Don't You Wish (18 page)

“How was homecoming?” she asks, leaning closer so that
I get a soft whiff of a sweet and spicy perfume that doesn’t fit this pulled-tight woman. Old Mom would wear something like that, though.

Homecoming? Craptastic. “Fine.”

She searches my face. “What’s going on with you?”

“It’s kind of hard to explain.” I feel something slip in my chest, and realize what’s happening. I’m homesick. I’m
mom-sick
. I want that lady who smelled like this and came into my room to talk with me on the bed. I want …

I want to go home.

“Oh, my God. Are you crying, Ayla?”

Am I?

She lifts a hand to my face, then pulls back before she touches me. “What’s wrong?” she asks.

The fact that she cares so much kind of puts me over the edge, but I manage not to drop a tear. “Really, you don’t want to know.”

“Yes, Ayla, I do.”

Does she? How would she even deal with this story? But I avoid her gaze, so direct and familiar, and instead pluck on a thread on my comforter.

“I’m just not myself,” I finally say, my voice cracking like a twelve-year-old boy’s.

“Oh, Ayla.” She collapses a little and reaches for my face again, the gesture full of yearning, but still tentative. She doesn’t make contact, at least not with her fingers. But our eyes connect. “You never cry.”

“I do lately,” I say softly.

She inches back. “And you never show any kind of vulnerability. I guess that’s what everyone is talking about.”

More of everyone talking? Why don’t they all talk to me instead of to each other? “Who’s everyone?” I ask.

“Trent and Tillie.”

“Trent says I’m vulnerable?” I find this hard to believe.

“He says you’re acting weird, and I heard Loras telling Tillie that you said thank you.”

“That doesn’t make me vulnerable, Mom. That makes me human.”

“But it’s so strange, so out of character for you.”

“Well, it shouldn’t make headlines in the staff newsletter that I said the two most common words in the English language. Loras practically breaks her back picking up my shoes.”

Mom glances around and shrugs. “Not anymore.”

“I can’t see the point of making a room this pretty all messy,” I say. “It’s like … out of a
magazine
or something.” I eye her for a reaction, but there is none.

Instead, she just shakes her head, a smile tugging. “No wonder Tillie thinks you’ve lost your mind and Trent says you were abducted by aliens. Who’s this girl and what did they do with Ayla?”

She laughs at her joke, but emotion erupts like a volcano in me. I have to tell her, I have to. She’s my mom. Won’t she understand?

How do I start? Will she believe me? How can I prove I’m not crazy? I have to know something that only Annie would know. Something that would connect me to her past.

The answer is kind of obvious. I go for it. “Does the name Melvin Nutter mean anything to you?” I say.

For a moment, all I get is a blank stare, a hint of disbelief. Then all the color drains from her face. “What?”

“You do know him?”

Her body stiffens as she leans back. “Where are you going with this?” The softness in her tone has hardened to ice.

Is the memory of Dad—of Mel Nutter—too much for her to take? For some reason, that gives me weird hope and happiness. I scoot up on my haunches a little, ready to finally open up.

“It’s complicated, but I need you to tell me the truth. Do you know a man named Mel Nutter?”

She stares at me, her whole body suddenly quivering, waves of something dark rolling off her. I decide to take that as a yes. I still have to prove I know something from her past with him.

“And do the numbers one-four-three make any sense to—”

“God damn you, Ayla!” She launches off the bed, her fists clenched as if she’s trying to fight the urge to strike me. “What the hell were you doing? Going on my computer? Reading my private stuff? You
are
your father’s clone—a conniving little spy who’ll do anything for money. For his empty promises. That’s all he can make. Don’t you know that yet?”

“No, no, Mom. You don’t get it. I—”

“Oh, I get it. Is that why you’ve been so nice? Is that part of your strategy to butter me up and get me talking about old boyfriends so your father can claim, I don’t know, that
I’m
having an affair, not him?”

“Mom, I—”

She pushes the air with two hands, symbolically shoving me away. “Stop! Just stop it, Ayla. I don’t know what you found. Well, I
do
know, but trust me, it was nothing. Nothing at all. I looked up an ex-boyfriend on Google, and we exchanged an email. I barely told him anything about me. And he lives in—”

“Pittsburgh.”

