The After Girls (33 page)

Sydney smiled. “I’ve been a little MIA, I know.”

Carter shook his head. “No, it’s okay. Really. I totally understand.”

They walked inside, and she said hi to Carter’s parents, and they made their way down to the basement. It was crazy but she didn’t think that they’d ever been down in this comfy, familiar place alone. There was always Max or Ben or Ella or Astrid.

“Alright, your choice,” he said. “
Killer Clowns from Outer Space
or
Wedding Crashers
.” Sydney weighed her options — evil spacey clowns or crude jokes and lots of naked girls. She went with the clowns.

They sat close enough to each other but not too close. They laughed when they should laugh, and they screamed when they wanted to make fun of how horrible the movie was. At one point, she felt their legs come together, Carter’s bony thigh next to hers. She didn’t move away.

When the movie was over, they sat in silence for a bit while the credits rolled along the screen. They were far into the names of the grips when Carter finally broke the silence.

“How are you?” he asked.

She shrugged. “I’m fine.”

“Seriously, Sydney,” he said. “You don’t have to pretend with me.”

Sydney looked over to him. His eyes were wide open and he looked like he just wanted to take care of her. He was so good.

“I’m here,” she said. “Aren’t I? That’s a start.”

Carter nodded, even though it was obvious that he didn’t really get it.

“Did you hear anything about … ”

“Grace?”

“Yeah.”

Sydney took a deep breath. “She’s still in the hospital. She’s fine, physically. But Jake and his mom are looking for a more long-term place, I guess.”

“So you never knew?”

“That she was in a really bad place?” she asked, and Carter nodded.

Did she know, she wondered. She’d known things were bad, but not this bad. Maybe she should have. She felt guilty that she hadn’t known and heartbroken that Astrid hadn’t trusted her enough to really tell her. She didn’t think it was the kind of feeling that would ever go away — it was a wound she’d always have, and all she had to do was poke at it to feel it again — just like Audie had said. “No, I didn’t really know, I guess. I mean, I always thought something was off. She always seemed, I don’t know, volatile or something. Like she could change her mood any moment.”

“She probably could,” Carter said.

Sydney didn’t tell Carter everything that she and Ella had managed to piece together. That Grace had started dressing like Astrid, wearing her hair like hers. That it was her crazy, fucked-up way of grieving. That Ella wasn’t imagining things. That Ella was just the one who’d opened her eyes enough to see. That the red hair and the blue dress had really been Grace all along.

That Astrid had a dad out there, somewhere, who probably felt more shitty about all of it than even she did.

She didn’t think it was hers to tell.

So she gave the clinical version. “Apparently she stopped taking her meds after Astrid died. Which is, like, not good if you have a serious depression. I guess she did that a lot, though. According to her sister.”

“Wow,” Carter said.

“Yeah.”

“So you think that’s why … you know, uhh … Astrid …”

Sydney cut him off. “I don’t know. Maybe it was and maybe it wasn’t. I think she needed help,” Sydney said. “Just like her mother. I think she needed help and she didn’t get it.” There was that wound again. Aching.

Carter nodded.

She took a deep breath. “I think if I had tried harder to understand her, to ask her, then things would have been different. But I didn’t.”

“Syd,” Carter said. “No.”

But she just shook her head, and a part of her almost felt lighter — it was nice to say it out loud. “Yes,” she said. “It’s just the way it is. If someone had helped her, she might have been okay. I was the one who was there.”

Carter started to object but she stopped him. “We saved Grace. It doesn’t make up for it, but I think that somehow, somewhere maybe Astrid is proud of us for that. Like, maybe she forgives us — a little part of her.”

Carter put his hand on Sydney’s. “There’s nothing to forgive.”

“You’ll never know how much there is to forgive,” she said.

Carter just stared at her, the corners of his mouth turned down, his eyes trying to understand.

“So how’s the band?” she asked, changing the subject.

Carter laughed, quietly, exhaustedly. “What band?”

“You mean you and Max haven’t been practicing these last few days?”

Carter shook his head. “I haven’t heard from Max since that night. Have you heard from him?”

