Two Roads (3 page)

“So Cali,” Mom says quietly, but the sorrow in her voice couldn’t be more obvious. “Let’s talk about something else for a while. We’ll get back to… that… in the future. As you know, your father and I are going to be in town for the next few days, so we have plenty of time to chat.”

She says “chat” like it’s something we both want to do, like we’re just normal people making small talk about life or whatever, and she’s not trying to mold me into a cut-out, younger version of herself, when becoming her is the last thing I want to do. I mean, Ben already tried it, and look where it got him.

“Whatever you like, Mom,” I mutter and chug more water. I already know I’m going to need it.

She forces a smile. “All right,” she says. “So, tell us, are you single?”

I stare at her, unblinking. I could laugh. Or groan. The
other
perpetual question for my parents: boys. They want me to marry a handsome and smart and perfect-as-them boy the instant I graduate, or at least be in a committed relationship to one. I never am, though, but I don’t mind it. It’s not like I’m missing out when all of my options would be personality-less losers.
Kind of like Logan
, I think, proud of myself for finding yet another place to insult him.

Anyway, of course I don’t have a boyfriend to tell Mom about, especially not one up to her standards, and we both know it. I did, however, brag to some random girls last night about this fantastic, no-strings-attached relationship I’m not actually in--a tidbit I’d rather not share with her.

So I watch her closely, trying to read her expression, but I can’t tell what she’s thinking this time. She just keeps staring back at me, her eyebrows narrowing. “No,” I finally say. “No, I do not have a boyfriend yet.”

“Good!” she says in a voice that sounds way too pleased to be hers.

I stop. Frown. Consider whether my mother was abducted by aliens and this is an imposter sitting in front of me. Realize there is no way any alien would put himself through the torture of abducting her. Then, I say “
Good
?” This is coming from the same mother who wrote a letter to our local representative asking about the legality of pre-arranged marriage, because she’d met this
perfect
guy for me at WalMart when I was twelve. She never got a response from the rep, thank god. “Huh?” I start to say. “I thought--”

“Never mind what you thought,” Mom says with a wave of her hand. “I have some good news.”

My heart sinks. Aaaaand here’s the kicker.

“Yes Mom?”

Mom looks all too giddy. She beams at me and holds her hands to her chest like she’s about to explode from excitement. This only means bad things for me, as usual. Then, she says, “I found you a date!”

Of course she did.

I find myself rolling my eyes. This is not the first time my parents have tried to set me up on a blind date. It is also not the fifth time. I think we’ve gone through at least seven dates over the years--Ned, George, Jack, Carl, Bernie, Brian, and Jeannette, the last one just to see if I’m lesbian.

“Who is it, Mom?” I mutter, running through potential excuses not to go in my head.

“I can’t say,” Mom says. “But he’s
perfect
for you!” Translation: he’s just another cookie-cutter, incredibly boring barely-male.

“When is this date, Mom?” I say just to appease her.

“On Friday at noon,” she says, still grinning. “You’ll meet him here. I was just talking with his parents while we were waiting for you. They’re really lovely people and had great things to say about him, so we set up a date. I think you’ll really like this one.”

“Oh,” I say, absently picking at my bread. “Yeah. I can’t do then. Sorry to disappoint.”

She stops then. Narrows her eyes. “Why not?” Dammit. She may be a bad mother, but she sure as hell knows when I’m lying.

“Um.” I bite my lip. “I have a tennis match?”

My dad laughs in annoyance. “You’re as awful a liar as your mother. And we all know you haven’t done any sports since fourth grade, especially not one that involves more than five seconds of physical effort like tennis does.”

I grimace.
Still not a boy, Dad.

“Honey,” my mom interrupts once again. This whole conversation is like a bad therapy session. “Please, just give this one a chance. I know you don’t think so, but I want you to be happy, and I bet this boy could make you happy.”

“Who says I need a boyfriend to be happy?” I interject.

Mom sighs. “Sweetie, c’mon. Just try it.”

“Yeah,” my dad says again. “And you’ll like him. Apparently, he’s a fan of poetry too.”

I sigh. Obviously they’re lying. Again. They’ll do anything to get me on a date, and they’d never knowingly set me up with someone interested in “something as crotchety as poetry.” They have no morals when it comes to getting what they want, so there is no way they’d start now.

