Eleven

Happily Never After

I spent the rest of my sweet sixteen sitting in that chair. A few people stopped by to chat with me, but once I told them that I wasn't interested in dancing they trickled off, back to their worry-less fun. Julia stayed by my side for the most of the night, but she was the hostess and still had to socialize and make sure everyone was enjoying themselves.

Just as I'd predicted, Mom knew something was wrong the second Julia and I arrived at my house after the party. However, she probably figured by my tight smile that I wasn't in a talkative mood, and she let me go upstairs without much discussion. Julia spent the night, but I was so cranky that neither of us cracked a smile, and she left early Sunday morning with a bit of a scowl on her face.

After I cleaned my room by tossing some stray paper plates and napkins into my trash can and halfheartedly yanking up my sheets, I trudged downstairs. Vanessa and Mom were standing in the kitchen, grinning as they whipped up a batch of pancakes. I had to admit that the batter smelled pretty good.

"How are you feeling?" Vanessa asked. She'd been one of the few who had checked up on me at my party, and one of the fewer that I had told the real issue.

Shrugging, I patted Macy on the head. Vanessa rolled her eyes and sat down her handheld mixer. "Quinn, I never thought I'd say this, but it sucks to see you this mopey. Come on—I'm usually the one with the mood swings. Why don't you stop obsessing about some stupid boy who obviously doesn't care about you anyway? You're a girl: you don't need a boy to make you happy."

"Excuse me if I'm not singing an anthem of my independence," I snapped back. "He did break up with me only a few hours ago."

Vanessa opened her mouth to say something but Mom cut her off with a warning glance. "Why don't you come help us with the pancakes, honey?" she asked. "It'll help take your mind off things."

My mother was well aware that I was a disaster in the kitchen, and it was a testament to her effort to make me feel better that she was even offering. Since it would be cruel to refuse, I pushed back my tangled hair and took a position at the counter beside Vanessa.

"You can stir this," said Vanessa, assigning me the simplest task. I took the mixer and began spinning it around the batter, trying to ignore the heaviness that was slowly building in my arm.

Just as I was getting the hang of stirring—at least, batter wasn't splattering onto my shirt or the floor anymore—the doorbell rang. Since Vanessa and Mom both looked preoccupied with cooking the pancakes on the stovetop, I wiped most of the batter off my hands and headed to the foyer.

Andrew Summers stood on the other side of the door, shifting from foot to foot as if he wasn't entirely sure whether or not he should be here—which he shouldn't.

"Hi," he said when I opened the door, his blue eyes wide.

I brought my hand up to my hair but realized it was a lost cause; I hadn't even brushed it yet. "You could have given a warning that you were showing up," I said. "I haven't even brushed my teeth."

"I just wanted to talk to you."

I thought it would have been more reasonable had he just called me but didn't want to seem mean, so instead I gestured for him to step inside. He stood barely over the threshold as I shut the door behind him, clearly wary of invading our Sunday morning privacy.

"Are you okay?" he asked in a low voice once I'd shoved the keys in the pocket of my sweatpants. "You seemed pretty upset last night."

"You would be, too. Cody and I were dating for six months. That's a long time, especially for it to end in all of two minutes."

He ran a hand through his hair, which was starting to grow out a little. "I'm sorry if I played any part in that."

"You did." The words popped out before I could stop them, but they were true. If Andrew hadn't given me my necklace, asked me to prom, or been so intent that I spend time with him at my party, then maybe it would be Cody standing here instead of him.

"You had some part in it, too, you know," Andrew said, crossing his arms. "Cody didn't break up with you just because he thought I was being a nuisance."

I opened my mouth to protest but he held up a hand. "Look," he said. "I'm not here to argue with you. It's actually the opposite. I came here to apologize if I did anything to make you angry, and to tell you that I'm backing off."

"Backing off?"

"Yeah. If you truly like Cody and want to get back together with him, then I'm not going to stand in your way. You mean a lot to me and that's partly because you're always so happy. If I'm the one preventing you from being happy then that defeats the purpose, doesn't it?"

I started in nod instinctively because once again, Andrew made everything sound like it made perfect sense.

"I'm not going to talk to you or call you," he said. "If you want to reach out to me, that's a different story. But I'm giving you your space until you choose otherwise."

I immediately started to protest but then refrained. Andrew was right: if I wanted a shot at earning Cody back, then he and I had to put a lot of distance between us. "What about prom?" I asked.

