Literally Page 15

  I roll the window up, my eyes wide, and both Will and I start laughing.

  “She’s right, you know. I have been acting like Lucy Keating is God,” I admit.

  “She’s playing God,” Will says. “That’s not you; that’s all on her.”

  Once we find a gas station, I decide to run across the street to grab us some bagels at a local deli. I’m just crossing a completely empty street on my way back when I hear Will cry out my name and out of nowhere a scooter is whizzing toward me at full speed, ready to plow me down. Before I know it Will has pulled me from the street and has me wrapped tightly to his chest.

  I look up at him slowly, his warmth and cedar smell enveloping me like some kind of drug.

  “You okay?” he asks in a low voice, but I pull away.

  “We should get going,” I tell him, without looking into his gorgeous eyes, and hop back in the car.

  We drive in silence for a while, up through the picturesque West Hollywood streets. Suddenly, it’s incredibly cold in the car, even though the heat is on. I shiver.

  “Want my sweater?” Will asks, pulling it over his head and offering it to me. I stare at it like it’s on fire.

  “What?” he asks.

  “I can’t,” I say.

  “Why not? It’s just a sweater, Annabelle, not a wedding ring,” he says.

  I look out the window for a moment.

  “What is it?” Will demands.

  “It smells too good,” I admit.

  I hear Will snort from the passenger seat. “Oh, come on,” he says.

  I turn and look at him, my face like stone. “I’m serious, Will. It’s like a drug seeps out of your pores. It’s like opium. I put that thing on and I’m a goner.”

  “Shut up and put it on, Annabelle,” Will says.

  Surprised by his tone and freezing to death, I obey. And I’m right. His smell seeps down into my chest. It makes me think of warm fires and Will’s shoulders.

  “You’ve never been so firm with me before,” I say.

  “Maybe I’ve just been on my best behavior with you,” Will says. “Maybe I’m not the nicest guy on earth.”

  We sit in silence for a moment, and then I say, “Yes, you are.”

  “Well, I don’t always want to be,” he says quietly.

  “How do you mean?”

  “I don’t always want to be perfect.” He shrugs. “I’ve tried to screw up before, you know. I won’t study for a test, but somehow I’ll just know all the answers. I’ll sneak out of my house and nobody will even notice. I tried to get a cool old car like Elliot’s, not my sensible eco-hybrid crap, and nobody would sell one to me. Sometimes I want to lie or cheat; sometimes I want to punch a guy in the face for being a jerk on the soccer field. But when I go to do it, I just … can’t.”

  Something about this strikes me. “Will, I think that means something big,” I tell him.

  “What do you mean?” he asks.

  “It’s not new that you want to be more rebellious, or that you’re trying,” I say, and I can’t help think of weird little Napoleon even being capable of change. “But I think it means something that you can acknowledge it like this. That both of us can. I think it must mean we have a shot. Of taking over our own stories. Of not just accepting things as they are.”

  “I really hope you’re right,” Will says. “I don’t want to live like this forever.”

  Suddenly, I’m burning up in his sweater, and it feels like it weighs a thousand pounds. I go to pull it off, but despite it being six sizes larger than me, it gets stuck around my head.

  “Um, a little help here?” I plead, my voice muffled in the wool.

  Around the other side of the fabric, I hear Will chuckle, and the sweater starts to move off my head. But then, for some inexplicable reason, amidst all the twisting and tugging, it seems to get stuck on the other side of his head, too. And there we are, trapped at a stop sign in Laurel Canyon, the stars sparkling down at us, the misty back roads on either side, and Will’s face is two inches from mine.

  “She’s doing this,” I say quietly.

  “I don’t care,” he says, his voice husky. He leans down toward me, and I breathe him in. And I think how easy this would be, for just a moment. It doesn’t have to mean anything. It could just be a kiss.

  But then I think about Elliot. What he said outside Little Boots. How that made me feel something more, and swiftly, I pull my head out.

  “I think it’s just up on the right,” I say. And without a word, Will puts the car in drive.

  24

  Would You Change Anything?

