What If (25 page)

May—Senior Year of High School

“I like it out here,” I say, lying back on the blanket, staring up at the stars.

“We probably shouldn’t stay out here long. It’s getting cold,” Nicole replies, her hands folded on her stomach.

“Nothing seems to matter when I look up at the stars,” I continue, not worried about the chill in the air. “They’re full of possibilities, and they can make everything better by just wishing on them.”

“I’ve always thought of them as everything I haven’t done and wished I could. The moments I want back, to do again.”

“Your what ifs,” I declare.

“Yeah.”

“Well, every time you see one streak across the sky, take it back. Do whatever you wanted to do over again.”

Nicole lets out a small laugh. “I’d like that.”

We lay in silence for a moment. Nicole has been my best friend for most of my childhood. Every happy memory is attached to her in some way. But a part of me always worries about her. I can’t help it.

“Are you happy?” I ask her.

“What?”

“All I ever want is for you to be happy. You put so much pressure on yourself to be what everyone expects you to be. I’m afraid that you’re not happy.”

“I am when I’m with you. You’re the only person who doesn’t expect me to act a certain way.” She pauses. “Sometimes I wish I could be everything I’m not. Spontaneous. Adventurous. Just do something because it’s fun. Not care what anyone thinks about how I look. How I act. Just be… me.”

“I think you should do it,” I encourage her, smiling just thinking about Nicole being anything but composed and put together.

“I wish,” she breathes.

“That’s your first
what if
,” I proclaim. “The next shooting star we see, you get to do
you
over again.”

Nicole laughs.

We lay there for a moment, watching the sky, waiting for that second chance.

“Richelle?”

“Yeah,” I respond, still watching for any movement in the sky. I think I see one, but it’s a plane.

“Are you… are you happy?”

There’s a hesitation in her voice that makes me reach out and grab her hand. “Today I am.” Nicole squeezes my hand. “Do me a favor?”

“Anything,” she answers quickly. Too quickly.

“I worry about you, you know? How quiet you are. What must be going on in your head. Everyone expecting you to be… perfect. I know you must get sad, and angry, and frustrated. Just… let it go.”

“I can’t always scream when everything sucks.”

I continue to absorb the burning lights above me. “Then… let the stars take it away and make everything better. And when the sun comes up, and those stars disappear, they take all the hurt with them.”

“Until the next night when they’re there to remind me of everything that sucks.”

“No, because then they become possibilities again.”

“You being all philosophical is confusing.”

I laugh. “Yeah. I don’t know if I’m making sense anymore.”

“Well, I’ll never look at the stars again without thinking of you,” Nicole says, holding my hand tight.

“That’s not a bad thing.”

A streak of light passes above us. We both lift our arms to point at the same time.

“There you go. You get to be her. The messy, crazy, unpredictable girl you’ve always wanted to be.”

Nicole sighs heavily.

“Girls,” my mother calls to us from the back deck of the cabin. “Come inside. The last thing you need is to get a cold.”

“Isn’t that the reason we’re here—to get fresh air?” I ask.

“Richelle,” my mother says sternly.

“Com-ing!” I reply.

“It’s okay,” Nicole reassures me. “It
is
pretty cold out here.”

I sit up. “Ooh! Maybe she’ll make us hot chocolate!”

“Will you please tell me? Who’s Nyelle Preston?” I ask again, after what feels like an hour of us just staring at each other

Nyelle pulls her knees up, hugging them as she remains seated on the mossy ground. “A lie I wanted to be true.”

“She seems real to me. How is she a lie?”

Nyelle closes her eyes, her lashes glistening with tears. I want to touch her. To hold her. But then I’m afraid I won’t find out what I came here in search of.

Her pained blue eyes rise to meet mine. “I didn’t want my life. I didn’t want to hurt anymore. So I became the lie I wished for.”

She looks down and lets out a breath, like she’s trying to release the hurt into the air. She’s not making sense. I’m not sure how much has come back to her. And how much is still trapped within the lie she’s convinced herself to believe.

“Did you recognize me that night, at the Halloween party?”

“Not at first. You look different,” she says, biting at her lip. “But when I knew it was you, I tried to stay away. I tried so hard, because you reminded me of everything that I needed to forget. But each time I saw you, I wanted to see you again. So, I got to know you like it was the first time.”

