Just Like the Movies (22 page)

But I really don't feel like being honest with anyone, especially myself.

So school has become uncomfortable for sure, but home has become downright unbearable. Apparently, Contractor Jim has decided to take up semipermanent residence in our house. I guess Mom isn't worried about the impression she's making on Mac anymore. He doesn't really seem to mind, considering he's gotten a handful of new DS games over the past week. Jim sure knows his bribery—at least when it comes to the boy sector of the population.

I, on the other hand, have been inexplicably graced with a gift set of sickly sweet body products that make me smell like a stripper. Not surprisingly, Mom loves them.

On Friday, though, I do something I've never done before—I play hooky.

“Mom, I just don't feel well,” I complain, burrowing into my comforter and closing my eyes. “I need to take a mental health day. Get myself feeling better. I've just been working too hard.”

Mom lays the back of her hand against my forehead. It feels cool. Huh. Maybe I actually
do
have a fever . . .

“All right. Well, you have been working hard, I'll give you that much.” She glances at the clock on my night table, then moves to stand up. “I've got to head to work. And I'll be home late tonight—Jim's taking me back to Skinners. Mac's at the Burgees' house for the Boy Scout retreat.”

“Sure.”

I roll away to face the wall and I guess she takes that as a signal to go. I feel her hover over me, then plant a swift kiss on my hair. Part of me wants to wince at the sign of affection. Another part of me feels like crying.

I don't go back to sleep. Instead, I wait until the house is empty, then I get up and work on cleaning up the house. Since having Jim as a houseguest, my mom has let domestic chores fall to the wayside. Shocker.

The pile of pizza boxes by the recycling bin are evidence of our unvaried meal plan over the past week, and the sinkful of dishes is further proof of her neglect. It's so typical. Every time Mom falls in love, the housework is the first thing to be forgotten.

So I clean the house, I work on my history project, and I do everything I can not to think about Joe. The Bikes for Tykes event is tonight. Just knowing I won't be there makes the physical ache in my chest return with a vengeance. Then again, I guess this is how things work when I get involved.
The SGA activities always end up the same way—I never get any credit and people don't even remember I was part of the planning.

I used to be able to see the bright side of working behind the scenes. Now, somehow, I just feel bitter.

I sit at the computer and pull up the flyer I created for the raffle ticket sales. Looking at it, I remember Joe's enthusiasm—how he'd been so pleased by my efforts. The way his eyes crinkled, the way his lips curled into a smile when he would look at me.

Damn.
This is clearly
not
a distraction.

I glance at the clock—it's not even lunchtime. I swallow hard and look back at the computer screen. I can't keep sitting here staring at everything I'm missing, despite all my best efforts not to. I need to go lose myself in something. I need to find an escape that will shut out everything I'm trying so hard to forget.

The old movie theater looks different to me this time. Less charming, more . . . dilapidated. The bricks have that slightly crumbling look to them, and the cracks in the sidewalk are the kind that spiderweb across their width and allow weeds to sprout up in the broken places.

As I walk toward the front of the building, I feel another surge of heartbreak. I force myself not to think about Tommy, not to think about my parents. I just want to lose myself in a movie and forget where I am.

When Harry Met Sally
. . . is playing this week. It might be considered a movie that someone my age can't relate to, but I totally disagree. It's about two people who prove the ultimate lesson in love—that you need to know someone inside and out before you fall in love with him. It doesn't matter how old you are; it's a fact that applies to everyone.

There's a good twenty minutes until the show starts, so I head over to The Coffee Grind for something frothy and delicious, preferably with a mound of whipped cream on top. Why not spoil myself today? A jolt of caffeine combined with a sugar rush could only be an improvement to my bummed-out behavior over the past week.

There's a line of people at the counter, so I move to the end and peer up at the specials board. Out of the corner of my eye, I see a girl with a dark curly ponytail sitting in the same seats Lily and I chose when we were here. God, I can't believe that was less than a month ago. Somehow it feels like it's been years. Or like it happened yesterday. How is that possible?

Inexplicably, the girl turns to look at me. When our eyes meet, hers widen. I think mine do too.

“Lily?”

She blinks at me, then she's up out of her seat and heading for the door. I spin on my heel and hurry after her. She ignores me when I call her name.

“Lily, stop!”

She seems to underestimate the fact that I'm a runner and even faster without any hurdles in my way. Finally, she slows down to a stop, but she doesn't turn to face me.

“Hey,” I say, a little breathless. I come around to stand in front of her.

“Hey.”

She meets my gaze head-on.

“What are you doing here?” she asks, her confusion obvious. “Why aren't you at school?”

I shrug. “I, uh . . . I just couldn't hack it today.”

“You cut school?”

“Something like that.”

“Yeah, me too.” She shoves her hands in her pockets.

“Wow.” I step back, impressed. “I guess there's a first time for everything. So what are
you
doing here?”

Lily toys with her necklace and looks past me toward the theater. “Hell if I know. I just wanted to be distracted from moping and being a generally miserable human being. A movie seemed like a good bet.”

