She makes a noise, the one Kane calls her Marge Simpson impression, but today it doesn’t seem so funny.
‘You always have been too trusting, Mia. You can be very naive, and please don’t get defensive but you have had a hard time making friends in the past.’
And even though it hurts, I can’t argue because it’s true.
‘Oh, what am I saying?’ Mom says with a huge sigh. ‘Don’t listen to me, I just miss you is all. This is the first time any of my babies have been away from home for their birthday. Kane always came to see me on his birthday.’
‘I should let you go,’ I say, breezy as I can be with all this guilt weighing me down. ‘I don’t want you to be late for Pilates. Tell Daddy I’ll call tonight at the usual time.’
‘We’ll be waiting. Love you, honey.’
‘Love you too,’ I say but she’s already ended the call.
Every conversation with my mom is a lose-lose situation. If I don’t call, I feel bad and whenever I do call, I feel worse. Does she truly miss me? I can’t say. I know my dad misses the money he spent to send me here. Neither of them has ever travelled too far and they both grew up in Valley Springs, high school sweethearts, married right out of college. My dad with his local real estatebusiness, my mom at home with her perfect little family. It’s the American dream, according to them, it’s what everyone should want. But it isn’t me. I had to leave, I had to lose them to find myself.
‘And how’s that going exactly?’ I ask my reflection, twisting in bed to stare into the mirror.
Twenty years old.
I search my face, looking for evidence of a new and improved Mia, but there’s nothing to see except the crusty mascara I failed to remove properly last night and a pair of puffy bags under my boring blue eyes. No flecks of gold or flashes of silver, just plain old blue. Not the stormy skies of Oliver’s, or Ethan’s glittering eyes with the striking black ring around the irises. The ones I’d lost myself in, standing in the shadows outside halls at one a.m. this morning. Nope, just the same Mia Meyers, waking up to her third decade under the boy-next-door’s jacket with last night’s mascara and puffy under-eyes for company.
For a moment, just before we said goodnight, I thought about inviting Ethan in. All that talk of loneliness and biscuits, not exactly a classic seduction combo but there was something in the way he looked at me that felt different. Like I was the only girl on the whole planet. Which, at one a.m. this morning, I was. Sure, he said he wasn’t lonely but that doesn’t mean Ethan Taylor enjoys sleeping alone every night. He could have gone home with anyone from Members last night but what is easier than falling into bed with your neighbour? If he was looking at me like he wanted to devour me, push me up against the wall, cover my mouth with his and let whatever might happen next happen, well, that explained it. I wasn’t desirable, I was convenient.
Pulling my hair up and back in a claw clip, I tear off my clothes,tossing them at the laundry basket with frustration because my theory doesn’t quite solve every puzzle.
Maybe Ethan momentarily considered seducing me because it would be easy.
But that didn’t explain why I wanted to let him.
23
Mia
‘Wow, a picnic! This is such a surprise!’
Alice stares at me, her face pinched, the blindfold she’d insisted I wear all the way from Carpenter down to the river hanging from her hand.
‘Who told you?’
‘No one?’
‘Thank God you don’t want to join the theatre society, you’re a shit actress.’
She tosses the blindfold onto the blanket as Jenna, Michael and Bryn all gather around me to dispense hugs and gifts. Aside from finding out I’d got into Hemden, it’s maybe the happiest moment I can remember.
‘I know you said you didn’t want us to make a fuss, so I kept things very small, just us. Anders wanted to come but he’s got a boat club thing and—’
‘And Oliver is at band practice?’ I guess, refusing to let myself be disappointed.
Alice’s expression clouds over. She glances over at Bryn who shrugs.
‘He said he was coming. I’m sure he’s on his way,’ he offers hopefully, and I give him a smile to show how much I don’t even care.
‘I was going to say I invited your pal, Ethan,’ Alice squeezes my hand as Jenna stacks gift bags on my arm like bracelets, ‘but it was very last minute, and he didn’t say either way. Is he the one who spoiled the bloody surprise?’
Ethan was invited? And he didn’t accept?
‘No, I figured it out,’ I tell her as the cardboard cone of a party hat is placed on my head, the elastic band twanging underneath my chin. ‘From something Oliver said. Mostly the word “picnic”.’