"I'll give you time to decide. It's up to you." He reached for the doorknob and twisted it, admitting a wave of spring Florida heat. "See you in school."

Then he was gone. The door shut behind him and I scurried to the window to watch him jog to his car. After a few more seconds he'd pulled out the driveway and disappeared.

I shut my eyes and took a deep breath, then headed inside the kitchen.

"Who was that?" Vanessa asked as she slid a pancake effortlessly onto a plate.

For some reason, I didn't want to tell her about Andrew. "Just a package," I managed, going back to stirring the batter with a little more force than strictly necessary.

"Really?" asked Mom. "I'm not expecting anything."

"Oh, it's probably that...book I ordered. I already took it up to my room."

"You don't read," scoffed Vanessa.

Shooting her a warning glare, I raised my voice so that I sounded lofty and certain. "Now I do," I announced. "The librarian, Mr. Reese, has been recommending some great books to me. He and I are friends now."

Vanessa snorted, but to her credit she didn't pry anymore. Instead she went to the fridge to take out the syrup and spread it over the pancakes.

"You girls don't have any plans today, right?" Mom asked as Vanessa handed me the syrup and I started dumping it on my plate of pancakes.

Vanessa wrinkled her nose at the way I was saturating my breakfast. "Nope."

"Good. We need to start packing up all some of the stuff in the living room and kitchen, and you can help. If three of us work we should be able to get it done a lot quicker."

I nodded, but I was still thinking about Andrew. He'd looked sorry and regretful, but also certain. I didn't doubt for a second that he'd stick to his word.

"Um, Quinn? Are you eating syrup with a side of pancakes?"

I glanced down at my plate and saw that my pancakes were now so soggy from the syrup that they were breaking apart. Quickly, I set down the bottle and brought the plate to the sink to dump out the excess. Vanessa rolled her eyes, but I also saw a hint of a smile.

After we ate, Mom lugged some giant boxes in from the garage and we began going through the kitchen cabinets. Most of our dishes we'd never used—I'd only ever eaten from the same set of plates, bowls, and silverware.

"Make sure you wrap everything in bubble wrap before you put it in the box," Mom said, putting a few rolls of tape on the tile next to us. "We don't want anything to break."

As I wrapped, I tried to focus just on the fact that I was putting plates in boxes. I didn't want to think about why I was doing this, or the fact that these plates would travel ten hours north in a moving van in just a few weeks. I told myself I was putting plates in boxes because they were going in storage, because we were donating them—anything besides that we were moving.

Macy trotted up to me, her nails clicking on the floor, and she put her head in my lap. I stroked her behind the ears, making her sigh contentedly, in between wrapping a bowl and a dinner plate.

"So Quinn," Mom said finally, as she sealed off one of the filled boxes with packing tape, "Vanessa said you and Cody broke up?"

I tightened my jaw. "Yeah. Last night."

"That seems like terrible timing," she said. "He could have at least been more courteous."

I wanted to agree with her, but the truth was I had been the one who wasn't courteous. Cody had put up with me long enough already: he had only done what he'd thought had been best for himself by breaking up with me.

We continued to pack up the kitchen for most of the morning and afternoon, stopping only to have sandwiches on paper plates around noon. Packing was a great distraction, and when we finished we had about six boxes stacked up and ready to be taken out to the garage.

"This is great," Mom said, clapping her hands together. "All we have left to do is my office, the living room, and your bedrooms."

I thought of my room—I still hadn't begun packing anything. But clearing out the kitchen had been so therapeutic; I wondered if emptying my bedroom would have the same effect.

"I'm actually going to do that now," I said, grabbing two of the still-empty boxes. Mom widened her eyes in surprise but didn't say anything as I lugged the boxes through the living room and up the stairs, with Macy bounding at my heels.

My room was a mess, despite my haphazard attempt to straighten it earlier in the morning. Textbooks and papers littered my desk, while clothes were strew all over the floor. I stepped over my blue party dress on my way to my bed, where I picked up my backpack and began throwing my school supplies inside.

"This is going to take forever," I told Macy as I finished shoving some pens inside my book bag. "Plus, I can't even pack it all yet. I still need half of this stuff."

Because I wouldn't need them for the next few weeks, I started on the shelf near my window. On it I had a collection of figurines and mementos I'd gathered over many years. A few of them had started to gather dust from where I'd slacked off cleaning; I ran over them with a paper towel before folding them into bubble wrap.

