I hit the gas again, hard. I don’t know how I let this happen. How I let a real chance with him pass me right by. Especially now, with the end of school so close. I thought I liked the idea of possibility always floating there between us, but it’s going to disappear soon, with graduation. I’ll leave for school in the fall, and he’ll head off to snowboard around the world, and the possibility that was there will dissolve into nothing without ever having a chance.
The next light is already red, and though I’m almost mad enough to sail right through the empty intersection, I slow down and come to a complete stop. And in that pause, when I finally take a breath, I know how I let this happen. I know exactly how. I did what I always do—deny and avoid and chicken out because I was scared of what might come next if I actually took a chance. A knot of regret tightens in my stomach, and frustration at myself and my continual inability to just do things. To just take risks or chances. Maybe if I had the words CARPE DIEM tattooed on my wrist I’d be different. Or WWKD—What Would Kat Do? That’d be a good one.
Ugh. It’s too much to think about on top of the journal and Julianna, so I try not to. Instead, I turn the music up loud enough to drown everything out and drive the rest of the way to her house trying to sing along, even though I don’t know the words to the song. By the time I pull into Kat’s driveway, I’ve almost managed to focus all of my anger on the part about her showing him the journal and inviting him on our trip instead of on the other stuff that I don’t want to think about right now, because being mad instead of hurt makes me feel a little stronger when I get out of the car.
Unfortunately, that strength lasts exactly the two seconds it takes for me to see Kat and Trevor in her living room window. They’re sitting next to each other on the beige sofa. Close. She’s smiling and talking away, and he’s smiling too, eating up every second of it, I can tell. I know how her particular brand of charm works, and I’m sure he’s just as helpless against it as every other male who comes into contact with her. I feel my jaw tighten, and have to fight the strong urge to just go home and leave them to their impulsive hook-up. But there’s the journal I need to get back, at the very least.
It’s this fact that forces my feet up the stairs of her front porch. I try to relax my face and concentrate on acting breezy and unaffected by Kat or Trevor or what might happen between the two of them. It’ll be easy, I tell myself. I don’t care anyway. He’s a bad idea that I’ve said no to more than once. One who, if we actually went through with this trip, I’d be spending three days with, in a car, watching fall for my best friend.
My own tragic, unrequited love story.
I waver at the top stair. This plan gets worse every time I think about it, and with every second that passes, I’m more sure I can’t go through with it. The conviction I felt after seeing the painting seems distant all of a sudden—like some dreamy, romantic notion that shouldn’t have been more than a fleeting thought. Believing in anything more than that is likely a huge mistake—just like taking the journal and getting so caught up in it that I’ve ignored everything about my real life, including my speech.
The reality of it smacks me in the chest and spreads out heavy over my shoulders. The scholarship dinner, the night that could impact my whole future, is in four days, and I haven’t written a single word of the speech that literally everything I’ve worked for depends on. I don’t know what I was thinking. Taking a trip right now is not even a possibility for me, and that’s what I need to tell Kat, as soon as I walk through the door.
“Hey,” she chirps, when I open it. She jumps up from the couch in what seems like a suspiciously quick way to me, and I try to ignore all of the reasons my mind throws out as to why.
“Hey,” I answer back. Grudgingly. I don’t look at Trevor, not because I don’t want to, but because now it feels like I can’t without being completely transparent. I can feel disappointment etched onto my face.
I keep my eyes steady on Kat. “Listen. I was thinking on the way over here—this whole trip thing is a bad idea.” I pause, and she gives Trevor a look. “It’s stupid to think Julianna could still be alive somewhere. Or that she did that painting. Or that we could actually find her. I don’t know what I was thinking. I got all excited reading her journal and—it was just . . . I wasn’t thinking.”
I pause again to give them a chance to agree, but they don’t. I clear my throat. “And there’s no way I could possibly go, anyway. I haven’t even started my speech.”
I can see Kat’s trying to hide a smile, and the effort of it makes her look like she’s about to burst. “What?” I ask, and it comes out sounding as frustrated as I feel.
“Really? You have to write your speech? Is that the best you can do? What you just said there?”
“I don’t need to do any better than that,” I snap. “It’s important.” Trevor shifts on the sofa and I soften my tone, not wanting to make him uncomfortable. “And I’d never get away with it anyway. It was a stupid idea. I’m embarrassed that I even came up with it in the first place.” I glance in his direction, but keep my eyes on the floor, because that wasn’t the only stupid idea I’ve had in the last few days.
Trevor nods slowly, taking a step toward me. “Hm. That’s too bad, Frost. Because we found something in the art supply closet that might change your mind.” This gets me. I look up at him. He smiles, and grabs something from behind the couch, stands up, and holds it behind his back. Then he moves in closer to me than he was before. “Something you might wanna see.”