Getting Over Garrett Delaney (26 page)

“Thanks.” I soften. “But what do I even say to him?”

Kayla shrugs. “Anything. ‘Cool shirt.’ ‘Great party.’ ‘Do those pants have secret pockets?’ ” She takes a look at my nervous expression and laughs. “Guys aren’t some weird foreign species, Sadie. They’re people. You can talk to people! You do it all the time at the café.”

It’s true, I do. But as I look back over at this guy, I’m suddenly reluctant. “You know what? Maybe we should wait a while, until I’m more relaxed, and —”

“Nope!” Kayla links her arm through mine and begins to drag me purposefully out onto the porch toward that group of guys. “What have you got to lose?”

I don’t know, my self-respect? My dignity? Then I realize that I lost those things weeks ago, scrambling on the coffee shop floor.

“Nothing, I guess,” I agree, and head after her to go make a complete fool of myself.

Or maybe not. Red T-shirt guy’s name turns out to be Oliver. He’s nineteen, training to be a forest ranger, and to my amazement, after ten minutes of basic get-to-know-you chatting, he has yet to turn and flee into the dark night. In fact, he’s smiling at me, easy and relaxed. “So you’re in college around here?” he asks, leaning against one of the porch posts.

“Just graduated high school,” I lie. I try to sound casual, “I’m taking the year to work and travel before deciding on college.”

“Cool.” He nods, blue eyes smiling down at me.

Kayla clears her throat. “I’m going to go get a drink!” she exclaims brightly. “But I didn’t see where the bar is.” She flutters her eyelashes at Oliver’s friends. “Could you guys show me?”

There are murmurs of agreement, and before I realize what she’s doing, Kayla has ushered them inside, sending me a swift wink as she closes the screen door behind them.

I’m left alone with Oliver.

“So, forest ranger …” I perch on one of the chairs, trying to look casual, as if I do this all the time. Sure, I flirt with older boys — men! — every weekend. What of it? “Does that mean you’re an expert at building fires and all of that?”

The words are out of my mouth before I realize how inane they sound.
Smooth, Sadie. Real smooth.
But Oliver doesn’t seem to mind. “Sure, but mainly we try to educate people about not building them. The risk of wildfires, and stuff like that.”

“Right,” I say quickly. “Of course. Fire, bad.” I take a sip of my soda, still feeling lost. I shouldn’t be so uncomfortable. I’ve spent hundreds of hours — maybe even thousands — just hanging out, talking to Garrett, but that feels like a whole separate universe: one where I felt at ease in my own skin, instead of glancing down every five seconds to check that my bra isn’t showing.

“I’ve always been into the outdoors,” Oliver continues. “Like, when I was a kid, I was always running around, climbing trees. My parents took me camping a lot. It was great.”

“Mmm,” I murmur.

He sits on the bench beside me. “The thing people don’t realize is what a complex ecosystem the forests are,” he says. His face is tanned and animated with enthusiasm. “We’ve got to try and minimize our footprint.”

“Like tiptoeing,” I joke, but he stares at me blankly. “Kidding,” I add. OK, so, his sense of humor is somewhat lacking, but he is still blessed with those muscular arms… .

Oliver pauses a beat, then casually puts one of those arms over the back of the bench. “So, are you into the outdoors much?”

I pause, trying to decide if lounging in my back yard qualifies. “Kind of.” I err on the side of vagueness.

Oliver brightens. “Oh, yeah? What kind of stuff?”

“You know …” I wonder guiltily if pretending to be a nature girl is the same as pretending to love Dostoyevsky novels and morose British music. Probably. But then my gaze falls to the ground and the point becomes moot, because he’s wearing sandals — those leather thong kind that German tourists wear, usually over socks. But Oliver isn’t wearing socks, and I can see his bare feet even in the dim light: they’re covered in dirt, as if he’s been hiking through the forest all day.

I swear I see something … wriggle, between his toes.

“Sadie?”

I know I told Kayla I wanted to try flirting with other guys, and I’m sure Oliver here is nice — heroically defending our great forests, with nothing but a backpack and those miraculous arms — but something about the sight of those grubby toes, and the dark, mysterious growths lurking in between… .

“Actually, I hate nature,” I say suddenly, dragging my eyes back up to his.

“What?” Oliver looks like I’ve just admitted I like setting forest fires in my spare time, but before I can take it all back, I realize I don’t want to.

