Bitter End Page 9

  “So, Beth,” he said, diverting his attention away from Cole, “what’re we looking at here?”

  “I think we’re looking at summer,” she said. “Agreed?”

  “Agreed,” I said.

  “Nope,” Zack said. “Not agreed. I want to ski.”

  “Maybe we can find some place to water-ski,” I said. “Beth? Is there a lake somewhere?”

  “Um,” she said, flipping through the notebook. “I don’t know….”

  “No ski, no trip,” Zack said. He stomped his foot under the table. “The man,” he announced in a Ricky Ricardo voice, “has put his foot down, Lucy!”

  “We could always tie you to the back of the RV on a pair of Rollerblades,” I suggested.

  Bethany laughed. “Yeah. I hear the skiing on I-70’s great.”

  “Har-har, you guys are so funny,” Zack said. “As it happens, I am a god on Rollerblades. I’d tear it up.”

  “Since when are you a god on Rollerblades?” I asked, while at the same time Bethany declared, “I’ve never seen you on Rollerblades in your life.” And then we all started talking over one another. Zack threw a piece of breadstick at my hair. Bethany tossed a napkin in Zack’s drink. The usual.

  “Actually,” Cole said, and everyone got quiet, “I don’t know if they still do it, but there used to be some places out there where you can ride these slides down old ski runs in the summer. My uncle Ben took me once when I was a kid. It was a blast.”

  We all looked at one another.

  “That sounds fun,” Bethany said.

  I nodded. “Definitely.”

  “You know, Big C,” Zack said, “that’s not such a bad idea. Alex, maybe you should keep this guy after all.”

  I felt Cole stiffen beside me, but I tried not to react. Zack was just being… Zack. And after a few seconds, I felt Cole relax. Maybe, I thought. Just maybe I could eventually get these two to get along.

  “I plan to,” I said, snuggling up under Cole’s arm.

  “So, this RV,” Cole said. “How many does it sleep?”

  Bethany’s head whipped up. “We haven’t really decided on an RV yet,” she practically whispered.

  Cole nodded.

  “What’re you thinking?” I asked, turning so I could see his face, but I was slouched too low.

  He shrugged. “Not really thinking anything. Just curious. But… Bethany, would you mind passing on all the stuff you do know? A summer getaway might be kind of fun.”

  “Um, sure,” Bethany said, her thumb picking at the corner of a piece of paper, bending it up. “I’ll get it to you next time I see you.”

  By the time we left Shubb’s, I was grinning so hard my cheeks hurt. The idea of Cole going to Colorado with us made me feel even more excited about the trip. Like he belonged there.

  Better than that, it seemed like finally everyone was getting along. Maybe this would work out after all.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Cole was waiting for me in the back booth, like always. Ever since our date at the movies, every night that I worked, Cole would come in, order a coffee, scoot into the back booth, and do his homework while waiting for me. He sat there for hours. Sometimes he would just stare at me. Every now and then, when I looked up from the register, he would wink or blow a kiss at me. It was the most romantic thing I’d ever seen in my life.

  “Doesn’t he have any friends?” Georgia asked one night when Cole got up at closing and sauntered out to his car, where he would wait for me until I was finished with cleanup.

  “Yeah, but they’re all doing their own thing. He’s new, remember? They’ve all known one another for years. Probably once basketball starts, he won’t be here anymore. I think it’s romantic.”

  Georgia nodded. “And creepy,” she added.

  I tossed a paper clip at her. “It’s not creepy.”

  She shrugged and bent over to retrieve the clip. “All I know is if someone was just sitting there staring at me all night every night, I’d be a little creeped out.”

  “It’s sweet,” I said.

  “I haven’t seen those friends of yours around here much lately,” she said.

  “I know,” I said. “We’ve all been busy.” But the truth was, I was the only one too busy. Bethany and Zack were still hanging out like always, but I’d found myself begging off more and more often, hoping they understood and knowing they probably didn’t. Cole kept me busy after work on the days I did work, all afternoon on the days I didn’t, and pretty much every weekend. He had even started meeting me at my locker between most classes, which meant Bethany and Zack and I didn’t even have that short time to catch up every day. And I couldn’t be sure, but I thought maybe they were avoiding The Bread Bowl because they knew Cole would be there.