“No,” Sydney said. “And I don’t want to.”

“Well, there’s your answer then. That’s how the band is.”

Sydney felt a pain in her heart. Not for Max so much as for what they were together. River Deep. They were just starting to get an audience. And then she got an idea.

“You and I could do it together,” she said. “We could keep it going.”

“Max would never go for that,” Carter said.

“Screw Max,” she said, and he laughed. “Seriously.”

“Seriously?” he asked.

“Seriously.”

Carter was quiet a moment before he opened his mouth to speak. He looked into her eyes, seemed to consider it, and then looked down at his hands, removing his from hers. “I don’t think so,” he said finally. “I don’t think it would be a good idea.”

“Why not?” Sydney asked, scooting closer to him.

“Look at what happened to you and Max. I don’t want that to happen to us. You guys like hate each other now.”

“That’s cause Max is a dick,” she snapped. “We wouldn’t be like that.”

“I like having you as a friend, Syd,” he said, and her heart sank a little at the word “friend.” They could have been so much more, and she screwed it up.

“Okay,” Sydney said. “If that’s what you want.”

It was quiet again, and the air seemed to hang between them. All the things that hadn’t been said.

Carter finally spoke up. “Sydney?”

“Yes,” she said, looking right at him.

“Nothing,” he said, shaking his head. “It’s stupid.”

“What is it?” she asked, leaning closer.

Carter took a deep breath, and his big green eyes seemed to quiver. He looked down at his hands. “You know that stuff you said that night?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said, moving in still.

“The night we all fought.”

“I know what night you’re talking about,” she said. “It feels like ages ago.”

Carter smiled. “Just a few days, actually. That stuff you said about me.”

“Yes.”

“About your, uhh,
feelings
for me.”

“Uh huh.”

“Did you mean it?” And he took a risk and looked up at her, and he must have seen immediately that she was smiling.

“Yes,” she said. “Yes I did. I meant it completely.”

Carter smiled back. He was so goofy and cute, she wanted to just kiss him right then.

“So do you feel the same?” she asked.

He nodded. And they both laughed. Their smiles were so big they were grins.

“So does this mean we can be bandmates?” she asked.

Carter shook his head. “I still don’t think it’s a good idea,” he said. “Plus, you’re too good to play with me anyway. You were always too good to play with any of us.”

Sydney’s face dropped.

“We can’t be bandmates,” he said. “But we can be something else.”

And her smile was back. Matching his.

“Alright,” she said. “I guess I’ll take what I can get.”

Ella was keeping busy. When her mom wasn’t in the studio or teaching a class, they got to do all the things that she’d been putting off — buying a bedroom set, finding the perfect desk lamp — she’d even friended her future roommate on Facebook and made a brand-new pot — one that she hadn’t thrown on the ground in a fit of anger.

She didn’t see Jake. Not since
the
day, when he’d shown up shortly after they’d found Grace, ushered them out when the paramedics came, and delivered them to his mother who was waiting with a car to drive them home. Ella had taken a break from the café — it was way too much for her now — and Jake was staying busy there. He called her to give her updates on how Grace was doing. But that was it.

When she wasn’t hanging out with Sydney (i.e., when Sydney wasn’t with Carter), Ben would come over. They’d drive around. Do summery things. Swim in the river and play Frisbee golf. He was trying to comfort her. He was trying to be there for her. She couldn’t blame him for that. She couldn’t blame him for anything. And yet it wasn’t the same.

One night they went to Johnny’s, ordered the usual, and sat in the car, looking out at the view. Ella sipped her milkshake and munched on her fries. She looked at Ben. God, he could be gorgeous sometimes. And he was so nice and sweet. And this place was beautiful. This town, this life of hers, it was so good when it wanted to be.

They ate in silence, because she and Ben didn’t have much to talk about now. She usually just updated him on her latest college purchases, and he on the news and gossip with the football guys. They didn’t have much time left together anyway. In just over a month, she’d be starting down the road, and he was going an hour away on his football scholarship. Sure, they could make it work if they wanted to.

But she wondered if they did.

