My Best Friend, Maybe Read online

  “Huh?” I ask her, smiling back.

  She laughs. “You probably think Sadie was crazy to date me. You probably think she was totally desperate or . . . I don’t know.” She shudders. “And now she sent you here to shut down her big bad ex-girlfriend.” She doesn’t see me shaking my head. “But I’m not usually that mean.”

  “You’re not?”

  She laughs again. It’s fake and forced but not snotty. Just awkward. “No!” she says. “I had to be. I was . . . when I found out you were . . . I couldn’t . . .”

  She curls her body tighter with each word. What I’m looking at is suffering and I’m responsible.

  “All I ever wanted was to be like that with her. To hold her hand in public. To meet her friends. To brag about my beautiful, fun girlfriend. She wouldn’t do that for me but . . . when I found out you were . . .”

  “We’re not,” I say.

  She freezes. “What?” she asks.

  “It was fake,” I say.

  Rose props herself up, half sitting. “What was fake?”

  “Everything,” I say. “Everything was about Sadie . . . Sadie missing you.”

  Like this, I think, looking around at the mess in the room, which is as cluttered as Sadie’s brain has seemed for the past few days. No wonder she needed me.

  “What about you?” Rose says.

  I nod. “She missed me, too,” I say. “But in a different way.”

  Rose pops up. “You’re not gay, are you?” she says, standing right in front of me. Her face is open and friendly. “You’re not?”

  I shake my head, smile.

  “You’re not gay! So you’re here because—”

  “Because you hurt Sadie too badly,” I say, and I watch her face fall. But it’s true. And I’m not going to take all the blame. “She needed some protection against you and she used me. But last night . . . I was trying to hurt you. It was this big show to hurt your feelings, and that’s not me. I’m sorry.”

  “Sadie does that?” Rose asks slowly, her voice full of wonder.

  “Sadie does what?” I say.

  It’s almost like she’s not talking to me though. She’s talking to herself. “I’m the one who does that.”

  “Who does what?” I ask.

  She looks at me finally. “I’m the one who puts on a show to try to get back at people. At Sadie. I somehow always think that hurting her, that proving how great I am, will win her back.” She pauses. “But it never works.”

  I squint. “You want her back?” I ask.

  Rose deflates and drapes herself across her bed. “Yes!” she says. “I’ve been so lonely this whole year without her. Do you know what it’s like to miss someone like that?”

  I sit down next to her and manage a small laugh. “I know what it’s like to miss Sadie,” I say. “But not like that.”

  Rose nods, rolls onto her side. “She misses you, too, you know,” she tells me. “She always thought you were mad at her for being gay.”

  I shake my head.

  “Yeah,” Rose says. “Based on all of those stories of the two of you, I never bought it.”

  Oh, my gosh, could I actually like Rose?

  I take a deep breath of her perfumey air. Should I do this? For Sadie? After what she said to me earlier today?

  “You really want her back?” I ask again.

  “Yes!” Rose practically shouts it this time.

  “Then why tell her about other girlfriends? Why act like you have the perfect life full of beautiful girls on Facebook?”

  Rose gives me a half smile. “Sadie and I have our plots in common.”

  “What about the girl you cheated with? The cell-phone picture?” I ask.

  Rose closes her eyes, swallows in pain. “Photoshop,” she says.

  My eyes widen. “What?”

  She nods. “Photoshop. I’m awful.”

  I pull her arm so that she’s sitting up next to me on the bed. “You aren’t awful,” I say. “But listen. Before I came on this trip, I had a boyfriend.”

  She nods.

  “I loved him. I really did. But I lied to him all the time.”

  Rose raises her eyebrows at me.

  “Not the same way. I, like, pretended to be perfect. Like, I’d drink at parties but not if he was there.”

  She nods again.

  “But the thing is, he was drinking at parties, too. We were like that for two years. Now, we’re so . . . disconnected, it’s over. But it’s not over between you and Sadie. You are connected. I could feel it when I was standing between you last night.”

