Literally Page 10

“I need a minute,” I say, my world spinning, and I carefully make my way out of the room, and up the stairs. I need to think, and there’s only one place to do it.

  Ten minutes later I’m seated on the toilet seat in Will’s immaculately clean, nice-smelling bathroom, my head leaning forward in my hands. So that’s it. It’s really true. Lucy Keating isn’t insane. She is actually writing my life. She didn’t just write Will to be perfect. She’s writing Elliot to stay away from me.

  And now, more than ever, I understand that I don’t want Elliot to stay away from me at all.

  I think about what Lucy Keating said, about only writing Happy Endings now. As though this was some great gift she was bestowing on all of us. Her readers, her characters. But the fact that in order to do so, she’s getting in the way of other possibilities? She is so much more messed up than I ever realized. And I’m not sure there’s anything I can do to stop her.

  “Okay, Annabelle, think,” I say to myself. “You don’t get flustered. This isn’t you. What do you do whenever a problem arises?”

  Suddenly, there’s a soft knock at the door.

  “Go away, Will,” I say.

  “It’s not Will.” Elliot’s voice is muffled on the other side of the door, and I sit up straighter, not sure of what to say.

  “Are you okay?” he asks. “Annabelle, will you just talk to me?”

  I hear my mom’s voice in my head. You’ve always known what you want, and you’ve always gone for it without even hesitating.

  So I’m in a book. So Lucy Keating is writing my life. So she thinks Will is the one for me.

  Swiftly, I stand up from the toilet seat and smooth down the skirt of my dress.

  Who says I can’t write my own story?

  “Look,” Elliot says when I open the door, “I’m sorry if I freaked you out down there. Maybe I shouldn’t have told you how hard it was to get here. Or that I came to see you. I understand if that’s not what you expected. But I was starting to go insane, and—”

  I am barely listening as I pull Elliot inside the bathroom with me. And before I can stop myself, I wrap my arms around his neck.

  “What are you doing, Bellybutton?” Elliot asks in a low voice, his eyes becoming heavy lidded.

  “Authors can’t see characters in the bathroom,” I say.

  “What are you—?” Elliot starts to ask.

  “Later,” I tell him, pressing a finger to his lips. And then I kiss Elliot Apfel hard on the mouth. Our lips meet easily, and I feel like I’m being pulled against him by an electric current, my hands reaching up to hold on to the sides of his face as he kisses me back without hesitation.

  13

  Because I’m with You

  IF ELLIOT is surprised when I kiss him, he doesn’t show it for very long. Within seconds he drops the empty beer can he’s holding and wraps his arms around me, too. And when he pulls away, he rests his head against mine.

  “Annabelle,” he says with a kind of laugh. Like he’s just woken up and seen me there. Like he has things to say but all that he can manage was my name. I don’t mind this very much. It turns out the one thing you could do to shut Elliot up is kiss him.

  I should be more focused on what I’d just done. I’d kissed my brother’s best friend. I’d kissed a person who half the time I couldn’t stand, and genuinely seemed to loathe me in return. I’d kissed someone who wasn’t Will, and I’d done it at Will’s party. In Will’s house.

  Elliot leans in and nuzzles my cheek.

  But I don’t care. Because all of a sudden I realize something: I’d kissed the person I’d wanted to kiss all along. For once, I wasn’t thinking about my plan or Lucy’s plan. For once I was just doing what I wanted.

  “You wanna get out of here?” Elliot voice crackles in my ear.

  Things whirl in my mind. What will tomorrow be like? What will people say? Is there even any future here?

  Then my eyes meet Elliot’s, and they are smoldering. And all that ends up coming out is “Yeah.”

  I had my bike parked at Will’s house, and after we snuck down the back staircase and out the side door, Elliot borrowed another from the garage. I didn’t want to see anyone, talk to anyone. Not Will, not even Ava. I didn’t want anyone disrupting this perfect moment.

  On our way home we stop at a taco shop on Rose Avenue and devour a couple of carnitas as we sit on the edge of the sidewalk. Elliot has his arm draped around my shoulder, and it feels different than it did with Will. With Will it felt good, too, but I was so aware of his presence, about whether he was the right fit for me. With Elliot I don’t care how we look to anyone, or what anyone thinks. I just want to listen, to hear his weird stories. This is not about anyone but us.

