Confession 1CONFESSION #1 When I was ten, I started putting confession strips into a box in my closet so that if anything happened to me, people would know that I was more than just the quiet girl who followed the rules. THE FIRST VALENTINE''S DAY When my alarm went off on Valentine''s Day, I was smiling. To start with, I actually had a boyfriend, and he wasn''t just a meh boyfriend, either. Josh was smart and handsome and arguably the most likely student at Hazelwood High to succeed in a big way. Every time we studied together and he put on his Ivy League tortoiseshell glasses, I swore that my heart actually folded over on itself, causing the sweet pinching feeling that shot warmth through each and every one of my nerve endings. In hindsight, that feeling was probably some sort of atrial defect caused by my steady diet of black coffee and energy drinks. But I didn''t know that yet. I pushed back the covers and climbed out of bed, ignoring the sound of Logan''s open-mouthed sleep-breathing from the other side of the mattress.
My three-year-old stepbrother liked to sneak into my room and sleep with me because he pretty much thought I was amazing. And he was right. Because as I walked over to where my planner sat open on my desk, I felt amazing. I hummed "Lover" as I put on my glasses and consulted the day''s list. To-Do List--February 14 Reorganize scholarship planning binder Study for Lit test Remind Mom to email copy of insurance card to office Remind Dad of parent-teacher conferences and make sure he puts it on his calendar Send email to internship adviser Exchange gifts with Josh Say "I love you" to Josh!!!!!!!!!!! I lingered on the last one, picking up my pen and doodling hearts around it. I''d never said those words romantically before, and since our three-month anniversary happened to fall on THE day, it was almost as if the universe had scheduled it for me. Filled with buzzy excitement, I went into the bathroom and turned on the shower. As I stuck my hand under the stream of water to test the temperature, I heard: "Em, are you almost done in there?" Ugh .
I rolled my eyes and stepped under the water. "I just got in here." "Joel needs to go potty." Lisa, my dad''s wife, sounded like her mouth was planted on the door. "Bad." "Can''t he go upstairs?" I poured shampoo into my hand and rubbed it on my head. I adored the twins, but living with toddlers sucked sometimes. "Your dad''s in there.
" Sighing, I said, "Give me two minutes." I rushed through the rest of the shower, refusing to let the disruption ruin my mood. After toweling off and throwing on my robe, I ran past Lisa and a squirmy Joel, back to my basement bedroom. I breezed through blowing out my too-curly hair--still humming love songs--before plugging in the iron and steaming out the pesky crease on the right sleeve of my dress. I knew my best friend, Chris, would roll his eyes and tell me I was being hyper-anal, but why leave the crease when it takes a mere two minutes to get it out? I got dressed and ran upstairs to scarf a protein bar before leaving for school. As I ripped open the wrapper, my eyes wandered over to the pie pan that was sitting beside the microwave like temptation incarnate. Yes, the leftover piece of French silk pie would taste amazing, I thought as a took a big bite of peanut butter and whey, but a slice of sugar and carbs was no way to start the day. I looked away from the chocolate dessert and focused on chewing the dry protein bar.
"Good Lord, slow down." My dad was sitting at the table, reading the paper and drinking coffee like he had every single day of my life. His hair was flame-red, the potent original to my watered-down coppery-brown version. He gave me a smart-ass smile and said, "No one here knows the Heimlich." "Isn''t that, like, a parental requirement or something? How do you and Lisa have kids and no Heimlich-ing skills?" He stared directly at my overfilled mouth. "We foolishly assumed our offspring wouldn''t suck down food like sows." "You know what happens when you assume, right?" "Yeah." He winked and went back to the paper.
"Someone''s an ass." "Oh, come on, you guys." Lisa came into the kitchen with Logan on one hip, Joel on the other. "Can we please not swear around the babies?" "They weren''t in here," I said through a mouthful of bar, "when he said it." "And technically," my dad said, throwing me another wink, "?''ass'' isn''t a bad word. It''s a donkey." I grinned while Lisa looked at me as if she wished I would disappear. I''d been splitting time between my mom''s and my dad''s since they divorced when I was in elementary school, but I was still just a nomad in the way.
