When You Were Mine (18 page)

I hunch my shoulders and blow some air out through my lips, biding time. “She’s fine,” I say.

“Convincing,” Len says, but he doesn’t move.

Down below, the Belgian looks bored and he’s bouncing slightly, like he’s listening to music. Actually, he is. I see the small snake of white wire that runs up to his ears. His iPod buds are in, and every time Mrs. Barch shouts something at them, he looks at Juliet. Which is actually a good bet, because she seems to be taking this incredibly seriously.

“This doesn’t feel authentic,” Juliet says, her hands on her hips.

“I agree,” Mrs. Barch says. “I’m needing more from you.”

“From me?”

“Yes,” Mrs. Barch says, nodding. “You’re not feeling it.”

“I am feeling it,” Juliet snaps. “I’ve already played this role. Twice.”

“Well, our productions are really closer to community theater than a high school performance.”

“Community theater isn’t even good,” Juliet says, “and this
is
a high school performance. I’ve done
commercials
.”

Mrs. Barch has a look on her face that I’ve seen before. It’s the worst kind of déjà vu. In chem sophomore year whenever students were late to class, she’d lock the doors. The lab classrooms have glass sliding doors, so she’d just stand there, on the other side, staring at the students who were late. It was so terrifying that the few times I knew I wouldn’t be on time, I just ditched altogether.

Juliet, however, is staring right back at her. They look like they’re sending death beams through their eyes. I honestly think they might start cat fighting right here in the auditorium, but then Juliet blinks and looks away. Rob has just come in.

She runs to him and throws her arms around his neck. Mrs. Barch seems flustered and goes over to the Belgian, who keeps nodding and smiling at whatever it is that she’s saying in low, hushed tones. She doesn’t seem concerned by his response, though. Maybe she thinks there’s a language barrier. Olivia was convinced he couldn’t speak English for the first two weeks they were dating. When Charlie asked her how she could possibly
not know, she just shrugged and said, “We don’t really talk that much. But I’m so into his hair.”

I glance over at Rob and Juliet. He’s holding her just like he was at Fall Back on Friday. Delicately, but firmly. Like she’s something that might break or run away.

“Okay, Banquo. You ready?” Mrs. Barch asks.

“Yep,” Rob says, releasing Juliet.

“Banquo?” I whisper to Len, who’s still just standing there. “Who’s Banquo?”

He picks up a script off the floor and flips through it. Then he hands it to me, pointing at a name.

Great, so he’s in the play too? Just what I need, to watch the two of them onstage for two months.

Mrs. Barch has directed them into position, but Rob isn’t paying attention. He’s just looking at Juliet. He looks incredulous, assuming I got the word right on the SATs. Like he can’t quite believe she’s there. With him.

When Rob and I were in the third grade, we used to play “one, two, three, four, I declare a thumb war” in the car. His hands were bigger than mine, and eventually he’d win, but we used to argue about whether it was against the rules to “hide” or not. Meaning, was I allowed to drop my thumb down by my fingers so he couldn’t catch me? Debates on the subject were usually settled with Rob’s mom buying us ice cream. But right now,
above him, hidden in the wings, I can’t help but feel a little like my thumb. Like I’m hiding because I know the second I reveal myself, I will lose. And I’m just not ready for that.

“Hey,” Len says, “you still with me here? I could use a hand.”

I blink and look at him. The lights are coming up, and it’s easier to see now, which lucky for me makes him fully aware of the tears that are sliding down my cheeks.

“Yeah,” I say, swiping the back of my hand across my face. Len looks away and down at the stage, like he’s giving me some privacy.

“What happened?” he asks after a minute. He doesn’t take his eyes off Rob and Juliet, but something about his question makes me feel like he’s staring right into me. Like I can’t lie to him because he’s already seen the truth.

“We had a thing for a minute,” I whisper. “It didn’t work out.” I expect the confession to make me feel worse, but it doesn’t. It actually makes me feel a tiny bit better. Like a small weight has been lifted.

