“Joni?” I sit up.
Her fingers graze lightly across my bruises. “What happened?” she whispers.
For the time it takes me to suck in one long, deep breath and let it out slowly, everything’s okay.
And then the situation becomes real.
Holy shit. Joni cannot be here.
I glance to my left, where Alan and Aimee are standing a few feet away, watching. I thought they left. But no, of course they didn’t. My mom told Alan to call Joni. That’s why he needed my phone. They were just letting me sleep while they waited for her to show up.
“How did you get here?” I ask, stalling.
“I borrowed Elijah’s car. What’s going on?”
“It’s a long story,” I say, grabbing her hand and removing it from my face.
“Well, lucky for you, I’ve got nothing but time,” she says. She sits on the ground next to me and rummages through her giant bag, producing an oversized scarf. She wraps it around my shoulders. I’m instantly warmer.
“What did Alan say when he called you?” I ask.
“He said you were drunk and got in a fight and wouldn’t leave. He said your mom said if anyone could talk sense into you, it would be me. I don’t know why she thought that; she doesn’t even know me.”
“She was right though,” Alan says. “He’s already acting more normal.”
I sigh. “Joni, this is Alan. And that’s Aimee.”
“We met,” Joni says.
“Right.”
There are a few moments of silence.
I wish I could stand up, take Joni’s hand, and transport her far away from here without saying a word. But there are three pairs of eyes on me, and they want answers. Joni wants to know what’s going on, and Alan surely wants to know who the hell Joni is and why my mom thought she would be the answer to all my problems. I don’t know what Aimee wants. Probably to go home.
Okay, easy part first.
“Joni and I work together at Whole Foods. She goes to Clinton Central. We’re…uh…friends.”
Joni’s eyes are flat. “Friends. Sure. We’ll go with that.”
“You know what I mean,” I say to her, trying to lower my voice but knowing Alan and Aimee can hear every word. I lace my fingers through hers. “We never talked about…”
“You guys are going out?” Alan asks. He doesn’t sound amused. “Isn’t that, you know, kind of soon?”
I close my eyes. Guess we’ve come to the hard part already. “Alan, please, shut up.”
“Soon?” Joni asks. “Soon after what?”
I open my eyes to find Alan staring at me like I’ve got salamanders crawling out of my ears. “She doesn’t know?”
“Ohh, is he talking about your ex?” Joni asks, trying to catch up. “I guess I knew about that. How long ago did you guys break up, anyway?”
“Jesus, Ryden,” Alan says. “Does she even know about Hope?”
“Who’s Hope?” Joni looks back and forth between us. “Is that your ex?”
Alan groans and looks to the sky in exasperation. “I can’t believe this. No,” he says. “Meg is his ex. And she’s not his ex, she’s dead. Hope is their daughter. Come on, Aimee, we’ve wasted enough time here. Let’s go.” He drops my phone at my feet.
The whole time Alan is giving his rather succinct little speech, I watch Joni. Her eyes don’t leave mine, so I have a perfect view of the betrayal taking hold with each revelation.
I squeeze her hand and beg her, silently, to stay, to please just hear me out.
But then Alan backtracks to us. “Oh, also, I’m not going to pick up Hope from day care or watch her after school anymore. I know you’ve been taking advantage of me wanting to know Hope, and for a while, I didn’t care because it made me feel close to Meg, but I’m not putting up with it anymore. I’m joining yearbook, and from now on, I’m going to live my own life.”
“Go ahead,” I mutter. “I’m done with soccer anyway.”
Alan stares at me, openmouthed. “You’re unbelievable.”
Then he and Aimee leave—for good this time—and Joni yanks her hand from mine and scoots back so no parts of our bodies are touching. But she stays.
It’s just me and Joni, sitting on the grass on Shoshanna’s front lawn.
“Start at the beginning,” she says levelly. “And don’t leave anything out.”
I nod.
I know under more normal circumstances, I’d be feeling all kinds of stuff. But we passed normal a long time ago, and now I’m numb. (Emotionally numb, anyway. Physically—my face is killing me.) I’ve got nothing left, which is probably why I’m able to tell her the story in such detail. It’s a book report, not an analysis—only facts, no feelings. It’s amazingly simple.
