I failed swimming lessons seven times before my mom finally gave up on me.
Everything at school was the same as the day before. I got called to the office and lost the summer program. Then I went outside and saw Josh and Macy. Honestly, I don’t know why I even went to his car—maybe I somehow thought I’d seen it wrong the first time. Maybe I thought I’d see something that would explain it all away. I don’t know what I was hoping for, but all I ended up with was an even greater sense of rejection.
Because this time I noticed how into her he looked as he watched her talking to him in the front seat. This time I noticed just how beautiful she was, sitting there in her white sweater with her blond hair framing her face like a Barbie halo.
I turned and went back inside before the kiss could happen, a little surprised that it was no less painful. I might’ve thought it’d be easier with a warning, but it wasn’t. It still felt like my entire solar plexus was being crushed by a car. Because I’d done everything right, and it still wasn’t enough.
I kept my eyes down and headed for the nurse’s office. I didn’t want to talk to anyone, or worse, have anyone see the tears that were blurring my vision. I almost made it out of the blue hallway when I heard, “Em. Wait up!”
I stopped but didn’t raise my eyes. I couldn’t.
Chris grabbed my elbow. “So tell us what he got you!”
“Em?” Roxane’s knees bent and then her face was lower than mine. I must’ve looked pretty pathetic because she said, “Oh, honey, what happened?”
I blinked fast and shook my head. She grabbed my arm and yanked me into the girls’ bathroom. Chris followed, as he had many times before, grabbing a paper towel and dampening it before wiping at my smeared makeup.
“We don’t cry tears of mascara in the bathroom, remember?” he said, giving me an empathetic pout.
I just nodded. Suddenly, I was incapable of words.
“I knew he was going to turn out to be an asshole.” Chris tossed the paper towel and put his arms around me. “He’s too cute and charming to be that cute and charming. Who was it?”
I just shook my head. “It doesn’t matter, does it? Macy Goldman, but I think—”
They both groaned.
“What?” I pulled away and crossed my arms. “It isn’t about the who, it’s about the fact that he did it at all. Macy is irrelevant.”
Chris’s right eyebrow went up. “Yeah, okay.”
I looked at Rox. “Seriously.”
Roxane gave Chris a matching eyebrow-raise. “She’s in shock and doesn’t know what she’s saying.”
“Yes, I do!”
“Then be honest, here. Being cheated on sucks, period.” Chris put his hands in the pockets of his trendy leather jacket. “But being cheated on with the most perfect girl in school is, like, a whole ’nother level.”
“ ‘’Nother.’ ” Rox pulled a piece of gum out of her purse and put it in her mouth. “Is not. A word.”
“It is too.”
Rox crossed her arms. “I’ve showed you the dictionary page that is not-shockingly absent of a ‘’nother’ entry, and I’ve dragged you into Ms. Brand’s Honors English class and garnered her professional opinion. Which, of course, was in my favor. Because it is not a word. It is what confused rednecks say when they aren’t sure whether they should say ‘other’ or ‘another.’ ”
Somehow their bickering dried up my tears. It was normal. Routine. It was how the three of us behaved on a daily basis when Valentine’s Days weren’t being left on repeat. I said, “Hey, I’m going to take off. Thanks for making me feel better.”
“Did we do that?” Chris tilted his head and lowered his eyebrows.
“I did.” Rox pushed him out of the way and gave me a quick hug.
I looked at them both and was so freaking grateful they were my friends.
Chris said, “My mom is making BBQ tonight—you should come over.”
His mom’s barbecue was delicious. I’d always considered myself picky until I started hanging out at his house. His mother was Korean, and her food smelled so good that before I’d even had a chance to be picky, I was eating kimchi, bibimbap, and mandoo—while begging for more dinner invites. “Maybe I will, I don’t know.”
Rox said, “Go home and binge-watch that filthy show I was telling you about. It’ll make you feel better.”
I felt marginally better when I went to the nurse’s office, and walking to my dad’s was less frigid than it’d been the day before because I wasn’t in a dress. The entire time way home, I went over and over the questionable events of the past twenty-four or forty-eight or whatever hours.
“What in the hell is going on?” I shouted to the snowy, frozen houses that were quiet in the way that suburban neighborhoods were quiet on weekdays as I walked down the street. “How is this happening?”
The only explanation was that I was having a dream that very second. I was having a vivid, realistic dream—about having a vivid, realistic dream—and I just needed to wake up from it.
I pinched myself, and—
Ow. Shit.
I got home and listened to my dad tell me about Texas, and I went to my grandma’s and let her take care of me again, just like the day before.
As soon as it got dark, I went out on her porch and wished on every single star I could see that when I woke up in the morning, things would be fixed. Once I went inside, she told me to pepper my soup and I had an idea.
It was pretty out there, but so was everything else.
I went over to the armoire and pulled out the tabby-cat pepper shaker. “Hmm.”
“Hush and shake.”
“No way.” I looked at that bitchy-looking, badly-painted feline and wondered. “What if it was the half-century pepper?”
“Pardon?”
“The pepper might have caused this. In movies, it’s always weird exposures to random things like perfume or old snowballs that cause time loops to happen.”
“I think the tragedies of the day have taken a toll on your logic. Perhaps you should—”
“Listen. Grandma. If I tell you something that seems impossible, do you promise not to judge me?”
She nodded, sat back down at the table, and patted the chair beside her. I plopped down and scooted closer, but didn’t even know where to start. “I know this sounds impossible.”
“Just tell me, dear.”
“Um, okay. You know how today is Valentine’s Day?”
“Yes?”
“Well, what if I told you that yesterday was Valentine’s Day for me, and today was a total repeat?”
She crossed her arms. “Is it possible that it’s just déjà vu?”
I shook my head. “I thought the same thing at first, but I know that things are going to happen before they do.”
“Like…?”
“Like I knew Josh was going to cheat today because I already watched him do it yesterday. I knew I was losing the summer scholarship because I already did yesterday. I know that Great-Gram Leona gave you that ugly cat pepper shaker as a wedding gift because you told me that yesterday, and I also know that if you check my phone there will be a new message from Josh that says ‘Call me. Now I’m pissed.’ ”
That made her eyebrows go up.
“My phone has been in my backpack out in your car since you picked me up; I haven’t looked at it since I called you. Go get it and let’s see if I’m right.”
Her eyes traveled all over my face before she stood and went out into the garage. I was sure she probably thought I was delusional and was humoring me, but it felt good to tell someone about my upside-down life. When she came back in, she was holding my phone and staring at it in disbelief.
“So…?”
“Dear Lord, Emilie, we’d better go get a lottery ticket, don’t you think?”
