“I’m sorry for ruining our friendship,” she said. “I’m sorry for acting like I was better than you because I had more experience or whatever. You were a great friend. You still are. You deserved better than someone like me. But I’m happy that we’re talking again. Think you can finally accept my two-year-late apology? Put the past behind us?”
I think the old me, the one in the hallway that day, would have said no. She would have happily accepted the answer to the question that had been weighing on her for years and gone on her way. She would have been fine losing another person because, after all, real life was scary and books were her only safe place. But I was starting to realize that maybe I wasn’t that same girl anymore. So I said, “Yes,” and hugged Jenny back when she reached out. Maybe with answers came forgiveness. And Jenny was the first person on that list.
When we were sitting side by side again, I said, “We were pretending,” and, wow, it felt really good to say that out loud. “Me and Brett were never dating. It was all a lie.”
Jenny laughed. She leaned back on the bridge, resting her palms flat behind her. “Honestly? I kind of thought the whole thing was bullshit,” she said, shaking her curls out behind her. “Hand me one of those, would you?”
I reached into the bag blindly and gave her the first book my fingers touched. “You did? Why didn’t you say anything? Tell anyone?”
She shrugged. “Who cares? Let people believe what they want. I think ninety percent of our school thinks I’m straight.”
“You’re not?”
She ripped the cover off the book in one swift motion. Making a face, she threw it into the water, then said, “Still figuring that out.” Then she paused. “Let’s keep that between us.”
Obviously. “What about all those guys you dated?” I asked, curious.
“I don’t know. Maybe I felt like I had to? Maybe that’s why I was always bragging about it, to cover up something else I couldn’t quite figure out yet. . . . You didn’t answer my question. Why throw these books away?”
I thought about it for a moment. “Because they’re fiction. They’re not real. Love like this,” I said, grabbing another book and waving it between us, “isn’t real. It exists in these pages. That’s it.”
Then I had an idea. I grabbed the garbage bag, the whole thing, and stood up. I was about to throw it over the edge when Jenny screamed and ripped it out of my hands. She placed it behind her, protecting it with her body, and muttering what sounded like “crazy” under her breath.
I was breathing hard. My fingers were tingling. I wanted to grab another book. I wanted to watch it drown.
I laughed again. This time, it was maniacal. Crazy. Total witch laugh.
“I can’t believe it.” I was shaking my head. “You were right this whole time! You told me these books were setting me up for disappointment, raising my expectations, and I didn’t believe you. You were right,” I said again.
I was still laughing when I lay back on the wood to stare up at the sky. Jenny’s head appeared beside me a second later. I could feel her watching me, analyzing me like a puzzle. Like one right move and I could be put back together. I wasn’t sure if I could. Because parts of myself were everywhere. Some with my mom, some with Cassie. Some were even with my dad. With Brett. And now, some were buried at the bottom of this lake, smudged words on soaked pages.
“What if,” Jenny began slowly, “we were both wrong?” I raised my brows, shifted my head on the wood to stare at her. “I mean, these are books, Becca. They’re not real life. You can’t take what you read in here and expect it to magically happen to you. You can’t expect it to feel like that.” She paused, grabbing a book out of the bag and placing it on her stomach. “Real guys aren’t like this. I don’t think anyone is like this. People don’t stand in front of your bedroom window with a boom box—”
“That’s from a movie. Not a book.”
She gave me that look that said shut up for a second.
“My point is no one can live up to some romance you read about when you were fourteen. But Brett’s real. He’s here. And isn’t that better? Mistakes and all?”
“Maybe,” I said.
“He’s been moping around school. Everyone knows what happened with his family. He’s having a hard time. I’m sure he could use a friend. . . . Or a girlfriend.”
“Fake girlfriend,” I corrected her.
Jenny pushed my shoulder. “Please. Maybe it started off fake, but did it stay like that?” she asked.
I planted my elbow on the wood and raised myself up. “Give me the bag back,” I said.
Slowly, Jenny handed it to me. “No more pollution?”
“No more pollution,” I repeated.
“And you’ll talk to Brett?” she prodded.
“To be determined.”
“I want you to be happy, you know,” Jenny said after a minute. Her eyes were still locked on the sky. “You seemed happy with him.”
“I think I was.”
“Give him time,” she said. “Let him focus on his mom, his family. Once he gets that all sorted out, he’ll come back.”
“How do you know that?” I asked.
“Because some people leave for good. But sometimes they come back.”
“Like you did,” I said.
Jenny smiled. “Exactly.”
I stood up then, bag in tow. It sagged in my hands, nearly empty now. I contemplated throwing it over, watching it sink, then decided against it. Maybe someday I’d pick up one of these books and be glad I didn’t destroy it. Or maybe that day would never come and they’d just be books on a shelf. Either way, I walked off the bridge with the bag, Jenny trailing beside me.
The wind was picking up, blowing through the tree branches, and I smelled fried food. Like doughnuts. Why did the lake smell like doughnuts? Then I turned to Jenny and realized it was her. Then I realized my mom’s bakery was just down the road, also the way Jenny came from . . .
“You were at my mom’s bakery,” I said.
“Those jelly things are addicting.”
Brett
MY DAD WANTED TO GO to counseling. He thought a few hour-long sessions for our whole family would help us move past this, like his affair was nothing more than a bump in the road, a detour. That a few hours spent sitting on a couch talking to a stranger would magically fix this, then it would be back to his regularly scheduled family life.
My mind was made up and the answer was no. But my mom? My mom was all in.
The three of us were sitting on a couch in Dr. Kim’s office. She kept taking down notes whenever my parents spoke. My dad was on his fifth “I’m sorry” and “It was a mistake” and my mom had already gone through two boxes off tissues. I hadn’t said a word the entire session. The hour was almost up.
Dr. Kim turned to me. “You’ve been quiet, Brett,” she said. “What’s on your mind?”
“Nothing.”
“You don’t seem very happy to be here,” she noted.
I looked at my mom, who’d finally stopped crying. The only reason I came was for her. I would have been fine changing all the locks on our house and not allowing my father back inside. But no, she wanted to try. And if that’s what it took to make her happy, I’d do it.