The Crushes (23 page)

It’d been a week since Kelly’s birthday party. A week since Sydney found out her ex-boyfriend was seeing her supposed best friend, and Sydney was still steaming about it.

But could anyone really blame her?

Kelly and Drew had gone behind Sydney’s back. That was the worst kind of betrayal. Right up there with having your mother take off across the sea.

Why was Sydney’s life so screwed up right now?

Because the people in her life were screwed up. That was why. And she couldn’t control their actions. She could only control what she did and how she behaved.

So when Kelly knocked on Sydney’s front door, Sydney seriously considered not answering. After all, ignoring Kelly would be a whole lot easier than confronting her, but school was starting next week and Sydney would have to face her eventually.

Maybe it was better to get it over with.

Sydney pulled the front door open and crossed her arms over her chest.

Kelly wrung her hands. “Hi,” she said.

Sydney didn’t say anything.

“Umm…I just wanted to come over to talk to you. You don’t have to say anything, but please give me the chance to explain.”

Sydney arched a brow. Did Kelly really deserve the chance to explain? And did Sydney even care what she had to say?

Kelly had said she and Drew didn’t get together until after Sydney broke up with him, but there had to have been something else going on long before that. Maybe they’d been into each other and just hadn’t touched.

That made Sydney feel like an idiot. She was embarrassed that she hadn’t noticed something between Drew and Kelly sooner. How could she be so oblivious?

“I just wanted you to know,” Kelly began, “that I never meant to hurt you.”

Sydney snorted.

Kelly hesitated before taking a deep breath and surging on. “I didn’t want to like Drew, and I certainly didn’t plan for this to happen…” She swallowed and looked down at the porch floor, wiggling her toes in her flip-flops.

“I just don’t want you to hate me,” Kelly said. “Can you forgive me? Someday maybe? I don’t expect you to forgive me now or next week or next month, but…someday?”

Sydney parted her lips to say no, but the word wouldn’t come out. She flashed back to Haley in Birch Falls Children’s Hospital, to her frail frame in that hospital bed, her room void of balloons and parents.

Haley had even less than Sydney had and she didn’t let any of it get to her.

“
You can’t let the bad things get to you,
” she’d said.
“Bad things must happen to you in life. There can be no rainbows without rain.”

Was it easier to forgive than it was to hate? Haley didn’t seem to hate her parents and they’d barely visited her in the hospital.

But maybe Sydney was asking the wrong question. Maybe it wasn’t about forgiving or hating…maybe it was about acceptance.

Accepting what you couldn’t control.

Sydney couldn’t control Drew or Kelly or what they did. She couldn’t control her parents and make them okay, nor make the divorce go away.

What Sydney could do was not let the bad things get to her.

She took in a breath and uncrossed her arms. “What you did was wrong,” she said to Kelly. “I trusted you, and you went behind my back. I really don’t want to talk to you for a while. I don’t know how long, but a while. So I just ask that you give me some space. Maybe someday we can be friends again. But not any day soon and maybe never. All I can do is try.”

Kelly nodded fervently. “I completely understand.” Tears welled beneath her lids. She sniffed, trying to hide them. “Thanks, Syd.”

Sydney nodded and shut the door.

Sydney plopped down on the bench near the fountain in the middle of Eagle Park.

A family played in the open field off to Sydney’s left. The dad threw a Frisbee and the oldest daughter caught it, tossing it quickly to her little sister. The mother snapped a picture. The sprinklers had shut off a few minutes ago and the grass glistened in the sunlight.

That picture would be perfect when developed.

Sometimes Sydney wished her family had more moments like that, moments to capture on film. They weren’t together enough to take pictures.

After Kelly left, Sydney hadn’t felt much like sitting at home in her empty house. She’d grabbed her camera and come to the park.

She snapped a few pictures of the sun-dappled grass and then a few more of a squirrel bouncing from tree to tree. The squirrel brought back the memory of her and Drew breaking up the first time so many months ago. Sydney was devastated back then, as she was now, but for an entirely different reason.

Kelly’s visit had been a surprise to Sydney. Kelly wasn’t very forward. It’d probably taken her the entire day to work up the courage to come over, and maybe a tiny part of Sydney respected her for the effort.

But the fact remained: Kelly had gone behind Sydney’s back. And if she’d lied about Drew, what else had she lied about?

