The Me I Meant to Be Read online

  “Since you were ignoring me, I decided not to risk you turning me away.” He tapped on the glass again. “Mind letting me in?”

  “No,” I snapped, crossing my arms over my chest. “I mean yes. I do.”

  “Willa . . .” He crooned my name and gave me puppy-dog eyes in a way that I’m sure he thought was adorable. And, unfairly, it was.

  “This isn’t right, Zach. Go away.” I shooed him with my hand. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

  “I think you want me to come inside.”

  “No. I don’t.”

  He angled his head. “Um, pretty sure you do. Otherwise I’ll have to follow you around at school tomorrow until we have our talk and clear the air.”

  “You wouldn’t!”

  “I would.”

  Just the idea of that was panic-inducing. People watched Zach Tucker. Always. There was no way the sight of him stalking me around school would go unnoticed. It would attract attention. People would wonder. They would talk. And if anyone overheard us . . . I shuddered.

  I crossed my arms and glared at him. “This is just to talk?”

  “What’s the matter? You don’t trust me? Or yourself?” His eyes glinted and he looked smug enough that I wanted to hit him. Instead I unlocked the window and slid it open, letting him in.

  He climbed in, his feet landing lightly on the floor. We stood there for a long moment in front of each other in a room that we’d been alone in countless times.

  And it felt different.

  It felt unbearable.

  “God, this is awkward,” I mumbled.

  “As awkward as avoiding me?”

  I winced. “Yeah. That’s awkward too.” I guess he was right about clearing the air. It was good to do it before school tomorrow. “Not to mention difficult.” I motioned in the direction of his house. “We’ve known each other too long. Things shouldn’t be weird between us.”

  He nodded. “True.”

  In theory, that sounded right. But I didn’t know how things could not be weird now. I’d made out with Zach. That changed everything.

  How could things ever go back to the way they were before?

  There were a lot of reasons I’d avoided him, but maybe the main reason was because I didn’t want to face the possibility that my friendship with Zach Tucker was over. The last two nights I’d stayed up trying to convince myself things could go back to the way they were before. I’d been lying to myself.

  My eyes burned and I realized that I was on the verge of crying.

  I moved away, putting some distance between us, determined he not see those tears and that I was one breath from breaking down. “I guess maybe When Harry Met Sally was right.” I choked out a laugh. “Men and women can’t be friends, because the sex part always gets in the way.”

  I froze. Had I just said that?

  Had I just introduced the idea of sex between us into the conversation?

  Excuse me while I die.

  I babbled, rushing to fill the silence, to fix what I said: “I mean, you’re a guy. I’m a girl. We’re around each other a lot. It was bound to happen once.”

  “It?” he echoed, his gray eyes dark and intense, fixing on my face as it exploded into heat.

  Ohmigod. “Not it! I didn’t mean that.” God, he thought I was talking about us having sex. My body pulsed. A thousand pinpricks attacked my skin like a swarm of bees.

  I looked away from him. Away from that face. Away from that body, which was tall and lean and hard and perfect . . . and the obsession of too many girls to count—​including my best friend. “I’m talking about the closet thing,” I clarified. “And what happened on the front porch.”

  God, it was like words were my enemy. They fell from my lips like clumsy nonsense.

  He lifted an eyebrow. “When Harry Met Sally? Is this another one of your movies I should know?”

  I nodded and suddenly remembered that Harry and Sally got together at the end.

  I stopped nodding and started shaking my head no. The very last thing I wanted was for him to watch it and think that’s what I was implying. That I wanted that. That we should be together in the end.

  This was real life. We weren’t Harry and Sally.

  We’re never going to be Harry and Sally.

  God, that shouldn’t hurt like it did.

  Of course I was in love with him, but that wasn’t public knowledge. It was a true secret. As in only I knew it and no one else.

  “You really don’t believe that, do you?” he asked, looking disapproving. As though I had somehow disappointed him. “That we can’t be friends?”

