TEN YEARS AGO…

“Bryce is such an asshole,” Whitney says as she leans her elbows on the rail bordering the upper level of the mall. It overlooks the food court below, and the smell of greasy burgers and stale Chinese food filter upward. My nose crinkles in disgust.

“Agreed,” I say as my eyes slowly roam around the upper level, checking out the action tonight. I’d already scanned the food court below, and nothing of interest was going on down there.

“He didn’t say why?” she asks.

“Nope,” I say calmly, although my stomach curdles when I think about the very public brush-off I got yesterday after school. Bryce and I had been dating for three months, and my face flushes with embarrassment when I think of all the proclamations of love I’d given him. He was my first real boyfriend in high school and I had fallen head over heels.

Bryce was very tall with sunny good looks that would have been common in Southern California, but only made him stand out like a beacon in our school in Menlo Park. He was the star of our basketball team, every girl wanted to be with him, and every boy wanted to be him. Some of the best days of my life were spent just strutting through the hallways between periods, my hand grasped tightly in his as he’d walk me to my next class.

It was like a dream, and I was giddy, and happy, and in love.

And then he crushed me by dumping me after school in the parking lot standing outside the driver’s door of his Mustang, surrounded by his buddies. I thought he’d be driving me home as he did every day after school since basketball season was over. Instead, he simply told me, “Listen, Sela…I want to break up.”

I was stunned, and sure I heard him wrong. “What?”

“It’s the end of my senior year. I’m heading off to college in a few months. I don’t want to be tied down, especially not with a girl as young as you. You’re not going to be able to hang with me and it will just be awkward, you know?”

No, I didn’t know.

I didn’t understand at all.

“But I’m sixteen,” I told him lamely.

“Tomorrow you’ll be sixteen,” he pointed out, and one of his friends snickered loudly. At least Bryce had the grace to shoot him a dirty look and a small shake of his head.

“And you’re breaking up with me the day before my birthday,” I said in wonder and not to him in particular, and not a question either. Just a statement as to his douchiness.

Bryce just shrugged and reached for his car door. But then, as an afterthought, he said, “Look…you’re a nice kid and everything…”

I tuned him out as I turned and walked away. That’s all I needed to hear from him.

He thought I was a kid.

And now my eyes roam the busy Saturday night floors of the mall, bustling with shoppers and teens just hanging out, looking to have some fun. My eyes cut over to the Gap, directly across from me, and I see three guys walk out. All in jeans, T-shirts…look about my age, maybe a little older. Two of the guys are okay, but one is really cute. He’s carrying a bag in his hand and laughs at something one of his friends says. He then pauses, takes his phone out of his back pocket, and answers it. His eyes travel left as he talks with a smile on his face, sweeps across the expanse of the mall, and then his gaze lands right on me.

While he converses with whoever is on the other line, he stares at me…lips quirked upward and eyes bright with interest. I smile back at him, conveying interest because he’s really, really cute with light brown hair that’s worn a bit long and what looks to be brown eyes.

My pulse starts fluttering when he ends the call, says something to his friends without taking his eyes off me, then starts heading my way across the bridge that connects to the opposite sides of the second story.

Whitney is rambling on about Bryce, something about wanting to crush his nuts in a vise, but I don’t pay attention to her. He gets closer, his friends following a few steps behind him.

I can tell the minute that Whitney sees him because her voice trails off with a soft, “Oh, wow.”

“Hey,” he says when he stops a few feet from me. His eyes cut to Whitney and then back to me. While he doesn’t overtly check me out, I can tell he likes what he sees. I’m thankful for my most flattering jeans and my mom’s red heels I stole out of her bedroom before I left, hiding them in my large purse while walking out the door in sedate black flats. Those now reside in my bag and the red heels add four inches to my height.

“Hey,” I say back, my eyes cutting down to his bag. “Good shopping?”

He shrugs, and it’s very cool, I think. “Just killing time. We’re getting ready to head out to a party.”

“Cool,” I say, hoping I sound cool and not lame.

“I’m Dallas,” he says, and then nods to his friends. “That’s David and Blake.”

I turn slightly and grab Whitney’s hand, pulling her forward to stand beside me. “This is Whitney…my best friend.”

Dallas nods to her and his buddies turn away from us, both checking out their phones. Neither one of them looked at Whitney twice, which I don’t get. She’s really pretty with auburn hair and soft brown eyes.

But then Dallas makes me forget that when he leans in toward me and says, “Want to go to the party with us?”

“Where is it?” I ask casually, trying not to sound excited.

But I’m so excited. This is exactly what I was looking for tonight. Some type of validation that I’m interesting and worthy of a man’s notice.

“It’s over in Atherton,” he says. “Some rich dude’s house. My sister goes to college with him.”

The way he says “rich dude” leads me to believe that Dallas is not rich himself, but that doesn’t bother me. He’s very cute and he looks at me like he doesn’t see a kid.

“Sounds fun,” I chirp at him. “Right, Whitney?”

“Um, I can’t,” Whitney says. “My curfew’s at ten P.M.”

Bummer. My parents said I could stay out until midnight since it was my birthday.

“Excuse me a minute,” I say to Dallas, and pull Whitney five paces away. I lean in toward her and whisper, “Come on, Whitney. I really want to go. Call your mom and tell her you’re staying the night with me.”

She shakes her head and looks at me with worried eyes. “No way. Last time we tried that and got busted, I was grounded for a week. And besides…we don’t know these guys.”

My eyes cut over to Dallas, who is looking down at his phone.

So freakin’ cute. Way cuter than Bryce.