“Why? Why do you always have to control my life?” I say to neither of them in particular.

“We aren’t controlling your life,” Dad says. “We’re tryi--”

“--trying to help,” I shoot back. “Yeah. I got it. But you
aren’t
helping.”

Mom puts her hand back on my arm, running a finger along my wrist. “Oh, Cali,” she whispers, her brown eyes like putty in mine, and goddammit is she good at the puppy face. “Please. Just this one last time.”

I shake my head, laugh to myself, because I’m really considering this. I’m really considering going out on another one of my parents’ obviously awful setup dates just to make them happy, even when all they’ve managed to do for me is make me hate everyone, including myself.

“If I go on this date,” I say, “will you promise to never set me up on one again?”

“Yes!” my mom says gleefully, her smile returning in a hurry, although I’m convinced she’s lying. “Yes yes yes! You won’t regret this, honey.” Somehow, I already feel like I will. “Thank you for giving it a chance!” she adds. Then, she does something she hasn’t done in four years.

She reaches out and hugs me.

“I love you, Cali,” she whispers. And I just sit there, frozen in my chair, not hugging back, too shocked to know how to respond.

I love you, too, Mom
, I want to say.

But I can’t.

~

She never wanted to feel like this,

She never wanted to be broken,

She never wanted to be alone.

She never got what she wanted.

~

Several
minutes later, as soon as our conversation has safely devolved back into small talk about how college is going, I make up some half-assed excuse about my roommate needing me and get the hell out of there. I can only survive talking with my parents for so long before self-destructing, or possibly bursting into flames. They’re still in town for a few days, anyway; they have a business meeting here, and then it’s back to Silicon Valley and calling me at midnight to make sure I’m home in bed and not partying for them.

I sigh. Our relationship hasn’t always been like this, amazingly enough. I used to like the idea of working for my parents, of going off and inventing random things and feeling a sense of pride and worth and accomplishment. My parents used to be supportive of me, too. They used to smile and squeeze my hand and tell me that I could do it, that I could be like them, that I was destined for greatness. It never even mattered that they were trying to control my whole life, because I was happy, because I had my brother and my poems and a crush on Logan Waters (not one of my better moments), and I was happy. Really really happy. Back then, before everything went to hell, Ben had already started working at their engineering company and we all thought the business was going to be a family thing--something we could do together, something Ben and I could soon run all by ourselves, and someday, something our children and children’s children could work at as well. It was a nice idea, honestly. My parents always had nice ideas. But after what happened with Ben, after what
they
did to Ben, I know I can’t turn out like that. I can’t become an engineer. I can’t become my parents’ picturesque little daughter. I can’t have anything to do with them. So I fail. I spend time pretending to have sex with guys and insulting whoever crosses my path. I destroy myself from the ground up, because it makes me forget about everything else--because it’s the only way to get at the pain.

My whole life my parents have been trying to get me to turn out just like them. Everything from my name to my constant visits to their workplace to my tutors and advanced summer courses that didn’t do shit was and is part of their master plan. The only choice of my own I’ve ever made was where to go to college--a non-Ivy league school, it ended up to be, because there was no way I’d ever a) get accepted into one and b) survive one. To my parents, I might as well have told them I murdered Steve Jobs. It took them a while to get over it, a lot of screaming and fighting and threatening to cut me off the second I turn twenty-one until finally, finally, they let me make my own decision about college. They gave up. But they still haven’t given up on getting me to graduate and marry off and work for them like a good little girl, even after everything this family has been through. My needs aren’t a factor for them anymore, just like Ben’s needs weren’t, and that sure as hell didn’t get him far. Now his name is forbidden in this family, and they act as if he never existed, like I am and have always been their only child, like Ben was a failed experiment and I am Test Subject #2, and I fucking hate it.

I pull my car into the parking lot by my apartment a few minutes later, step out, and shut the door, trying to brush away all thoughts of my parents. A few Williams University students, me included, live in this apartment complex off campus--it’s a five story building, all made of red bricks with windows on every side and a white-painted roof at the top.

Before I enter the building, I glance at the apartment farthest to the left on the first floor, knowing that Logan sleeps right there, and I scowl. He just
had
to choose the same apartment complex as me to live in. When I turn away, I remind myself that it would not be too hard to egg his window from here should that need ever arise. And knowing me, I’m certain it will.