  “No. Of course not. We’ve been friends forever. We’re around each other so much.”

  He grinned. “It was kind of crazy.” He rubbed the back of his neck, chafing where the hair was cropped close to his skull.

  It was a gesture I’d seen him do countless times when he was flirting with a girl in the hallway at school.

  When he’s flirting with a girl at school.

  Oh. My. God.

  Flirting. The word reverberated through me. My heart started punching faster and harder, a drum in my chest. No. Yes. NO. He couldn’t be flirting with me. I couldn’t be one of those girls to him. Someone he was attracted to. Someone he wanted to . . .

  My mind turned it over feverishly, considering it. It didn’t seem possible, but yet there was Friday night.

  That night, which had kept me awake and tossing and turning and feeling . . . things. Aching tingly things.

  Friday wasn’t an aberration. It had been real.

  He wasn’t kidding when he called this weird. Zach looking at me like he was now, like I was a real-life girl, was the stuff of my secret fantasies. I didn’t have to wonder about those lips. I knew them. I knew them, and I needed to forget them.

  Reality and fantasy weren’t supposed to collide. I was pretty sure that would be like the polar icecaps flipping and the harkening of Armageddon. Who wouldn’t do everything to prevent that?

  I moved to the far side of my room and sank down on the edge of the bed, stretching my legs out in front of me. “I’m just saying it was inevitable that something like this might happen.” I waved between us. “We’re around each other so much. Things got confusing. So we kissed.”

  “There were kisses, in fact,” he corrected. “Multiple.”

  I shrugged like it was no big deal. Like I hadn’t thought about it every waking moment since it happened. “Kisses. Whatever. What happened between us was a fluke.”

  He nodded slowly, watching me, and there was still that sense of disappointment that vibrated from him. I did not like it at all. In the years we’d been friends, he’d always approved of me. He’d never been angry with me. Or disappointed. He’d never looked at me like he did now. Further evidence things were different.

  “I’ve been thinking a lot about what you said.”

  “What I said?” I asked nervously, perfectly aware that I’d said a lot and not all of it very smart. I was in new territory here with him, and the words that fell from my lips were not to be trusted.

  “Yeah. That I surprised you, remember? And that’s why you kissed me back. You claimed that’s why you were into it.”

  Oh God. He was going back to my totally craptastic logic. My heart punched hard in my chest. “Uh-huh,” I murmured.

  “Well, what if I didn’t surprise you?” He advanced slowly on me, and I remembered I was on the bed. Not the best place for me to have decided to sit. “What if you knew it was coming? What if I told you I was going to kiss you and then I did it?” His gaze dropped to my lips and my heart lodged itself in my throat. “Would you kiss me back?” He lowered beside me on to the bed. His eyes moved back and forth between my eyes and lips. “Maybe we should experiment with that?”

  Experiment. Now that word roused all kinds of images.

  I couldn’t breathe. My lungs had stopped working.

  He lifted a hand and pushed back the hair from my face. Had he moved closer? I g
lanced down at the space between us. It definitely seemed to be shrinking.

  “No, we shouldn’t.” My voice escaped unnaturally high. I leaned away from his body.

  “I think it’s a good idea,” he countered. “Let’s see if you kiss me back when you know it’s coming.”

  I didn’t need to try this little experiment to know I would kiss him back. I needed to avoid this experiment at all costs.

  He leaned in, and I pressed a hand to his chest—​which was a danger in itself. Touching him was a risk. “Flor.”

  The single word, her name, spoken out loud, was enough.

  He went still.

  I continued, “Please don’t pretend like she doesn’t matter. Even if she wasn’t still hung up on you, I can’t do this with you. It breaks girl code.”

  “Girl code,” he echoed.

  “Don’t act like you don’t understand.”

  He sighed. “I get it.”

  “I won’t do anything to hurt Flor.”

  His broad chest lifted on an inhale. “She doesn’t need to know.”

