When It Happens (15 page)

I walk into the garage in a daze.

"Whudup,” Josh says. "How’d it go?”

“Does the word ‘frazzled’ mean anything to you?” I put down my guitar case.

“I feel you, man.” Mike shakes his head. "My mom is on my case something severe.”

“She seriously needs to chill,” Josh says.“The damage is done. It’s not like colleges are looking at our grades anymore. They just care about what we did up until this year.”

“Not really,” I say. “Supposedly they really do look at our grades this semester. That’s why I actually have a chance of getting into this place.”

“But your grades suck,” Josh smacks a drum.

“They’re called average.”

“What are you saying?” Mike asks.

“I have to get my grades up. Like, starting now. Then I’ll have a chance.”

“But what about last marking period? Didn’t you bomb?”

“It was fairly heinous. But Ms. Everman said she’s going to talk to my teachers to see if I can make up the work I missed. I had to promise to do it all, though. And then they might change my grades.”

“No way!” Josh yells. “Why do you get to do that?”

“Apparently if you pull a one-eighty, they make exceptions for you.”

“Let me get this straight,” Mike says. “You’re going to make up all the work you missed? And do all the work from now on? And do all the application stuff?
And
practice? ”

"Well...yeah.”

“Congratulations.” Mike comes over and shakes my hand. "Welcome to the real world.”

CHAPTER 25

you just know

november 3, 10:13 a.m.

I’m all jittery in drafting. I had this intense dream last night about Tobey. The kind of dream where it feels so real it’s like you’re still in it for the rest of the day. I’m high on butterflies and sleep deprivation.

My hand, apparently with a mind of its own, smacks against my water bottle. Water spills all over the workbench. My calc notes are immediately saturated.

I run over to the paper towels and pull out half the roll. I frantically blot my notebook. Then I raise my hand. I’m dying to talk about this with someone who can give me advice. Mr. Slater’s, like, the only adult I can talk to.

Mr. Slater comes over. “What’s happening?” he says, all chill as usual.

“See,” I whisper, “I’m having this problem.”

I glance across the table at Scott. Why does he even have to be in this class with me? It’s like I’m being stalked by relationship karma.

Scott stops sketching. He slowly looks up.

We look back at him.

Scott picks up his sketchbook and charcoal and moves the whole operation to another table.

I quietly go on. “You know how I’m with Dave?”

Mr. Slater nods.

“Well . . . there’s this other guy I feel really connected to.”

“How do you feel about Dave?”

“I don’t know. Not the same as before. He’s not who I thought he was.”

“What do you mean?”

“All summer I wanted to go out with him. And I thought about him all the time. I had this idea of him that . . . But he’s like . . . It turns out that he goes along with whatever his friends want, and we don’t have that much in common, and . . . we’re on different wavelengths when it comes to sense of humor. He’s just . . .”

“How do you feel about this other guy?”

I get this huge smile on my face. “He’s . . .” I’m trying to take all of these feelings I have about Tobey and translate them into words. It’s like trying to describe how different colors feel.

I look right at Mr. Slater and say, “He’s something real.”

“That’s deep.” Mr. Slater nods thoughtfully. “Then what’s the purpose of staying with Dave?”

“I don’t want to hurt him. And everyone knows you have to work at relationships.”

“Good relationships aren’t so much work that you’re unhappy more often than you’re happy, though.”

I pick at my charcoal stick.

“Sara, when do you think your relationship with Dave will end?”

“What?”

“Are you guys going to the same college next year?”

“No,” I say. That’s another thing. Dave isn’t that smart. And even though I was fighting it because Dave is so gorgeous, the truth is I need to have a boyfriend who’s at least as smart as me.

“So your relationship would have to end then, wouldn’t it?”

I don’t say anything.

Mr. Slater goes, “Even if you had a long-distance relationship, which, by the way, in my experience, never works out, one day your relationship will probably end.”