“I mean, not nature — I don’t hate that,” I correct myself. “But being out in it. All the bugs and dirt and branches. I mean, going to bathroom in the bushes is just, eww, you know?” I grin, feeling strangely liberated by all this honesty. The plan was right — it may start small, with an innocent comment about camping, but before you know it, I’ll be stranded out in the middle of the Pioneer Valley, huddled over a damp campfire with a poison-ivy rash on my butt.

Oliver blinks, those pretty blue eyes staring at me. “I’m fine looking at trees and flowers,” I add. “But behind plate glass. Preferably with air-conditioning.”

“Huh.” He withdraws his arm.

“Anyway, it’s been fun talking to you!” I bounce up. “Um, see you around?”

I head back inside, feeling strangely triumphant. Sure, the objectively hot guy thinks I’m an evil, nature-hating girl now, but for some reason, that feels better than pretending to like things I don’t. I’m done smiling and nodding along just for some guy’s sake.

Especially if said guy is housing fungus on his feet.

“Well?” I find Kayla perched on one of the window seats, watching the party. She bounces up expectantly. “How did it go?”

“It didn’t.”

“Why not? He was into you — I know it.” Kayla peers past me. “Look, he’s still there, you can go try again.” She pushes me back toward the screen door, but I stand firm.
“Saaadie.”
She keeps pushing. “You can’t keep pining.”

“This has nothing to do with Garrett!” I protest. It’s true, the Gods of Unrequited Crushes have finally been vanquished. For once, Garrett is the last thing on my mind. “Kayla, I swear. I talked, we flirted, but … I didn’t like him enough, OK? I mean, I’m all for moving on,” I add, “but can I move on to a guy who doesn’t have mud between his toes?”

“Mud?” She screws her face up. “Eww, OK, that’s gross!”

“Exactly.” I look at the knot of people around us, suddenly feeling an itch of energy in my veins. “Come on, let’s dance!”

We lose ourselves in the middle of the tight crowd for a while, and I forget everything except the thump of bass and quick beats of all these songs I’ve never heard before. I don’t ever dance at parties, but tonight it’s different; everyone here is into it, oblivious. Girls are dancing alone, eyes closed; burly guys in vintage shirts throw themselves into the music; and Kayla and I are unnoticed in the middle of it all. Nobody knows who I am, and nobody cares. There’s something freeing about that. I spin around, dizzy, clutching onto Kayla as we laugh until my lungs hurt.

I tug her out of the crowd for a moment to catch my breath. “Have you seen LuAnn or Dom anywhere?”

“Nope.” She shakes her head, hair falling loose from her usual ponytail. “Not all night.”

“Oooh, seating!” I spy a free corner of couch and head over to claim it. Kayla follows, and soon we’re crushed between an amorous couple and three long-haired hippie chicks passing a menthol cigarette around. “Maybe I should call Oliver over,” I say. “There are Birkenstocks aplenty around here.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to go try again with him?” She asks, still dubious. “Because he really was cute, and mud washes off… .”

“I’m fine, really,” I reassure her. “It was good practice, but we weren’t meant to be. I don’t even compost.”

Kayla giggles. “Sorry. I was kind of pushing you onto him.”

“No, I needed it. I can’t avoid dating forever. And at least you have a future as a brothel owner ahead of you, if college doesn’t work out.” I grin.

“Sure, my parents will love that.” She laughs, but then pauses, sounding almost wistful. “I guess part of me wants to live vicariously through you,” she adds slowly. “Since I haven’t kissed anyone aside from Blake.”

I blink. “Ever?”

“Ever.” She nods, blushing. “We got together freshman year, remember?”

“Weird,” I say. The hippie chicks leave, murmuring something about a drum circle, so I scoot over on the couch to claim their space. “I mean, good weird,” I add. “That you found each other and all.”

She nods slowly, curling up in the corner. “Sometimes I wonder what life would be like if we hadn’t.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s not that I don’t love him or anything,” Kayla says quickly, playing with the fringe on a couch cushion. “But I don’t know… . Sometimes I try to think who I’d be, without him.”

“You mean like me trying to figure out who I am without Garrett?”

“Right. And we’re happy, me and Blake,” she says quickly, as if to even mention otherwise is girlfriend sacrilege. “But I think about it. Like, would I have run track, if practices hadn’t clashed with date night? And would I have made different friends?” She’s wearing a contemplative look I don’t think I’ve seen on her before.

