None of the Regular Rules (18 page)

My friends and I didn’t talk after that. Ella texted me a few days later, but I ignored it. The only time she called, I let it go to voice
mail and didn’t listen to the message. Grace smiled at me a few times in the hall at school, when she wasn’t with Ian, but I turned away. I d
id
n’t know what was happening between the two of them, but I was sure it wasn’t any sunnier.

I slipped into a solitary hole where I focused on skiing, read books, sat in the shadow of the water tower, and tried not to think about Johnny or my friends. Things went along like this for so long that, eventually, I began to wonder what my friendships had even meant to begin with. Maybe Ella and Grace and I been clinging too hard to something that should have been forgotten
long ago, since it was obviously so easy for us all to exist without each other.

But even though there were days when I really believed that—days when Grace would wave absently from across the hall or I’d see Ella laughing as she ate her lunch in the theater
or I’d think about Johnny flirting with some girl by the fire in a ski resort
—it was just as frequen
tly
that I realized how much I’d begun to miss
them
. I’d enjoyed the solitude and self-centered moping, but now I was lonely. Lost.

I’d gotten engrossed first in Suzy’s list, then in Johnny, and finally in myself. It was just when I’d lost all hope for all of those things that I realized I’d abandoned my best friends.

And now I had nothing at all.

CHAPTER
TWENTY

“Are you still doing your aunt’s list?” Grace appeared at my locker one day before spring break. The weather had been getting warmer, and the snow was gone from the fields and front lawn at school. That day I’d even swapped out my winter jacket for something lighter. Grace snapped her fingers in my face. “Suzy’s list, Sophie. Have you finished yet?”

Andy glanced at me as he pulled his books out of his locker, then lifted his eyebrows. I gave him a funny look, wondering what he knew about the list and what he knew about my life. I knew he and Ella had been spending a lot more time together, ever since the musical, but I’d never thought about the fact that she probably told him things—that they were becoming friends. But now, the way he was looking at me, made me wonder how much time they’d been spending together, and just how much I’d missed. How many times I hadn’t been there for her, when he had.

I shook my head and looked at Grace, who was still staring at me. “No. I quit the list.”

“You quit the list?” Grace twisted one of her curls, then stuffed her books into my locker. It was the kind of thing you only did with friends, and the ease of the gesture gave me pause. Grace looked at me curiously. “Why did you quit the list?”

I sighed, pushing my books in beside hers. “Long story.”

She grinned at me. “Great. I’ve got time. Let’s get out of here, okay?”

I just stared at her. How much had I missed, indeed? Grace Cutler was suggesting we skip out of school? “Okay…” I said reluctantly.

“Get your coat,” she instructed, and I did. As we walked toward the front doors, Ella came around the corner looking for Andy. She looked at us strangely. “Where are you two going?”

“To the Red Line,” Grace said simply.

“To the Red Line?” I blurted this out.

Grace shrugged. “Why not? Isn’t that about the last place you’d look for me?”

I looked at Ella, she looked back at me, then we both grinned. It felt totally normal, as though this was just another autumn day, before everything between us had changed. Smiling at her felt good, and I felt myself melting, just the tiniest bit. “Yes,” I agreed. “The Red Line is definitely the last place I’d look for you.”

“Then that’s exactly where I want to go,” Grace said defiantly. She studied both Ella and
me
, then she smiled, too. “Anyway, we’ve got some work to do if we’re going to finish this list of yours before graduation.”

Ella ran back to her locker and got her coat, then we followed Grace as she walked out the front doors and around to the side of the building. She held her head high and marched with total confidence. The Red Line was empty when we got there.

“Isn’t this place supposed to be packed?” Grace said, a touch of disappointment ringing in her voice. “You promised Trever German would be here.”

“There’s only an hour left of school,” I said. “I think people can wait to smoke at this point. And I never promised Trever German. As I recall, you were petrified of Trever German.”

“Well, he doesn’t scare me now,” Grace announced. “In fact, I think I’d like to become friends with Trever German.”

“Right,” I said with a laugh. One of the first laughs I’d had in quite some time. “
What
is going on?”

“I’m fairly sure I’ve totally wasted the last nine months,” Grace said without a touch of drama. Her voice was even and sure. “And now I’d like to make up for that. I figured you and your list would get me back on track again.”