When they were back at her house, Ben put the car in park, turned the engine off.

She looked at him. “Did you want to come inside?”

“No,” he said, shaking his head. His eyes looked sad.

She looked at him, and she wished that she felt more, that she was more scared at what he might say, what he might feel, but she wasn’t. Whatever was happening between them was small compared to everything that had happened. Whatever he said, it was nothing compared to Astrid leaving, to Grace trying to, to Ella finding them both.

If she wasn’t broken yet, how could she be now?

“What is it?” she asked. “Just tell me.” She put her hands on his shoulders, but they didn’t feel like hers anymore. They just felt like shoulders.

Ben took a deep breath. “I’ve been wanting to ask you this for awhile. But I didn’t want to bother you with it right after, you know …”

Ella nodded. “It’s okay, Ben. Just ask.”

He stared at her a minute and then he spit it out. “Did anything ever happen between you and Jake?”

Ella took her hands from his shoulders, and she looked straight ahead. She thought of the concert, the way he’d made her feel, the night in the cabin, as she pressed him for information about Grace, the way they’d talked to each other as they’d torn Astrid’s room apart, the way whenever he stood close, she was just dying for him to kiss her.

“No,” she said. “Not like that.”

Ben nodded. “I didn’t think you had it in you.”

“I don’t.”

“But?” he asked.

She took a deep breath. “We never even kissed,” she said. “We barely even touched. It’s just that, I don’t know. I knew something about it was wrong.”

Ben sighed then. “Just say it,” he said. “Just get it out there. Say it.”

Ella shook her head. “What do you want me to say?”

“That you had feelings for him. That you
have
feelings for him.”

Ella breathed deep as she felt the tears start in the corners of her eyes.

“Oh Ben,” she said, turning to him and cupping his face in her hands, and the numbness, the disinterest, the whatever she’d felt just a minute ago was gone, because, even though she knew he was right, even though he wouldn’t be hers much longer, right now, he still was. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to. You’ve been everything I needed for the last three years. You’ve been
more
.” She felt tears well in her eyes because even though she’d known it was coming, now that it was here, it felt different. It felt like yet another something was dying.

Ben nodded, his eyes getting wet now, too. Ella didn’t think she’d ever seen him cry.

“I’ve loved you so much, Ben,” she said. “So much.”

“But not anymore,” he said, his voice cracking, and his tears spilling over. She pulled him close to her, buried his face in her shoulder. “You don’t love me anymore.”

“No,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

Ben’s body shook more, and hers did with him. “I wish I could say something else,” she said, the words muffled in his t-shirt. “I’m sorry.”

They held each other for who knows how long, holding on to the end, because they both knew that it was there. It had to be.

When they pulled away, his eyes were puffy. Her cheeks were wet.

“What a pair we are,” he said, laughing if only a little.

Ella nodded, laughing a bit herself.

“You should get inside,” he said.

“Yeah.”

But she had to do it. Just once more. She leaned in, pressed her lips on his, and felt them so familiar, so warm and comforting, hers still, even for just one more minute.

Ben pulled away.

“Part of me will always love you,” she said.

“I know.”

And there wasn’t anything else to say, so she gave him a half-smile, and she grabbed her purse, opening the door and climbing out of the car.

“Bye, Ben,” she said. He looked at her, not smiling. But he looked okay, at least. He looked like he’d be okay.

“Bye,” he said, and he put his Jeep into reverse and pulled away.

• • •

It was another week before she could bring herself to go back to the café.

She hoped Jake would be there. She wanted to see him again. She didn’t know when he’d be leaving — they hadn’t texted in days — and she didn’t want him to go without saying goodbye.

She slowly opened the door, and she could see that he was there. Becky was, too, and there was a new face that she didn’t recognize — probably her replacement — and the place smelled like it always had, and it was full of customers like it always was at this hour, and it was remarkable how little had changed.

“Ella,” Jake said, as she walked inside. Without waiting for her to answer, he pulled Becky onto the register and walked around to meet her. “Ella,” he said again, and he wrapped her in a hug. Right there, right in the middle of the café.