Playing Nice (26 page)

The veil drops as quickly as it lifted and Lil runs away from me and the crowd and the truth I was about to lay bare.

I look at Alex, my head spinning, tears about to burst from so deep in my gut they may never stop raining down my cheeks.

"I think I'm going to puke," I say. And seconds later, I do. All over Alex's red Converse.

"That was quite a performance," Alex says after I vomit the entire contents of a six-pack all over the Carpenter's lawn.

"Oh my God." Panic drops in my stomach. I look around to see how many people are staring at me. Did I just say the words I think I did, or is the beer making me hallucinate? I didn't think it could do that, but maybe it was spiked with acid or mushrooms or whatever Lil took that night at Lake Loraine. Oh shit, Lil!
Shit.
Only a few wandering eyes are left looking at my puke-covered dress. I want to curl up into a ball and forget myself and this night and Matt. I look at Alex. "I'm a terrible person. Like the worst. I'm not nice at all."

"I'm not sure I got the part about the penguins." Alex puts a finger to his chin, like he's trying to solve an equation. "You might have to say it again."

"I'm sorry," I say, my head still spinning.

"Don't be. I mean, I hate these shoes."

I wipe off the front of my puke-stained gold dress. The words I just said feel fake. Like I was living in a movie and watching myself. Marty Hart would never say those things out loud—

and yet, I did. For everyone to hear. Or at least, for some people to hear over the awful guitar-stylings of Nickelback. Now, my life's soundtrack is ruined.

"I need to go find Lil," I say. Alex nods, because that's the type of person he is. He'll call me beautiful and stare at me and ask me out even though I like someone else and let me vomit on his shoes. My soul sinks into the ground, so deep I'm going to need grave diggers to find it.

I go into the house, replaying the words I said in front of everyone. How I took the one secret Lil told me and put it into the air for people to breathe in and twist to their own liking. I'm pond scum. The lowest of the low. I'm a country song with bad lyrics and bouffant hair.

I walk around the house, pushing past people, trying to find my best friend. The girl dressed in an awesome fuck you T-shirt, Mrs. Grim Reaper. How could I do this to her? I should give her every one of my poems so she can paste them all over the school for people to see.

I check the whole first floor. No Lil. Heading upstairs, my chest pinches. What if she left? What if she's upset and gets in a car accident? My words will be the last thing she hears. I start looking in the bedrooms. There are too many. Too many doors. Too many gross-smelling boy tube socks. Too many places she could be hiding. Maybe she's tucked herself into the corner of one of the closets and plugged her ears with music so she can't hear me yelling her name.

I fling open the last bedroom door.
Keep out, dickweed
, is written across the front. The lights are off, but I hear people. Not caring if I walk in on someone having sex, because I need to find my best friend, I need her to know that I love her, that I think she
is
Juliet and I'm the asshole Rosaline, that I was wrong, all wrong, I flip on the light.

My eyes go splotchy trying to adjust, but when they do, my entire world turns upside down. I think I'm not on the same planet anymore. I'm in an alternate universe where everything that could be bad gets worse.

Matt sits up on the bed, his blonde hair disheveled, red lipstick across his cheeks and neck. I look for Meghan Whitlock, but she's not here.

Instead, Lil moves to pull her shirt back down over her stomach. GO BUCK YOURSELF. I look back and forth at their faces and the wrinkles in their clothes and the smell of heavy breathing in the air.

"Marty," Lil says as she stands up. "This isn't what you think."

I blink. What I think? I don't know what I think anymore. I stare at Matt, the boy who kissed me with so much depth I thought I might break in two. Is that what he was doing to Lil when I walked in?

"Say something," Lil says, and walks over toward me.

"I was coming to tell you that you're still a Juliet." I blink a thousand times to try and erase what I just saw. "I'll go now."

"Marty, wait," Lil tries to grab my hand, but I yank it away. I don't want her skin, the skin that was just pressed against Matt's, touching mine. Then I might forgive her. Then I might remember what it felt like for us to lie on my bed with my poetry all around us and know what true friendship is.

I tear the black jelly bracelet from my wrist and drop it on the ground. I can't believe I was stupid enough to keep it, to think it meant something.

I run down the stairs and back out to the bonfire, never looking back.

"Did you find her?" Alex asks.

"Please take me home," I say.

"Are you ..."

I cut him off, tears welling in my eyes. "Take me home!"

"Okay," he says, grabs the keys from his pocket, and puts his arm around my waist. When his hand holds my side like I'm a doll that might break, I let everything go. Tear after tear falls down my face until I'm covered and I fall into Alex's side and let him practically carry me to the car.

He doesn't ask me what happened as we drive home. He doesn't even turn the radio on. Instead, he rolls down the windows and lets the breeze blow across my face to dry my tears.

Every few seconds, I live that moment again. The sound of kissing, the tousled clothes, my best friend and my life-size crush on the bed. Together. And then I want to puke all over again. Not from beer. From the stabbing pain in my heart. From it breaking into a million jagged pieces.

"Can I walk you inside?" Alex asks as we pull up my driveway.

"I'd rather be alone." I get out of the car without saying goodbye, without giving him a polite thank you, without making sure his Converse aren't stained with my puke. I walk in the front door without taking off my shoes and straight up to my room. I think I hear my parents say something from the couch in the family room, but I don't respond. The only noise in my head is that of two lips smacking together. The lips of Matt and Lil.

***

***

I don't want to get out of bed the next morning. My entire body hurts from the wrecking ball that was Matt and Lil. Every time a body part moves, I relive the scene. The hair and lipstick and heavy air.
There are people like you and then there are people like me and Matt
. I say Lil's words over and over until my heart hurts so bad I start to cry again and I have to roll over and stuff my face in the pillow to muffle the sound.