Once inside, I pass a few snack and soda machines and jog up several flights of old, carpeted stairs until I reach my room. There are ten rooms on every floor in the building and mine is at the top. I swear the universe is out to get me.

The door to my room is left ajar and heavy rock music emanates from within, pulsing against the wall, my skin, my heart. I step inside and close and lock the door behind me. I know my roommate Ruby well enough to realize this music is hers.

“You’re home!” shouts a groggy, obviously drunk voice from somewhere within the apartment. I drop off my bag on the ground. Our place is small and four-paneled, with dirty white walls, two twin beds on either side of the room, a TV, a somehow even tinier bathroom, a moth-eaten chair thrust off to the side, and a window next to my bed that gives me a gorgeous view of the drivers honking furiously at each other somewhere below.

“Ruby?” I call and walk toward our bedroom where I find her lying on the chair, a huge smile on her face. Her dark t-shirt is pulled halfway up, revealing a sliver of pale stomach. Her face is flushed and her hair looks a mess, but she seems way too pleased with herself to have just woken up.

“Cali!” she exclaims when she sees me, clutching an empty beer bottle in her hand.

I roll my eyes. Ruby getting drunk.

Of course.

“You look well,” I say, smiling a little and picking up one of her old shirts off the floor. Somehow, I’m the one who does the cleaning around here. Then I turn back to my bed… and lay eyes on a guy.

I freeze and straighten up. Holy shit. There’s a guy here.

With no shirt.

And abs like no tomorrow.

“Oh, sorry,” I begin to blurt out, almost bumping into him. “I--”

“No worries,” he says, giving me an easy smile, and then, with much effort, I lift my gaze from his six pack and focus instead on his face. And now I’m really reeling, because I realize this is Jaden in front of me. Like, Logan’s roommate kind of Jaden. The Jaden I despise. What is he doing here? And I always knew he was too good-looking to be hanging out with Logan, but how the hell did I not realize he’s this freaking
hot
? He grabs a t-shirt off of Ruby’s bed and pulls it on over his head, an act that really shouldn’t disappoint me as much as it does. “We were just finishing up,” he says smoothly, watching me like he’s waiting for me to pounce.

I realize what he means by “finishing up” the second I notice how they look. You know the drill: they’re both red-faced and blushing, hair disheveled and messy, sheets in disarray, condom wrapper littering the floor.

And then I freeze.

Ruby seriously hooked up with my arch nemesis’ best friend. In the time I was with my parents, no less.

Yeah, we’re going to have a long talk after this.

“Yeah we were!” Ruby exclaims from her chair, raises her empty bottle, and winks not-very-subtly at Jaden while simultaneously making finger guns at him. I bite back a laugh and instead shoot her an annoyed look.

Ruby pretends to ignore me, but I can see her lips twitch into a hint of a smile. She’s enjoying this, enjoying torturing me, I realize. That goddamn bastard. She’s lucky I like her.

Ruby is the total punk-rock girl. She has pink highlights in her dark hair, wears long black boots, smoky eyeliner, and constantly gets drunk to loud rock music. She also has the best sense of humor I’ve ever known in a person. Her loud, hawk-like laugh never fails to make people uncomfortable, however. But honestly, I kind of admire Ruby. Weird as she may be, she’s found a way to be totally comfortable with who she is, no pretending involved, something I wish I could find a way to do.

Jaden continues talking to me as he heads toward the door, eyeing me suspiciously. I think they’re both surprised I haven’t gone on a murderous rampage over their sexytimes, which I also think was their main goal here besides, you know, hooking up. But what they don’t seem to realize is that I save all of my rage for one Logan Waters. “She is quite the catch,” Jaden says, watching Ruby and shaking his head, smiling.

“She sure is.” I’m barely able to keep from looking at
him
, though. Talk about tall, dark, and handsome. I barely even feel guilty about finding him, the best friend of the kid I hate more than anything in the world, attractive. That says a lot about how hot he is.

“So,” I say, turning to face him. Jaden towers over me, a little over six feet tall, with a clean-shaven face, a thick jaw, and sexy brown eyes. And let’s not forget those abs, because seriously they are gorgeous. Did I mention he has gorgeous abs? “It seems you’ve been busy.”

“You could say that,” he says after a minute.

Oh you sure can.

