My dad grins. “That’s so sweet of you to say, Sloane, but it was just time for a change.” A shadow passes over his face that I’ve never seen there when I ask about him leaving. A sadness about it that I guess he doesn’t want to show me. But just as Sloane leans forward and asks him another question, Layla walks through the door to the map room too, and almost bumps into me because she’s still looking down at her phone. I whirl around to face her.
“This library is huge,” I rasp more than whisper. “You could’ve met your friend anywhere. Why’d you tell her to meet you in here?”
Layla looks as surprised to see me here as I was to see Sloane, but she knows this is my and Daddy’s spot. She has to know, because before everything changed, I told her.
Even before she opens her mouth to say anything, I know she’ll answer like New Layla, the one who has no problem being cruel to me. Her nostrils flare again, and she says, “You think you own p-places, Cleo. Just like you think you own p-p-p-people. But guess what? It’s a free country. This might come as a surprise to you, but you don’t own me or this library, or any of the other p-p-places we used to hang out. I can g-go anywhere I want. And so c-c-c-can my friends.”
I had planned to hang out here with my dad for a while, but after those words leave Layla’s mouth the room feels instantly tainted. I add the map room to my mental list of places to rid Layla of, and decide to double down on my New Memories Project because fuck her.
I quickly tell my dad I’ll have to see him later. I pull out my phone and text Sydney.
Can you meet me at Washington Square Park?
LIPSTICK & MONOLOGUES
It’s nearly dark by the time I get off the train at West 4th Street.
When I texted Sydney, I was in a blind panic and I didn’t know who else to call or where else to go. But now, as I approach the park, I wonder if this was a mistake.
So far, I’ve made new memories alone, with my dad, or completely by accident, like at Dolly’s with Dom. But the only thing I felt I could do as Layla and Sloane closed in on a space that was supposed to be mine and mine alone was to escape, and to race to a spot where I’d have more control over who was there, and over what was happening.
It’s just starting to get dark, but the park is still filled with people standing under the arch and staring skyward, teens still in their school uniforms flirting, and tourists taking photos and sitting on the wide lip of the fountain. The park feels alive, its energy like an extra pulse under my skin. With the sorbet-colored sky set alight by the setting sun just ahead of me, I can almost forget the reason I’m here.
When I find Sydney, she’s sitting by the fountain, sipping something warm. She pulls off the top to blow on her drink, and steam rises from the cup in white wisps.
“So?” she says as soon as she sees me. “How’d things go with Layla?”
I don’t mean for it to happen, but at the sight of her, I burst into tears.
“Oh! Oh, honey!” Sydney jumps up, nearly spilling her drink, and wraps me in a hug. I stiffen for a second, unused to being touched, but then I relax and fall against her. I let the tears pour and Sydney doesn’t say anything. She just squeezes me even tighter.
“It was awful,” I say, pulling off my tear-soaked glasses and rubbing my eyes.
“Here, let’s sit,” Sydney says. She leads me by the elbow to the edge of the fountain.
“Syd, it was so bad.”
Sydney roots around in her purse and produces a small packet of tissues. She hands it to me, and I pull three from the plastic. “What happened?”
“I’m so stupid,” I say. “Like, it wasn’t so bad, at first, and it even started to be fun, talking about the play with her. Then I started thinking that maybe it was a sign, you know, me being assigned to tutor her? I started thinking that maybe my mom was right, that if I was honest it would make things better. We were talking about her paper and everything was going so well that I got a little too brave, I guess.”
“No such thing as too brave,” Sydney insists. “Only brave enough.”
I tell her how I asked if there was any chance at all for us, and how Layla shut me down immediately. How a few minutes later she and Sloane were in the map room, which had always been this special place for me and my dad. I stand up and pace and tell her that this is what I was afraid of more than anything—that I’d show my cards and Layla would rip my heart to shreds again, and now it had come true.
“I’m mad at Ms. Novak for pairing us up, mad at my mom for telling me to try, mad at myself for believing there was something bigger at work; for being so damn desperate. I’m pissed that I even entertained the idea of forgiveness for someone who had already given up on me, you know?”
I don’t tell her about the things I did to Layla and Sloane—the reason we’re in this mess in the first place. But when I collapse back onto the fountain’s edge, out of breath and still a little weepy, Sydney pulls out a tube of lipstick.
“So you were right, then,” she says. She takes the cap off the lipstick, and it’s eggplant purple.
“Huh?”
“You. Were. Right. Let’s erase her. Eradicate her from your life as much as humanly possible. Sounds like she’s over you,” Sydney says, and then winces a little. “Sorry if that was harsh. But now, since this is officially over forever, you have to get over her.”
She brandishes the lipstick. “Pucker your lips,” she says.
“I look weird in lipstick,” I say.
She draws back, examines my face like she’s an art dealer and I’m an exceptionally valuable painting. “Whoever told you that was a damn liar,” she says after a minute. “And Coco Chanel says, if you’re sad, add more lipstick and attack. So that’s what we’re doing. Pucker.”
I grin, drag my sleeve across my eyes one last time, slip my glasses back into place, and pucker up. I listen as Sydney explains the way I can find the perfect lip color for my skin tone, along with the best ways to wear it. When she’s done, she pulls out a compact and holds it up so I can see, and she’s right. Even in the dim light I can tell it doesn’t look weird at all.
“Now for a new memory.” Sydney looks around, her hand on her chin. “Oh! Let’s go streaking!” She stands up and starts slipping out of her jacket.
I stretch my eyes wide. “Sydney, no way. It’s freezing out here!”
She shivers and pulls her coat back on, laughing. “Fine, fine. I was mostly joking. But you have to do something really memorable if you’re really going to rewrite history, Cleo.”