“Then what happened to Nicole?” I ask. Somewhere between the cabin and here, I found the nerve to ask every question I’ve been choking on all this time. Not saying it’s easy watching her bowed over like she wants to fold in on herself and disappear. But if I’m going to fight for her, she needs to fight for herself too, whoever she is.

Nyelle lays her head on her arm, staring at the moss. “I wished her away.” She draws in a deep breath and sighs sadly. Her cryptic answers still confuse me. What if she’s been trapped within her lie for so long, she can’t find her way out?

A raindrop lands on her arm. I look up at the sky, which has decided that now is the perfect time to open up on us. Of course.

“Let’s go back to the cabin,” I suggest, moving closer to help her up.

Nyelle slides on her socks and boots before accepting my hand.

I’m about to start running as the rain picks up. But Nyelle walks, unfazed. Which is exactly what I should’ve expected from her. The canopy of evergreens shelters us from the brunt of the storm. But we’re still getting wet.

“Why did you wish her away?” I ask after a minute of walking with our eyes on the ground, the silence suffocating me.

Nyelle glances up at me with a curious smile, like she doesn’t understand why I’d ask. “She… The girl I used to be did what everyone expected of her. She wasn’t real and I didn’t want to be that girl anymore.” She bites at her lip, trying to keep from crying again. “It’s been so hard remembering her. What I was like. But I’m not her. Not anymore.”

“Because you started over,” I conclude. “And that’s not a bad thing, I guess. Aren’t you happier being Nyelle… being you?”

Nyelle stops and turns to me, her eyes glistening. “Yeah,” she breathes. “I am. But what if this isn’t really who I am? What if I wanted to be Nyelle so bad that I’ve lost myself along the way?”

I reach for her. The distance between us feels like a canyon, and I can’t stand it any longer. She doesn’t resist when I wrap my arms around her.

“I don’t think you’re lost. You’ve just let yourself be who you’ve always wanted to be. And that makes you happy,” I say into her hair, kissing the top of her head. “And you’ve made me happy along with you. So, as far as I’m concerned, you
are
… you. Exactly who you’re supposed to be.”

She peers up at me, wearing a hint of a smile, tears mixed with the rain soaking her face. “I’ve missed you.”

“I’ve missed you too,” I say, kissing her soft, wet lips. “Why’d I have to lose you for all those years?”

She pulls away, wiping the tears from her cheeks with a shake of her head. She’s not ready for this part yet. To talk about what hurts.

We start walking again. I don’t want to ask her any more questions. I can’t. It’s taken everything I have to get this much out of her. My chest feels so tight from the anxiety squeezing it, I’m surprised I’m still breathing.

“I made a promise.” Nyelle’s whisper barely cuts through the rain.

She stops in front of me at the edge of the forest with the cabin in sight, her hands clenched tight.

“Do you still have to keep the promise?” I ask. I’m watching the two halves of her being ripped apart as she struggles with what she has to tell me.

Nyelle shakes her head. “But I’ve kept it so long, I don’t know how to let it go.” She covers her face with her hands, sobbing.

Her shoulders shake with each tortured breath, and it’s breaking me. I can’t handle it. With just the touch of my hand on her shoulder, she collapses against me, unable to hold herself up any longer.

“It’s okay,” I console her, holding her tight. “You don’t have to tell me.”

“I will,” she mutters into my soaked shirt. “I need to. It just… it hurts. It still hurts so much.”

Henley starts barking. I peer over the top of Nyelle’s head as my mother’s car comes into view. Nyelle twists within my arms, still leaning against me. We remain still, watching my mother and Rae get out of the car in front of the cabin.

I keep my arm wrapped around Nyelle’s shoulder and step forward. But she won’t move.

“Cal, we’ve been trying to reach you,” my mother says from under an umbrella. My stomach drops at the sight of her pinched brow. Her eyes scrunch, looking at Nyelle, then widen in recognition. “Nicole?”

“What’s going on?” I ask, but not really wanting to hear whatever it is that caused the red rims under Rae’s eyes. I brace myself.