“Why?”

“Do you want to be with Dave for the rest of your life?” Then he rips off a piece of paper and picks up the smallest charcoal stick from my set. He writes something. He passes it over to me.

It says:

Time will tell.

“And while you’re waiting,” he says, “don’t settle for anything less than what you really want.”

He’s so right. It’s like I forgot about what I’m looking for. I remember the boy I described on my treasure-map page before my first date with Dave. And how I’ve been waiting so long for him to come into my life.

I take my sketchbook out of my bag and turn to that page. All of the words there describe one person.

And that’s when I realize that it’s finally happening. Because when it happens, for real, you just know.

“It’s so cool that they only have booths here,” I say.

I asked Dave to come with me to the diner for lunch. I wanted to have some privacy so I could try to talk to him about this. But I don’t know if I can do it yet. . . .

“Why?”

“Because! Then you don’t have to sit at a table if they’re all full.” I play with the retro sugar shaker.

“No, I mean, what’s the difference where you sit?” Dave says. “You’re still sitting down to eat. Why does it matter if you’re sitting at a table or a booth?”

He’s so completely clueless it’s unbelievable. This is just one of many examples that proves Dave and I aren’t soul mates. In the past three weeks, Dave hasn’t understood the following: why I have to work on my sketchbook every day, why I like lamps instead of overhead lighting, why games are so much fun, why I get so upset if I get a B in anything, and why I’m still not ready to have sex. And now he doesn’t get it about how anyone who’s even remotely into diners would want to sit at a booth instead of a table. And yeah, I realize that these are little things. But they all add up to the big picture of my life. And if you don’t get them, then you don’t get me.

And if he was ever going to get me, wouldn’t I have been gotten by now?

“It’s about aesthetics,” I tell him.

“What do you mean?”

This isn’t something you should have to explain. If you have to explain about how something’s supposed to feel, it takes away all the magic. So I go, “Never mind.” My sad voice depresses me even more.

And something else has been bothering me for a while. Dave usually drives me home every day and then stays at my place for a few hours. Lately, I’m feeling that confined feeling even more. I miss my alone time.

“By the way,” I tell him, “you don’t have to drive me home every day. Sometimes I just need to be alone for a while.”

We don’t talk for about seventeen thousand years.

Then he goes, “Okay, let’s start over.”

As if it were that easy.

I keep eating. I don’t look at him. But then I feel bad, so I go, “Let’s play the Game of Favorites.”

“Fine,” he says. “You start.”

“Um . . . favorite movie scene of all time?”

“Let’s see. . . .” Dave’s thinking, but I already regret suggesting this. This game is only good to play with people you want to get to know better.

After he tells me this way-too-long-and-boring description of a movie I have no interest in seeing, he goes, “What’s yours?”

“Lloyd holding the boom box over his head.”

“Who?”

There’s no way he doesn’t know this. “Dave. You know that huge poster I have in my room? Of John Cusack holding the boom box up?”

“Oh . . . yeah?”

“Remember—I told you about this already.” But did Dave ever ask about that huge poster in my room? Wouldn’t that be, like, the first thing you ask someone about if you’re seeing their room for the first time? But Dave hardly looks at my stuff. And he doesn’t really ask that much about me. It’s like he only cares about what his friends think of me.

And now he only has one thing on his mind when he’s in my room. He doesn’t even bother with the pretense of doing homework anymore. He starts kissing me the second I put my bag down. And when we hook up, he’s so impatient.

“What movie’s that from again?” he asks.

“Oh, yeah. Now I remember.” He talks and chews at the same time. “I hated that movie.”

“You
hated
that movie?” It’s only my favorite movie in the whole entire universe.

“Yeah. I mean, okay, so two people like each other. But then there’s all that stuff about her dad keeping them apart? I don’t buy it. If they really loved each other so much, why didn’t they just get together?”

“It’s not that simple.”

