In August, a couple of weeks before senior year starts, Abbi has a party to celebrate Margaret’s birth. “I wanted to wait until your head wasn’t the size of Texas,” she says. “And also until I wasn’t wearing a robe all day.”
I’m definitely still swollen, but my face is emerging from all the puffiness. I still can’t chew anything hard, but I have been eating soft things, like scrambled eggs and the occasional Twinkie (listen, I got tired of smoothies).
The most ridiculous thing is that even though I know I look different, I don’t feel any different. I thought that after my surgery I would look in the mirror and suddenly feel confident. I thought I’d know, deep in my bones, that I was beautiful. But when I look in the mirror, I just see … me, with a slightly different jaw. The exact same Jolie: daughter, sister, friend, aunt, Terrible Movie fan, and musical star.
It would be hilarious if it weren’t so depressing that I wasted so much time wishing to look different. All the time I spent on that scrapbook, all the time I spent smiling with my lips closed … and after all that, I was just fine all along. Who knew? Everyone except me, apparently.
But it feels good that both Abbi and I are officially on the road to recovery. Yes, I’m going to be a little swollen for a while, and yes, she’s constantly complaining about her nipples being sore, but still. We’re getting there.
Pretty much everyone we know is in our backyard, enjoying the beautiful summer early evening. Abbi is wearing a pink floral dress that, of course, looks great on her, just like literally every article of clothing does. And I stole one of her (pre-pregnancy) dresses, a yellow sundress that I never would’ve worn before because it’s too bright and draws too much attention. But I don’t care; I’m not afraid of attention anymore.
Abbi invited some of her friends from school, and they’re all standing beside the punch table cooing over Margaret, who’s doing a very good job of being cute. My aunt Jayne is here with her yorkipoos, one of whom definitely pooped on the patio already. Mom created a killer all-female playlist that she titled Mothers of Modern Rock in honor of Abbi’s new status as a mom, so we’re listening to that instead of bro-country like every other backyard in Brentley. Dad’s sitting on one of the benches he made just for this party, happily eating a pulled pork sandwich. There are twinkle lights hung above the patio and a few yellow “Welcome, Baby!” balloons bobbing in the gentle breeze.
“She’s a great baby,” Evelyn says when I find her and Marla holding hands by the food table.
I nod. “Maybe I’m biased, but I think she’s the smartest baby in the world.”
Evelyn shakes her head. “Nah. That sounds like a perfectly objective opinion.”
“This bruschetta is amazing,” Marla says, pronouncing it correctly. “Who did your catering?”
“My dad,” I say. “Under the guidance of many Food Network stars.”
I look at the table and realize our supply of pulled pork sliders has been seriously depleted. “I’m gonna run into the kitchen and grab some more food,” I say.
The kitchen hums with pleasant stillness because everyone’s outside. I’m about to open the Crock-Pot and assemble more sandwiches when I hear the front door creak open. I assume it’s another one of Abbi’s friends, but then Derek steps into the kitchen.
“Hey,” he says. He’s dressed up a little—for Derek, anyway—in a short-sleeved button-down striped with blue, gray, and pink. It’s not tight, but it’s definitely snug enough to cling to his somehow lean-yet-muscular chest and oh God, I just realized I’ve been staring at him without saying anything for way too long.
“Hey,” I sputter, unable to come up with something less inane. I haven’t seen him all week because he’s been volunteering at the twins’ soccer camp, although he did become a much more frequent texter by constantly sending me pictures of them practicing. Seeing him now feels like everything good—like jumping into a pool on the hottest, sweatiest summer day. Refreshing, exhilarating, a little bit of a free fall.
“Do you want a pulled pork slider?” I offer, my hands shaking so much that I almost drop the Crock-Pot lid. This is Derek, I remind myself. No need to be nervous. But things are different now—in a good way, I think, although I don’t really like this awkwardness.
He shakes his head. “Maybe later. But right now I have something outside I want to show you.”
I throw the lid back on the Crock-Pot with a clatter. Who cares about pulled pork right now? I follow him out onto the front porch, where he points at the street.
“Um,” I say, my eyes scanning the front yard. “What am I looking at?”
“Right there,” he says, pointing to the curb.