  I’d begun to see Bethany’s car at Zack’s house pretty often. They’d text me and ask me to come over, but it was never a good time. I felt torn, but the fact was I wanted to be with Cole. I was really his only friend, and I could hardly complain that such an amazing guy was making me too much the center of his universe. Plus, even though we hadn’t gotten to the “L” word yet, I’d begun to suspect I was falling in love with Cole. And when you fell in love with someone, wasn’t that person supposed to be your best friend, too?

  After Cole made the trip suggestion at Shubb’s, I thought we would all start hanging out together. And at first I really tried to make it happen. But it seemed like Cole irritated Zack just by being there, and Bethany, feeling caught in the middle, would uneasily just slip away. After a couple days of everyone feeling awkward, they began staying at my locker only until Cole got there. Then they stopped coming altogether.

  “Well,” Georgia said, “I miss that cute boy. He’s always full of it when he comes in here.”

  “Zack? Yeah. He’s always full of it, period.” I smiled just thinking about it, all the crazy things Zack did over the years just to get a laugh out of Bethany and me. I kind of missed him. I made a mental note to go to his house and hang out for a few minutes.

  “It’s cool you have friends that close,” Georgia said, closing up the safe. She sat up straight and then stretched way back over the top of her chair. “We’re done, chickie,” she said over a yawn. “Drive safe! And tell that Zack to come in sometime.”

  “Okay, Gee, I will,” I said, clocking out and taking off my apron.

  I pushed through the doors and looked down the parking lot. Cole was getting out of his car. I jogged to him and wrapped myself around him, breathing in his scent.

  “Mmm, you smell good,” I said. “I wish I didn’t have to go.”

  He pulled me back to arm’s length. “You don’t,” he said. “Get in. I have something for you.”

  “Okay,” I said. “But just for a minute. You have to bring me back to my car. I need to stop by Zack’s tonight.”

  Cole opened his door and I ducked in, crawling across to the passenger seat. He got in behind me and started the car.

  “Why do you have to go to Zack’s?” he asked.

  I wadded up my apron and tossed it and my visor into the backseat. “Just to say hi,” I said. “I kind of miss him.”

  Cole made a noncommittal humming noise and turned on the radio. We drove a few miles, jamming while I pulled out my hair tie and hung my arm out the open window, trying to blow away the scent of potato soup and yeast that always clung to me after a shift.

  After a while, Cole pulled into a parking lot and turned off the car. I peered out the window. We were at McElhaney Park, the baseball diamonds where Zack played all of his Little League games and Bethany and I gossiped about who we had crushes on over by the tire swings.

  Cole swung himself out of the car and loped over to the playground. He stood, looking out over the play equipment, kicking the railroad ties that fenced it in. I followed him curiously.

  “The merry-go-round!” I exclaimed, jumping up over the railroad ties and rushing to it. I hopped up onto the rusty metal platform and stood in the middle, just the way Bethany and
I used to do when we were feeling like daredevils. “Push me, Cole!”

  He looked up. I motioned for him to come over. He stepped up over the railroad ties and moved slowly toward me. I towered over him, my hands planted on my hips.

  “Check it. No hands,” I said.

  He cocked his jaw to one side and leaned over, grabbing the metal bars and giving the merry-go-round a healthy shove. I squealed, the muscles in my legs and back tensing as I tried to keep my balance. The world began to spin away from me faster and faster, until everything was a blur, just like I remembered it. Bethany and I used to take turns, see who would wimp out and grab on to the bars first. I always won.

  I laughed, straightening up and holding my arms up in a V toward the sky. “See? I told you, I’m the spinmaster!” I yelled.

  “Really?” Cole said, somewhere near me. “How fast do you think you can take it, spinmaster?”

  “Fast as you can give it, baby!” I laughed, and the merry-go-round lurched underneath me again. “Whoa!” I shouted, bending my knees again and holding my arms out in front of me for balance. “That’s fast!”

  The merry-go-round lurched again. And again. I could hear Cole letting out grunts of effort, he was pushing it so hard. And the world spun around me faster and faster, till everything was a dizzying darkness. I could no longer make out the lights of the parking lot, much less figure out where I was in relation to it.

