If only I hadn’t gone to the meeting.
If only I hadn’t flirted with him.
If only I’d known what he wanted from me.
What if I wanted it too?
She’d have to leave her sanctuary someday. She’d have to face her life, face him, and soon.
Just not today.
There was a knock on her door.
“Beth? Honey?” Without waiting for Beth to respond, her mother opened the door a few inches and poked her head through the gap. “How are you feeling, sweetheart?” Her face was filled with concern, and Beth felt a momentary stab of guilt for lying, but beneath that, a warm glow of pleasure-her mother was usually too busy to remember that Beth existed, much less worry about how she was doing. In fact, Beth realized, this was the first time in months that her mother had even set foot inside her room.
“I’m okay, I guess,” she said listlessly, not bothering to look away from the TV.
“Are you feeling up for a visitor?” her mother asked, glancing over her shoulder into the hallway.
Beth sat up in bed and looked over at the clock. It was almost eleven-who would be visiting her? Usually she wasn’t even allowed to have guests in the house this late-her parents were afraid it would wake up the twins.
“I know it’s late,” her mother added, “but he says he brought you your homework, so I thought just this once it would be okay.”
He?
Beth nodded weakly, and her mother swung open the door all the way-revealing Adam, standing in the hallway with his hands behind his back and an adorable smile on his face.
As her mother disappeared and Adam came into the room, Beth panicked briefly, running her hands through her tangled hair and looking down at her ragged pajamas-she’d been in bed all day, hadn’t brushed her teeth in hours or brushed her hair since yesterday. She was a total mess, and for a second, she was tempted to hide under the covers until he went away, but then he came and sat down on the bed next to her and all she could think was: He came. For me.
“Claire already called to give me all the homework,” she told him-and then realized that she hadn’t even thanked him for coming. She’d only just gotten him back, and now, if her scarecrow appearance didn’t send him screaming in the other direction, her rudeness probably would.
“I know she did,” he said, before she could say anything else.
“Then why-?”
“I wanted to give you something,” he told her, brushing a lock of hair off her forehead. “Well, two things, actually. First, this.”
He leaned down and kissed her softly on the lips-and if her parents hadn’t been on the other side of the paperthin walls, Beth would have been tempted to wrap her arms around him and throw him down onto the bed beside her. But instead, she just kissed him back gently, breathing deeply. He tasted like cinnamon, and she knew it was probably because he’d just finished a pack of the cinnamonflavored gum he was addicted to. And she loved that she knew things like that about him. No matter how bad things got, she still knew him. And he knew her, better than anyone else.
“That’s not all,” he said, pulling away. She wrapped her fingers through his, and he squeezed her hand gently, and with his other hand unzipped his backpack, pulled something out, and presented it to her.
It was a red rose, beautiful and perfect. And it was threaded through a pink plastic flower ring-an exact match to the one he’d given her so long ago, just before their first date.
Beth laughed, and it felt like the first time she’d laughed in years.
“I’m still not marrying you, idiot,” she giggled. But she took the giant ring and slipped it onto her finger.
“I thought we’d start slow,” he said, just as he had all those months ago.’One date.”
“What are you talking about?” she asked, inhaling the sweet fragrance of the rose. It was almost overpowering.
“Come to the formal with me,” he asked.
Beth shook her head in confusion. “I’m already going with you,” she reminded him. “You asked me weeks ago.” She’d been saving up to buy a new dress, actually, but then they’d been fighting so much and had stopped speaking and eventually wasting all that money on a dress she might not get to wear hadn’t seemed like such a great idea. But now, looking into his earnest blue eyes, now she couldn’t think of anything she wanted to do more than look beautiful for him. To turn back time and forget about everything that had happened this month-everything. This weekend, this dance, it would be just the fresh start they needed.
“A lot’s happened since then,” Adam explained. “I’ve been an asshole since then,” he added.
“No, it wasn’t you, it was just-”
“Let me finish,” he interrupted quietly. “I’ve been a jerk, and now I know it, and I just want us to start over again, fresh. Just pretend the last few weeks never happened. So, Ms. Manning, will you do me the great honor of going to the dance with me?” He pulled the rose from her fingers and played its petals gently across her lips.
“Well, I’ll have to think about it for a second,” she began with a frown. His face crumpled, and she rewarded him with a bright grin. “Of course I’ll go with you.” She moved the rose out of the way and put her arms around him, cradling his face in her hands. She pulled his face toward her and kissed him, wishing that she could freeze this moment, that they really could pretend that the last few weeks had never happened and that the future would never come. That there would be no more arguments, that the tension that crackled between them would just disappear and things would be sweet and easy again, like they were tonight. And, she realized, she knew how to make that happen.
“I love you, Adam,” she whispered, her lips still just barely touching his.
“You too, Beth. Only you.”
And even though it was late and her mother could burst into the room at any minute, Beth kissed him again. The moment couldn’t last forever-but she wasn’t ready to let it end.
Chapter 15
Miranda wasn’t fat.
She knew that much, at least.
After all, she wasn’t crazy, she told herself, looking in the mirror. No double chins or rolls of fat-she certainly wasn’t one of those girls who looked like a skeleton but imagined a blimp. She knew what she saw.
And what she saw wasn’t much.
Short-an inch above freakish but only barely within the “cute” zone. Dull reddish hair. Pale, washed-out skin. Thick ankles (which she hadn’t even noticed until her mother had oh-so-kindly pointed them out to her and helpfully suggested she steer clear of skirts). Bulky thighs. Somehow, sometime, the lithe, slim body she’d had when she was younger-the one she’d never noticed until one of her mother’s friends commented in envious awe on how she could “eat like an elephant and look like a giraffe”-had disappeared.
Now, she was just-medium. Bland. She knew that under other circumstances, in other, bigger towns, she wouldn’t be best friends with the school’s alpha girl; the A list wouldn’t notice her.
But in this life, in this town, she was best friends with Harper-which is why she’d gone along with the drunken suggestion that they ditch their dates for the stupid formal and go on their own. Prove to the world that they didn’t need guys, that they’d have more fun without some testosterone-charged idiots pawing at them all night.
She twirled once more in front of the mirror, her gauzy black dress flaring out as she spun.
The other night at the Barnstormer, filled with alcoholic courage, spending the dance on the sidelines with Harper, watching a roomful of glamorous, dewy-eyed couples spin around the auditorium had sounded perfect.
Funny-in the sober light of day (or rather, in the sober half-light of twilight, awaiting her ride)-it was starting to sound slightly less than perfect. Asinine. Insane. Pretty much the worst idea she’d ever heard.