Love, Life, and the List(38)

"Are you in drama?" Nick/Colby asked.

"No. Art."

"Art. This is a good place for an artist to get inspired too," Kara said.

I looked around. Kara was right, this was a place that could inspire someone. Everything from the dusty pews to the statue of Mary up front glowed a soft yellow in the lantern's light. Muted evening sunlight tried to permeate the dirt-stained glass windows that bordered the room. An old piano sat up front, half of its white keys missing, creating the appearance of a gap-toothed smile. For the first time in a while my fingers itched for a paintbrush. Remembering the art show, and my poor outcome there, quickly took that feeling away. I shrugged. "Yeah, it's cool."

"Update," Lacey said, squeezing my arm, like she knew I was ready to be out of the spotlight. "I got a callback."

One of the girls shrieked and it echoed off the walls and sent dust showering on our heads.

Colby/Nick (the one who hadn't spoken yet) threw his arms over his head. "Lydia, come on. You want us to get caught?"

She covered her mouth with her hand. "Sorry. That's just so exciting. When do you go in? What part are you reading for?"

"Next week. And I'm reading for the lead girl."

Now they were all a clamor of voices and excitement.

I leaned over. "I'm sorry I didn't ask you. I've been too caught up in my own problems."

"It's okay, I understand."

"Congrats," I said. "That's really exciting."

"Thanks." She smiled, then put her hands up, and everyone went silent. "Okay. Let's get started. Everyone pick one object in this room, and you're going to tell its origin story."

I was going to be horrible at this game. Game? Is that what they called it? Exercise? Whatever its official title, it was not my strength. I picked the piano, since I'd already given it human character traits in my head, and told the story of a girl who got turned into a piano by an evil queen. They had tons of follow-up questions, like I had actually thought this through at all. Once I was done with my part, I was happy to listen to their much more creative stories about women frozen in time and benches made of gold and keys that unlocked portals. They were fully realized stories, with details and twists.

"Did you make that up just now?" I asked Lydia when she was done.

"Yes."

"How?"

"Practice, I guess."

It was more than the stories themselves that impressed me. It was the confident way they told them. Like they didn't care what anyone thought.

I wasn't sure how long we were there, but the shadows became more pronounced and the stained glass no longer shone at all when we stood and I dusted off my jeans. Lacey linked arms with me on the way out.

"Thanks for letting me come," I said.

"Anytime."

I was the fourth one to climb through the hole to the outside, and it took me a moment to realize that the three who had climbed out before me were staring at something in the distance. I thought maybe we'd been caught. That the cops had shown up and we were going to get hauled away for breaking and entering. Even though technically there was no breaking. Only entering. But it was worse than cops.                       
       
           



       

It was Cooper.

He held something I couldn't make out in his hand. A box with a handle of sorts.

My not-quite-weaned heart did a flip.

How had he known I was here? It took my brain two seconds to remember the stupid app on our phones-Find Your Friend. My phone had tattled on me. I needed to delete that app immediately.

Lacey had climbed out of the hole behind me, and she saw Cooper too. "Do you want me to tell him to go away? I'll go tell him right now."

"No, I'll talk to him."

She gave me a disbelieving look.

"No, really, I'm in no danger. I'm dead inside now."

Her disbelief turned into sympathy. "Come to my house when you're done, okay? We'll eat chocolate and watch a movie about killing boys. Is there a movie like that? We'll find one." She squeezed my arm. "Be strong."

I smiled, then watched as all my new friends got into their cars and drove away. My gaze went back to Cooper. Six days strong. I'd have to start the count over after this. I walked slowly until I stood ten feet away from him. There I stopped. I may have been stronger, but I didn't need to smell him too.

I could feel the grime on my hands and face from the building we'd just emerged from. I wondered if I was covered in dirt. Then I remembered I shouldn't care.

Cooper looked at the building behind me, and I knew he wanted to ask me what we had been doing in there. I could see it in his familiar questioning brow. He didn't ask. He held up the box in his hand-four glass bottles in a carrier.

"Chocolate milk," he said. "Chocolate milk makes everything better."

I nodded and swallowed. "It does."

"Permission to approach enemy lines," he said, holding out the box.

I sensed my old habit taking over-the one that wanted everything to go back to how it was. The one that wanted to patch things up and pretend everything was fine. I resisted. "Cooper. I can't do this."

"When?"

"I don't know. I need time. You're not giving me time."

"I gave you six days. That's a long time. I feel terrible. Do you think I wanted to miss your show? I didn't. I wanted to see it. You're my best friend in the world."

"I know you think you wanted to see it. But the thing is, Cooper, when you truly want to do something, you do it. It's that simple."

"I got the days mixed up."

"Exactly."

"You're not going to forgive me." He said it as a statement.

"I don't know. Maybe. I need time."

"Time for what?"

"To stop loving you, Cooper," I blurted out. "To get over you. To change."

His eyebrows dipped down, but so did his chin.

My breathing was shallow, my cheeks red, but he didn't say anything. "You remember that night on the beach a year ago?"

"I remember."

"The night I told you I loved you and then played it off as a joke." I realized, as I stared at him, holding those chocolate milk bottles and looking at the sidewalk, that he knew it hadn't been a joke all along.

"I wish you would've told me that you knew a year ago. Then maybe all of this would be resolved by now. I put myself out there and you let me take it back so easily."

I hadn't been angry that day, or even in the year since, at how that all played out. I had been more embarrassed and hurt. Now I was angry. For the last year he knew, and he hadn't even given me the courtesy to talk it through with me, to let me explain or tell him why we should be together or why I loved him. He basically blew it off. Dismissed my feelings.

Tears drained down my face now as I stared at him. I felt all the hate and resentment draining out with them.

"I . . . I don't know what to say," he said. "I can tell you I was a jerk again. I can tell you I handled that all wrong."

I don't know what I hoped would happen once the truth was finally out there. In the very corner of my brain, I hoped that this was when he realized he actually did love me. That the horror I'd seen on his face that night at the beach was because it was surprising, not because it wasn't reciprocated. That his feelings had grown over this year. That being without me this week was so hard for him that he realized he must love me. But that wasn't going to happen.

"Cooper. I'm letting go. I have to let you go, regardless of how much that scares me."

I watched his Adam's apple bob with a hard swallow. He gave a single nod, then set the box of chocolate milk on the ground in front of him and took a wobbly step back.

I held my ground. I held it while he walked away backward, not breaking eye contact with me the whole time. I held it when he climbed into his car and the engine roared to life. I even stayed perfectly still while he backed out of his parking spot and drove away. When his car disappeared around the corner, I sank to the ground.                       
       
           



       





THIRTY-FOUR


I showed up on Lacey's doorstep. I hated to bring her down after the good news that she'd delivered earlier, so I tried my best to plaster a smile on my face.

"Oh, please," she said. "I saw you try out for a play. You're not a very good actress."

I hiccuped out a laugh and she pulled me inside.

"You have chocolate milk," she said. "Wait, is that what Cooper was holding? Four quarts of chocolate milk?"

I nodded. "Chocolate milk makes everything better."

She swiped the carrier from me and took it to the sink. I thought she was going to pull out some glasses right then, but instead she uncapped a bottle and began pouring it down the drain.

I gasped. "Lacey, that's like liquid gold."

"It's like liquid poison. We are purging ourselves of Cooper." The empty bottle clanked on the counter, and she got the next one and began pouring.

"Can we at least deliver it to needy children?"

"Do you hear that?" she asked. We went quiet and the glug glug sound of large amounts of liquid making its way through a small opening rang out.