“You know,” Nyelle says beside me, redirecting my attention. She’s staring at Rae.

Rae nods. “I know.”

Day After Graduation—High School

I stare up at the stars, wishing they’d take all of my pain away. But I know if they did, there’d be nothing left of me.

A shooting star races overhead.

I close my eyes, tears spill out and run along my temples, soaking into my hair.

“I wish I were as brave as you,” I murmur to the stars. “I wish I laughed more. I wish I took more chances. I wish I could be the girl you saw in me. Please make it stop hurting, and I promise that I’ll be that girl. I promise to let it all go… and be happy… for you.”

“Nicole? Nicole, is that you?” my mother calls to me from between the miniature evergreens bordering our yard. “What are you doing over there?”

She steps out from the shadows.

“Do you realize how late it is?” she continues. “Your father is supposed to be home soon. He had to attend the dinner without us because
you
disappeared the entire day. Now get off the neighbor’s lawn so you can clean up before he arrives.”

“Are you kidding?” I snap, glaring up at her. I let out a humorless laugh. “Of course you’re not.” I push myself up off the ground. And storm past her toward the house.

“Wash up, and come back downstairs so we can greet your father,” my mother instructs as we enter the foyer.

My jaw clenches. I can taste the bitter anger forming on my tongue. I whip around and she eyes me curiously. “You didn’t tell me! You knew for
two
days and you didn’t say a word!”

“You were valedictorian,” she responds so calmly that I want to rip her open, convinced there are wires holding her together. “We chose not to take away from the importance of your day.”

“She’s my best friend! My
only
friend!” I bellow, trembling. “You can’t take her away from me like that! You had no right!”

“We are your parents,” she replies. “We have every right to do what we think is best for you.”

A car pulls into the driveway. My mother’s eyes instinctively go to the door. She looks back at me.

“Go wash up.”

“Go to hell!” I yell, my hands squeezed so tight my fingernails dig into my palms. A moment later my father enters the house appearing a little frantic. Which is strange. I’ve never seen him anything but composed. His frigid eyes narrow in on me, and a shiver runs up my spine. He closes the door behind him, and his gaze flickers between us, assessing the situation.

“Getting upset isn’t going to make things better.” His deep, thunderous voice echoes through me, despite his efforts to sound calm.

I clench my teeth. “You’ve controlled everything in my life, but you don’t get this. You don’t get to tell me how to feel.”

He steps slowly toward me, and I back up. He holds up his hand, like he’s approaching a spooked animal. “You need to calm down.”

“Don’t touch me!”

He stops, paralyzed by my defiance.

“You can’t make it go away by pretending nothing happened.” Rage has possessed my body, empowering me. “Because then you might as well erase me too, Daddy. She was the only real thing I had, and without her, I’m no one.”

Continuing to move away from him, my back collides with the credenza, rocking it. The meticulously designed floral display tips over and crashes to the floor. My mother’s hand goes to her mouth.

I crumple to my knees, sobbing into my hands.

“Pick yourself up and be the girl I raised.
This
is not who you are.” He sounds disgusted.

I lift my head and glower at him. “Maybe I don’t want to be your perfect little girl anymore.” I slam my fists down onto the glass scattered all over the floor, shredding his perfect girl apart.

“Nicole, stop!” he demands.

I glare at him and raise my clenched fists, colliding with the broken glass again. I can’t feel a thing. The shards slicing through my flesh aren’t enough to mask the pain tearing my insides apart.

“What do you think you’re doing?” my father bellows, his voice carrying throughout the entire house.

“What’s wrong? Am I not pretty enough? Or smart enough? Or perfect enough?” I challenge, ripping away the pretty packaging and spilling out what’s been trapped inside my entire life.

His face twists, repulsed by what he sees.

“Nicole, you’re bleeding all over the floor!” my mother cries.

I stare defiantly up at my father as my fists smash into the broken glass again.

My father turns away. “Call Dr. Xavier. Tell him to use the back door. And clean this up.” My mother scurries to the kitchen.

“Did I
disappoint
you, Daddy?!” I scream. But he’s already out the front door.

And I’m alone.

I collapse in the blood that’s smeared across the polished wood and cry, mourning the loss of us both.