  1250 LAUREL Canyon Boulevard sits at a curve in the road, hidden behind a large wooden gate. We ring the bell, but nobody answers.

  Will hops up and down a few times to see over the top. “There’s a car in the driveway,” he says. “She’s home; she’s just ignoring us.”

  I lean against the fence, dismayed, and something above us catches my eye.

  “When did the stars come out?” I ask. “Shouldn’t it be, like, ten A.M.?”

  “She’s messing with us again,” Will says. “Hoping this will draw us together.” He gives me a sidelong glance. I think I must be crazy to have rejected someone as beautiful, as kind, as awesome as Will Hale. But apparently, that’s just not how love works.

  “Is it just me, or are the stars unusually bright?” I ask.

  “You’re right, it looks like Christmas tree tinsel up there,” Will says, looking up, too. And as soon as he does, a shooting star moves overhead.

  “Did you see that?” we both ask each other at the same time. And then we laugh.

  Will studies the keypad. “If only we knew the code,” he says. “She wouldn’t have a choice.”

  I think hard. “Try her birthday, October tenth,” I say, looking at her Wikipedia page on my phone.

  “One-oh-one-oh. Nope,” Will says.

  “Try her birth year, nineteen eighty-four,” I say.

  “No dice,” Will says again after punching a few keys.

  “Try MORTY; that’s the name of her first dog.”

  “Morty is not our man,” Will says after giving it a shot.

  I think for a second. “Try HAPPY,” I say.

  Will gives me a funny look, but punches it in nonetheless, and magically, the doors open … only to reveal another fence.

  “Oh come on! This is ridiculous!” I cry. “Now you’re just being a child.”

  At first nothing happens, and then, as though Lucy is once again willing to admit things have gotten out of hand, these doors open begrudgingly, too. Will and I give each other a surprised look, and walk into the compound.

  “She wouldn’t hurt us, would she?” Will asks suddenly.

  “No way. Remember? Then she wouldn’t have a book, and this isn’t a tragedy,” I tell him.

  As soon as we enter Lucy’s estate, something is off. Over on the right side of the property, a bunch of old cars are piled on top of one another, like they’ve been discarded in the trash. I recognize every single one from Elliot’s dad’s shop. But what are they doing here? On another end of the property, Malibu-style cliffs edge around the side, where they don’t belong. And now that I look closer at Lucy’s house, pieces of it look a lot like mine. And Will’s. And Cedar Spring.

  As we get closer to the front door, it opens on its own, and Mathilda Forsythe hurries out into the yard, her black portfolio clutched under her arm, her tape recorder in her hand like always. When she sees me, she doesn’t look surprised; she just nods and keeps walking out the gate.

  “Who is that … ?” Will asks.

  I watch Mathilda go, my face filled with confusion. “That’s the woman who might be buying our house.”

  “This is so much weirder than I expected,” Will mutters as Lucy Keating appears in the doorway of her home. She’s in jeans and a black cashmere sweater, three scruffy-looking dogs by her side.

  “Annabelle, William.” She greets us coolly while beckoning us inside. “Mathilda
was just having a chat about her role. She wanted to talk about whether I could find another place for her in the book. I told her I would think about it. Some characters actually like being told what to do.” She puts a hand on her hip.

  We move a few steps onto the smooth oak floor of the foyer. Light streams through a giant window on the other side of her living room, over a pile of what looks like the contents of my closet. I can see my favorite ice-blue skirt sitting on top of the pile, and my white Vans sticking out from under the couch.

  “Why do you have my clothes?” I ask.

  “Honestly, Annabelle, I’m getting tired of explaining all of this to you,” Lucy says impatiently. “I’m on a serious deadline, and I’m already behind. Your clothes are here because I invented them, like I invented you. Everything I think about, everything that’s on my mind, is swirling around me in this house. It’s just the way it goes.”

  Lucy does look more stressed than the last time I saw her. Now that I look more closely, her hair is a little greasy, and she has bags under her eyes. I take a little pleasure in it.

  “Well, then, I’ll make this quick,” I say. “We want you to stop doing this.”