She looks horrified. “You did read my email! Why? Did your father put you up to it?”

“Mel Nutter
is
my father.” It’s out before I can stop myself.

She opens her mouth to speak, but the only sound that comes out is a strangled, choking cry. “Is that what he’s going to do?”

“Who? Mel?”

“He’s going to do some … some
paternity
thing? Try to get out of paying child support by claiming you are some other man’s child? Because considering the history and why we got married, well, that is just … ironic.” She has lost it now, with full on shaking and quaking. “Oh!” She balls her fists and punches the air in frustration. “I hate that man. I hate him. And I hate yo—”

“No!” I shout. “Don’t say it! Don’t say that to me!” The tears are pouring now, and I don’t even bother to fight them. “Please don’t.” My voice breaks. All I want to do is reach out and hug my mother, because I
need
her to understand. But how can she?
I
don’t understand.

She’s already backing out of my room. “Stop, Ayla. Or I will say something I regret. You’ve made your choice. You
and your father—together forever. You know, you two deserve each other. I’m through with you.”

“No, Mom, please. You really, really don’t understand what I’m trying to tell you. I’m different because I’m not who you think I am!”

“No.” She freezes at the door, turning slowly. “You’re not who I’ve
wanted
you to be. Big difference.”

The words hit as hard as if she’d slapped me. All I can do is stare, the golf ball strangling my throat ready to crack into a sob, but I fight it.

“When I had a girl, I thought we’d be friends,” she says. “I thought we’d shop together and laugh. I thought we’d have some kind of, oh, I don’t know, connection.” She sniffs the last word, embarrassed and broken.

“We do,” I whisper. “We
did
. We shopped at Walmart and ate at Eat’n Park.” I’m choking on the words, knowing I sound crazy, but if I could just get her to see … “On your birthday we got manicures together, and one time in the snow you accidentally got lost and drove down four steps in that South Side graveyard, and I swore I’d never tell Daddy, and I didn’t.”

“What in God’s name are you talking about? How have you heard of Eat’n Park? You’ve never even been to Pittsburgh.”

“Yes, I have.”

“Not since you were two! Your father hates to go there.”

“No … Mom.” I can’t stop crying or talking, and she’s just shaking her head. “Don’t you remember, Mom?” Oh, God, this hurts so much. I want her to remember. I want
her to remember me—Annie Nutter—the girl she wanted. I want somebody to remember me—not this Ayla Monroe I don’t even know or like.

“No, I don’t.” Her voice is as cold as the car that day we drove down the graveyard stairs.

How can this be? I remember sitting in the car, waiting for AAA, laughing at what a bad driver Mom is. We pinkie-swore never to tell Dad.

How can she not remember?

Because it never happened. Not in this life, not in this bizarre, weird, inexplicable vacuum of a real world where I now live.

“It was … another life,” I say softly. And this is a waste of time. No one on earth will ever believe me or understand. “So just forget it.”

I’m alone in this. Completely, utterly alone.

Mom’s face is a reflection of how gutted I feel inside, but she fights for composure, wiping her cheek, squaring her shoulders under the silk of her pretty pajamas. “You have a few choices, Ayla.”

“What are they?” I ask.

“Rehab for whatever drug problem is giving you these hallucinations about graveyards.”

I exhale softly. “I’ve never done drugs in my life.”

I can tell by the raised eyebrow that Ayla has, and Mom knows it. “Or you can set up an appointment with a psychiatrist to discuss your mental health, or …”

“Maybe I’ll just head back to whatever planet I came from.” Not that the option is even a possibility.

She doesn’t smile, not even close. “Whatever you do, Ayla Anne Monroe, you stay the hell out of my personal life and tell your father to talk to my lawyer. I’m leaving.”

She closes the door, and I just collapse to the floor in a heap. I know I have to figure out exactly how I’m going to live in this life, but all I do is cry for everything I’ve lost.

Bliss is leaning against the brick wall outside the cafeteria the next morning when I arrive at school. She’s on the phone, and gives me no more than a cursory finger wave, turning to block me out of her conversation.

My first thought is that she’s talking to Ryder, but I can tell she isn’t using her phony boy voice, so this must be a girl.