  Rose’s eyes go wide. “Really?”

  “You have to be honest with her, okay? You have to tell her about all of the crap you pulled before she brought me here. And then you have to be nice to her.”

  Rose nods. “I will. I will. I love her,” she says.

  I smile. “I know.”

  I feel the sunshine streaming through the open window dance across my legs. I want to be swimming.

  I stand to go.

  “Coley?” Rose says. I don’t hate her for saying it this time.

  “Yeah?”

  “Thank you. I hope I work everything out with Sadie and then I get to hang out with you a whole lot after this trip.”

  I sigh. “That won’t happen,” I say. “You have a chance with Sadie, I think. But this morning she dumped me forever.”

  Ω

  An hour later, I’m the only place where I know who I am: in the water. I make it down the manure-strewn stairs myself, snuck past the scary donkeys, navigated my way through the crowded fish market at the bottom, and flung my body off the little dock. I’m in my black Speedo, not because of modesty or doing what’s right, but because I want to go fast. And I am. I’m flying through the water, zipping back and forth past the little dock. I swim one way until I run out of breath and then I straighten up and feel the sand between my toes. I dip my head under the water and watch through my goggles as the fish circle my ankles. Then I dart back in the opposite direction.

  The water is blue and warm and salty and pure. The sun bakes the top of my head as my fingers and toes turn to prunes. The island towers over me, reaches past where I can see and rises straight into the sky.

  I’m finally in the water where everything should be perfect. Of course, nothing is ever perfect. Not even me. Not even Mom.

  Why did she leave? Did I break my family apart? Do I even care when my family has been so wrong?

  Can I ever forgive her?

  When my muscles are twitching from exhaustion, I stand and tilt back to look at the sky. The wet sand massages the soles of my feet. The water shifts around my armpits. The sky is baby-blue without a single cloud and I am here and it is beautiful. I am by myself where I don’t have to worry for a little while. I close my eyes.

  Then wham! The world tilts, my foot goes shooting toward the sky and my face slaps into the water. There’s a hand on my ankle.

  I come up, startled and sputtering.

  “You’re It,” says a smooth deep voice. “Thank God! I’ve been It for over three years!” I turn and there’s Sam—wide smile, velvet eyes, broad shoulders, dimples. Sam.

  My heart speeds up, pumping nervous blood to every part of my body, but I smile as soon as I see his face.

  “Hi,” he says. He takes a step toward me.

  “Hi . . . ,” I manage.

  He stares at me and smiles and I stare back. He’s surrounded by sea and topped by sky. The volcano is a miracle behind his shoulders. Everything is so beautiful but I can only look at him.

  My face is caught between emotions like Sadie’s, my cheeks burning with embarrassment remembering last night, my lips stretching with joy at seeing him here, in front of me.

  He’s mad at me. I kissed his sister.

  I tell myself this logically, but my thoughts don’t match his face.

  He reaches under the water and pulls my pruney hand into his.

  I let him.

  “I thought you were .
. .”

  I think of how to finish as we stand hand in hand and shoulder-deep in the water. The current sways our arms back and forth like empty tree branches in the wind and we fight to hold on to each other, to keep our feet planted in the sand.

  “Yes?” Sam says.

  “I thought I screwed everything up,” I say.

  He smiles. “You’re only one person. In the whole universe. You can’t screw everything up.”

  “But I—”

  I try to speak but then there’s a finger on my lips and he’s standing so close to me the water works around us instead of between us.

  “Shh,” he says. “My mom filled me in.”

  He puts his free hand on the small of my back.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “Sadie—”

  He shakes his head and pulls me closer, so that my body is just barely pressed against his. “I don’t want to talk about my sister,” he says. “That’s over.”

  “I didn’t know what . . . this . . . was,” I say finally.

  Sam nods. “I know. I know you didn’t.”

  I feel my heart relax into my rib cage. It’s wonderful to be forgiven like that, easily, readily.

  “But I knew,” Sam says.

  “What?” I say.

  “I knew what this was,” he says. “Still do.”