“
You’ve
wasted time?” Ella said, snorting. “You’re the most involved person in the entire world! You have no time to spare.”

“Exactly,” Grace said. Her voice was far too chipper, and disturbingly upbeat. “And I’m miserable.” She smiled serenely. “So things need to change.”

There was something disconcerting about the tone of her voice and the things she was saying—I’d never heard perfect, perky, always-in-control-of-her-life Grace sound quite this robotic before. But maybe it was something to do with the time we’d spent apart…maybe I’d just forgotten. Or maybe I’d just never noticed before.

“This change,” I said. “Does it have anything to do with Ian?” I was a little afraid to ask, since the last time we’d talked about Ian had led to the end of everything.

“Ian and I are over,” Grace said.

“Does he know that?” Ella asked. “Because he’s on his way over here right now.” She pointed toward the side door. Ian and his eyebrows were, in fact, on their way toward us. And he looked upset. More than upset—furious.

“Grace,” he said, when he’d finally gotten close enough to us that we could hear him. He stopped before he crossed over the official school property line. “I’d like you to come back to school now. You’re missing class.”

“Oh,” Grace said, putting her hands on her hips. Her voice was shaking, despite the girl-power pose. “Am I? Thanks so much for letting me know.”

Ella and I peeked at each other quickly, but I stared down at my feet when I caught Ian glaring at me.

“Grace, I mean it,” Ian said angrily. He sounded like a forty-year-old man scolding his child. “You need to go back to class.”

“No.” Grace looked at her boyfriend—ex-boyfriend?—sullenly. Their relationship had always struck me as odd, but now it felt more like a parent-child relationship than something romantic. “I’m staying here.”

“You’ll come inside. And we can talk about this further tonight.” Ian’s eyebrows pulled together like furry little pillows. But he didn’t look the least bit cuddly—in fact, he looked like an evil dictator on hair
-
growth hormones. I guess the waxing hadn’t become
a
habit.

Suddenly, I realized Grace had come back to us for a reason. We’d drifted apart—I’d torn us apart, maybe—but even after all this time away from each other, she knew she could trust us. She needed help escaping her horrible, hairy boyfriend, and we could help pull her away. I could be there for her. At least I hoped that was what was happening, because that’s what I was about to do. “Get the hell out of here, Ian,” I said. If Grace didn’t want us intervening, it was too late now.

“Mind your own business, Sophie,” Ian warned, toeing the line between school and the smoker’s corner. “You’re good at that.”

I decided to ignore the jab. Okay, so I’d been self-centered for the last few months, but I wasn’t the only one who had retreated from our friendship. And it didn’t matter now. Now all that mattered was that we get Grace away from this freak. “Grace made it perfectly clear that she wants you to leave,” I said, more firmly.

In the time we’d been talking, Trever German and a few of his friends—guys I vaguely knew from beach parties I’d been to and classes we’d had together over the years—strolled up to the Red Line. They were watching the drama unfold with great interest. Trever lit a cigarette on the wrong side of the school property line and Ian said, “I’m reporting you.” He poked his finger in the air to punctuate his comment.

Trever laughed, then stepped so one foot was off school grounds and the other was on. “You do that,” he said. “How about you head back inside and report me, and leave us alone.” He draped his arm over Grace’s shoulder. I saw her flinch, but then she relaxed and leaned into him. I could almost feel Ian shaking with anger.

Ella waved. “Bye, Ian.” She smiled sweetly, which made me laugh.

As soon as he left, Grace s
l
umped down onto a stump. “Thanks.” She looked at me and Ella, then smiled at Trever. “I appreciate the help.”

“No worries,” Trever said. He sat down on the stump next to Grace’s. “I don’t like the way that guy talks to you. His hair is too fluffy to take himself so seriously.”

“He just gets a little overprotective,” Grace said, slipping into defensive mode again.

Trever took a drag of his cigarette. “Smoke?” He held out his soft
pack. Grace shook her head.

“Actually,” she said after a second. “Sure.”

“You don’t smoke,” I said.

“I don’t care.” She sucked awkwardly at the cigarette as Trever lit it for her, and coughed as soon as the first puff of smoke entered her mouth.

Trever looked at Ella and pointed to her camera. “You do the yearbook pictures, right?”

Ella nodded reluctantly.

