Autumn's Wish (21 page)

We make the holiday a bigger affair than last year, since Mom decides to have her friend Amanda and a bunch of the other Catches Falls workers and volunteers over. That means the whole weekend and days leading up to the holiday are a giant whirl. We clean the house, make song mixes, make list after list of everything we want to serve, shop…it's crazy. Mom loves it, though. I keep an eye on her, just to make sure she's not upset about Glen, but she seems completely carefree.

She, Erick, and I all go to Century Acres together to pick up Eddy. She's waiting in her favorite lobby chair but leaps up when we walk in. She races over to me in quick shuffling steps, then loses her balance and screams as she pinwheels her arms.

Alarms sound in my head. I thought I'd changed the future, but it's Thanksgiving and she's going to fall and break her hip! I run to catch her…

…which is when she stands up straight and smirks at me. “Gotcha.”

“Eddy!” I shout.

“What? I gave you something else to be thankful for,” she says. She takes my arm, and as we walk to the car she adds, “Oh, you just missed your boyfriend. Kyler just picked up Zelda. He's taking her on a private jet to the Keys. Any chance we're doing the same?”

We're not, but it's still a great meal, and it's fun having the house full. I Skype Jenna in on the festivities for a while, so it's like she's there, and Eddy goes crazy for the empanadas I made with Mrs. Leibowitz's recipe. We do that goofy thing where we all go around and say what we're thankful for, and I list my friends, and Eddy, and Mom, and Erick. And when I add, “And Dad, because I'll always be thankful for him for as long as I live,” Mom reaches over and squeezes my hand while Eddy winks.

That night, though, after Mom runs Eddy home and is hanging out back with all her friends and Erick has retreated to his faux man cave, I get sad. This time last year I started going out with J.J. Yes, it was all messed up and I ruined it all, but that's not the part I think about. I think about the road trip we took when I was devastated about Sean and he wanted to make me feel better. How he drove me all through Florida, taking me to taste the wildest, greasiest, bizarre-est foods at these random places he'd looked up just because he knew we'd have fun trying them. I remember how we put on new personas at each restaurant, just to mess with everyone around us.

It's like I told Mom when I was talking her out of Glen. When you have someone who makes you laugh and is romantic and surprises you and makes you come alive and be happier just because you're together…why would you want anything else?

Once I thought I did. Now I know better.

I wonder if there's any chance he's feeling nostalgic too.

I could call him, but that's not as much fun. I'd rather surprise him. Just show up on his doorstep. I run upstairs and toss on distressed denim shorts and a patterned tank. Something very cute but casual enough that I can claim the visit as spur of the moment. I brush out my hair, add product, a little makeup, and cute sandals and slip my phone in my back pocket and I'm ready. I shout out to Mom and her friends that I'm going for a walk, and then I'm out the door.

J.J.'s only a few blocks away, but my heart's racing like I'm running a marathon. I have all these images of how he'll come to the door, surprised for a moment. Then he'll shake his head and say, “Amazing”—only he'll say some kind of anagram for the word. And when I ask why, he'll smile and say, “Because I was just thinking about you.” And I'll say, “I was thinking about you too.” Then we'll have that nervous excited smile thing for a while, and his parents will call out asking who it is and J.J. will be all embarrassed and answer but say he'll be right back and then he'll come outside and we'll talk in the moonlight until he leans down and—

I hear the shouting when I'm in front of his next-door neighbor's house. Apparently, J.J.'s already in his front yard with someone. And they're not happy.

“It was a
mistake
!” a girl wails.

Carrie.
Carrie
wails.

Carrie made a mistake?

I perk up. This could be very good. I want to listen closer. I want to
see
what's happening, but I can't just stroll out in front of the house. They'll see me and they'll stop and I won't learn anything. I walk onto the neighbor's front lawn and sidle up to the hedges that separate it from J.J.'s. I gently push my way into the plants until I'm right in the middle. I'm covered, but I can see J.J. and Carrie through some leaves. They're lit up by the outside house lights, so I can see he looks hurt and furious. She looks like she's been crying.

“How is that a ‘mistake'?” J.J. asks. “You, what, tripped and fell and he caught you with his lips?!”

“That's not funny,” Carrie says sulkily.

“No, it's not. Know what else isn't funny?” J.J. pulls out his phone and holds it out to Carrie like it's a crucifix and she's a vampire. It has the same effect too—she shies away and won't look. “It's not funny when Keith Hamilton sends me a selfie of the two of you kissing.”

“He wasn't supposed to do that,” she snaps.

“Why, because you didn't want to get caught?!” J.J. explodes. “He also said you two have been dating behind my back ever since the Halloween dance! Is that true?!”

I hear his voice crack on the last question, and it breaks my heart. I don't want him with Carrie, I'll admit it, but it's awful to hear him hurt like this.

“I didn't know what I wanted,” Carrie says softly. “I needed time to figure it out.”

“Have you figured it out
yet
?” J.J. asks.

Carrie doesn't answer. She just looks at him, her eyes big and sad. It's a complete standoff…

…which is when I get bitten by the world's largest mosquito.