“I like the Laurens and Yolanda and everyone,” she continues slowly, “but I started hanging out with them because we were all one big group — Blake and his friends, and then us girls, because we were dating them.” She bites her lip. “That’s how it’s always been: me and him together. And now I’m picking colleges to be near him, and … I just wonder — that’s all.”

She gives me a shy smile, and although I know she doesn’t wish she’d never gotten together with Blake at all, I understand what she means. If I hadn’t met Garrett, what would my life look like now?

“They never tell us what happens after happily ever after,” I say. “I had to add a whole new section to the website… .” I trail off, realizing what I’ve said, but it’s too late.

“What website?” Kayla asks.

I blush. “Um, remember those lists we used to make? About the top couples, or most romantic movie characters?”

“Sure.” She smiles. “We filled whole notebooks with that stuff.”

“Well … I kind of took it to the next level.” Feeling like the biggest loser on earth, I tell her about my database. “I don’t do it anymore,” I say quickly. “It kind of faded out this summer, without my Garrett stuff fueling it on.”

“I think it’s cute!” Kayla laughs. “And, OK, maybe a little dorky.”

I groan, covering my face with my hands.

“Aww, it’s OK, it just shows you’re a romantic at heart.” Kayla nudges me. “Just be careful with that. Real-life relationships … they’re not like they are in books and movies. Life is, well, it’s a whole lot messier.” She sighs.

I’m wondering what to say to that when LuAnn appears in front of us, breathless. “There you are! I’ve been looking all over for you.”

“We’ve just been enjoying the scenery.” Kayla winks. “And it’s cute!”

“Uh-huh.” Distracted, LuAnn looks back toward the living area. The volume has risen even more — raucous with music and the sound of the crowd cheering at something. “We might have a problem.”

I pause, still distracted by Kayla’s last comment. “What kind of problem?”

“A Dominique-shaped one.”

There’s a sudden whoop from the other room. Kayla and I exchange a look, then we quickly follow LuAnn to the scene of the commotion.

“Yeah, baby!” some guys are yelling. “Get it
on
!”

We push our way through the dense crowd until I can see what’s causing such joy: Dominique, a bottle of tequila in one hand, grinding up against any guy in a ten-foot radius. The preppy cardigan is gone, and she’s sweaty and disheveled, breaking out in hysterical giggles.

Dominique. Giggling.

“What the … ?” I blink, wondering if my Popsicle was spiked. I must be hallucinating, because the Dominique we all know and loathe would never make an ass of herself in public, let alone give a stripper a run for her booty-shaking money.

But no. It’s her. And she’s utterly wasted.

“What happened?” I ask, fighting to be heard over the braying pack of assholes.

“I don’t know!” LuAnn yells back. “I left her for, like, twenty minutes.”

“She works fast.” Kayla gazes at her with a strange look of admiration.

“What should we do?”

LuAnn shrugs. “I don’t know. She’s legal. I guess just make sure she doesn’t do anything crazy?”

“Crazier than this?” Kayla yells.

That’s when Dominique whoops, “Who wants body shots?” A great roar goes up from the crowd.

And then she takes off her shirt.

LuAnn and Kayla deal with the re-clothing Dominique situation while I go call for rescue. But forty minutes after Garrett says he’ll come get us, there’s still no sign of him.

“Where are you?” I press my cell phone to my ear and try to block out the party noise. Garrett’s voice is distant on the other end.

“See,
now
she wants to hang out!” Garrett teases, but I’m not in the mood.

“This is an emergency, Garrett.” I try to stay calm. “Kayla and I need to get back home before her parents ground her forever!”

“I know, I know.” He laughs, as if amused by my panic. “Don’t worry. I got caught up here, but I’m on my way.”

“You said that ages ago!” I exclaim.

“Relax. I’ll be there,” Garrett promises. “I just have to —”

“You know what? It’s OK,” I say, catching sight of a guardian angel in jeans and a gray sweatshirt, emerging from the dark woods. “Josh is here. LuAnn must have called him.”

“I told you, I’m on my way —”

“It’s fine. See you later.” I hang up, going down to greet Josh. “Thank you so so so so much,” I tell him fervently.

He shrugs, nonchalant as ever. “Where’s the party girl?”

“She’s sleeping now, thank God.” I nod toward Dominique, fully clothed again and passed out cold with a sweater tucked under her head. “For a while, she wanted to go on a night hike in the woods.”