  There is magic in Venice no matter what, but you really feel it at night, especially when you’re riding a bike. The streets empty out, and the warm air whips around you as the lamps and patio lights fly by. You think the world is yours. As if you can do anything. As if you could ride your bike to Mexico if you felt like it.

  We’re almost home, and Elliot rides up ahead, his arms open wide, no hands. I giggle. He loops back and circles around me.

  “I like your dress,” he says. “Did I tell you that yet?”

  “No, but thank you,” I say, struggling to keep my tone even as I look straight ahead.

  “I like your face,” he says, still circling. “Did I tell you that yet?”

  “No, but thank you,” I say again, and this time I smile.

  We stop at a light, and Elliot gets a text on his phone.

  “Who is it?” I ask.

  “Lenny,” he says without responding to the text, and tucks it back in his pants pocket.

  “What did he say?” I ask.

  “He’s at a party, wanted me to stop by.”

  “Oh,” I say, trying to sound easy. “Cool. Did you want to go?”

  “Nope,” Elliot says.

  “Why?” I ask, teasing him, smiling slightly.

  The light turns green and Elliot shoots off on his bike.

  “Because I’m with you!” he calls back, and my heart swells.

  I don’t know where we’re going, but I follow him down Rose Avenue, right to the beach. Elliot hops off and wheels our bikes across the sand to one of the lifeguard towers. He climbs up through the railing and then offers me a hand. I hop up and sit next to him, and a slight shiver runs through me, even though it’s not cold.

  Next thing I know an Elliot arm has encircled my shoulders, and my head is resting in that place in his neck, below his chin, where I’ve been silently dying to be.

  Neither of us says anything, and finally I gaze up at him.

  He’s smiling.

  “What?” I ask.

  He keeps smiling.

  “What?” I ask louder, but I’m starting to smile, too. Not because I get it necessarily, but because he just makes me giddy.

  “Well, well, well” is all he says.

  “Oh, shut up.” I give him a shove.

  “I knew you had a thing for me,” he squeaks, still laughing, and when I shove him again he grabs my arm and wraps both his arms around me tightly while I squeal.

  “I had a thing for you?!” I cry in between giggles. “You’re the one with the whole um, uhhh, hey, here I am at a show I know you were already going to.” I make my voice low like Frankenstein’s monster when I say it.

  “Oh, is that what I sound like?” Elliot laughs.

  “As a matter of fact, you do,” I lie.

  “Why didn’t anybody tell me?” he plays along, pulling back to look at me.

  “We all talked about it,” I say solemnly. “That’s why we’re here tonight.”

  I’m proud of my joke, but Elliot doesn’t seem to be listening anymore. He brushes a piece of my hair and tucks it behind my ear.

  “I am forever grateful,” he says, staring at the lock of hair, then back to my face, and neither of us is laughing anymore.

  Even though we’ve kissed already, even if I’m pretty su
re he likes me, looking into Elliot’s eyes is hard. But he’s holding my gaze, and I kissed him first the last time. So I do the only practical thing possible. I start counting. The first time I hold his gaze for two seconds, then look down at his chest. Then I hold for four seconds. The next time I hold for five, and when I go to glance down again, his lips find mine in a kiss.

  This kiss is not like the bathroom kiss, with my awkward pounce, up against the sink with the hair dryer clamoring to the floor. This one is slow and deliberate. It’s all Elliot’s doing. I am thinking I have never in my life been kissed like this before.

  When we finally break away, it’s a full hour later, after midnight.

  “We need to go,” I say.

  “I know,” he says. “But not yet.”

  14

  Can We Take It All Back?

  IT’S STILL dark when I open my eyes, and the stars are sparkling down on us. I glance up at Elliot to find he is wide awake, staring out at the water. He seems calm, the angles of his face still. I run a hand over a cheekbone and up around to his eyebrow, tracing it. I can’t believe that, only hours ago, we had never been this close before. I don’t want to be any farther away from him than right now ever again.