I’m not sure whether or not I say it aloud because my eyes are still transfixed on his drop-dead good looks--I’ve never really looked at him this closely before--but he has yet to gape at me like I’m insane, so I assume not. Thank god. I don’t need Logan, or anyone for that matter, knowing that Jaden is gorgeous enough to have fallen straight from the heavens.

So I ask suspiciously, “And you’re now Ruby’s…?”

“Friend,” he interjects.

“With benefits!” Ruby shouts from the corner and takes another sip of her empty bottle. I shoot her a look, and she just winks at me. The girl has zero morals. It annoys me how much I respect it.

“Well,” I say, holding open the door. “I guess it will be interesting to see what comes of this,
Jaden
.”

“Yeah,” he says, parting his dark hair with his hands and watching me intently. “I guess it will be.” Then he steps through the doorway and I close the door behind him, but not without peeking one last time at that perfectly chiseled body.

“Holy shit!” I say to Ruby as soon as Jaden is safely out of hearing range. “You seriously hooked up with Logan’s roommate?”

She sits up in her chair and rests the beer bottle on the floor. “You bet I did!” she shouts.

“You can stop playing drunk now. You can’t fool me.”

“Oh thank god,” she says, shifting her voice back to her normal loud and somehow endearing sound. She gets out of the chair and collapses onto her bed. “But honestly, that may have been the best sex of my life.”

“But with
Logan’s
roommate?” I don’t mention how I attractive I find him. He really is attractive, though. It’s funny how you never realize things about people until you get up close and personal with them.

“Hey.” She shrugs. “A girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.”

“I hate you,” I say.

“Thank you.”

I smile at her, and just being with her makes the knot in my chest my parents oh so kindly left disappear. Ruby is a different kind of friend than Lindsay and Sarah and people. She is a
real
, my only one too, and she likes me for me, although as my roommate and the only other sophomore girl who wanted to live off-campus with someone else, she’s kind of forced to. I enjoy our setup, though. She doesn’t judge me for my burning hatred for Logan or my constant questions about prank ideas, and I don’t judge her for her hookups. And let me tell you: I’m not exaggerating one bit when I say that Ruby takes meaningless sex to a whole new level. She goes to as many parties as she can and basically switches guys every night, then kicks them to the curb as if she never met them in the first place.

“I am going to have to mark this down in your file,” I say and walk over to my bed.

“I am so scared.” Ruby laughs. I always joke about having this file where I keep track of all the things Ruby does, saying that when she hits a certain point, I’ll be forced to “dispose of her” secret-agent-style. In reality, if I were actually keeping track of her misdoings, she’d have been killed off months ago.

It’s not until I reach my bed that I notice the small white envelope, with the simple word “Cali” written on it, lying on my covers. I open it up, frowning. Inside is a picture of some random cartoon character sticking up a finger that, let’s just say, is not exactly the index finger. Below it are the words, “Enjoyed the stunt today, Cal. But you can do better. -Logan.”

I smile as I crumple it up and toss it on the ground.
Cute, Logan
, I think to myself as if he can hear me.
So cute.

“Logan again?” Ruby says, yawning.

“Yeah.” It’s always Logan, and we both know it. Pranks, notes, insults. Our rivalry knows no bounds.

Just how I like it.

“So about Jaden,” I say, collapsing on my own bed, which is covered in my own badass pink flower bedspread. “How exactly did
that
work?”

Ruby shrugs. “He always goes to my games and cheers for the team. And despite your… whatever… with Logan, I kind of like him. Which is weird. Because I’m not supposed to like people.”

“You poor thing,” I mock.

“Oh shut up,” she says, and tosses a pillow at me.

Ruby also happens to be the biggest basketball star at Williams University, something that is a way bigger deal than I thought it would be, considering the small size of the school. Ruby can beat out most of the guys on the boys’ team during one-on-ones, and she most certainly doesn’t have to exert much effort doing it. She is fast and aggressive, not afraid to face the competition head-on. Or punch it straight in the gut. But with that kind of title, she is pretty terrible when it comes to relationships. She doesn’t like commitment, doesn’t like putting herself into the hands of someone else, doesn’t like trusting others with her heart. She’s kind of like me in that way, the me after my childhood ended, the me who has taken care not to get too close to anyone since Ben died. The me who doesn’t want to be broken all over again.