At both of their houses. To be fair, Lisa wasn''t the stereotypical evil stepmother. She taught kindergarten, made my dad happy, and she was a really good mom to the boys. I just always felt like I was in her way. I grabbed my backpack and my car keys, threw out a goodbye, and ran for the door. The sun was bright even though the air was freezing, and we''d gotten a dusting of snow overnight, but it looked like my dad had already scraped my windows. I heard my phone from the depths of my bag, and pulled it out just in time to see that Chris was FaceTiming me. I answered and there were my two closest friends, smiling at me from in front of the red lockers of the junior hallway.
I smiled at my phone''s cracked screen, at my favorite faces in the whole world. Roxane had dark brown skin, cheekbones for days, and the kind of eyelashes that suburban moms tried to emulate with extensions, and Chris had heavy-lidded brown eyes, flawless porcelain skin, and curly black hair that stuck up in the most perfect way. If they weren''t genuinely amazing humans, it''d be hard not to hate them for their good looks. "You''re at school already?" I asked. "Yes, and guess what we just saw?" Chris asked, waggling his eyebrows. "I want to tell," Rox said, moving in front of him on the screen. "I saw, so I tell." Chris nudged her out of the way.
"Josh is already here and I saw him put a gift bag in his locker." I screeched and tiny-clapped before hopping into the old Astro van that my dad insisted "had character." "Big or small?" "Medium," Chris said, and then Rox chimed in with, "Which is good because too big just means a crappy stuffed animal, and too small means a coupon for free hugs. Medium is good. Medium is the dream." I laughed. Their enthusiasm made me happy because up until lately, they''d been anti-Josh. They said he acted like he was better than everyone else, but I knew it was only because they didn''t really know know him.
He was just so smart and confident that it was sometimes misconstrued as arrogance. Hopefully this meant that they were reconsidering their opinions. Rox''s boyfriend, Trey, popped up in the background and waved. I waved back before I ended the call, dropped the phone, started the van, and sped toward school. Finneas crooned sweetly out of the speakers, and I sang along at full volume to every single word of "Let''s Fall in Love for the Night." I couldn''t wait to see Josh. He''d refused to give me a hint as to what my present was, so I had no idea what to expect. Flowers? Jewelry? Even though it''d taken two full coffee shop paychecks, I bought him the Coach band he wanted for his watch.
Yes, I was broke now, but seeing his face light up when he opened it would make it worth it. My phone buzzed on the passenger seat and at the first red light I glanced over. Josh: Happy VD. Are you here yet? And what do you want first--poem or gift? Poem, definitely. I smiled, and the light turned to green. As I cruised through our suburban neighborhood, the song on the radio (my antiquated van didn''t even have Bluetooth capability) switched to something screamy and metal, so I started scanning for a tune worthy of the momentous day. Billy Joel? Nope . Green Day? Negative .
Adele? Hmmm. that might just work -- I glanced down at the dashboard to turn up the volume, then looked up just in time to see that the truck in front of me had stopped suddenly. I stood on the brake, but instead of stopping, my tires locked and I began sliding. Shit, shit, shit! There was nothing I could do. I slammed into the back of the truck. Hard. I braced myself for the car behind me to hit, but it thankfully stopped in time. Barely breathing, I looked through the windshield to see my hood was totally crumpled.
But the person driving the truck was stepping out, which hopefully meant they were okay. I grabbed my phone, opened the door, and got out to see the damage. "You were texting, weren''t you?" "What?" I looked up, and there was Nick Stark, my Chemistry lab partner. "Of course not!" His eyes dipped down to my hand, to my phone, and he raised an eyebrow. What were the odds that I would''ve hit someone I knew? And not just someone I knew, but someone who''d never really seemed to like me. I mean, technically he''d never been a jerk to me, but he hadn''t ever been friendly, either. On the first day of Chem, when I''d introduced myself, instead of saying Nice to meet you or I''m Nick, he''d just loo.