“Don’t you need a picture of me?” He grinned hugely, mugging for the camera with his arms open wide. “It’s only fair to represent all sides of this school.” He gestured for his friends to surround him. All three hid their cigarettes behind their backs, but blew smoke out of their mouths just as Ella snapped her shot.

“That’s gonna be a keeper,” Trever decided. “Do you know, in all my years at East
Central, I’ve never made it into one of the candid shots in the yearbook? I don’t think I’m involved enough to warrant a slot.” He pushed out his lip in a fake
pout. “Poor me. Not going down in history.”

“I’m on every fourth page, every year,” Grace mused quietly.

Ella snapped her lens cap back on. “I’ll try to sneak this one in. Anyone who can make it at East
Central for as many years as you have deserves to be in at least one yearbook photo that wasn’t taken by a professional.”

“Truth. I have put in my time.” After a few more minutes, Trever and his friends packed up and left, leaving Grace, Ella
, and me
alone at the Red Line.

The minute they were gone, Grace stamped her foot on the cigarette and looked up at us. “Thanks again for helping with Ian.”

Ella and I both nodded. We all looked at each other uncomfortably. Finally, Ella broke the silence by saying, “What happened the last few months?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know
.
… A lot?”

“A lot,” Grace agreed.

“A lot.” Ella nodded.

“Well,” I said, pulling Grace up to standing. I held her hand, even after she was up. I wasn’t letting go again. “I’ve missed you guys. Is it too late to get us back?”

They both shook their heads. I smiled, realizing just how much I needed them, and how much I needed them to need me back. “I’m sorry,” I said.

“Me, too,” Ella agreed.

Grace nodded. “I definitely am. Can we catch up?”

“Let’s start with Ian,” I suggested.

“Yes, let’s,” Ella said. “Be honest, Gracie. Did your fight have absolutely everything to do with his eyebrows?”

CHAPTER
TWENTY-ONE

“A lot of our problems really were my fault,” Grace said, starting to explain what had happened between her and Ian that had made her storm off. We’d left school and grabbed a pizza, then returned to my house. My parents wouldn’t be home for hours, and it felt right for us all to be together in my room again. “We’re always texting, which isn’t really a big deal. And it’s usually nice to spend time with him—just maybe not
all
the time.” She chewed at her thumb, but I reached over and pulled it out of her mouth. “Maybe it’s stupid that I’m mad at him.”

“Did something else happen today that made you bail?” I asked.

“No,” Grace insisted. “Nothing important anyway. I guess I’m just a little tense. PMS, maybe? I sort of freaked out today, and Ian kind of startled me.”

Ella sat straight up from the couch. “He
what
? Did he grab you again?”

“I was being really crabby, and I guess I told him I needed some time by myself…and I don’t know…he squeezed my face. It sounds stupid, but it freaked me out. That’s why I was so weird this afternoon.”

“Deservedly so,” Ella spat. “You can’t be alone with him again. Promise?”

Grace shrugged. “He’s really not that bad,” she said. “It’s just—well, I’ve sort of been feeling trapped. Maybe I’ve been a little overwhelmed lately
,
is all. He and I are always together, and I miss you guys
, and I miss hanging out in the student council room before school sometimes
. And sometimes I just wish I knew how to be by myself with nothing to do. I feel like it’s too much. You know?”

Ella nodded. “Is it just Ian?” she asked. “Why do you feel so overwhelmed?”

Grace stared at Ella through watery eyes. “It’s not just Ian,” she said. “I’m exhausted lately—and now that there are only a few months left before we have to move on, I’m just starting to get really freaked out. You guys, I’ve been so busy staying
busy
for the last four years that I never bothered to figure out what’s next. I’m like a model student at East
Central, but that doesn’t make any difference at all after we graduate.
Everyone
at Brown was important in high school—we can’t all be the best in college.”

“As far as I’m concerned, you’re going to be the best person at Brown. By far.” I smiled, feeling, for the first time in weeks, like I’d stepped back into my life. “And you are going to figure it out when you get there. You always do.”

“I always
have
figured stuff out before,” Grace insisted. “But what if I can’t anymore? What if these were my golden years, and I’m one of those people that just can’t move on? What if it all goes downhill from here? What if Brown is terrible, and I’m one of the losers that fails out of freshman year?”

“You won’t,” I promised. Then I laughed and said, “I remember a few months ago, when I was complaining about the same thing. You told me the world is my oyster, right?” After a beat, I added, “And you know we’re always here to help you, if you get stuck.”