“He’s nice,” I say. “And it will be fun, and besides…it’s my birthday. The birthday girl gets to do what she wants.”

“No, Sela,” she says adamantly. “I don’t want to get in trouble, and you shouldn’t go off with strangers. It’s dangerous.”

Something deep in my brain acknowledges the truth of this statement, but I push it aside. I’m sixteen, a hot guy is interested in me, and I want to see what the night holds. I’m feeling adventurous and a little vindictive, imagining having fun on my birthday with Dallas and relishing in being able to show up at some function in the near future with him on my arm and Bryce being jealous.

“I’m going,” I tell Whitney resolutely. “And I really wish you’d come.”

“Sela, don’t,” she implores me.

Turning away from her, I tell Dallas, “I have to be home by midnight. I live in Belle Haven.”

“Not a problem,” he says with a charming grin, and it wouldn’t be. It’s only a few miles away, and if worse came to worst, I could always cab it. I had the cash that Mom and Dad gave me for my birthday celebration with Whitney and so far, we’d only bought an ice cream tonight.

“Last chance,” I say resolutely to Whitney with my head tilted to the side.

“This is not a good idea,” she warns me, but my decision is made.

Impulsively, I reach out and hug her. “I’ll be fine.”

She gives me a wan smile but it doesn’t really project. She’s worried and miffed I’m doing this, but I’m too filled with excitement to even care at this point. I turn toward Dallas and I’m beyond giddy when he takes my hand in his.

“Come on, gorgeous,” he says as we start to walk away. “This will be a night to remember.”

I totally know it will. Grandiose ideas fill my head of Dallas coming by my school to see me; maybe taking me to the spring dance. I swear I won’t strut too much as we walk by Bryce and his mouth hangs open in disbelief. I look over my shoulder to see Whitney chewing on her bottom lip with worry, and I wave. She doesn’t return it.

We all exit the mall to the upper-level parking garage, Dallas holding my hand while David and Blake walk ahead of us. They lead us over to a later-model Nissan that’s got dark tinted windows, multiple stickers on the bumper, and a huge dent in the rear quarter panel. Blake takes the driver’s door, David the front passenger, and Dallas and I crawl into the backseat.

“So, this party is supposed to be in some mansion or some shit; mostly college kids, but no one will say shit to us,” Dallas tells me. “We’re all eighteen.”

Not me, I think, but I’m not about to tell him that. He doesn’t ask, and I’m thankful.

Blake starts the car and a rap song I don’t recognize comes on.

David drums his hands on the dashboard in quick succession and yells, “Yeah…spark that owl.”

Dallas laughs and pops his hand on the back of David’s headrest. “Hand me a stick, man.”

I’m lost already, no clue what they’re talking about. David reaches into the glove compartment, pulls something out, and hands it over his head to Dallas.

He takes it, reaches into his front pocket, and pulls out a lighter. Then he puts a thin white joint to his mouth and lights it. I stare in fascination as his cheeks hollow and the cherry on the end glows bright. It’s not the first joint I’ve seen, because hell, the kids in my neighborhood stroll around in broad daylight smoking them, but it is the first time I’ve been in such close proximity.

Dallas holds the smoke in his lungs and exhales slowly, before passing it over to me with a wink. “Want a hit?”

I know I should pay attention to the warning bells going off inside my head, and the small tingle of fear in my belly, but then I think of Bryce calling me a kid and I know without a doubt I don’t want to be viewed that way.

Besides…it’s my sixteenth birthday and I deserve to have some fun. “You’ll get me home by midnight, right?”

“Absolutely,” he says with a broad grin.

I can’t help it as I smile back, I take the joint from his hand, and bring it to my lips.

—

PRESENT TIME…

“That will be fifty dollars,” the cab driver says, jolting me out of my memories. I turn my head to the right and see the familiar gray house of my childhood.

I pull my one and only credit card out of my wallet and swipe it through the digital reader attached to the seat in front of me. I wait for it to process and add a 15 percent tip, realizing that for the first time in forever I can use my card without worrying that it’s going to max out.

Thanks, Beck. I really appreciate all the money you’ve given me to pay for school. It means I can actually afford things like a long cab ride out to Belle Haven.

I thank the cabbie and exit the vehicle, trudging up the sidewalk. I’m weary and I’m sad and this is the only place I thought to come. My apartment is foreign to me, having left that life firmly behind when I committed to moving in with Beck. It didn’t seem right to go there, and all I could think about was crawling into my bed and sleeping away my misery.

Tomorrow I’d look at things with a fresh eye and a clear heart, and figure out where to go from there. I suppose I’d need to go back to my apartment, and hope that Beck will quickly deliver my clothes so I can have something to wear. I also need my phone, and I have class tomorrow at one P.M., but I’m thinking of skipping. Right now my heart isn’t into anything except sleep.

I pull my keys out, locate the one I need, and open the door. Dad and Maria are both at work, and I’m glad. I don’t think I can handle the questions that would inevitably come as to why I was showing up out of the blue in the middle of the day. I’ll deal with them when they get home.

For now, I drop my purse onto the small side table beside the couch, dumping my keys inside. I walk back to my bedroom, which really doesn’t look like my bedroom anymore. It still has my bed and dresser, but nothing left of the high school girl who once lived here. Maria’s sewing machine sits on my old desk where I used to write in my journal.

I toe off my shoes and pull the covers back on the bed. I crawl in, pull them up over my head, and close my eyes. I try not to think of Beck, but that’s virtually impossible. He was so many things to me in such a short period of time. He was a new life.

A fresh start.

A possibility I thought I’d never have.

But right now, he’s the man who just broke me.