  Lucy tilts her head. “I will also make this quick: no.”

  “Can you write that smoke is coming out of my ears?” I ask her. “Because it sure feels like it.”

  Lucy chuckles. “Somehow you are funnier than I ever intended. I didn’t know I had it in me.”

  This only enrages me further.

  “See?” Will mutters. “Total God complex.”

  Lucy rolls her eyes at him.

  “Will and I are both here because we want our lives back,” I demand. “This is the creepiest, most dysfunctional thing I have ever been a part of, and you should be ashamed of yourself. We want out!”

  Lucy looks at Will imploringly. “Is that what you really want, Will? For me to stop writing all of this?”

  Will’s face has lost a little color. “This is the weirdest moment of my life” is all he says.

  “What’s your answer?” Lucy pushes, but her tone is still even.

  “I want Annabelle,” Will admits.

  I grit my teeth. He is not helping.

  “Well, there you go,” Lucy says.

  “But I want to know I’m choosing Annabelle because I want to. And that she is choosing me back. And I want to do normal things teenage guys do. I wanna get in trouble for piercing something or tattooing something else. I want to fail an exam. I want to leave my room a mess and not have it magically be all neat again when I get back from the kitchen.”

  Lucy laughs. “Do you guys hear yourselves? Everything about your lives is perfect. I made it that way. You could have it a lot worse, you know.”

  “My life is not perfect!” I say. “You are splitting up my parents just to create tension in your stupid book, and I’m spinning out of control. One minute I like Elliot, the next Will. One minute one guy is doing something sweet, another minute he’s yelling at me in a lifeguard tower.”

  “Elliot.” Lucy exhales out her nostrils. “He wasn’t even supposed to be a main character. He was just supposed to be Sam’s annoying friend, comic relief when you were at home. But he kept pushing at his own boundaries.”

  “Why?” Will asks.

  “Because Elliot isn’t the right guy for her,” Lucy says. “You are.”

  At this, Will’s eyes widen.

  “How do you know?” I nearly yell. I’ve never felt so misunderstood in my life. I’ve never felt so … trapped.

  “Because I know, trust me,” she says. “Elliot is not your guy. Elliot isn’t even in control of his own life. A character like Elliot …” Lucy pauses and sighs. “Annabelle, he only breaks your heart.”

  Now this stops me for a moment, because it’s the first thing Lucy has said or done that might be true to my understanding of life. Because if I’m being honest, I’ve always had a suspicion he would.

  Lucy takes a step closer. “Trust me, Annabelle. I know what I’m talking about. Trust someone who once chose the wrong guy. Your story with Elliot does not end well.”

  My heart is clenching in my chest, and I look down at my shoes. “Maybe it will,” I try.

  “No.” Lucy shakes her head. “Listen to yourself. You don’t even think it will. And I’m here to tell you it doesn’t. Let me give you the Happy Ending you deserve.”

  Behind Lucy, I watch Napoleon wander out from the kitchen, look at me, and hop up onto the couch. Patio lights from Sea Salt Creamery are strung around the hallway. Cookies from the Malibu Country Mart are on a plate on the coffee table, and I think my father’s surfboard is leaning against the refrigerator.

  “Love isn’t supposed to be hard, Annabelle,” Lucy says.

  “Since when?” I ask.

  “Let me give you the correct ending,” she says again.

  “How do you know what that even is?” I demand.

  “Because I created you,” she says without pausing.

  “Total God complex,” Will repeats.

  “Oh, shut up, Will,” Lucy says in exasperation.

  “Elliot is what I want,” I say, because I mean it. I feel it deep within me. I turn to Will. “Will, you really are perfect. For me and even in general. You are honestly everything I thought I wanted that didn’t exist. Someone is going to be very lucky to be with you.”

  Will smiles, but it’s a sad smile.

  Now I turn my attention back to Lucy. “I didn’t pick Elliot. One day it just smacked me across the head. But you don’t get to pick the people you fall in love with. You know this better than anyone. You don’t get to choose for me.”

  I glance around Lucy’s house some more, before noticing that the names of all my friends and family are written on a whiteboard above her desk. These names, once just a word written in marker, are real people to me. Their lives mean something.

