The Mistake(21)
“Anyway, I need to make a call,” I tell him. “Night, guys.”
I’m already pulling up Grace’s number as I dart out of the kitchen and head for the stairs. Texting isn’t an option. I want her to hear my voice. I want her to hear how agonized I am about everything that went down tonight.
To my frustration, the dial tone rings and rings and rings before switching over to voice mail.
The second time I call, it goes straight to voice mail, which tells me she most likely pressed the ignore button.
Crap.
With a crushing sense of defeat, I open a new message and shoot her a text asking if we could talk.
Then I go upstairs and wait.
14
Logan
It’s past midnight, and still no word from Grace. I’ve sent her three texts already, and now I’m lying on top of my bedspread, staring up at the ceiling and valiantly fighting the urge to send a fourth.
Three messages borders on desperation.
Four would just be pathetic.
Fuck, I wish she would text back. Or call. Or anything. At this point, I’d be thrilled if a carrier pigeon tapped its beak on my window and delivered a handwritten letter done in perfect calligraphy.
She’s not calling you, man. Deal with it.
Yeah, I guess she isn’t. I guess I really did blow it. And I guess I fucking deserve it.
I didn’t just lead her on—I led her right up to the point where she wanted to lose her virginity to me, and then I threw the offer back in her face and told her I was interested in someone else. Hell, I’m surprised I’m not experiencing random aches and pains in my body right now. You know, from the sharp needles Grace is poking into her voodoo doll.
My phone buzzes, and I hurl myself at the night table like an Olympic high jumper. She texted back. Oh, thank fuck. That means she doesn’t view me as the antichrist—
The message isn’t from Grace.
It comes from an unfamiliar number, and it takes me a solid ten seconds before I’m able to register what I’m reading. No, what I’m seething over.
Hey, this is Ramona. Just heard what happened with you and Grace. Need me to come over and comfort you? ;)
Winky face. She actually fucking winky-faced me.
I drop the phone as if it’s a hot coal. As if the message is contagious and the mere act of touching the device it came on will turn me into a person as contemptible as the one who wrote those words.
Why the hell is Grace’s best friend hitting on me? Who does that?
I’m so pissed off that I grab the phone and forward the message to Grace without stopping to question my actions. I add a caption—thought you should see this.
And then, since I’m already in this deep, I send another one that says, Can we please talk?
She doesn’t respond to either. Not now, and not by the time three in the morning rolls around, which is when I finally drag my pathetic ass under the covers and fall into a restless sleep.
*
Grace
I wake up at five-thirty in the morning. Not by choice, but because my traitorous mind decides it’s time for me to wallow in misery some more and forces me into consciousness.
The humiliation of last night slaps me in the face the moment I open my eyes. The clothes I was wearing are still strewn on the floor. I hadn’t bothered to pick them up, and neither had Ramona, who’d come home around midnight.
“Didn’t happen. He’s into someone else.”
That was all the information I gave her last night, and she must have seen the devastation on my face, because for once in her life, she didn’t nag me for details. She simply gave me a hug, a sympathetic squeeze on the arm, and climbed into bed.
Now she’s sleeping peacefully, her cheek pressed against her pillow, one arm flung across the mattress. Well, at least one of us is going to feel rested today.
Despite my better judgment, I check my phone. Sure enough, there are two unread messages flashing on the screen. Which brings the final tally to five.
Logan must really want to talk to me.
I guess guilt turns some guys into real chatterboxes.
A smart person would delete the messages without reading them. No, delete his number from the contact list. But I’m not feeling too smart right now. I feel stupid. So fucking stupid. For inviting him over last night. For developing feelings for him.
For reading the messages he keeps sendi—what the hell?
I blink. Once. Twice. Three and four and five times, but it doesn’t bring clarity to what I’m seeing.
Hey, this is Ramona. Just heard what happened with you and Grace. Need me to come over and comfort you? ;)
My head swings toward Ramona’s bed. She’s still out like a light. But that is unarguably her phone number next to the time stamp of the text. Twelve-sixteen a.m. Approximately twenty minutes after she’d gotten home last night.
