The Spring Girls

To walk into a computer lab and have my picture blinding me from every screen . . .

I still didn’t know who did that, but it was probably one of my group of old “friends.” From River, to them, to John. I shouldn’t have even been surprised that this pattern continued in my life.

“What’s going on?” Jo’s voice came to my ears as if through a tunnel.

I didn’t know what to say to Jo about what was happening in my world. I didn’t know if she was old enough to handle it, or if my ego was durable enough to take a hit like this. Looking back, I cared way too much about what people thought of me, but at the end of the day, my reputation was more important than anything. I had worked hard to build it back up when we PCS’ed to Fort Cyprus. Though I could feel my image slipping between my fingers, I fought against it. I wasn’t ready to let the veil slip away from my life. I straightened my back.

“Nothing.” I swallowed. I could feel the sting of tears.

My eyes moved to Jo but she wasn’t looking at me. She was looking at the mess I’d made on the floor. She picked up my phone from where it was lying on the vanity, facedown and covered in white powder.

She looked down at the screen, and I just let her. I changed my mind so quickly—wasn’t that part of going crazy?

“Read the screen.” I sighed in defeat.

If John was confused, I needed to try to clear his head. But if there was no chance, then I might as well start the breakup narrative before he could.

Jo’s eyes widened as she read the email. “What the hell does this mean?”

“I don’t know, Jo.” My eyes burned hotter with the threatening tears.

“Isn’t he supposed to be here in a few hours?” Jo stepped over the mess I’d made and sat down on the edge of my bed. “Did you write him back?”

“No!” I shook my head. “Should I?” I was reluctant to admit that I didn’t know what the hell to do.

“I would. He’s your boyfriend. You should be able to call him.”

Like it was super-obvious that I should be able to call John and just talk it out simply because he was my boyfriend and that was that. Oh, Jo. She had so much to learn about boys and relationships and how to navigate the minefield.

“You don’t get it,” I told her.

“How don’t I?”

“You’ve never had a boyfriend until Laurie—”

Her eyes went wide and a flush touched down her neck and up to her cheeks. “Laurie isn’t my boyfriend.”

“I can’t just call him. It doesn’t work like that. If I call him, he’s going to do one of two things. He’s going to really break up with me, or not answer. Both are horrible options. Right now he’s just confused.”

Now Jo was confused, and I thought it was fascinating and a little simple of her. “So . . . you just wait until . . .” She made it seem so black-and-white, but nothing about this was anything but gray.

My phone made a noise in Jo’s hand and she almost dropped it to the floor.

“Email,” she said, so gently, “it’s an email. From John Brooke.”

I turned back around and looked at her through the vanity mirror. She was holding the phone up so I could see the screen. I felt wild. And hunted. And scrambling for solid ground. With a deep breath I told her to read it to me.

Without hesitation, she started reading. “ ‘Hey Meg, I’m sorry for what I said earlier. I didn’t mean it. I’ll see you tonight. I can’t wait. Second Lieutenant Brooke.’ ”

I stared at Jo and waited for the blood to start pumping through my body. “See, he was just having a little cold feet. Everything is fine. If I would have called him, it just would have ruined everyth—”

Another email alert.

“John again.” Jo’s eyes were on the screen.

My heart pounded. What is going on? “Read it!” I yelled at her.

“ ‘Meg, I really can’t do this. Don’t call me or text me again. I’m sorry. Second Lieu—’ ”

John’s words coming out of Jo’s mouth were so heavy on my chest, I didn’t want to hear any more. “I got it!” I yelled.

I wanted to grab my phone from her hands before it dinged again, but I couldn’t move. My head was spinning and I was running my hands over my jeans. I hooked my fingers in the rips and tugged.

“I’m sorry, Meg.” Jo was next to me. She raised her hand into the air like she was going to touch me, but she couldn’t do it. My sister was never affectionate, and that was okay.

“It’s fine.”

I looked at myself in my mirror and tried to find what John Brooke no longer wanted about me. Immediately I thought about River and Texas and wondered if someone told John that he was dating the whore of Fort Hood. That had to be it. It couldn’t have been my styled hair, the curve of my boobs. It had to be that he found out about my past there.

I stared at the thick eyelashes glued to my eyelids. The box said Minx, and the eyelashes had a sexy curve to them. Were they too much?

My cheekbones were shimmering and my lips were plumped and painted a deep red. I took so long getting ready that day, wanting to look perfect for our reunion. I felt like an idiot, all dolled up for a man who thinks email is an appropriate form of relationship communication.

It had been months since I had last seen John. Our reunion was supposed to be special and reaffirming. I had painted my nails, buffed my heels, and was wearing sexy red lace panties and a matching push-up bra. I made sure my skin smelled like coconut, and I used my last paycheck from Mrs. King to buy a new pair of Steve Maddens. I had managed to look French Quarter Ritz-Carlton appropriate.

I couldn’t imagine what people inside that posh hotel wore. I remember hearing the Kings had their anniversary party in one of the ballrooms there. Shia had complained about the old-fashioned, Southern-money feel of the hotel, that they hadn’t redecorated in one hundred years.

Now I would never see it. I wouldn’t know.

I scraped my fingers through my hair, yanking out the bobby pins holding the unmanageable small fringe behind my ears. I grabbed my makeup wipes and pulled back the sticker so quickly that it ripped.

Jo was silent as I wiped the dark lipstick from my lips. I’m sure she could feel the shame rolling off me in sticky, sinful waves, crashing at my feet. I wore my best lipstick for him, and that meant something, especially since I couldn’t even use my discount on it.

I tried to make myself laugh about caring about my smeared lipstick over my shredded life. I wished that I didn’t care as much as I did, but that just wasn’t real—and I wanted something, anything, in my life to feel real. Even if it was a horrible sensation.

My fake eyelashes were stuck to the glass on my vanity counter, and I searched for something between my smudged lipstick to the tips of my polished toes and saw Jo, bright eyed and natural and brilliant

behind me.

“Why don’t you want to get married, Jo?” I hoped she could bear the weight of my question.

“Shit like this,” she said, with half a smile.

“Seriously.”

She shrugged and sat down on the corner of her bed. “I don’t know. It’s not that I don’t want to, I just don’t think it’s something that I need to be focusing on right now”—she paused—“or anytime soon. I want to be a journalist, a writer, more than a wife. I’m fucking sixteen, dude.”

Her answer sounded so simple. So juvenile but so knowing all at once. Only Jo could do that.

“It’s not that I just want to be someone’s wife, Jo. I want to have a job and stuff, I just want someone to enjoy my life with. You were too young to remember when Mom and Dad actually acted like they loved each other; maybe that’s why you don’t care as much.”

Jo sucked in air through her lips; the sound almost seemed like a laugh. “I don’t think that has anything to do with it.”

I wasn’t sure if it did, but it made a little more sense than me just being desperate for male attention and affection. I wanted what I saw my parents had had at one point. I still remembered when my dad came home from Afghanistan two deployments ago and the look on his face when he saw my mom running to him. So many people were on that field during the welcome-home ceremony, but she found him before we did, and she let go of Amy’s hand, shoved it into Beth’s, and took off for him.

I didn’t think I would ever be able to forget the way he held her and the tears in his eyes when he picked Amy up and held her to his chest. She was about eight at the time and we all wore T-shirts with our last name on the back and whatever randomness we decided to paint on them with the sticky paint tubes. Amy’s said WELCOME HOME DAD with the stick figure version of our family. My dad asked my mom to keep those shirts for him, to make them into a quilt someday.

My dad was a good man, and John Brooke was, too. What was so bad about wanting to spend my life with a good man?