“OW!” I shout without thinking, slapping at my neck.

Carrie and J.J. both look my way. I freeze, hoping they'll decide it was their imagination.

They don't. They both walk right toward me. I love my bright orange hair, but I realize this is one time when it's not really working in my favor.

“Autumn?” J.J. asks.

I'd like to say he intoned the word with surprise and excitement, but it's more like horrified disgust.

“Are you kidding me?” Carrie yelps. “Are you
spying
on us?”

She reaches into the bushes, yanks my arm, and drags me out, scraping me through about a million sharp branches.

“Ow! Ow! Ow!”

“What are you doing here?” Carrie snaps.

I look back and forth between Carrie and J.J. They both look furious. I decide to go with the truth.

“I just came by to say hi,” I tell J.J. Then I add to Carrie, “I had no idea you were here, I swear. But then I heard you guys fighting and—”

“You decided to hide and watch?” Carrie spits.

When she says it that way, the truth isn't really so flattering. Time to redirect.

“Hey,” I tell J.J., “I'm not the one who cheated on you.”

“Yeah, you are,” J.J. says stonily. “Just not this time.”

For a second I wonder if it's worth clarifying that while I may have
emotionally
cheated on him last year, Carrie actually had a full-on relationship behind his back.

Looking at his face, though, I decide to keep that detail to myself.

“Go home,” J.J. says. “Both of you. And do me a favor and stay there.”

He turns and walks into his house, shutting the door behind him. Carrie shouts his name and runs after him. She twists on the locked doorknob and pounds on the door. I don't do any of that. It's Thanksgiving. His family's inside. And he made it pretty clear it's the last thing he wants. I walk away and go home.

“I thought you spoke Spanish!” Ames screams into my ear the next morning. “What part of
que sera sera
do you not understand?”

I can't even begin to answer that question, but I assure her I don't want to talk about it. I'd love to go to a movie or something, but she promised the day to J.J., and I'm clearly not welcome to come along. It's okay, though. I spend it with Mom and Erick and I do some homework, and then hang with Ames over the weekend. We even get to see Taylor because Drew's out of town with his family. She is completely smitten with him, and I specifically ramp up a game of Would You Rather so I can ask, “Would you rather have the love of a lifetime, even if it's doomed to end tragically, or a love that's just okay, but you know it will last forever?”

It doesn't really work. Taylor thinks I'm talking about my mom and dad, Ames thinks I'm talking about myself and J.J., and it leads the conversation into all kinds of different places that have nothing to do with the fact that Taylor's boyfriend seems to be a ticking time bomb.

When we get back to school on Monday, I kind of expect our lunch group to be back to normal. Yes, J.J.'s upset with me, but he's tight with Amalita, and Jack always follows him. But neither of them joins us at lunch.

“You won't see him,” Ames says when she sees me looking around for J.J. “He's in a bad place. Kinda wants to be by himself.”

I get it. I do. But the thing is, I know I can make it better, and it makes me crazy that he won't let me.

“I see a Lloyd Dobler moment in your future,” Jenna says when I talk to her about it after school one night. Jenna has always had a huge thing for '80s teen movies, and when we both lived in Maryland, we watched them all. She's always been a big J.J. fan because she thinks he's my Duckie.

“The
Say Anything
guy?” I ask.

“Really?” Jenna shoots back, insulted. “You seriously had to ask? Of course he's the
Say Anything
guy. You have to do something like he did. Make a statement that reminds J.J. of everything you guys have.”

Lloyd Dobler made his statement by holding a giant boom box above his head and playing Peter Gabriel's “In Your Eyes” to his girlfriend, Diane Court. Giant boom boxes no longer exist, I would look ridiculous holding one over my head, and I happen to know that J.J. Austin is not a Peter Gabriel fan.

He's also not a Kyler Leeds fan, but there is that song Kyler wrote that's literally all about J.J. and me. I have it on my phone. And I even have a Bluetooth speaker that would be way easier to hold over my head than a boom box.

I decide the next day will be my Lloyd Dobler day. I warn Amalita in advance that I won't be at lunch. I don't tell her where I
will
be because she won't approve, but I don't want her to feel abandoned when I don't show.

Ames told me J.J.'s in a bad place and wants to be by himself. I've had a lot of time at Aventura High in bad places, and I know all the best spots to be by myself, so I figure if I look hard enough I can find him. I don't bother with the library. It's one of my go-tos, but J.J. likes to move around when he's upset, like at the dance when he went out and walked around. I figure the lower fields are my best bet. I wander down to the track and the bleachers, but he's not there. Then I walk down to the equipment shed by the soccer fields, but he's not there either.

I have one more shot. The lower field bathrooms are in this cement bunker, but one side of the building is completely blocked off by trees. There's a bench against the wall on that side, which is hysterical because it's almost like the school put it there purposely as a completely secluded spot for kids to hide and make out. If they did, it's kind of brilliant, because no one actually uses it for that. Since it's so obviously a make-out spot, everyone figures either

Point is, if I were J.J. and I
really
wanted to get away and be alone, it's where I'd go.