  Cole grunted and the merry-go-round spun faster. My right foot slipped a few inches toward the edge. My arms wheeled as I tried to keep my balance. I tried to look down, to find the handles, but I was too disoriented. The world started rocking up and down, as if I was on a ship in a storm.

  “Cole,” I said, my hands groping in front of me. “Stop. It’s too fast.”

  But Cole only grunted and the merry-go-round lurched again. Again, my foot slipped and my arms spun wildly in front of me.

  “Stop!” I said, louder this time. “Really! It’s too fast!”

  But if Cole heard me, he was ignoring me. My feet kept slipping backward, and I knew that soon they would have no purchase left.

  “Cole, stop!” I yelled, the wind pulling tears from my eyes and across my temples. “I’m gonna fall!”

  I felt a bar hit my hip. I was lurching side to side now. I tried to grab the bar with my hands, but I was too confused to find it, even though it had just been there.

  “Cole,” I whimpered. “Stop.” But by then it was too late. My shoes were slipping across the slick metal, and I knew I had to do something if I wasn’t going to get hurt.

  I dropped down on my knees and groped with my arms until I found a bar, then wrapped them around the bar tightly and let my legs slip out behind me. Almost immediately, the toe of my shoe caught the playground wood chips and I dug in, crying out when my arms jerked hard to the crook at the end of the bar. The merry-go-round slowed down, and my legs collided with Cole’s.

  “You fell off, spinmaster,” he teased, an edge in his voice. I’d stopped, but Cole didn’t make any move to help me up. I bent my knees into the wood chips and slackened my grip on the handle, resting my forehead against the cool metal while I caught my breath.

  “It’s not funny, Cole,” I snapped.

  He laughed harder. “God, Alex. Don’t be whiny,” he said, jostling me with his knee. Then he clucked his tongue disgustedly. “Would it have been funny if it was Zack pushing you?”

  I pulled up onto my elbows and wiped my eyes. “No,” I fumed, looking up at him angrily. “I was yelling at you. Why didn’t you stop?” I held myself from asking the next question: Were you trying to get me hurt?

  “Oh, come on, Alex,” he said. I felt the merry-go-round shift as he sat down on it in the slot next to me. He reached through the bars and pulled my hair out of my face. He put his hand under my chin and lifted it up so I was looking at him. “I wasn’t going to let you get hurt.”

  I glared at him.

  But the more I narrowed my eyes at him, the softer his face got. He stroked a thumb over my cheek. “I love you.”

  At that moment, it was like nothing else mattered. In an instant, all of my anger melted away under his touch. Cole’s eyes had an intensity about them that I’d never seen before—as though he was admiring something precious, something he couldn’t comprehend. His face was filled with tenderness and somehow managed to glow in the dusk. Had my heart not already been pumping furiously, it would have started just then. He’d never told me he loved me before.

  Nobody had ever told me they loved me before.

  I was struck with a memory of once when I was a little girl, asking my dad if he and Mom fell in “love at first sight.” We were in the garage, where I’d been helping him fix the car. He had been twisting some car part around and around under a towel in his hands, and had stopped and kind of stared out into space for a second. Then he jerked back into motion really quickly and snapped, “Alex, I don’t have time for… Hand me that wrench,” and shoved his head back under the hood of the car he was working on, case closed.

  So later, over the dishes, I’d asked Shannin if she believed in love at first sight, and she’d looked me right in the eye and said, “No. Because you only truly love your soul mate, and since your soul mate is the other half of you… you’ve seen ’em before, you know, in heaven.”

  I’d thought about what she said long and hard, trying to make sense of it all. Meeting up in heaven, as though heaven is one big junior high mixer or something. Shannin’s explanation of love at first sight and soul mates and heaven made no sense to me whatsoever.

  Until now.

  Suddenly it didn’t matter anymore that he didn’t stop pushing me on the merry-go-round. It didn’t matter that he was irritated about Zack. It didn’t matter that he’d scared me and said I was whiny. He loved me. Now I knew that much for a fact. And I loved him, too.