  “What—” I say.

  “Shh,” he says again.

  I shut my mouth and tilt my head up to look at him and then we’re kissing. His arms squeeze me into his chest, his mouth plays music on mine, his hands press into my shoulders, and the water makes it impossible to stand. I’m floating.

  I don’t deserve this. I did everything wrong. I come from a messed-up family. I didn’t even see that until today. I don’t deserve this.

  But that doesn’t mean it’s not happening. Regardless of what I deserve, it is happening. He’s kissing me. Sam is kissing me. And I feel . . . right.

  He pulls away from me and says, “Well, that’s a first.”

  “What?” I ask, my head still full of clouds.

  “First time I’ve kissed a woman who has also kissed my sister,” he says with a laugh, and kisses my forehead. It tingles.

  Without even thinking about it, I pull him into me again. “I shouldn’t have done that,” I say.

  He laughs. “I know, I know.” He pretends to trap me with a noogie. “If I had known you were her date, I never would have spent the whole week hitting on you. That sister of mine and her kooky plots. But it’s over now, right?”

  I nod. He smiles. Then he envelops me in his arms again, pretending to try to dunk me. I shake my head and fake a fight against his muscles even though I’m loving the way they are holding me in, anchoring my back against his side. Then his arms are gone. “Come on!” he says. “I’ll race you to the dock!”

  “Now?” I say. I start to freestyle after him.

  “We have so much to do today,” he calls back over his shoulder.

  “All I want to do is swim,” I yell.

  He turns back to look at me, a flirtatious smile crossing his face. “Well, I was thinking we’d start with the white beach,” he says. “But if you’re afraid I’m going to kick your butt to the dock . . .”

  “Oh, it’s on!” I say. Then my head is in the water and I’m powering my way past his kicking feet and his propelling arms. If this were Mark, I’d let him win, I’d be afraid of hurting his feelings. But that’s not me anymore. This time, from the start, I’m going to be all of me.

  We spend the day exploring. We take a water taxi to the white beach, the one that you can’t get to by the roads. We take another one to the red beach. We explore the archaeological site that may be the lost city of Atlantis. And we wind up back at the restaurant where we first watched the sunset.

  This time, we hold hands across the table as Sam orders the same delicious meal.

  This time, we kiss when the island applauds the sun’s final ray.

  This time, we walk back to my cave with his arm over my shoulders. This time, Sadie isn’t sitting there. This time, Sam comes inside.

  We’re making out on my bed, his body spread out beside mine, his hands warm on top of my clothes, his smile popping up every time we stop kissing.

  “I should go,” he says finally, pushing my hair out of my eyes.

  I realize that I haven’t been thinking at all. I don’t know what time it is. I don’t know how long he’s been here. I haven’t tried to figure out if all of this kissing and hand holding means I have a new boyfriend. I’m not worried that I was talking too much or being too quiet or too forward or too shy. Who cares what my mom would think or what Sadie would say. I haven’t thought about anything. It’s been so nice.

  “Don’t go,” I say, still not thinking.

  He sinks his lips into mine again. “Believe me, I don’t want to,” he says. His body shudders against my side and my smile is so huge.

  “Don’t go,” I say again. This time I kiss him.

  He laughs. “I have to! Mom can be cool but if she finds out I shacked up with my sister’s date, it won’t be pretty.”

  We sit. Sam straightens his clothes. I look down at my own twisted T-shirt and try to chase the pesky bit of left over shame out of my brain. The magic is going away already.

  He puts a cushy palm on my cheek. “There you go thinking again,” he says. “I’ll tell her about us, don’t worry.”

  I shake my head against his skin. “You’re lucky to have your mom.”

  He stands. “In a second-chance kind of way, I guess.”

  I look up at him.

  “I mean, my first mom gave me away. It’s not always easy being where you’re not supposed to be.”