“And I don’t get the whole thing about that scene. Like, what’s so big about a boom box?”

Obviously, this is the last straw.

When I get home later, I put
The Eminem Show
in my CD player, put on the same headphones Marshall wears, and crank the volume. Then I get out my sketchbook and my favorite pen. My favorite pen is pastel blue and writes really smoothly. It feels like liquid silk slicking over the pages.

I want to write down what I’m looking for. And why it feels like I’m not finding it with Dave. I write and write until my hand hurts. When I look at the clock, it’s one in the morning. But I’m not even tired.

I change into my fuzzy pajamas with the satin trim I always wear when I’m upset. I turn out the light and get into bed with my iPod.

And I think about Tobey.

CHAPTER 26

soul mates

november 7, 3:23 p.m.

There’s a high probability that I’m bringing this up too soon. I never meant to push it like this. But I can’t help myself.

So I say it.

“Do you believe in soul mates?” It’s such an atypical guy question. But there’s no other way to explain what’s happening with us. And Sara knows I’m not your typical guy.

Sara is examining the Dots board. It’s the paper I started to fill in a couple weeks ago. Now the paper is covered with dots in neat rows and columns.The goal of Dots is to draw more squares than the person you’re playing against. When it’s your turn, you get to draw one line, connecting two consecutive dots. You can’t do diagonal lines. If you complete the fourth side of a square when you draw your line, then you get that square and you put your initials inside. Every time you finish a square, you get to draw another line. The fun part is when you’re on a roll and you make a whole bunch of squares in one turn. We’ve been continuing the same Dots game whenever we finish early in class.

“Yeah,” Sara says. "Absolutely.” She connects two dots. “Don’t you?”

“Yeah. I do.” My face is like an open book. She must totally know how I feel.

Sara blinks. She looks down at the Dots board. Her cheeks are sort of pink.

“It’s your turn,” she says.

“Oh. Right.”

I pretend to examine the board. But I’m really trying to figure out what possible words I could put together to equal the magical thing she needs to hear to know that we belong together.

“I think it’s important not to settle,” Sara says.

“You should never settle.” But what I really want to say is,
So then why are you with an asshole like Dave?
“Settling is a guaranteed approach to unhappiness.”

“Exactly. Like people who go out with anyone just to be with someone. It’s like they’d rather be unhappy than be alone.”

“Or even just staying with someone when they know there’s someone else out there who’s better for them.”

Sara smiles this little half smile. She nods slowly. “There’s that, too.”

“There is that.”

“Sure is.”

Then we’re just sitting there, staring at each other. Which has been happening a lot lately. It’s like whatever wall there was between us, however she was holding herself back from me . . . all of that pretense is gone.

“And when you find a soul mate,” Sara says, “it’s undeniable. You have to be together.”

“That’s my philosophy.” I look back at her. “You have to go with the flow.”

“Exactly. I think the universe guides you to make the right choices.”

“Do you believe in fate?”

“I guess, but . . . it’s more about creating the life you want so you can make that fate a reality. You know?”

“Yeah.” I love how she’s so Zen. “Can I have your number?”

Sara doesn’t say anything for a long time. I can see her breathing. My heart pounds with dread. I try to convince myself that I shouldn’t be surprised when she says no.

She flips to a new page in my notebook. She rips the bottom corner off.

She’s doing it.

Sara writes her number down. She folds the paper. Then she turns my hand over, presses the paper into my palm, and bends my fingers around the paper.

“Okay,” she says.

Yes
.

“It’s my home number,” she says. “I don’t have a cell.”

“Me neither. I think they’re heinous.”

“Same here!”

“Who needs to talk to other people that much?”

“I know!”

The bell rings.

“Are you staying after?” I ask.

“It’s possible.”

“If you were possibly staying after, where would you be?”

“I’d be in the physics room. Possibly.”

That’s where I find her half an hour later.

“Hey,” I say.