One by one, I loaded the music boxes, figurines, and photo frames into a box. Everything fit perfectly inside, and I labelled it with a black Sharpie I found on my desk before taping it shut. Now that I had one shelf clean, my room already looked a little emptier, but I found that I didn't mind.

After I finished all my shelves, including a rarely used bookshelf, I headed over to my bulletin board. On it I'd tacked photos, ticket stubs, and various scrapbook-worthy items from different events I'd attended. Starting with the invitation to my sweet sixteen, I started loading them into a shoebox.

A few items in, I untacked a series of photos Julia had taken of Cody and me at Homecoming. I'd looked so happy, and my purple dress had matched his tie perfectly. We were both grinning so wide our cheeks probably hurt, and he had his arm wrapped so tightly around my waist that I thought he'd never let me go. One by one I flipped through the photos, letting my heart ache as I reached the end. Then I set them gently in the shoebox and told myself to let go.

Vanessa poked her head inside of my room; she was holding a bowl of freshly cut fruit.

"I went to the farmer's market," she said, walking inside and setting the bowl down beside me. "Your room looks good."

Her gaze stopped at the photos on the top of the shoebox and she picked them up, thumbing through them. Then she glanced up at me, her eyes wide. "You guys looked so happy," she said softly.

"I know."

Carefully, she put the pictures back in the exact position she'd found them and sat down cross-legged on my area rug. "What are you going to do?"

Shrugging, I untacked a ticket stub for the movie Andrew and I had seen on our second date. "I really want him back," I said. "But I don't know if he wants to try again."

"You should at least make an effort. That way he knows you care."

I nodded and dropped the ticket into the shoebox. It was true that if I didn't do anything, Cody would probably think I didn't have a problem with him breaking up with me. He probably suspected that I'd be happy that I was free, and go date Andrew the first chance I got. That couldn't be farther from the truth.

"Eat some fruit," said Vanessa, scooting the bowl closer. I stooped to pick it up and took a bite of strawberry; it was super fresh. I let the flavor melt in my mouth before I chewed and swallowed.

While Vanessa sat beside me, I alternated between eating the fruit and emptying my scrapbook board. Occasionally we chatted for a minute on and off, but usually we sat in silence, thinking. I realized that with everything I took off of the board, a weight lifted off of my shoulders. Moving meant separating myself from these memories and not clinging to them so tightly. Maybe North Carolina would mean a fresh start.

"I wonder what our new school will be like," I said, untacking the last few things from the board.

"Nothing will ever beat Providence Prep."

I shut the lid on the shoebox firmly and then dropped it into one of the bigger brown boxes. "You're right. But maybe it'll come close, right?"

She didn't reply, and I watched her for a few seconds before I asked, "Are you going to miss Shane?"

"Heck no." When she saw how startled I was at her reply, she tossed some of her auburn hair over one shoulder and said, "He's an idiot. I can't believe I wasted all this time with him. North Carolina will have new boys to obsess over. I don't need to think about the one I'll be leaving behind."

"That's one way of looking at it."

"I would say you should look at it that way, too," she said, "But you can't. Andrew's coming with us, so it's like you'll never really be able to escape." Her eyes widened and she said, "Sorry. That was probably the wrong thing to say."

"Thanks for the reality check," I grumbled.

While she watched, I finished the last of the fruit, popping a few blueberries in my mouth. Then I looked around my room. I had a few odds and ends I could pack up and some drawers to empty before I'd stripped the room to the bare minimum. Then I still had to tackle my closet which, while not as big and full as Vanessa's, would still be a difficult task.

"When are you going to pack up your room?" I asked.

Rolling her eyes, she said, "I'll probably wait until the week before. I'm a pro now. I can have that room condensed down to a few boxes in two days flat."

It had never occurred to me that she'd moved often before coming to live with me. Now that I thought of it, she had lived with her mom for a period of time before moving in with her dad. And then she'd moved in with us for only a year before she was yanked away to Florida for her dad's new job.

The wedding was only in a few months, and I could feel the energy and excitement from Mom every time she sat down to look through bridal catalogs. For me, the wedding meant my whole world would be turned upside-down: I'd have a real dad again for the first time in forever, I'd move away to a brand-new state, and I'd have to adjust to living in a real family unit.

I didn't know that I was absolutely thrilled, but I couldn't deny that I'd appreciate a fresh start. After all, I definitely hadn't gotten my happily ever after here.