I take another breath, and slowly, my confidence returns. They’re right. I will be OK. I’m a million miles away from the wretched, lovelorn Sadie I was when I saw him last, and there’s no way I’m going to regress now, not after all the sweat, tears, and spilled coffee I’ve put into getting over him. The guide has gotten me this far; I just need to adapt it to suit this new reality!
“I’m ready,” I announce. “I can do this.”
“Atta girl.” LuAnn grins.
“But Sadie . . .” Kayla’s voice comes through. “Be careful, OK? Don’t go falling for him again.”
“No way,” I swear. “He surprised me today — that’s all. We’re just going to be friends.”
Dominique sighs. “Sure, you are.”
“Show a little faith,” I tell them. “I can be strong!”
Someone once said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over again and expecting a different result. Remember how you used to send silent prayers to the Gods of Requited Love for a divine intervention every time you hung out with him? And did said intervention ever occur?
It did not. Clearly, the old approach didn’t work out so well. So it’s time for some new rules.
Start with no touching. Add no romantic locations, no long midnight drives, and most definitely no innocent tickle fights on his bed. There is no such thing as innocence once your heart has been broken into a million anguished pieces, just remember that.
21
And I am strong. When Garrett picks me up that night, wearing that slate-gray T-shirt that usually sends me into paroxysms of delight, I barely even glance at his newly tanned forearms. I’m so careful to keep a safe distance between us that I nearly fall off the back of the Vespa because I’m not holding him tight enough, and when we get to the movie theater, I suggest we see a new — incredibly loud, extremely unromantic — action movie instead of Annie Hall.
“You’re kidding, right?” Garrett laughs as we stand in line for tickets. The lobby is crowded with groups of teenagers and couples on dates, the smell of buttery popcorn wafting in the air. “That stuff is such trash.”
“It’ll be fun!” I argue. More fun than two hours of watching Woody Allen and Diane Keaton debate the fraught intricacies of male-female friendship, anyway. “Give something new a chance.”
Garrett gives me a look. “What did they do to you this summer?” he teases. “The Sadie I knew would never even think about watching aliens blow stuff up.”
The Sadie he knew also would have walked over hot coals rather than have him think she was silly or uncultured, so I simply give him a smile and shrug. “Maybe she expanded her horizons a little. Come on, I’ll buy the popcorn!”
“OK, OK,” Garrett says. “You win. But only because I’ve missed you so much.” As if to underscore his point, he pulls me into a hug.
Hugging is definitely up there on my danger list, so I carefully disentangle myself from his arms. As I step a safe half-pace away from him, I catch sight of a flash of red hair out of the corner of my eye. I turn, searching the crowd of moviegoers. Is that . . . LuAnn?
“What’s up?” Garrett asks.
“Nothing. I just thought I saw someone. . . .” I check again, but there’s no sign of her. “Anyway”— I turn back to him —“tell me about camp. I want to hear everything.”
Everything except this mythical Rhiannon, who is most definitely on the danger list, but Garrett must have learned from my constantly shutting down his every mention of her, because he doesn’t utter her name. “The classes! Sadie, it was amazing. I had this poetry professor, you would have loved her. . . .”
We get tickets and snacks, and head inside, Garrett still waxing rapturously about his various literary triumphs. “It was incredible. I wish you could have been there. They had so many amazing teachers and guest lecturers,” he says. “I feel like my writing has gone to a whole new level.”
“That’s great,” I tell him, checking for our row.
“Sorry,” he apologizes quickly. “I don’t want to rub it in; I know how disappointed you were.”
“No, it’s fine,” I reassure him. “It actually turned out for the best.”
He squeezes my shoulder. “It’s OK — you don’t have to pretend with me. I know summer must have sucked, stuck in Sherman. But I talked you up to everyone, so next year, you’ll be a shoo-in, I’m sure.”
“Thanks,” I say slowly, distracted by a glimpse of blue-tipped pigtails farther up the aisle. But when I look again, they’re gone. I must be imagining things. I shake my head to clear it. “That’s really sweet. I’m not sure if I’ll apply next year, but . . .”
“What?” Garrett stops dead in the middle of the aisle. “Sadie, you have to. You can’t let the rejection get you down — it’s part of life for us writers. Think of Kerouac or Cummings; they were turned down by dozens of publishers before they got their breaks. You’ll make it,” he insists. “You just have to keep trying.”
It wasn’t exactly what I meant, but hearing Garrett gush about “us writers” makes me realize: aside from my recovery steps, I haven’t written all summer. I settle into the worn velvet seat, wondering how I didn’t notice until now. But maybe writing was always something I did more to bond with Garrett than for myself.
“Sadie?”
I look over. “Sorry?”
“I was just asking what else you’ve been up to,” he says, getting comfortable in the narrow seat. “Working at the café seems . . . fun. I mean, if you’re going to be a minimum-wage drudge, it seems like the best place,” he adds.
“I like it,” I tell him, scooping a handful of popcorn. “It took me a while to fit in, but now we’re all friends. A bunch of us went to a hockey game, and —”
“Wait, hold up,” Garrett stops me, shocked. “You went to . . . a hockey game? As in meatheads in jerseys, trying to kill each other on the ice?”
“Sure. It was fun.” I grin at the memory. “Well, until the fighting, and all the blood. But, aside from that . . .”
Garrett reaches over, takes my face in both hands, and turns it from side to side. “Who are you, and what have you done with the real Sadie?”
I duck away — no touching! — and give a small laugh. “I guess I’ve changed.”