It’s a red convertible.
“My uncle let me borrow it,” he says. “I figured you didn’t check this item off your list before surgery, so why not do it now?”
Maybe it’s a little bit of overkill to say that my jaw drops after it’s already been broken and surgically moved into place, but that’s what happens. I can’t say anything. Derek found a red convertible?
As we walk toward it, Derek stops. “Wait, is it rude to leave the party? Do you need to tell them where you’re going?”
I shake my head slowly, still staring at the car. “No. Or maybe. But I don’t care.”
He laughs, then tosses me the keys.
“Wait, are you serious?” I ask. “I’m supposed to drive this?”
“Wasn’t that the plan?”
“Well, yeah, but…”
Derek hops into the passenger seat. “Take me to the playground.”
I just stare at him from the sidewalk.
“I’m waiting, Jolie,” he says, and right at that moment his smile is so winning that I would take him literally anywhere he asked. Because this scenario, this fantasy I had of driving a red convertible and having my surgery, it’s all real and it feels so much better than I ever thought it would.
I drive slowly, coming to a full stop at every stop sign and looking both ways about fifteen times at each one.
“This is a car,” Derek says. “It’s not made out of blown glass. I think the saying is ‘Drive it like you stole it,’ not ‘Drive it like you’re a ninety-five-year-old woman with limited vision.’”
“Shut up, I need to concentrate,” I say, my hands gripping the wheel. The last thing I want to do is crash Derek’s uncle’s convertible. That would put a serious dent in my fantasy, as well as, presumably, the car.
We pull into the parking lot of the playground, and now I realize I don’t know why we’re here. As we get out of the car, the streetlights pop on. There’s no one here except for a few kids practicing on the tennis courts, and other than the sounds of the tennis balls hitting their rackets, all I can hear is the hissing of the summer insects. I look at Derek expectantly.
He waves me along, so I follow him.
“Did you bring me here to show off how good you are at the balance beam?” I ask as we walk past the swing set. I run my fingers over the chains. “Because frankly, that’s not so impressive at our age.”
Derek stops walking, and I realize where we are. By the slide, under the oak tree.
The site of our first kiss.
“Oh,” I say.
“Jolie,” he says, and his voice cracks. He’s nervous. How could Derek, my Derek, be nervous about kissing me? I realize he’s gearing up for some big speech, like this is a debate he’s practiced for (and if I know Derek, he probably did practice for it).
But whatever he’s going to say, it doesn’t matter, because we’re way, way past words now.
“Just shut up,” I say, closing the space between us. Our lips meet and move and it’s a little awkward, trying to figure out how to do this brand-new thing with someone I’ve known my whole life. My hands kind of hover over him as I try to figure out where to put them, but then he wraps his arms around me and I instinctively grab his shoulders. He bumps into my teeth and his lips scrape my braces as we laugh, which sort of makes it okay—like we both realize that this is weird, but good, and we can figure it out together.
Abbi was right: This isn’t something you can learn from a book, or by taking notes, or by googling. This is one hundred percent trial by fire, something I had to leap into, a risk I had to take. And then suddenly, it’s not so awkward anymore and it feels very, very natural to be kissing Derek Jones. I can’t believe I wasted time before my surgery not doing this, that we were friends for so long when we could’ve been … well, friends who kiss. My hands grip his shoulders a little harder, and even though I’ve touched him a million times before, this is different. This is better.
I pull back and look at his eyes, those kind brown eyes I’ve seen almost every day since I was in kindergarten.
“How’s your mouth feel?” he asks. “Numb?”
I shake my head slowly and blink a few times, realizing why people say they have stars in their eyes. It’s like my head is floating through the cosmos, planets spinning in front of my face. The bottom part of my face is still a little numb and tingly, to be honest, but this is still ten million times better than my previous kissing experience.
I think about the things I spent my whole life avoiding, the time I spent hiding, the moments when I tried to make myself small and invisible. If only I’d known that this was on the other side of my fear, that all I had to do was let people see me. That I could get up in front of people and they would accept me, all of me. That I always deserved this, even when I thought I didn’t, even when I thought I never could until I was “perfect” or “pretty” or “normal.”
“Definitely not,” I say. “I’m feeling everything.”