I stare at her sleeping form, waiting for the fury to come. For my insides to clench and my blood to boil with a sense of white-hot betrayal.
But nothing happens. I’m…cold. And numb. And so frickin’ exhausted it feels like someone stuffed sand in my eyes.
My fingers tremble as I bring up the next message—Can we please talk?
No, we can’t. In fact, I don’t want to talk to anyone right now. Not Logan, and certainly not Ramona.
I suck an unsteady breath into my lungs. Then I stand up and creep toward the door. Stepping into the hall, I sag against the wall before sliding down to the floor and drawing my knees up. My phone rests on my knee, and I stare at it for several seconds before turning it over and accessing my contact list.
It might be too early to call my dad, but in Paris, my mom will be wide-awake and probably fixing lunch right now.
The numbness doesn’t go away as I dial her number. If anything, it gets worse. I can’t even feel my heart beating. Maybe it’s not. Maybe every goddamn part of me has shut down.
“Sweetie!” My mother’s overjoyed voice fills my ear. “What are you doing up so early?”
I swallow. “Hey, Mom. I…uh, have an early class.”
“You have class on Sundays?” She sounds confused.
“Oh. No, I don’t. I meant I have a study group.”
Crap, my eyes are starting to sting, and not because I’m tired. Damn it. So much for being numb—I’m seconds away from bursting into tears.
“Listen, I wanted to talk to you about my visit.” My throat closes up, and I take another breath hoping to loosen it. “I changed my mind about the dates. I want to come earlier.”
“You do?” she says in delight. “Oh yay! I’m so happy! But are you sure? You said you might have plans with your friends. I don’t want you to come early on my account.”
“The plans got canceled. And I want to come sooner, I really do.” I blink in rapid succession, trying to stop the tears from spilling over. “The sooner the better.”
15
Grace
May
People say springtime in Paris is magical.
They’re right.
The city has been my home for the past two weeks, and a part of me wishes I could stay here forever. Mom’s apartment is in an area referred to as “Old Paris.” The neighborhood is gorgeous—narrow, winding roads, old buildings, cute shops and bakeries at every corner. It’s also known as the city’s gay district, and her upstairs and downstairs neighbors are both gay couples, who’ve already taken us out for dinner twice since I got here.
The apartment only has one bedroom, but the pullout couch in the living room is pretty comfortable. I love waking up to the sunlight streaming in from the French doors of the small balcony overlooking the building’s inner courtyard. The faint traces of oil paint lingering in the room remind me of my childhood, back when my mother spent hours working in her studio. Over the years, she painted less and less, and she’s admitted on more than one occasion that the loss of her art was one of the reasons she divorced my father.
She felt like she’d lost touch with who she was. That being a housewife in small-town Massachusetts wasn’t what she’d been destined for. A few months after I turned sixteen, she sat me down and posed a serious question—would I rather have a mother who was miserable but close by, or happy and far away?
I told her I wanted her to be happy.
She’s happy in Paris, there’s no denying that. She laughs all the time, her smiles actually reach her eyes, and the dozens of bright canvases overflowing from the corner nook she’s using as her studio prove that she’s doing what she loves again.
“Morning!” Mom waltzes out of her bedroom and greets me in a voice that contains the joyous trill of a Disney princess.
“Morning,” I say groggily.
The room has an open floor plan, so I can see her every move as she wanders over to the kitchen counter. “Coffee?” she calls out.
“Yes, please.”
I sit up and stretch, yawning as I grab my phone from the coffee table to check the time. Mom doesn’t keep clocks in the house because she claims time weighs the mind down, but my OCD doesn’t allow me to ever relax unless I know what time it is.
Nine-thirty. I have no idea what she has planned for us today, but I hope it doesn’t involve too much walking because my feet are still sore from yesterday’s five-hour visit to the Louvre.
I’m about to set down the phone when it rings in my hand, and I’m annoyed to see Ramona’s name on the screen. It’s two-thirty in the morning in Massachusetts—doesn’t she have anything better to do than keep harassing me? You know, like sleeping.