  My eyes go wide. “I didn’t mean—”

  “Yeah, yeah,” he says. “I know I’m not supposed to think about it like that. But sometimes I can’t help the way my brain twists everything up.” He shrugs his broad shoulders. After hours and hours of running my hands over them, I can see the way his muscles contract and expand underneath his shirt. “I know your family’s not perfect either, but I always used to think you were the lucky one, you know, to be able to have two parents and no questions.”

  I think about that. “Sometimes I was. Maybe.”

  He smiles at me. “Sometimes I was, too. Maybe,” he says. “I guess we’re both a couple of oddballs.”

  We kiss good night and he’s gone, and even though I know he likes me and even though I’m so excited to learn everything about him, too, and even though we had so much fun all day, everything isn’t magically okay.

  I lie in bed, watching the ceiling turn to inky black. This morning, if someone had told me that after the way I messed everything up last night, I’d still get to spend the whole day with Sam, that he’d forgive me before I asked, that we’d make out late into the evening, I would have thought it was going to be a perfect day.

  But it turns out even the perfect boy can’t guarantee a perfect day.

  I lost too much today. Sadie. Sadie said good-bye forever. She didn’t include an “I’ll need you one day” clause this time. Sadie disappeared.

  Mom. Mom told a little girl she was going to hell. Mom’s voice can no longer be the compass for my life.

  My family. It’s splintered into two or three or four different places. I don’t even know what’s going on. It’s only been a week—how can so much have changed? Is it all my fault?

  As soon as I think that, “Octopus’s Garden” rings electronically through my cave.

  This time I answer.

  “Did I wake you up?” she asks. Her voice is quiet and reserved, only a shadow of the voice she usually uses.

  “Hi, Mom,” I say.

  “Colette,” she says. “Are you having a good time?”

  Yes. No. Yes, but it hurts. “Where are you, Mom?”

  “I need to explain, I think. Do I need to explain?” she says.

  I nod. She keeps talking.

  “You know, Colette, I have this recurring dre
am. I’ve never told anyone about it before, but here you go. In it, it’s the end of my life, okay? And I’m meeting my maker. It’s God, okay? Sometimes it’s a man and sometimes it’s a woman and sometimes I can’t tell. Sometimes it almost looks like a ghost and sometimes it looks like an angel and sometimes it looks like a stranger you’d meet on the street. But I always know that this is God, that it’s the end of my life, that I’m a step away from Heaven, okay?”

  “Okay,” I say because she keeps asking over and over.

  “And do you know what God says? The same thing, every time. Know what God says?”

  “What?” I ask.

  “ ‘That’s not exactly what I meant,’ ” she says.

  “What?” I ask.

  “That’s what God says. To me. Every time. ‘That’s not exactly what I meant.’ ”

  “Oh,” I say. I lie back down on the pillow. What is she talking about?

  “Where are you, Mom?” I ask. “Why aren’t you at home?”

  “I’m going home now. Right now. I’m in the car, okay?” I’ve never heard her ask for my approval. Now it’s like she can’t stop. “I’ve been at Aunt Liza’s, but I’m going home now, okay?”

  “Are you getting divorced?”

  It’s a whisper. I don’t know what to think. My parents don’t fight. My mom yells and my dad shuts up. No one ever stands up to my mom. Now I did and the whole family falls apart.

  I feel guilty about that but . . . she was wrong.

  “No!” she says emphatically. “No. I love your father.”

  “Then why—”

  “Colette, you might not have noticed this, but I have a hard time being wrong.”

  I almost laugh.

  “I didn’t want to admit it. I had to get away from everyone who was right to see how wrong I was. Your dad has been . . . trying . . . to tell me this for a long time. I had to get away from him to listen.”

  “You’re going home now? To stay?” I ask. “Are Adam and Peter all right?”

  And what if one of them is gay? What will you do then?

  “They’re fine. They think I’ve been away for work.” She sighs. “Look, I probably shouldn’t have said that to Sadie. And maybe I was wrong. Maybe your father has finally gotten that through my thick skull by sending you away from me. I’ve been thinking and thinking about you and Sadie, and about how that thing I said to her all those years ago was probably the worst thing I’ve done in my life.”