“Then he wasn’t your guy,” Len says. I glance at him. His jaw is set, and he looks stern. Even a little angry. It’s unnerving.

“I guess,” I say.

Len shakes his head. “You don’t get it,” he says. “If he walked away from you, to her, then he wasn’t yours.”

“How do you know?” I say. “What if he was and everything got screwed up?”

Len smirks. “It doesn’t work that way.”

“Oh, really?” I say. “How does it work, then? Enlighten me.”

Len sighs, like he’s already frustrated. “Look, I don’t really know how else to put this. You don’t need to worry about some dumb guy falling in love with you. You’re
you
.”

“Exactly,” I say. I’m me. Rose Caplet. Plain brown hair and brown eyes and the daughter of a history professor, not a senator. I’m not on magazine covers, and I don’t do allergy commercials. I don’t even
drive
.

Len turns to me, and he’s looking at me so intensely, I think he might have just sucked the air out of my lungs. All of a sudden I feel like I can’t breathe. “Sometimes,” he starts, “the hardest part about letting someone go is realizing you were never meant to have them.”

His words hang in the air as Mrs. Barch dismisses the actors below. She cautions them to get their acts together before the next rehearsal. Juliet looks annoyed. The Belgian just shrugs. Rob doesn’t seem to hear anything; he’s just staring at Juliet.

I’m thinking about what Len just said, how he has it all wrong. Rob and I were meant to be together. This isn’t about letting go of him; it’s about balancing things back out. About righting whatever went completely wrong when Juliet stepped onto this campus.

Then, like it’s no big deal, Len stretches. “Looks like our
work here is done.” He glances down to where Rob and Juliet are walking out of the auditorium, arm in arm. “Any fun weekend plans?” he asks me.

“No,” I lie. We’re going to Malibu. In fact, our stuff is already packed and we’re leaving right after I’m finished with this rehearsal, but I can’t tell Len. Charlie would kill me if I invited him. Not that I think he’d want to go. Besides Dorothy and Brittany, I’m not really sure who he hangs out with, but something tells me spending the weekend with Charlie, me, and Olivia isn’t high on his list.

“You should make some.” He grabs his backpack up by the handle. “Don’t let some guy stand in the way.”

Some guy. Right. I think about explaining this to Len. That Rob is not
some guy
. That I’m not the kind of girl that cries over boys. That this is different. That he was the one. But that sounds ridiculous, even in my head, so I know how it would sound coming out of my mouth. To Len.

“See ya,” he says, and then he’s hoisting his backpack onto his shoulder and heading down the stairs before I even have a chance to say good-bye.

“Where have you beeeen?” Olivia asks when I get to upper. She’s leaning against her car, and Charlie is inside, in the front seat. Charlie has her sunglasses on even though it’s completely cloudy out. The telltale sign that she’s pissed or upset about something.
Probably the fact that I’m late. I went and dropped my books off at my locker after rehearsal, but it didn’t take more than five minutes, and I told them that we would probably run over.

“Sorry,” I say. “Rehearsal. You knew this.”

Olivia huffs, and I climb into the backseat. “Hey,” I say to Charlie, poking her in the shoulder.

“Jake is taking Big Red,” she says. “They’re meeting us there after surfing.” She turns around and slides her glasses up. Her face is blotchy. “I saw Rob get in with them.”

Olivia apparently has not heard this before now, because she spins around and puts her hand on my knee, right where Rob touched me after dinner the other night. It makes me jump.

“I’m sorry,” Charlie says. “I’m so fucking pissed at him.”

Charlie rarely curses. One of her theories is that people respect you less if you curse. Plus, she reasons, this way, when you really need a curse word, you pull it out and bam, it works like a shotgun.
Everyone
listens. Charlie is very into everyone listening to her.

“At least Juliet won’t be there,” I squeak out.

“My feelings exactly,” Charlie says. The red is fading from her neck, and she looks at Olivia and lets out a long breath. “We could totally call Jake and cancel, but maybe Rob just needs some time away with us to realize he’s a moron. And we can enact Project Get Rid of Juliet.”