  “You have so many freckles,” I tell him. “You don’t see just how many until you’re up close.”

  Elliot looks down at me and smiles. Then he says the last thing I expect. “Let’s go swimming.”

  “In what?” I ask as I watch Elliot’s smile become a mischievous smirk.

  My eyes go wide. “What if we get arrested?” I ask.

  “Look around, AB. Nobody is out here right now. And even if they were, what is the worst that could happen? You tell your parents you got arrested for swimming at night? They’d probably be relieved,” Elliot says. “You worry too much.”

  I think on it. He has a point.

  “I’ll close my eyes.” He grins.

  “No, you won’t.” I shake my head.

  Elliot shakes his head, too, and I give him a shove.

  “I’m kidding!” he yells. “I’m kidding. Of course I will, if that’s what you want.”

  I stare at him, hard, and he stares back, and then I get up and bolt toward the water, shrieking as I begin to strip off the layers, and dive into the ocean in my underwear. It’s ice cold, but I’m running on too much adrenaline to care. My whole body feels like it’s buzzing.

  Behind me I hear a splash, and moments later, Elliot has popped up beside me, nice and close.

  “I can’t believe you just did that!” he exclaims. “You keep surprising me, AB.”

  “You really do think I’m some kind of nerd, don’t you?” I accuse him as I tread water, kicking my legs below me.

  “Well, if the shoe fits.” He shrugs, and I respond by splashing him hard in the face. When the water clears the look that remains says I am in big trouble.

  “You’re going down,” Elliot says in a low voice, and moves toward me, his arms encircling my waist. I shriek, but he doesn’t splash me or dunk my head below water. His eyes have softened as they search my face.

  “I thought I was going down,” I say softly, one hand resting on his left shoulder, the other carefully, cautiously, running a hand through his wet hair.

  “I changed my mind.” His words are barely audible as he leans in close, his lips finding mine in a kiss. This time, despite the chilly water, there is more heat between us. Something chemical that takes my breath away. I wrap my legs around his waist beneath the water as I kiss him back deeply. I wish we could stay out here all night. I wish so very much for this to be my Happy Ending.

  “So, not to ruin the moment,” Elliot says later, as we sit huddled back in the lifeguard tower, his sweatshirt wrapped around us, “but do we need to talk about Will?”

  My heart sinks a little at these words. Will. I don’t feel great about what we did tonight. He is a really good guy. Perfect and made for me and possibly highly influenced by Lucy Keating, but still. He didn’t deserve me disappearing on him like that.

  “What did you want to talk about, specifically?” I say carefully.

  “Come on, Annabelle,” Elliot says, a little more edge to his voice. “I know you’ve been spending time with him. Are you just friends? Were you just trying to make me jealous? Or is there more going on there?”

  “Make you jealous?” I say. “I’m not one of your band groupies, Elliot.”

  “Wow, band groupies?” Elliot says. “This isn’t the seventies, AB, and also, you didn’t answer my question.”

  “He’s a friend,” I say.

  “Oh, a friend.” Elliot’s tone is dripping with sarcasm now. This is the Elliot I know. Fiery and irrational. “A friend who just happens to text you all the time, who follows you around all day. Who watched me like a hawk as soon as I showed up to his party, where I find you in this dress—”

  “I was wearing this dress for you,” I tell him, even though I haven’t been able to admit this to myself until just now.

  Elliot doesn’t respond; he just looks away, out at the ocean.

  I sigh. He doesn’t get why this is so confusing. I place a hand at the back of his neck, and gently turn his head toward mine. “There’s something I need to tell you. About all of this. About why Will is in my life, and why I think this is all happening.”

  Elliot furrows his brows together while I take a deep breath and let it all out, the day in Fiction class and what Lucy said to me in the parking lot, about what Ava and I figured out. And it’s such a relief to tell him all of this, even if I’m not sure how he’s going to take it.

  “But you believe me, don’t you?” I plead, searching his face. He has to believe me.

  Except … he doesn’t.

  Instead, he lets out a long howl of a laugh, and he just keeps laughing.

  I don’t laugh at all. I can’t help it; I’m crushed.