I'm mid meltdown when my phone rings on the nightstand. It's Lil. Even seeing the name pop up makes my gut so twisted and angry I want to toss my phone across the room. Instead, I stuff it under the mattress so I don't have to hear or see it.

I stare at my grandma and wonder what she would say. If everything has a season, why does it feel like I'm dying in the middle of summer?
Life comes from dirt, Marty. Some people sweep it under the rug; some people plant things in it. Don't sweep. Dig. But always remember to bring a change of underwear. No one likes dirt in their ass.

"Marty, there's someone here for you," my mom says through my closed door.

"I don't want to see anyone," I bite out.

"Now, don't be rude, honey. He's waiting downstairs." And then she whispers more quietly, "and don't forget to shave your legs."

I sit up in bed. She said
he
. Matt? I race to the shower, take my mom's advice about the legs, and then throw on jeans and a white T-shirt. Staring at my face in the mirror, I look drained. Worse than drained. Dead. My eyes are puffy and rimmed red all the way around. I dab cover-up on the bags, but it's no use. Not even mascara will help my cause today.

I bound down the stairs, my heart fighting itself, part of me mad that Matt did what he did, but part of me happy he's here to apologize.

I stop short when I see Alex sitting in the living room.

"Hi," he says.

I try to force a smile, but the ends of my lips tug down into a frown. "What are you doing here?" I ask in a flat tone.

"I thought I might take you out today," he says.

"I'm not really in the mood." I start to make my way back up to my room, to the duvet in my bed that was cradling me so nicely a few minutes ago.

"Come on. It'll be fun." Alex moves closer to me. "You owe me." He holds out his red Converse. The ones still stained with my puke.

"Fine," I grumble.

"You two have fun!" my mom yells from the kitchen.
Ugh
. I want to go back up to my room and mope. I should have never gotten out of bed.

"Where are we going?" I ask once we're in Alex's car.

"It's a surprise," he says.

"Look, Alex, I'm not really in the mood."

"Maybe some music would help." He flips on the radio.

"Please not country. I can't handle that today," I say, but then the music starts.

"
Grease
?" I say.

"I figure you need to start getting ready for your big audition this week." Alex's face twinkles with excitement over his good deed.

The audition. Rizzo. After getting dumped and cheated on, I want to play the part even more. Okay, maybe not
officially
cheated on because Matt didn't
officially
ask me to be his girlfriend, but he did ask me to marry him in ten years. That's practically the same thing.

Alex and I drive though town, listening to
Grease
, until he pulls up in front of The Batter's Box
.

"Batting cages?" I ask, raising an eyebrow.

"I figure you have some stuff to work out and instead of banging back beers, you could bang around some balls."

"I know we've never been in gym together, thank God, but my hand-eye coordination is seriously lacking."

"And you hate sweat, I know, but just try it. If you get hit in the face or something, we'll leave." Alex cuts the engine and walks around to my side to open the door.

"I could get hit in the face?" I ask, and cover my nose.

He shakes his head and smiles. "Thank goodness you're cute."

Alex grabs two bats and helmets and pays the pimple-faced boy behind the front desk. The sound of bats cracking balls echoes around the park as we walk over to one of the empty cages.

"Now, the key is to stand with your feet shoulder-width apart and watch the ball," Alex says, imitating the stance.

"I'm going to look ridiculous." I say as I put on the helmet, a pout to my voice.

"More ridiculous than last night?"

I look at him, the memories flooding back into my brain. Matt and Lil. Lil and Matt. Wrinkled clothes. Lips smacking.

"Give me that bat."

I walk into the cage and adjust my stance to mimic Alex's. Legs shoulder-width apart. Eyes on what's to come. But who knows what that will be? Never in a million years did I think Lil would do this to me. I thought I knew her like I know myself. But maybe I was lying, the way I always have. Lil told me she wasn't a Juliet and I convinced myself she was.

Now, I'm back walking through my internal maze, not knowing which direction is the right turn and which path will lead me back to the beginning.

Maybe the straight path that I thought was wrong isn't so bad.

The ball shoots out of the sling. I swing and miss.

"That's okay," Alex claps from behind me. "Stay focused."

But I don't think I could ever go back to who I was. To lock things away instead of breathing and living and being. I can't make myself an X. My internal wiring would backfire and I'd end up a vegetable with good manners and boxes full of useless Christmas decorations.

The next ball flies through the air. I swing and miss.

"That's okay, too," Alex yells.

"Stop saying it's okay!" I yell back at him. "It's not okay! None of this is okay!"

But why does it have to hurt? Like, the worst hurt of my life. My guts are tangled and my limbs are broken and I can't call my best friend to talk to her about it because she's the one that ran me over.

The next ball comes shooting out of the sling. I watch it soar straight at me. Why did Lil have to make out with Matt? Why didn't he want me? Why don't I deserve someone who wants to kiss me and have sex with me and love me? I swing at the ball. CRACK! It pops up into the air.

"I did it!" I scream and look at Alex.

"Yeah, baby!" He jumps up and down.

"I can't believe I did it!"

"Now focus again and get this next one," he says.

One by one, I swing the bat at the fast-moving balls, and each time they connect and I hear the crack of the collision, I feel lighter. Soon sweat is dripping down my face and my shirt is rimed with salty water and I don't even smell it. All I know is that I might never leave this batting cage. I might swing my arm until it falls off and last night is erased from my mind.

We get double scoops of chocolate ice cream when all of Alex's money runs out and he can't pay for any more balls. Between the sugar and the exercise, I'm buzzing. My arm hurts like it was run over by a Mack truck, but I don't care. I might come back tomorrow and crush some more balls.