  For an agonizing few minutes, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to answer him. I could smell his cologne. I could see the muscles in his jaw working anxiously, earnestly. I could feel his hand warm against my chin. Pinch me, I wanted to say. Make sure I’m not dreaming this. Wake me up now before this goes any further.

  But instead, Cole’s hand found mine and he pulled upward. I stood up, my eyes never leaving his. He scooted back on the merry-go-round and I sat on his lap, feeling tingly and like… well, like this kind of moment just doesn’t happen in real life. Not to ordinary girls like me.

  “I have something for you,” he said. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small stuffed bear, fuzzy and white, wearing a red shirt that said “I YOU.” He handed it to me. “It’s our one-month anniversary,” he said.

  “It’s so cute,” I whispered, finally finding my voice. I pressed the bear to my chin. “I love you, too,” I said, wrapping my arms around his neck. A sentence I’d never uttered before, not to Dad or Celia or Shannin. Not to Aunt Jules. Not even to Zack and Bethany.

  “Don’t go to Zack’s tonight,” Cole whispered into my neck.

  “No way,” I whispered back. “It’s our anniversary.”

  “Happy anniversary, spinmaster,” Cole said.

  “Happy anniversary,” I said back.

  We kissed, Cole’s feet working the wood chips, pushing the merry-go-round, and spinning us lazily through the night air. And even though we’d kissed before, this one felt different somehow. There was something more behind it. He pushed a lock of my hair back behind my ear, and then we kissed some more, the little bear pressed between our hands, and I knew right then that this was what I’d been looking for my whole life. I wanted this. And I wanted it to be perfect. Untouchable. No fires, no cackling, no rushing off to the mountains.

  What Cole and I had would be like the happy photos in that box under my bed. Only what we had would be so much better.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Celia and I sat at the kitchen table, papers spread out in front of us, the phone in the middle of the table set to “speaker.” Dad was at work, and we made Shannin skip her
afternoon sociology class so we could talk to her about the party.

  “I’ll be in charge of the cake,” I said. “Chocolate on chocolate, with ‘Happy Fiftieth Birthday, Michael,’ right?”

  “Yeah,” Shannin’s voice rang out over the speaker. “And, Celia, you’re calling the grandmas, right?”

  “Already did it,” Celia said, leaning over the phone. “And Aunt Jules knows. She’s doing some calling, too.”

  “What about food?” I asked, rubbing my temples. We’d been at this for an hour, and I was ready to be done with it. I had better parties to think about. Like the one at the lake shelter tonight that I’d gotten off work to go to, for instance. “How’re we gonna get food here without Dad knowing it?”

  “I’m still working on that,” Shannin said. “But I’m pretty sure if Celia asks the grandmas, they’ll take care of it. Grandma Shirley lives for that kind of thing.”

  “I’ll ask,” Celia said.

  I rifled through some papers. “Well, then, I think we’ve talked about everything.”

  “Yeah,” Shannin said over the phone. “I think we’ve got it all done. And with plenty of time to spare. We’re in good shape.”

  I shot an I-told-you-so look at Celia, who glared at me. She leaned over the phone. “You sure you don’t want to go over it again? Just, you know, in case?”

  “No, I think I can still make my last class if I go now,” Shannin answered. “We’re good, Ceel. We’ll talk again before I come home, okay? You can calm down about it now.”

  “Great,” I answered, before Celia could say anything. “Talk to you later, Shan. Bye!”

  Celia gave me a wounded look and snatched up the handset before Shannin could hang up. While she said her good-byes to Shannin, I gathered together the papers, took them to my room, and hid them in my desk drawer under my Colorado paperwork.

  I felt a pang of guilt. It’d been weeks since our last Vacay Day, the one when Cole walked in on Zack tickling me. I knew Bethany and Zack were taking it personally, but it wasn’t on purpose or anything. It was just that, between work and homework and making Celia happy with planning Dad’s party, I barely had time to do anything else. Plus, Cole had made the basketball team and was busy with practice almost every afternoon. I barely had time to talk to Cole, and they couldn’t expect me to blow off my boyfriend just to talk to them, could they? It wasn’t my fault Zack hated Cole for no reason. He shut himself out, if you asked me.