It was the deception that hurt worse than the act itself.

Sydney and Drew had been over for a while; they just hadn’t realized it yet. So the fact that he’d found someone else wasn’t that big a deal to Sydney. It was who he’d hooked up with and how they’d hooked up.

Sydney couldn’t stop wondering why he’d picked Kelly out of all the girls in Birch Falls.

Footsteps pounded the paved bike trail off to Sydney’s right. She readied her camera, thinking she’d snap a few shots of the jogger as he or she passed, but when she saw who it was, she froze.

It was Drew.

When he saw her, he stopped running, setting his hands on his hips, his shoulders rising and falling with quickened breath. He hesitated on the trail as if trying to decide whether he should approach.

Finally, he walked over the freshly cut grass, his black tennis shoes wet at the toes from the wet grass.

Sydney’s heart jumped just once seeing him. They had such a long history together. He was her best friend, no matter what they’d gone through or how they would be in the future. She would always consider him her first love and that was an intense kind of relationship. She wouldn’t ever be able to let go of Drew completely.

“Hi.” Drew plopped down beside her, wiping sweat from his forehead with the sleeve of his T-shirt.

“Hey.”

They sat there in silence for a minute as each collected their thoughts.

Drew was the first to speak, his voice low. “How are you?”

“The truth?”

He nodded.

“I’m…okay.”

“Okay in general or okay with me and Kelly?”

Me and Kelly.

They were “Drew and Kelly” now?

Sydney suppressed a shudder. Drew had always been hers. It’d always been “me and Sydney.” Now he was replacing her. It was enough to make Sydney explode.

But no, she wasn’t letting it get to her.

“I don’t know if I’ll ever be okay with you and Kelly,” she said. “But I’m okay in general.”

Drew hunched forward, propping his elbows on his knees. He watched the family in the clearing toss their Frisbee around. “You said some hurtful things to her, Syd.”

“She did a hurtful thing.”

He glanced over his shoulder. “Don’t blame Kelly. I went after her, not the other way around.”

Sydney swallowed down the heat rising in her throat.

Drew had chased after Kelly?

“How long have you liked her?”

He straightened and draped his arms over the back of the bench. “I don’t like her.”

Sydney frowned.

“I love her,” he finished.

“What?”

“I’ve loved her for a while, Syd, I just never realized it.”

The blood seemed to freeze in Sydney’s veins. Her chest felt hollow. “Are you serious?”

“Yeah.”

“So…you’ve loved her…what, for months? Years?”

He licked his lips, turned those intense blue eyes on her. “Does it really matter now? I loved you when we were together. I was your boyfriend one hundred percent, Syd.”

It did matter, but Drew had a point. Knowing now would only ruin what they’d had and they had had a good relationship.

“But why Kelly?” she asked. “Couldn’t you have found someone else?”

Drew shrugged. “Maybe eventually, but I wanted her. I wish it wasn’t her. I wish it was someone else, because I knew how much it’d hurt you. But…” He sighed and ran his hand through his hair. It stuck up in the wake of his fingers. “I don’t know. I just…I love her. I can’t stop thinking about her. I can’t stay away from her, even when she pushed me away.”

Sydney arched a brow. “She pushed you away?”

“I admitted I was in love with her, like, a month ago and she didn’t talk to me for, like, a week. And then when we did talk, she told me we couldn’t be friends.”

“Really?”

He nodded.

But a month ago…Sydney and Drew had still been together. And Kelly had done the right thing by pushing Drew away.

Maybe Sydney had crossed the line by saying all those hurtful things to Kelly. At least Kelly had tried to be a good friend. At least she hadn’t hooked up with Drew while Sydney and Drew were still together.

“When were you going to tell me you were in love with someone else?” she asked now that she knew the truth.

“I don’t know. I guess I was hoping that things would work themselves out. You know me, I always have a plan, but this time…I was kinda lost.”

Sydney smirked. “Love is like that, I guess.”

“Yeah.”

The two girls in the clearing laughed as their dad did a victory dance after catching a high Frisbee toss. The mom snapped another picture. Sydney clung to her own camera, her finger itching to snap some shots.

“So that’s it, then,” she said, looking over at Drew now. “I mean, I guess we’re saying goodbye to ‘us.’ ”

Drew nodded. “We’ve been done for a while anyway, haven’t we? I heard you…well, I mean…it’s water under the bridge now.”

