I clenched my teeth, immediately grimacing and tensing up at the fact that she’d noticed. I didn’t tell her anything that happened, and I had hoped that if I never brought it up, she wouldn’t either.
Gently, she continued, “I don’t know if something happened, but I figured this might be a good way to bridge that gap. But if it’s truly that big of a deal, I can leave it alone. I just want you to be happy, my love.”
I didn’t respond, and she didn’t bring it up again.
Tonight, as I blow out the candles on my cake, I find myself wishing for something impossible. I wish for a universe where the bet had never happened–one where it’s me, Abby,andthe boys here laughing. One where my little circle has expanded, and Larkspur doesn’t feel simultaneously suffocating and empty.
One with a love story that didn’t get its wings clipped before it could fly.
Chapter 19
Ellie
November, 17th Birthday
Alot can happen in a year.
But sometimes what you notice most are the things thatdidn’thappen.
Today’s my seventeenth birthday, which for some reason, I feel like no one talks about. Everyone raves about Sweet Sixteen, and then you become an “adult” at eighteen. The only thing I can come up with when I think about turning seventeen is Dancing Queen by Abba.
Young and sweet, only seventeen.
I don’t know what it is about junior year that has rocked me so hard, butyoungandsweetare not words that would make my “describe yourself in three words” list.
I don’t know if they’d make a “describe yourself in one hundred words” list.
I don’t quite have the words for it, but some days it’s hard to even get out of bed and brush my teeth. It’s usually only bad like that for a few days–then I feel a hollow kind of sadness for the few days after that, and then I feel mostly normal again. In those moments, I don’t have the energy or the care to be sweet, it’s all I can do to manage basic responses. And it makes me feel a deep exhaustion in a way that seems wrong for a seventeen year old.
But like I said, a lot can happen in a year. I got my license, and then a car. I passed my first AP test (and failed my second one, but we don’t need to talk about that). I got a boyfriend, who I’m pretty sure is throwing me a surprise party tonight.
My worst nightmare–but we’ve only been dating a few months, I can’t expect him to know everything about me yet.
Lots of things also stayed the same. I still have my Friday dinners with Abby every week, I hang out with Jack on Saturday mornings, I garden with my grandmother, I go to the farmer’s market with my mom.
Sixteen has been good to me. Mostly. It had country drives, scream-singing with the windows rolled down. It came with braces (and with getting them off, thank goodness). It had my first date, and my first kiss.
It started with my favorite flowers from the people who were once my favorite.
But if I’m being honest, what I noticed most was probably the hole where those favorites used to be.
It’s been over a year now, and I really should be over it, but there’s no use pretending that when I got my schedule on the first day of school I wasn’t a little disappointed that I didn’t end up in any classes with Griffin.
I guess he decided to stop after Spanish II, and I don’t know what I was expecting when I walked into Spanish III, but it never crossed my mind that he might not be there.
Not that it makes a difference to me, obviously. We aren’t friends. We haven’t even spoken since they threw me a surprise party in class last year.
That realization hits me like a ton of bricks.
That surprise party didn’t bother me. I actually kind of loved it.
I shove that thought down, forcing my attention back to the last few minutes of Spanish III. The dismissal bell rings, and on autopilot, I pack up my things, head for the door, and take myself home.
I absolutely donotscan the parking lot for a glimpse of three obnoxious but endearing boys.
And when I get ready for my birthday “dinner” with Bennett, I certainly don’t consider that my reaction to a surprise party would have anything to do with who planned it.
***