A few kids walk by and look at us—at me—which is nothing new anymore, but a slow burn of embarrassment rolls over my skin as Bliss makes a point of blatantly ignoring me.

“I know, right?” she hoots. “And someone call the ripped-jeans police and send them after Alexis Carillo. So last year.”

She pauses, and I give her a nudge. “Hey.”

She turns away, snorting into the phone. “OMFG with the Uggs already. It’s Miami, people.”

“Where’s Jade?” I mouth to her.

She shrugs and shoulders the phone, letting her hair fall over her face as a barrier to me. “Hey, listen, sweetie, I gotta go,” she says in a whisper, finally looking at me through her strands. “I’ve got some eavesdroppage, if you know what I mean.”

I almost choke. “Who knows what you mean, Bliss?” I hiss at her. “You barely speak English.”

She taps off and makes a show of putting her phone away, then finally looks at me. “Well, somebody had a rough night.”

So all that MAC and Bobbi Brown makeup doesn’t cover the puffy purple circles of my sleepless night. “You look nice today too,” I say, undaunted. I may have had an endless night, but I came to some serious conclusions and worked out a plan for going forward. “Is that skirt DKNY? It’s completely adorable.”

She gives me a dubious look, a little longer than is comfortable, then pulls out her phone even though I didn’t hear it vibrate.

I dig deep for the strength I thought I’d found in the middle of my long night of thinking. The only way to handle this whacked-out world is to live in it as best I can. I can’t change a lot of things, like my parents’ pathetic marriage. I can’t make my two best friends stop doing dumb stuff. But I can change who Ayla Monroe is on the inside, all the while enjoying the fruits of who and what she is on the outside.

I am determined to have the best of both worlds.

“Where’s Jade?” I ask, since she declined a ride this morning.

After a moment’s hesitation, Bliss says, “She’s cutting today.”

“Why?”

“The history test,” she says like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

“Oh, crap! I forgot to study.”

She laughs. “Funny, Ayla. This’ll be a cinch now, since your buddy Flute Fly is in our class. She salivates whenever you breathe on her, so tell her you need her to keep her answers easy to see, then you give me the finger signs, since Guerra only gives multiple choice tests.” She taps out a text, smiling. “OMG. My friend who goes to Gulliver got backstage passes to the Bruno Mars concert. Win!” She starts to walk away, texting.

I don’t have much choice; I follow, and eventually we separate for first period. But the whole time, I’m feeling a weird vibe in school, and am aware of enough whispering to know I’m the center of gossip.

I don’t care, and head to English lit holding tight to my plan to be Annie in Ayla’s body.

It made so much sense in the middle of the night, but the strategy feels tougher in school. For one thing, every time I say or do something that feels “right,” I get a look like I’m being some kind of phony or disappointing these kids somehow.

Ayla has a rep, and changing it isn’t going to be easy.

But I have to
, I tell myself as I slide a glance to Charlie
when I pass him. He’s given up the hat—thank God—and looks up through thick lashes and dark locks to give me a slight smile.

My heart kind of tumbles around, and I bump right into the empty desk next to him.

A low murmur goes around the room, and my gaze follows everyone else’s to Ryder, who’s slouched lazily in his seat.

He coughs loudly, “PT.” Then coughs again.

Prick teaser. I ignore the comment and take a seat, and Mr. Brighton launches right into a lecture about the use of light and dark imagery. My thoughts are spinning, my heart is racing, and, frankly, I’m kind of sick of being the center of attention. Especially now, because I know what that kind of scrutiny is going to do to my plans to convince everyone this
new
me is the
real
me, and then I can
be
me.

There’s no unassailable law of the universe that says Ayla Monroe has to be a bitch who steals and gets high and has sex with boys she doesn’t even like that much, I tell myself while Mr. Brighton drones on.

When a guidance counselor comes to the door, Mr. Brighton steps out with orders for us to read a passage and be prepared to find an example of dark imagery with a message. Hell breaks loose almost immediately.

Phones come out, voices rise, and Ryder’s up in seconds, slowly walking the aisle, making a show of balling some paper. His hip brushes my shoulder as he passes. I keep my head down on the page, refusing to take the bait.

He tosses the paper ball into a wastebasket across the room.