  I frowned. All of a sudden, I felt dirty sitting there with him on my bed.

  “So this experiment will be just between us? Your ugly little secret? Convenient for you.”

  His gray eyes turned fierce. “Don’t twist this. You’re the one that doesn’t want anyone to know.”

  “That’s right! Because this would be the worst betrayal ever to Flor.”

  “This is one of those no-win scenarios.” His face screwed tightly in anger. “Keep it a secret and you think I’m ashamed of you. Tell the world and I’m wrecking your friendship with Flor. I’m fucked either way.”

  I flinched at his language, but it went hand in hand with the emotion flashing in his eyes.

  I moistened my lips. “I know you don’t care about Flor’s feelings anymore, but I do. I don’t know what happened between you two, but she really misses—”

  He shook his head. “No. Don’t do that. It’s not that I don’t care about her feelings and you know that. Don’t make me the villain just because I don’t want to be with her. I don’t want her.”

  The words fell hard between us. He stared furiously at me, his breathing a little heavier. Something hovered in the charged air. The unspoken answer to the question Who do you want?

  I was new to this thing swelling between us, but I understood it. Felt it at an instinctual level.

  He wanted me.

  For however incredible or wrong it was. For how little sense it made. Right now, maybe only right now and not next month or next week . . . maybe not even tomorrow, he wanted me.

  He continued, his voice lower, thrumming like the sad echo of a note fading on my cello. “I’m talking about you and me. You don’t think we should at least see if there’s something here between us? Something real? You don’t think you owe that to yourself? To us?”

  I shot up from the bed and pointed to my window. “This is stupid. Why are we even having this conversation? It’s impossible. You should go.”

  He pushed to his feet too. The disappointed look was back on his face, and I hated that it made me feel so sad.

  He stared at me for a long moment. “All right, then.”

  “All right?” I shook my head, marveling that his agreement should surprise me a little.

  “What do you expect me to do?” One corner of his mouth curled, but there was no mirth in it. “Stay and force you to kiss me? It’s fine. We’ll just be friends, Willa. Like before.”

  Like before.

  I sighed in relief. The tension eased out of me. This was good. Great, even.

  He turned back for the window and slid a leg over the edge. His gaze found mine. “See you in the driveway tomorrow?”

  “Same as always.” I nodded . . . hoping, praying, that was true. That it would be the same as always. That things could go back. That the little niggle of guilt inside me would disappear.

  GIRL CODE #10:

  Make sure you’re not unfairly judging your friend’s taste in guys. Just because it’s not your taste doesn’t mean it’s wrong.

  Flor

  I was still stewing the next day.

  I’d hardly slept a wink the night before. Staring into the dark, I’d wondered how my father could be so gullible. So taken in by a pretty young face. He was such a cliché. Didn’t he want substance in a woman? Someone closer to his age who had seen some of the world? Who had lived and accomplished things? The only thing Dana had accomplished was two semesters of community college and a job in retail. What could she and my father possibly have in common?

  My mind took a hard turn into gutterville and I had to stifle my gag reflex—​and that definitely made it hard to fall asleep. Eventually I did.

  But the following morning, I opened my eyes to the framed picture of Dad and me at a Chivas game when we went to visit his uncle in Guadalajara. His uncle had gotten us great box seats because his wife’s cousin played for them. It was awesome. We even got to meet the players after the game. The trip had taken my mind off Mom leaving us. Made the wound a little less raw. The trip had given me hope that Dad and I would be okay. We could be happy just the two of us.

  I released a pent-up breath and dragged myself out of bed. Sure. I couldn’t expect Dad to live as a monk forever. He was entitled to . . . companionship. I wasn’t blind to that. I would be gone at college soon, and then Dad would be alone. But this quickly? And Dana? He could do better.

  I spent the rest of the day avoiding my father and Dana. Out of sight, out of mind. At least that was what I told myself.