I snort a laugh of disbelief. “I was thinking the same thing.”

She smiles now for the first time. “Pretty crazy that we'd both end up here again.”

“Yeah, pretty crazy,” I echo.

She cocks her head and examines my face. I know what she's looking at—my eyes are red and there are dark shadows beneath them. I'm not wearing any makeup and the oversize sweatshirt I'm wearing has some sort of stain on the front—chocolate maybe. I didn't even notice it when I put it on.

“Is everything okay?” she asks, peering at me. “You look like . . . well, a hot mess, frankly.”

I give her a rueful smile.

“Not really,” I say. “I—Tommy and I broke up.”

She stares at me, eyes wide. “Seriously?”

“Yeah. On Monday my parents told me they were splitting up, and when I asked Tommy to come over—”

“Wait.” She holds up a hand. “What do you mean your parents are splitting up?”

I shrug. “They said they needed time apart. My dad moved to a hotel. I haven't seen him since Tuesday.”

“Jesus, Marijke. I'm so sorry.”

I give another shrug. “So when I asked Tommy to come over after my parents told me the news, he totally bailed. I've been avoiding him ever since.”

“So you didn't actually
break up
, break up?”

“I wrote him a letter and gave it to him on Tuesday. It said everything I needed to say. I was too afraid I'd chicken out if I actually had to say what I wanted to say face-to-face.”

We stand there for a second, just looking at each other. Lily's expression has softened a little since I first saw her in the coffee shop.

“I'm so sorry,” she says again. And then she steps forward and folds me into a hug.

“I feel like we did all this work for nothing.” I sigh. She pulls back and gives me a sad smile.

“Yeah. I feel like that too.”

“But Lily, listen—I know that you think I was just using
you to get what I wanted from Tommy, but, seriously, that wasn't it. And I really miss you. You've—you've become a really great friend to me.”

She and I have both lost more than we expected to when we started this whole experiment. The least we could do is gain one another.

As if reading my mind, she links her arm through mine.

“Come on. Let's go watch
When Harry Met Sally . . .
and eat our weight in junk food.”

“You sure you want to go to the movies with me? I have a reputation for falling to pieces and crying my eyes out.”

She shrugs. “Eh, I've got tissues. And besides, this movie is more about friendship than it is about love.”

I look up at the scrolling sign above the theater doors. AND THEY ALL LIVED HAPPILY EVER AFTER rolls across the screen. I look at Lily, then motion up.

“You still believe in that?”

“In what? Happily ever after?”

“Yeah.”

She shrugs. “I don't know about ‘ever after.' But I do believe in ‘happily.'”

“Yeah,” I say, smiling at her. “So do I.”

Somehow, sitting in the movie theater, I feel more at home than I've felt in a long time. Maybe it's because it seems like Marijke and I have come to a conclusion we can both respect—that the movies didn't bring us love, but they did bring us friendship. That the movies aren't a solution for problems, but they are a place to forget the problems you have. At least for a while.

As we chow down on a bucket of extra-buttery popcorn, I can't help but grin over at her. This isn't how I saw this day panning out, but like any good chick flick, the friends always win out in the end.

“
The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants
,” I whisper to her.

“Huh?” she whispers back.

I gesture between the two of us. “That's us. That's our movie—minus the pants.”

“And minus the traveling and minus the sisters,” Marijke points out. I roll my eyes.

“Thanks, Captain Obvious. You know what I mean.”

She smiles at me and shakes her head. “I don't know if I would have acted out all those crazy movie scenes if I knew I'd be going on a movie date with
you
in the end.”

I scoff, pretending to be offended, but I know what she means. And that niggling pain, the loneliness we both feel, becomes all the more obvious when Harry attempts to convince Sally that he loves her, that she's the person he wants to spend the rest of his life with.

When I glance over at Marijke, she doesn't even bother hiding her tears. Frankly, neither do I.

In the end, we'd both be lying if we said this is the way we envisioned our experiment ending. All the movies we've watched and studied and copied—well, they all had happy endings, despite potential outside variables. That's not how real life works, I guess. No director, no writer, no second or third or fourth takes. You get one shot to do it right the first time and, when it doesn't work, you have to live with the outcome.

After the movie ends, neither of us particularly feels like going home, so we head back over to The Coffee Grind. School is just letting out and Marijke thinks she has less of a chance of running into Tommy if she sticks around the theater, then heads back to school for practice.

“Isn't the Bikes for Tykes fund-raiser tonight?” she asks me. I shrug, then take another sip of my coffee.

“Yeah.”

“Are you going?”

“Um, no, not a chance,” I say. “After everything that happened with Joe—well, I just don't feel comfortable anymore.”

She grimaces. “I really am sorry. It wasn't supposed to work out this way.”

“It wasn't your fault. I chose to pursue Joe. I'm the one who put myself in the position to be rejected.”

Marijke takes a long sip of her CocoLocoMocha and pokes the straw through the thick swirl of whipped cream.

“So now what?” she finally asks me. I shrug.

“Honestly, I think it's about time we call this thing quits. The movie experiment is officially a bust.”