What have I done what have I done what have I done?
Even as I’m thinking this on repeat, I’m also thinking it’s a little too late to be asking this question.
I want to wake up tomorrow in another body, another life. But I don’t really want that. What I’m realizing is that for all the time I’ve spent with A, for all the time I’ve thought about A and A’s life, I missed the most important part: Do no damage. Somehow A can manage it in the course of a day, but I couldn’t manage that in the course of a real, continuous life.
I can’t go back to the house, but I also can’t just stand here, waiting to see Justin and Steve leave. So I walk deeper into the woods, trespass more definitively. Once I’m out of the streetlamp range and the neighborhood glow, it’s completely dark. As I walk among the trees, I realize this is as close to bodiless as I’m going to get. Just a mind walking through the night. Unseen. Unfelt. Unreal.
Justin was careless with me. That’s undeniable. But it doesn’t excuse me from being so careless with him. It explains it, but it doesn’t excuse it.
I lose all sense of time until I hear my name being called. More frantic with each repetition. Rebecca’s voice. Preston’s. Ben’s. Stephanie’s. Will’s.
“I’m here!” I shout, then keep shouting it until they find me.
Chapter Thirty
I call my parents.
I tell them I’m sleeping over at Rebecca’s.
Then I sleep over at Rebecca’s.
—
The next morning, Will invites us back to his house for a picnic.
“Are you sure he’s not just inviting Preston?” I ask. It’s eleven in the morning and I’m not out of bed yet.
“Nope,” Rebecca says. She’s been up for at least an hour, I’m sure. “All of us. Me and Ben. Steve and Stephanie. Will and Preston. And…you. Do you want to ask your Mystery Man?”
“I can’t,” I say.
“Come on. Isn’t it time we met him?”
“I just can’t.”
“What? Are you ashamed of us?” She’s teasing, but I can tell there’s a worry that it’s true.
“No,” I say. Because the truth is that I’m sure A would love nothing better than a picnic with me and my friends. A would fit in perfectly. It hurts me to know this.
“Then why not?”
“Because I don’t think it’s going to work out,” I say. “With him and me. I just don’t think—”
I can’t finish the sentence, because it feels so strange to say it out loud.
Rebecca sits down on the bed next to me and gives me a hug. “Oh, Rhiannon,” she says. “It’s alright.”
I don’t know why she’s treating me this way, but I guess I’m crying or something. I want to tell her they’re tears of confusion, not sadness. Was all of this for nothing? I think of Justin last night. I think of A out there somewhere. And I think, No, this wasn’t for nothing. Even if I’m not going to be with A, I needed to stop letting Justin determine my life. I needed to find my own life. A, in a way, got me there. And it wasn’t for nothing. A and I still have something, even if it’s not the kind of something where he can come to a picnic with my friends.
I get myself together. “Sorry,” I tell Rebecca.
“No need to be sorry,” she assures me.
“I know.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
Yes, I want to talk about it.