“Guys are stupid,” Olivia says, like she’s contributing something revelatory.

“Rob misses you. I’m sure he does. Maybe this Juliet thing was just a phase. Like the time Jake decided he was into flannel,” Charlie says.

Olivia wrinkles her nose and starts the car.

“Should we pick up bagels on the way?” Charlie asks.

“One step ahead of you.” Olivia reaches behind her and pulls up a bag from Grandma’s. She wags it in front of Charlie’s face.

“Olivia Diamond, I adore you,” Charlie says, snatching it out of her hands.

I slump back in my seat as we pull out of the parking lot. What if Charlie is right? I mean, it’s a long shot, and I know that. But what if some time away might make him realize his mistake? We have serious history. You can’t just throw all of that away on a whim. And he must be missing me. I know he is. I keep opening my phone to text him or pulling up my email when something funny happens. It feels like the entire world is composed of our inside jokes. Everything reminds me of him. Even just seeing the mailbox this morning made me think of the time in the sixth grade when we snuck out in the middle of the night to switch our mailboxes. We thought it would be a funny April Fools’ joke on our parents. We ended up breaking both of them, though, and had to use four months of our allowances to replace them.

Grilled cheese makes me think of the time we tried to make some with my hair straightener. Math class makes me think of last spring, when Rob swore he had helped Mr. Stetzler pick out Converse at Foot Locker. My room reminds me of watching DVDs together. Even my parents are reminders of Rob. Like the entire world is reflecting him back to me in every single surface. He must be seeing me, too. . . . How could he not?

“Music, please,” Charlie says, holding her palm up like she’s asking me to slap her high five.

I spot Olivia’s iPod on the seat next to me and hand it to her. She puts on “Stop! In the Name of Love,” and we all start singing along. When we were younger, Juliet and I would put on performances for our parents in my living room. We would dress up in my mom’s cocktail dresses, the old ones from her brief Hollywood days, and make everyone gather around. Inevitably I would get shy right before, though, and Juliet would have to sing the entire thing herself.

Thinking about that now, it feels like thinking about a different person. The Juliet I knew isn’t here now. She’d never do this.

“Can I talk to you guys about something?” Olivia asks. She turns down the music, and Charlie makes a sound like she’s choking in disbelief.

“Be still my heart,” Charlie says. “She has silenced the Supremes.”

Olivia frowns, and Charlie holds up her hands. “Okay, okay,” she says apologetically. “What’s the what?”

“I really like Ben.” She glances nervously at Charlie, who rolls her eyes.

“We know, we know,” Charlie says. “You’re crazy about my hugely lame brother. So what?”

“So could you pretend he’s not your brother for a second?”

“How do you think I make it through the day?”

Olivia looks at me like she’s not sure if Charlie’s kidding.

“It’s fine,” I say. “Spit it out.”

“I think I’m ready,” Olivia says. “Not this weekend or anything. But I want to do it with him.”

Charlie balks in the front seat next to her, yanking her glasses up onto her head. “Are you serious?”

“Yeah,” Olivia says. She looks a little proud of herself. “I know I said that stuff about college, and whatever.”

“Forget college,” Charlie says, waving a dismissing hand. “I’m just saying, Ben is a virgin for a reason.” Charlie arches around to look at me. “The man has read the entirety of
Moby-Dick
, like, four times.”

“It’s so weird,” Olivia says. “I never thought it would be him.” She sounds dreamy and distant, like she’s not really talking to us in particular.

I can’t believe how ridiculous it is that just a week ago
I thought I was ready, that Rob was the one. It seems almost impossible, how much has changed.

“Okay,” Charlie says, raising her eyebrows. “Look, you like him. I love you. Therefore, I’m cool with this. But I’m not giving you pointers. That’s just creepy.”

“But you have to!” Olivia says. She snaps out of her state and slaps Charlie across the seat. “Who else am I going to ask?”