you’ll have is a black eye.”
“A black eye?” Elise said. “But I can’t! We’re having dinner with the Hilfigers this weekend.”
A few girls chuckled, including Amber and Chelsea. I tried my hardest not to smile.
“It was an accident,” Loughlin said. “Now, everyone to the locker rooms.”
“It was no accident,” Elise snarled.
But Loughlin was already shooing everyone off the court. Elise glared at me from the ground and finally got up and stalked to the locker room. I hesitated, wondering whether I could retrieve my clothes later in the day. But then Ms. Loughlin asked to speak with me privately.
I jogged over to her, and at first she regarded me with teacherly disapproval, but then her face softened, almost like she was semi-amused by what I’d done.
“What’s going on with you two?” she asked.
I was still out of breath from that last run down the court. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I know I shouldn’t have. But it’s like . . . everything built up inside me, and I just . . . snapped.”
“Listen, Emma,” she said. “You’re a good kid. I hate to see you giving in to your anger like this. You’re better than that.” She put a hand on my shoulder.
I knew she meant well; so many grown-ups did. But I wasn’t sure she was right. Was I really better than that? Why did I always have to take the high road? It had felt good to let go of my anger and smack that puck in Elise’s face. Whenever I did the so-called right thing, I ended up feeling like a doormat, stepped on and abused.
And since the night of the cast party, something had begun inside me. An unraveling. A loosening that made it feel as though parts of me were coming unhinged, but that this loss of control was exactly what I needed. It was freeing and terrifying at the same time, the way I imagined hang gliding would be—exhilarating until that moment when you realized there was nothing standing between you and the hard earth below.
I skipped several classes that week. School had become far too heinous to attend on a regular basis. And the next weekend, I bombed the PSAT. I knew I was blowing it even as I filled in the tiny bubbles on the Scantron, but there was no way I could sit still for three hours focusing on theoretical multiple choice questions when my real life was falling apart at the seams.
Thanksgiving came and went without incident. Unlike Elise, we didn’t have any glamorous plans to sail to Nantucket to dine with fashion designers and millionaires. We had a quiet meal in which Barbara cooked the turkey into shoe leather, Grandma got a little silly on old-fashioneds, my dad complained about finances, and I sat as silently as possible, hoping no one would pay me any attention.
By dessert, my father had gotten around to his requisite college badgering, and just to appease him, I rattled off a list of colleges I was planning to apply to: Boston College, Wellesley, Mount Holyoke, Amherst. Given my performance in school lately, I might have been aiming a little high. I got a stomachache thinking about what my dad’s reaction would be once my PSAT scores arrived.
The next morning, I went for a run on the beach, trying to take out all my stress and anxiety on the sand. I ran all the way to the lighthouse, sprinting the last two hundred feet or so, then stopping so suddenly I thought my heart might give out. I doubled over to catch my breath, heaving in bursts of cold air that burned my lungs.
I peered up at the lighthouse and watched its steady beam, wondering if there was some sailor out in the sea right now watching it, too, thinking of a loved one he’d left on shore. Of course, this made me think of Gray, and a fresh wave of pain ripped through me.
It had taken Gray an entire year to fall in love with me and only two months to fall out of it. But me? I couldn’t seem to let him go. I wondered if I’d ever stop loving him.
I wanted to scream at the unfairness of it, pull my hair out, smash something hard
“A black eye?” Elise said. “But I can’t! We’re having dinner with the Hilfigers this weekend.”
A few girls chuckled, including Amber and Chelsea. I tried my hardest not to smile.
“It was an accident,” Loughlin said. “Now, everyone to the locker rooms.”
“It was no accident,” Elise snarled.
But Loughlin was already shooing everyone off the court. Elise glared at me from the ground and finally got up and stalked to the locker room. I hesitated, wondering whether I could retrieve my clothes later in the day. But then Ms. Loughlin asked to speak with me privately.
I jogged over to her, and at first she regarded me with teacherly disapproval, but then her face softened, almost like she was semi-amused by what I’d done.
“What’s going on with you two?” she asked.
I was still out of breath from that last run down the court. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I know I shouldn’t have. But it’s like . . . everything built up inside me, and I just . . . snapped.”
“Listen, Emma,” she said. “You’re a good kid. I hate to see you giving in to your anger like this. You’re better than that.” She put a hand on my shoulder.
I knew she meant well; so many grown-ups did. But I wasn’t sure she was right. Was I really better than that? Why did I always have to take the high road? It had felt good to let go of my anger and smack that puck in Elise’s face. Whenever I did the so-called right thing, I ended up feeling like a doormat, stepped on and abused.
And since the night of the cast party, something had begun inside me. An unraveling. A loosening that made it feel as though parts of me were coming unhinged, but that this loss of control was exactly what I needed. It was freeing and terrifying at the same time, the way I imagined hang gliding would be—exhilarating until that moment when you realized there was nothing standing between you and the hard earth below.
I skipped several classes that week. School had become far too heinous to attend on a regular basis. And the next weekend, I bombed the PSAT. I knew I was blowing it even as I filled in the tiny bubbles on the Scantron, but there was no way I could sit still for three hours focusing on theoretical multiple choice questions when my real life was falling apart at the seams.
Thanksgiving came and went without incident. Unlike Elise, we didn’t have any glamorous plans to sail to Nantucket to dine with fashion designers and millionaires. We had a quiet meal in which Barbara cooked the turkey into shoe leather, Grandma got a little silly on old-fashioneds, my dad complained about finances, and I sat as silently as possible, hoping no one would pay me any attention.
By dessert, my father had gotten around to his requisite college badgering, and just to appease him, I rattled off a list of colleges I was planning to apply to: Boston College, Wellesley, Mount Holyoke, Amherst. Given my performance in school lately, I might have been aiming a little high. I got a stomachache thinking about what my dad’s reaction would be once my PSAT scores arrived.
The next morning, I went for a run on the beach, trying to take out all my stress and anxiety on the sand. I ran all the way to the lighthouse, sprinting the last two hundred feet or so, then stopping so suddenly I thought my heart might give out. I doubled over to catch my breath, heaving in bursts of cold air that burned my lungs.
I peered up at the lighthouse and watched its steady beam, wondering if there was some sailor out in the sea right now watching it, too, thinking of a loved one he’d left on shore. Of course, this made me think of Gray, and a fresh wave of pain ripped through me.
It had taken Gray an entire year to fall in love with me and only two months to fall out of it. But me? I couldn’t seem to let him go. I wondered if I’d ever stop loving him.
I wanted to scream at the unfairness of it, pull my hair out, smash something hard
Similar Books