  “Take your time,” I say dryly. “Get it all out.”

  “I’m sorry,” Elliot says. “But really, Annabelle? Seriously? A crazy woman comes to your class and says she’s writing about you, and what? You just believe her?”

  “I didn’t just believe her,” I say. “I thought I just explained that to you.” He never really listens, though. “I opened my eyes. To everything that’s been happening. All the inconsistencies and the plot twists and—”

  “Life is filled with plot twists, Annabelle,” Elliot says. “That’s what life is.”

  “Can’t you just be sympathetic for a second?” I ask. “My life is not my life. It’s all out of my control, and you know how much I like being in control.” I say this last part jokingly, because I don’t like how this conversation has turned. I want to rewind to ten minutes ago.

  But this causes Elliot to think. “It almost feels like some part of you likes this,” he says. “Someone leading the way for you. Someone designing your fate. Because every time you do something, like sneak out of a party or like two guys at once, you can have some excuse for it. You’re not actually doing anything wrong. It’s not really you; it’s Lisa Keaton.”

  “It’s Lucy Keating.” My blood feels like it’s about to boil. There he is, the Elliot I truly know. “And this has been the hardest couple of weeks of my life,” I say. “Navigating all of this. I don’t enjoy this; I hate it.”

  “Listen, I get it—your dad’s sleeping in the backyard.” Elliot nods. “It sucks that they’re selling The House, but shit happens. My mom moved away forever, Annabelle. She’s not coming back.”

  I frown, and stare down at my hands, listening to the sound of the waves hitting the beach. “I think this was a mistake,” I say quietly. And Elliot is silent for a few moments.

  Finally, Elliot shakes his head. He laughs a little then, but it’s cold. “I guess this was just an itch that needed scratching.”

  I feel like I might actually throw up, right here and now, in the dirty Venice sand. An itch? We’ve know each other forever. Seen each other almost every day for the past sixteen years. And
this was just an itch to him? “Well, it sounds like you’ve figured it out then.” I grit my teeth. “I guess you should just go.”

  Elliot doesn’t just go, though. It’s three A.M. and the Boardwalk is sketchy enough in bright daylight. So to make matters painfully, awkwardly worse, he insists on seeing me home. Which means fifteen minutes of silent bike riding, neither of us even looking at each other.

  As we approach my house, I wonder how we are going to end this evening. I think of all the things I want to say. I’m sorry if I sounded selfish. Or I should’ve explained sooner. Or if, maybe, when he asked me what the deal was with Will, I had just straight up said, “He’s nothing compared to you,” which I would’ve meant. Or maybe just, “Can we take that all back?” Back it all up to just before it all went so very wrong?

  I stop my bike and get off, and turn to him, but Elliot’s already ridden right past to head home.

  15

  Sorry!

  IT’S TEN A.M., and I’m supposed to be doing my history homework. My calendar tells me—in blue. But for once, I can’t bear to think about it. Instead, I am nestled among my fluffy covers, texting with Ava and protesting the rest of the day.

  Ava: Navid ✓. Smooch central.

  AB: Good work.

  Ava: Where did you go? Will seemed sad.

  AB: Ugh, I was afraid of that.

  Ava: Well, it’s Will, he didn’t really show it, but I could tell. So did you leave with Elliot?

  My thumb hovers above the keyboard now.

  Ava: Did you KISS ELLIOT?

  AB: Well …

  Ava: Omgomgomgomgomgomgomg

  AB: But it didn’t go as planned.

  Ava: What do you mean? It wasn’t good?

  AB: Well, first it was really good. Like amazing. And then … it sort of fell apart. We got into a fight.

  Ava: About what?

  AB: Lucy. He didn’t believe me.

  Ava: Well …

  AB: I know, I know. But he basically accused me of LIKING someone writing my life.

  Ava: Okay but nobody is perfect AB. It’s all crazy, no?

  I lay my phone down on my chest and consider Ava’s words. Outside my windows, the palms stare judgmentally down at me. Maybe I’ve been focused on the wrong things. If I am real. If Will is real. When the truth is, whether we are all characters or not, it feels real. Perhaps that’s all that matters. I pick up my phone again.