life is none of your business. Leave me alone.”

And then I walked away.

Gyver followed. Hil did not. Even if she’d wanted to, her pride would never let her chase me in front of the other cheerleaders.

“Mi.” His voice was soft but condemning. “You don’t mean that. Don’t be an idiot; think about what you’re doing.”

I’m letting go!
I cried inside.
And you make that too hard
. “Just leave me alone. Please. I just want you to leave me alone,” I whispered.

His face transformed into a stony fury I’d never seen before. “Fine. I’m done, Mia. Done. You’re not who I thought you were.” I watched him walk away from me, then turned and stumbled in the opposite direction.

I entered the first door I came to: the gym. Something about my face stopped Ryan in mid-drill. He froze with his hand extended toward the baseline, then stood and jogged to me. “You okay?” he asked, ignoring his coach’s whistle and calls.

I constructed a smile from the scraps of my self-preservation. “I missed you.”

“That’s all? Nothing’s wrong? ’Cause Coach’ll have my ass if I don’t get back to practice.”

“Can I have your keys? I don’t want to wait. My parents are out to dinner with the Russos. Have someone drop you after practice; we’ll have the house to ourselves. No interruptions today, I promise.” My manic sentences without breathing were more crazed than sexy, but I couldn’t pause. If I did, I’d think about what Gyver’d said. What I’d said … “How long till practice is over?”

Ryan inhaled. “Maybe I’ll fake an injury and come with you now.”

I laughed, but Coach Burne didn’t. “Winters! If you don’t
stop flirting and get back to work, your ass won’t leave the bench till basketball season. Now, five extra.”

Ryan grinned. “I’ll do ten extra, but I’ve got to get my keys out of my gym bag first.”