Except I’ve been there. Done that.
Not interested in repeating that mistake.
Neither, it seems, are Tori and Kenzie.
Which is good.
Or so I keep telling myself.
“I could text Tori,” Whitney says, hesitant and hopeful. “Ask her if you can come.”
“No,” I say again, this time firmly. The last thing I need is Tori thinking I asked Whitney to ask her if I can go to her family’s party.
Talk about pathetic.
I’m feeling sorry enough for myself, thanks all the same. I don’t need anyone else knowing how much I wanted Tori to invite me. How I feel like I’m missing out by not going.
How much I miss being friends with Tori and Kenzie.
But life is not only full of the unexpected, it’s also stingy with the good things, doling them out piece by piece. Making sure to balance any high with an appropriate low so we don’t fly too far, too fast.
I got Sam back, but Devyn’s still mad at me for giving him a second chance.
Whitney and I are friends, but Tori and Kenzie still pretend I don’t exist.
Piece by piece.
Highs and lows.
I stand when Whitney gets her bag from her neatly made bed. Tori’s picking her up at ten and it’s almost that time now and I’d really love to be tucked away inside my own trailer before she and Kenzie show up.
“Even if I had been invited,” I say as we step into the hall, “I couldn’t go. We’re doing the family thing today.”
It doesn’t happen often, mainly because one, two or all three of us are usually working, but today’s special.
Like a Fourth of July miracle.
“I thought Devyn had to work tonight,” Whitney says.
We stop by her front door and I slip on my flip-flops. “Not until later.” Which, in this case, means seven p.m. “We’re having a cookout this afternoon.”
Hot dogs, potato salad, chips, soda and the blueberry pie I made. Not exactly the variety of food the Vecellios will have at their party, but it’ll still be festive.
And after we eat, Dev will go to work at the hotel, and Zoe and Taylor will meet Carrie and her daughter so they can watch the fireworks the country club puts on every year.
Zoe invited me to join them, but I’d feel like a third wheel, so I told her I’d rather stay home.
On the porch, Whitney makes sure the front door is locked before we head down the stairs. Her mom left an hour ago to work a 5K race at the YMCA, but she’s meeting Whitney at the lake this afternoon.
“I don’t have to go to Tori’s,” Whitney says, and while I know she’s being nice, it only makes me feel even more pitiful.
“Uh, yes, you do. She’ll literally be here any minute.”
“Well, Mom and I could come home early, before the fireworks. I’m sure Tori and her family will understand.”
“I’m fine.” It’s the same thing I told Sam when he offered to skip his family’s trip to his grandmother’s in Rochester. Not that his mom and Patrick would have let him miss it, but he has a tendency to hope for the best despite the odds against him. “Besides, that outfit would be wasted at my house.”
She’d gone the patriotic route in a light blue strapless maxi dress, thin red belt and white sandals. Plus, it’s already hot, the sun beating down from a cloudless sky. A perfect day to spend at the lake.
“But it’s Independence Day,” she says. “You shouldn’t be alone.”
I open my mouth to tell her I like being home alone, that it doesn’t happen very often and I won’t be the least bit lonely. But ever since that truth session in Sam’s bedroom last week, I’m trying not to lie as much.
It’s harder than it looks.
“It’ll give me a chance to try my hand at croissants,” I say.
Which isn’t a lie at all. I’ve been wanting to make croissants for months.
I already have the dough chilling in the fridge, along with the butter I’d flattened out into a thin rectangle that I’ll use to laminate it, which should, hopefully, result in a nice rise and tons of flaky layers.
“I’m sure it’ll be nice for you,” she says, accepting defeat the way she goes through life—gracefully, “not having to entertain Taylor while you’re baking. Or staying up until two a.m. to do so.”
“Nice? I dream of times like this. I might even make a cake.”
I’ve had the idea for it ever since Sam and I got ice cream—our first official date.
Funny how easy it is for me to call it that now, two weeks after it happened.
Funnier still how easy it was, going from just friends to more than friends. Makes it hard to remember why I’d resisted the idea for so long.
“A chocolate cake,” I continue, “three layers, with peanut butter filling and a marshmallow frosting. Oh! Or maybe marshmallow filling and peanut butter frosting. Or one of each.”
I’m picturing them both now—the marshmallow frosting all sticky and peaked, the peanut butter frosting thick and creamy—and doing a mental review of my baking supplies when I realize Whitney is smiling at me.
“What?” I ask.
“Nothing.” But she’s looking at me like an indulgent mother. “It’s just you’re the only person I know who gets so passionate about cake.”
I roll my eyes. “Please. Everyone loves cake. Except psychos.”
“Actually, a dislike of cake isn’t listed on the Psychopathy Checklist.”
Spoken like the daughter of a psychologist.
Yes, her mother is an English teacher and her father—who she does not like to discuss…at all—is a professor of psychology.
It’s a wonder she’s turned out so normal.
“Not liking dessert, cake in particular, should absolutely be on that checklist,” I say as I walk backward across the empty street. “Hey, you could do an experiment at the extravaganza. See which people avoid the dessert table and note their personality traits. I bet they all have similar antisocial views, hate kittens and pop little kids’ balloons when they’re not looking.”
Even from across the street, I can see the epic eye roll she gives me. “You have antisocial views. And you love dessert.”
Both true. Though now that I have Sam back in my life and have hung out with Whitney several times, I’ve been extremely social.
At least with the two of them.
I spot Tori’s car at the stop sign a block away and start walking backward again, this time up my driveway. “I’m the thing that’s not like the other things. The special snowflake.”
“All snowflakes are special,” she points out as Tori pulls to a stop in front of her. “You’re the outlier.”
Then she gives me a cheery wave, opens the rear driver’s-side door and climbs into the backseat.
And even though I should walk away, even though it’s dumb and useless, I stand there for a moment, the sun warming the top of my head, watching them, three pretty, shiny girls talking and laughing. I stand there, waiting for some sort of acknowledgement from Tori or Kenzie. A smile or wave.
Hoping I’ll get that invitation after all.
I stand there, in my sleep shorts and ratty T-shirt, my hair in a messy bun, my throat tight as Tori takes off down the road like a shot.