I tell Joni about Meg and the cancer and the pregnancy and how she died and how I thought it was my fault and how I have a baby whom I don’t quite know what to do with. I tell her about Mabel and Meg’s parents and the journals and what I found out today. I tell her about the game and UCLA. I tell her what happened with Shoshanna and how Dave beat the crap out of me and how I know I deserved so much worse.
When I’m done, I wait. Joni’s face is blank, like her brain is overloaded with data and has been forced into shutdown mode.
I wish she would put her hand on my face again.
People start to leave the party. It must be late. I wonder how long I slept.
Eventually Joni stands. She doesn’t reach down to help me up, but she waits for me to join her. “Let’s go,” she says once I’m on two feet again. “I’m driving you home.”
“My car is here.”
“And you’re in no shape to drive it.”
True. “Let me just get something out of it.” I walk over to my car, each step sending shooting pain through my body, and grab my soccer bag. I don’t really need my cleats and dirty uniform, but the purple journal is in there. As much as I never want to read it ever again, I still want to keep it close. I can’t explain why.
We get into Elijah’s car and drive in silence, except for me telling her what streets to take. I check my phone—there’s a ton of texts from my mom asking if I’m okay and telling me she spoke to Alan and she knows that Joni came and that I’m not dead but that it would be nice if I called or texted her myself.
I’m ok, I text. On my way home. Love u. Sorry.
I watch the dotted line in the middle of the road skip by.
Why won’t Joni say anything?
“It’s that house. Second one on the right.”
She pulls into the spot in the driveway usually reserved for the Sable.
Should I get out? Is this it? Is she not going to acknowledge anything I told her?
“Um, so, thanks,” I say.
She stares at the house. I’m about to open the car door when she asks, “Which window is yours?”
“That one.” I point to the window over the garage. “Why?”
She shrugs. “I’m trying to picture where you’ve been going to sleep every night, thinking it’s perfectly okay to lie to me like this.”
“Joni, I—”
“Nothing you can say to me right now will help your case, so you should really quit while you’re ahead.”
“I’m sorry. I know I should have told you. I just…I needed you, okay?” Amazingly, I must have some small amount of pride left, because it’s embarrassing to admit this. And yes, I know how ridiculous that sounds, after getting the shit beaten out of me and sobbing like a baby in front of a houseful of my classmates and having to go home wearing a unicorn-patterned scarf. “I knew I would lose you if you found out the truth, and I couldn’t risk it.”
Joni looks really tired. “You think I wouldn’t have liked you if I knew you had a baby and that your girlfriend died? Last I checked, those aren’t crimes.”
“You said you don’t like kids.”
Her face crinkles like she can’t believe I said that. All right, I can’t believe I said that either—obviously that’s not the real reason I didn’t tell her. “Jesus, Ryden.” She sighs. “It would have been a lot to deal with, but it would have been okay.”
A match is struck inside me, producing a tiny flame of hope. “Really?”
“Really.”
“So…you’re not mad?”
She sort of laughs and looks back at my bedroom window. “Oh, I’m so mad I can’t see straight.”
The match is snuffed out. “I’m confused.”
“Ryden, you’re not stupid. So don’t pretend to be. I’m mad because you lied to me, you asshole. I was honest with you about everything. I told you stuff I would never tell anyone, and you made a mockery of that.”
“I’m so sor—”
“Don’t, okay? I’m not looking for an apology. What I need is an explanation. Why? Why did you lie?”
I hesitate.
“You owe it to me to be honest about this, at least,” she says.
Maybe so. But it’s not going to sound good.
“Ryden.”
I pull the scarf tight around my shoulders. It’s pretty warm in the car, but the scarf is like a security blanket. I open my mouth, and this is what comes out: “I wanted a chance to be me again. I guess I saw that chance in you.”
Joni nods. “So you used me. My feelings never factored in at all, did they? You’re no better than Jeff and Karen.”
“That’s not exactly—” I stop there. She’s right. I used her. I lied to her and had sex with her but didn’t really think about her during any of it. Like I was about to do with Shoshanna tonight. And exactly the way Meg used me—as a means to an end.
There’s a long stretch of silence. Minutes and minutes go by, and I still don’t know what to say. Joni picks at the stitching on Elijah’s seat cover.
I need to go inside soon and let Joni leave. So eventually I say, “I hope someday you can forgive me.”
A beat goes by, and then she says, pissed off and dejected all at once, “You really need to figure out a way to make peace with your life, Ryden.” She starts the car engine. “And please, don’t drag me or anyone else into it until you do.”