“Maybe I do need some time away from Ian,” she finally said. “Just take some time for myself before the end of the year?”

“Definitely,” Ella agreed.

Grace nodded. “Yeah.” She looked at Ella and nodded. I wasn’t totally convinced that she was in a great place, but she pasted on a big smile and said, “Thanks. I guess I just need some time to figure stuff out. What about you, El? Have you and your mom come to terms with next year yet?” Grace pushed her curls away from her face and tucked her feet up under her body. Little sprinkles of the old Grace were visible, but there was something disarming about her sudden mood shift. I made a vow that I wouldn’t let her slip away again—I couldn’t let her fall back to Ian when she obviously needed someone to pull her to safety.

“Not exactly,” Ella admitted. “I kind of faked an acceptance from Cornell. Andy Eisenberg’s going there next year, and he let me borrow his admissions
e-mail
so I could doctor something up to show my mom.” She grinned. “Is that bad?”

Grace and I both nodded. “Ella, you can’t lie forever. You have to come clean,” I said.

“I know,” she whined. “I will.”

“The longer you let her think you’re living out her wishes, the harder it’s going to be for her to see them all come crashing down. You have to tell her.” I stared at Ella and she covered her head with a pillow.

“Stop looking at me like that.”

“You deserve it,” I said, laughing.

“I wish you
were
going to Cornell,” Grace said. “Then we’d be state neighbors!”

“Except for the small matter of Connecticut,” Ella said. “But yeah, it would be fun to be so c
lose.” She shrugged. “Maybe I’
ll be out that way
anyway
. I’m sort of thinking about moving to New York or something. Waitressing.”

“You want to move to New York and become a waitress?” I asked. “Since when?”

“Since it sounded like a fun thing to do.” Ella lay back on the couch again. “I’m taking suggestions, so if you have any, let me know. The other option I’ve been thinking about is trying to get a job on a cruise ship. I just want an excuse to travel and explore, and give myself some time to figure out what’s next.” She bit her lip, then said slowly, “Also, I applied for one of those overseas au pair programs. That could be fun. Right?” She looked at us, obviously nervous.

“You did?” I asked. I hadn’t realized how organized Ella was about this whole head
-
out
-
into
-
the
-
world
-
and
-
explore thing. “You actually applied?”

“I did.” She grinned. “I don’t want to get my hopes up, but they have placements that start at the end of the summer—I requested Austria, France, or Spain. But I’d go anywhere. I’m sure I won’t get picked.”

“Geez,” I said, feeling the tiniest bit jealous. “You’ve been busy the last few months.”

“So have you!” Ella said. “You
must be almost done with Suzy’s list by now. You haven’t been arrested yet, have you?”

“No,” I said. “Not yet.”

“Listen, Soph,” Grace interrupted. “I’m sorry we bailed on you.”

Ella nodded. “Yeah, me too. It’s just—after that night at the planetarium, when you left us outside while you snuck in, Grace and I sort of felt like the list was more
your
thing than
our
thing. You ditched us for Johnny that night—even after we’d talked about how we needed a night for us, the three of us—and it was obvious you didn’t really care if we were doing the stuff on the list with you or not. You got a little carried away with everything. You have to admit, you got a little obsessed. And then you closed up completely. Like you didn’t need or want us with you anymore.”

I sighed. She wa
s absolutely right. “I know. I
really am sorry I left you outside the planetarium for as long as I did. I would have been horrified if you’d gotten caught because I took so long.”

“How
is
Johnny Rush, anyway?” Grace asked, wiggling her eyebrows. “Anything exciting we need to know about?” Ella knew Johnny had left town for a while, but Grace and I had grown so far apart that she didn’t even realize there was nothing happening between us anymore.

“Johnny’s gone.” I
told them
how he’d left with a lame, vague explanation—and I briefly filled them in on our last night together and that final conversation. “So that’s over.” I shrugged, like it didn’t really matter. But it still hurt when I thought about him. I missed him every day, and I sometimes wished I’d just kissed him, even though it wouldn’t have changed any of the facts. It wouldn’t have prevented him from picking Mackenzie. It wouldn’t have kept him from leaving. It would have just made his leaving hurt more.

“What about the list?” Ella asked timidly.