  I did homework, then went to the store so I would have stuff to eat this week. I was used to fending for myself and wasn’t going to change my ways just because Dana was moving in. On a whim I even decided to give Rowdy a bath. He was starting to stink. Unfortunately, after I finished showering him, I smelled like wet dog.

  I spotted the time on my alarm clock sitting next to the photo. Damn. Grayson was going to be here in half an hour, and I knew that guy would be punctual. I didn’t want to kill him with my BO. Not that I wanted to impress him or anything, but I could spare him that out of courtesy. He had given me a ride the other night and had actually helped take my mind off of stuff.

  I grabbed a fresh pair of shorts, panties, bra, and T-shirt and vaulted toward my bathroom, where I planned to take the world’s fastest shower.

  After turning the shower to hot, I jogged back out to check my phone while the water warmed. Because priorities. There was one from Willa, which I replied to quickly. Nothing, of course, from Zach. It was like he’d just disappeared from my life. With a disappointed grunt, I flung my phone on the bed and rushed back into my bathroom.

  Washing my hair, my mind played over the fact that Dana was moving in. She would be sharing a room—​a bed—​with my father. My gag reflex rose again.

  She’d be bringing her stuff with her too. God knew what that would all entail. She’d take over my mother’s huge walk-in closet.

  I turned off the water, dried off with a towel, and tried to shove thoughts of Dad and Dana far away. Even if Wills called me back right now, I couldn’t talk to her. I had Grayson coming over. I needed to focus on that. On math. On passing my next test. On better than passing it, because face it: Getting a C on a single test wasn’t going to much help my 66. It might only bring me to a D average.

  Dressed, I stood in front of my mirror and dragged a brush through my wet hair, working through the snarls. I’d just managed to get the last tangle out when I heard my dad shout from downstairs.

  “Flor, your tutor is here!”

  At least he wasn’t calling Grayson my boyfriend like Dana had.

  I yanked open the door and shouted down, “Send him up.”

  I dashed back into my bathroom and wrung out my hair. The top half of my T-shirt was wet, but at least I was clean. Dana couldn’t accuse me of smelling anymore.

  When I emerged from the bathroom, Grayson stood hesitantly on the threshold of my bedro
om.

  He looked incongruous standing there in his dark long-sleeved shirt and jeans and black Jansport backpack. My bedroom was mostly pale colors: white and gray with accents of yellow. I’d picked the colors out two years ago with my mother. She loved to decorate. She was constantly redoing rooms. Almost like with every room she redid, she would finally find something to make her happy. Some change that would be enough to fix whatever was empty inside her, to fill the void.

  I tried to shake off thoughts of the way things used to be with my mom. I’d see her over Thanksgiving break. That would be good for us. We’d have a good time together reconnecting.

  I’d spent so much time being mad at her when she left, but now I realized things had never been that great when she was here. I’d been angry and mourning something that had never been perfect . . . even if that was the image I had projected to the world.

  Maybe I could start over with Mom and rebuild a relationship that was better than what we had before. And let’s face it. Thanksgiving break in Playa del Carmen would be amazing. It would beat staying here with Dad and Dana.

  Maybe Zach and I would have patched things up by then and he could come with me. We’d talked about it. Before we broke up. We’d talked about lying out on some gorgeous beach during one of our school breaks, fruity drinks in hand, sand between our toes, warm sun on our skin. We could still have that. Once he stopped being mad at me.

  “Come in.” I waved Grayson inside the room, forcing a smile and trying not to let my sour mood spill over. He was here to do a job, and I needed his help.

  He entered, weaving between the pillows scattered around the room. “Sorry about the mess.” I bent down and quickly snatched up all the pillows, throwing them back on my bed.

  He didn’t say anything. Just stood there like he didn’t know where to go.

  I grinned. “What’s the matter? Never been in a girl’s room before?”

  “Never one this messy.”

  My smile fell at his quick retort. “Yeah. Well. Mustn’t have been in too many, then.” I motioned around me. “ ’Cause this is about what you can expect.”