“What is?”

He took in a breath and trained his eyes on her. “You and that guy Quin.”

Sydney went wide-eyed. With all the drama going on, she’d forgotten about that run-in with Drew and Quin at Bershetti’s.

“Oh? What did you hear?”

“That you were hooking up with him.”

Sydney laughed and shook her head. “No, it’s not like that. We’re friends. He’s leaving soon for school again anyway.”

“Oh. Well, if you were together, that’d be cool, you know. He seemed like a cool guy.”

Sydney smiled to herself. “Yeah, he is.”

The Frisbee family clustered into a small, tight-knit group and headed for the bike trail. The girls chatted animatedly about the lake and the canoe they were going to rent next weekend.

Sydney and Drew watched the family disappear.

“I guess I should go.” Drew stood and Sydney got up with him.

“Friends?” he said.

“Friends.” She hugged him, and he squeezed her tightly.

This was the official end to their two-year relationship, and this time, Sydney was okay with saying good-bye.

Sydney shut the front door and heard jazz music playing from the den. That usually meant her mother was home. Her dad hated jazz. He was more into classical.

Sydney had finally settled things with Drew and she was at least content with the situation with Kelly, but the issue with her mother was a loose end and there was a lot Sydney wanted to say.

She went to the den and poked her head around the door. Her mother was there on her laptop, her fingers clicking the keys. She didn’t even notice Sydney.

Sydney cleared her throat and her mother looked up. She smiled, but it was strained. “Hi, sweetie. Come on in.”

Sweetie?

Sydney’s stomach knotted. Her mother used to call her sweetie or honey but hadn’t much in the last year or two. Her mother used to do a lot of things before her promotion at work.

“Sit down,” her mother said, gesturing at the leather wingback chair in front of the desk. “Let’s talk.”

Sydney went inside but hovered by the chair, her arms crossed over her chest. “I’d rather stand.”

The smile fell from her mother’s face. “Okay. Do you still want to talk?”

“Yeah.”

There were so many things Sydney wanted to say, but she didn’t know where to start.

Maybe there was no perfect lead-in to this conversation. This was her mother and yet she felt so distant from the woman sitting in front of her. Like they weren’t even on the same planet anymore, let alone in the same family.

Was it possible to fall out of love with your own mother? She’d hurt Sydney so many times that Sydney wasn’t sure if she could trust her mother. And without trust, what kind of a relationship could they have?

Sydney took a deep breath. She just wanted to set the record straight.

“When you left for Italy, I was angry and upset.”

“I know,” Mrs. Howard said, “and I never meant…”

Sydney held up her hand. “Wait.” She knew if she let her mother talk that she’d twist everything around, and before
Sydney knew it, she’d be forgiving her mother and they’d hug and make up.

As good as that sounded, Sydney knew the bliss would be fleeting.

“I know you’re probably sorry about what happened and maybe you had a lot of things going through your mind, but I’m your daughter. You never should have left the way you did.

“And it was just a few months ago that you promised me you’d be around more, that you’d cut back your hours at work and we’d be a family again. I’m tired of you breaking promises, Mom. I’m tired of being disappointed, and I’m tired of dealing with your drama. I’ve accepted the fact that you’ve changed, that you’ve become a businesswoman more than a mother. I’m okay with that, but I think you should leave. I think you should pack up and leave and stop stringing me and Dad along.”

Mrs. Howard sat there staring at Sydney like she wasn’t sure if she’d heard her daughter right. Finally, she blinked, inhaled deeply. “Wow. Well…I’ll take what you said into consideration, but this is an issue your father and I have to discuss, and we’ll make the final decision. I know you’re angry, Sydney, but please know I never meant to hurt you or your father. It was all on my part. It had nothing to do with you. I’m considering going to therapy. I’ve got a lot going on in my head.”

Sydney wanted to believe her mother. Therapy could work…but it only worked if you made an effort, and Sydney didn’t see her mother sticking with it.

“That’s nice,” she said, backtracking for the door. “But
I still think you should leave. The longer you stick around, the worse it’ll be the next time you leave. And you’ll leave again, because it’s what you’re good at, Mom.

“If you really love us, you’ll go.”

With that, Sydney turned and walked away.