“I haven’t finished,” I said, then finally told them what I’d learned about Suzy’s death, and the secrets my family had kept from me in the years since. I still hadn’t talked to anyone about it, and it felt good to have the release. It had been stifling, coming to terms with everything on my own. “She wrote the list as a therapy exercise,” I finished with a shrug. “According to my mom, it was her last
-
ditch effort to make herself feel like she belonged or something. In HR-speak, the list was just Suzy’s way of ‘trying to thread herself into the tapestry of her life and society’ again. Or something equally cheesy and disturbing.” I made air
quotes and tried to smile, but it didn’t lighten my mood.

“That she killed herself doesn’t change anything, you know,” Ella said suddenly, looking at me seriously. “You can still try to fulfill her last wishes. To connect with her through the list.”

“Look where that list got Suzy,” I said bitterly. “I’m not so sure that trying to live out a presuicidal fantasy is the best bet. Besides, it’s a little hard to look up to her anymore, now that I know the truth.”

“Why does it change anything?” Grace demanded. “This new information shouldn’t affect any of your memories about her. It doesn’t change anything about your history together. You’ve always been upset that your whole family pushed Suzy aside after she died—and now you’re doing the same thing.” She thrust her chin in the air and dared me to challenge her. “And you can’t tell me that you weren’t happier after you found that list—it changed you, Soph. So maybe you went a little overboard with it, but it still seemed like it had the potential to be a good thing.”

“It was good at first,” I agreed. “But it also sort of sucked me out of the real world. And the truth about Suzy and what the list represented for her dragged me into this other, lonely dimension that I’ve been stuck in since Christmas. So now it doesn’t feel like it’s all hopeful optimism anymore, you know?” I didn’t tell my friends how easy it had been for me to slip away from everything, or that it was sometimes easier knowing no one was relying on me. A few times in the past few weeks, I’d even wondered if anyone would even really notice if one day I was just gone. I could unthread myself from the tapestry, so to speak, and there probably wouldn’t even be much of a hole.

Ella seemed to understand this without me saying anything. “Don’t you worry that giving up on the list presents more problems than optimistically carrying on? Isn’t giving up exactly what Suzy did? You’ve got to think she would be happy if she knew you had found it and it turned into something good. It’s made you take some chances this year.”

“But what if it doesn’t turn out well?” I asked quietly.

Grace grabbed my hand, and I was sure she knew exactly what I was most scared of. She understood what the list and its hidden truth represented for me. “Your ending will be different. Because you’re you—not Suzy—and you’re not alone. We’re standing behind you. With you. From now on, anyway.” She smiled sheepishly. “Obviously, none of us does all that well when we’re fighting and running off on our own to royally screw up.”

Hearing my friends say these things, things I’d considered myself, was difficult. But they were right. The list would lead me to a different place than it had led Suzy…because I had my friends, and because I really did believe in me. I couldn’t have fixed Suzy
,
couldn’t change her past or what had happened. But I could use the future she’d envisioned for herself to create a different life for me—and I could be there for my friends, and they for me, in a way no one had been there for my aunt in the end.

If I gave up on the list of dares completely, I wasn’t just giving up on Suzy—I was giving up on myself.

“I think the list came at just the right time,” I admitted. “Because it’s obviously easier to take chances when you’re living out someone else’s life…which is, essentially, what I’ve been doing.” I shrugged, thinking about the things left on the list. “But I wonder if maybe we should spend the rest of the year doing some of the things that
we
want to do. We don’t need to use Suzy’s list to force us to start breaking some of our own rules—right?”

Ella grinned. “Right. But…if you’re
so
close to finishing, why not at least
try
to wrap it up? No pressure—this time you do it on your terms. For real. With our help.”

“You’re sure?” I asked hopefully. Part of the reason I’d given up on the rest of the list
wa
s that I didn’t want to do any of the things that were left on it by myself. It was depressing, thinking of throwing a party by myself or jumping off Hanging Rock alone. I could understand why, if Suzy really had distanced herself from her friends, she would have struggled to do any of the things on the list at all. Part of the fun of most of these things was doing them with someone else.

Grace nodded. “Of course. But from now on, it’s
our
list instead of Suzy’s. Our wishes, our dreams, our rules. And in the spirit of doing what we want to do, I’m going to quit track so I can buy myself some time to just
be.
And I’ll tell Ian to take his hairy, grabby hands elsewhere.” She straightened her shoulders and grinned. A real smile, finally.