  I think about my parents, and tears come to my eyes. “And just because something ends, doesn’t mean it didn’t mean anything. Sometimes, you have to take the risk.”

  Lucy has gone still, and she stares at me, continuing to absently scratch her dog’s head.

  “If you had a chance to do it over,” I say. “Would you?”

  “Do what over?” Lucy asks suspiciously.

  “Do it over with Edwin,” I say.

  Lucy looks at me sharply. “How do you know about that?” she asks.

  “It doesn’t matter. Would you really do it differently? Would you take it all back, even if you were only going to grow apart in the end?” I ask her.

  Lucy sets her dog down, and wraps her arms tightly around her torso. “Losing him was the most painful experience of my life,” she says softly.

  “But would you change anything?” I press her.

  Lucy swallows, then seems to snap out of it.

  “You guys need to go,” she says. “Now.”

  “We aren’t leaving until you agree to let us decide things for ourselves,” I say stubbornly, because I think I have nearly cracked her.

  “Fine!” Lucy exclaims. “If that’s what you want, Annabelle, that’s what you’re going to get.” She marches toward her front door, and holds it open for us.

  “Wait a minute,” Will says, his eyes worried.

  “Good!” I yell back, walking out the door.

  “Hang on,” Will cautions.

  “If that’s what you want, Annabelle, I’m going to stop writing your life.” Lucy shrugs, watching us from her doorway.

  “Why does this suddenly seem like a bad idea?” Will asks, following me back out the gate.

  “Let’s go, Will,” I say, grabbing him by the arm and pulling him along more quickly, back across the front yard that has waves crashing against the garden wall.

  “See how you like it!” is the last thing I hear Lucy call before the gate shuts.

  25

  In the Drawer

  AS WE make our way toward home, winding down Laurel Canyon and through the west side of LA, it’s as t
hough a giant weight has been lifted off my shoulders. I haven’t felt this light in weeks, since before Lucy showed up. The path before me feels clear. My decisions are finally my own, and nobody is going to get in my way.

  So it takes me a little while to notice that Will is completely silent. He stares straight ahead, but the light from his eyes is gone, his face expressionless.

  “I’m sorry, Will,” I finally say as we turn off of Venice Boulevard onto my street. “But I meant what I said. And you do deserve better.”

  “There is no better than you, in my mind,” he says, as though he’s given up. “I feel hopeless. Like a werewolf in Twilight who has imprinted on someone.”

  I snort. “You’ve been reading Twilight?” I ask.

  “You think I wouldn’t do my research?” Will says. “I watched the movie. Did people really freak out that much about that series? Jacob is the obvious choice. Edward is so … serious.”

  I bite my lip, trying not to smile.

  “What?” Will frowns. “What’s so funny?”

  “I hate to break it to you, but in this book, in the scenario Lucy Keating created … you are Edward.”

  “No …” Will starts. “Because you are choosing Elliot, so that makes me Jacob.”

  “No.” I shake my head with a pitying look. “In Lucy’s conception, you are Edward, and Elliot is Jacob. He’s not even Jacob status, really. But you are the one I’m supposedly destined for.”

  “Well, now I’m Jacob, though, right? In this reality?” Will looks at me a little desperately.

  I pat him gently on the arm. “Yes. Now you can be Jacob.”

  Will seems satisfied with this.

  As we pull up outside my house, and I go to remove my hand from Will’s arm, I notice that it looks strange. It’s weirdly fuzzy, like I’m looking at it through a piece of warped glass. I rub my eyes, blink, and look again, but it doesn’t help. There’s no depth, no shadow. My whole hand appears flat, like it’s made of paper. Will notices it, too.

  “Will. What happening?” I say, holding my hand out to look at it more closely. There are no knuckles, no wrinkle creases where my hand meets my wrist. My throat catches in my chest when I realize that suddenly there aren’t even any fingernails.

  “Oh, no,” Will says, a panicked look on his face. “This is exactly what I was afraid of. But I didn’t know it would happen like this.”