Page 99 of Better Than the Movies
“Yep.” I did my best to force my mouth into a giant happy smile. “You should ask Alex to prom, by the way.”
“Yeah, I was already planning on it.”
I felt that one in my heart. Picturing him smiling at Alex made the backs of my eyelids burn. I said through that fake smile, “We should all go as a group—that’d be fun.”
He looked pissed when he said, “Don’t you think it’s a bad idea to mix ‘gourmet restaurants’ with ‘super-fun sports bars’?”
I shrugged. “Alex is like a very nice restaurant, so I’m sure if you two stick together, you’ll level-up to, like, a trendy sushi place.”
He looked at me like I was scum, and he was right. He flipped his keys around his fingers and said, “Even so, I’d rather go solo with Alex.”
Then his eyes moved down to my T-shirt and running shorts, and his face got a pitying, I-know-all look to it. “Oh. You just saw your mom.”
I blinked. “What does that have to do with anything?”
He gave me a look like I should know what he meant.
“What?”
“Come on, are you that lacking in self-awareness? You hold on to this notion of your angelic mother and the romantic comedy like her greatest wish in life was for her daughter to be swept off her feetin fucking high school. Just because she liked those movies doesn’t mean that if you live your life like an actual teenager, you’re disappointing her.”
“What are you even talking about? Just because—”
“Come on, Liz—at least be honest with yourself here. You dress like her, you watch the shows she watched, and you do everything in your power to behave as if she’s writing the screenplay of your life and you’re her character.”
My throat ached and I blinked fast as his words came at me like blows.
“But news flash: you’re not a character in a movie. You can wear jeans sometimes and straighten your hair if you feel like it and curse like a sailor and honestly do whatever you want, and she’d still think you’re amazing because youare. I guarantee she would’ve found you charming as fuck when you were smoking a Swisher in the Secret Area—I know I did. And when you attacked me in my car. Talk about out of character. It was—”
“Oh my God, I didnotattack you. Are you kidding me with that?” It was official—I was dying of mortification. Because while I’d been humming along to love songs since the make out session in his car, he’d been considering it terribly “out of character” for me.
He ignored me and said, “But you’re so caught up in this idea of who you think your mom wants you to be, or Michael, or even me. Forget me! Be who you want to be. Just do it, and quit playing games, because you’re hurting people.”
“Shut up, Wes.” I was crying again, and I hated him at that moment. For not understanding, but also for being right. I’d thought, regardless of the prom situation, that he was the one person who had understood about my mom. I wiped my cheeks with the backs of my knuckles. “You don’t know shit about my mom, okay?”
“God, don’t cry, Liz.” He swallowed and looked panicked. “I just don’t want you to miss out on the good stuff.”
“Like what—you?” I gritted my teeth. I wanted to howl and kick things over. Instead I said, “Are you the good stuff, Wes?”
His voice was quiet when he said, “You never know.”
“Yes, I do know. You’renot—you’re the opposite of everything I want. You’re the same person you were when you ruined my Little Free Library, and you’re the same person my mom thought was too wild for me to play with.” I took in a shaky breath and said, “You can have the Forever Spot and let’s just forget this whole thing ever happened.”
I turned and walked away from him, and I was just opening the front door when I heard him say, “Fine by me.”
I fell asleep before eight that night, listening to “Death with Dignity” by Sufjan Stevens on repeat. I slept the entire night with my Beats on, and that soft song haunted my ears until morning.
Mother, I can hear you
And I long to be near you
I dreamed of her. I rarely did anymore, but that night, I chased my mother in my dreams.
She was trimming roses in the front yard and I could hear her laughing, but I couldn’t see her face. She was too far away. All I could make out were her gardening gloves and her fancy black dress with the ruffled collar. And no matter how much I walked, or how fast I ran, I wasn’t close enough to see her unblurred face.
I ran and ran, but she never got any closer.
I didn’t wake up with a gasp like in the movies, though that might’ve made me feel better. Instead I woke up with a sad resignation as the song continued its soft, solemn loop.
