It’s never too late to do sun salutations or read old diaries

I’ve been doing several a day since I arrived in California on Thursday morning. My iPhone says it’s 65 degrees out, but it’s been in the late 70s this whole time, and I forgot how much I miss the intensity of the west coast sun. Not just the heat, but the friendliness of the people, the quality Mexican food, the beach, the gelato, the way no one seems to go by any particular schedule or look at the clock. Why did it take so long for my mom to move from suburbia to the beach? This is truly incredible, and I fall asleep right away because we’re right by the water.

Since moving back east, where the weather always sucks, I’ve really grown to appreciate how easy I had it growing up in northern California. Sure the mornings were chilly, but the sun came up before noon everyday and I never owned a jacket. Now I live in ugly, cock blocking, totally disgusting clothes six months out of the year to avoid freezing to death. At least winter is over, but few things pain me more than looking like an Eskimo from November to April. I’m seriously thinking about just refusing to put on a coat next winter. Life is too short to resemble the kid from “A Christmas Story.”

Anyway, being home has been awesome, and tomorrow, I get to see my childhood best buddies, Nikita, Crystal, and Lauren, and I can already hear the much-needed laugh attacks.

In 2001

From left: Lauren, Nikita, Crystal, and me

Speaking of laugh attacks, I had one last night when I read one of my diaries from junior year of high school. I look back on a lot of my teenage journals and want to smack younger me for taking something the wrong way or being overdramatic about a situation that didn’t go in my favor, and I’ll probably react similarly when I read this blog in five years. Here’s my response to my high school boyfriend “ditching” me for his friends toward the end of my junior year and his senior year. It’s quite entertaining, and I just wish I could tell 16-year-old me to chill out and leave the poor guy alone. That said, he did end up breaking up with me soon after his graduation, so I think my intense reaction stemmed from the fact that I knew deep down he was investing less and less in me with each passing day. Still, epic LOLs:

“Yesterday I was kind of mean to Kevin because he was with his friends. He didn’t walk up to me or say hi at all during recess, so I approached him and he just continued talking to his friends about knives [LOL!] and didn’t listen when I asked a question. Then I walked away for a bit and he eventually came by for a second, but he didn’t walk me to class, so I left in tears [LOLX2]. Then during lunch, he briefly talked to me and then left to go hang out with his friends in Santa Cruz. Oh, and get this: he didn’t even say goodbye when I walked after him. I spent the rest of lunch moping to my friends. In history class, I sent him a text message, to which he didn’t reply, so I sent another saying, ‘Fine, don’t talk to me ALL DAY.’ Then the class watched ‘Pearl Harbor,’ which made me cry even more [LOLs].

After school was track practice, where Kevin and I talked things over. I admitted I was upset because he seemed to be ignoring me and he just said he hadn’t seen his friends in a long time and wanted to visit with them. Then he reminded me, ‘I would never ignore you. I love you.’

I guess I was being selfish, but it just made me sad because he’s always with me and suddenly he wasn’t. But he’s done a lot for me, so the least I can do is back off.”

It’s funny how little it took to make me turn on the waterworks back then. I can’t really cry over a member of the opposite sex anymore. Believe me, I’ve tried, but more often than not, I’m angry/irritated, not so much heartbroken. You can only cry about boys so many times before your default move is to resent one when he lets you down in some way. The point is, these days I just get annoyed and walk away rather than sob and yell, “WHY DON’T YOU LOVE ME MORE?!”

In the same diary, I chronicled my first big NYC trip, which I took with my drama class since I was big into theater back then. It’s fascinating to read now that I’m actually living there:

“Wow, what an experience. I just finished my Drama trip to New York City, and it was totally unforgettable. I was highly inspired by the end of it to pursue my dream of writing. I know I’ll get there, but writing is such a strange goal when you’re in high school because it’s tough to act on. I’ve tried getting a few internships at The Banner and wrote a couple of columns for The Last Weekend, and that’s about as much as I can find right now. Scotts  Valley just doesn’t have the opportunities I need, but New York does.

Monday was hectic because the group flew as a unit and spent the whole day traveling. I was stressed, and I wanted to see Kevin. I kept looking at his photos throughout the trip, and the others with boyfriends and girlfriends did the same. We went to a restaurant called Carnegie’s that’s supposedly pretty famous in New York. That was my first taste of NYC overpricing. A single grilled cheese sandwich cost me $9.25, a bottle of lemonade was $1.25, and I paid $7.95 for a gross piece of chocolate cheesecake. Yikes. That was when I learned I really needed to manage my $180 for the week.”

Little did I know, that was only the beginning! Hello, upper east side rent.

I’ve figured out the perfect way to fend off creepers

Anyone who keeps up with me in even the smallest capacity knows I’ve spent a lot of time writing about creepers over the past few years. I’ll admit I get a little carried away sometimes, but even those who disagree with my efforts have laughed at some of the things I’ve done. I started a creeper documentation blog back in college, and even Anderson Coop made fun of me for it a while back.

Jokes aside, I think street harassment should be illegal or at least acknowledged by lawmakers, as women find themselves being verbally and/or visually undressed multiple times a day by disgusting pigs. Some of us simply aim to get from A to B without being sexually harassed, and unfortunately this is an unrealistic thing to want in our culture.

The Hollaback! movement is doing a fabulous job holding creepers accountable, and while I’ve definitely called men out for their chauvinistic, violating behavior before, I have a new approach I prefer: I get weird on these guys.

Like many ladies in NYC, I’ve been catcalled more times than I can count. Some have told me to quit “bragging” about being creeped on, but as creeper victims know firsthand, there is NOTHING flattering or boast-worthy about attention of this kind, and I’m often approached when I look and feel repulsive (post-gym/post-work, when I’m most irritable). So when I’ve encountered it and been in a sour mood, I’ve lost my shit on these creepers. I’ve threatened to post their pictures on the internet, told them to fuck their mothers (rude, I know, but so is demanding a random girl on the sidewalk to blow what is undoubtedly your underwhelming cock), and, in some cases, said, “Is this how you’d like someone to talk to your mother, your daughter, or your sister? You’re perpetuating a hostile and unsafe environment for women. Shame on you.”

More often than not, they cower in embarrassment, and while this means I’ve technically “won” the absurd war that shouldn’t exist in the first place, I never feel better afterward. I feel a rage burning in my chest, and my day has been poisoned because I chose to be malicious to some creeper who is not worth an ounce of my energy.

So what do I do now when creepers bug me? I bring out my daffy sense of humor and make faces.

Take last night, for example. On a subway ride to midtown, this old guy would not stop staring in my direction. Once I was certain he was looking at me and not just zoning out, I began making blowfish faces and sticking out my tongue. He didn’t stop staring, but his look morphed from predatory to downright disturbed. I successfully turned the tables on him and he didn’t know what to do. Objectifying me, however, was no longer an option.

Something similar happened on the subway platform last week. When one guy wouldn’t look away from me, I popped my jaw out of place, sounding off the room with an ear-piercing crack. That’s another thing: I have a bum jaw and can take it out of its socket at any given time, which frightens a lot of folks. I’m technically never supposed to do this, but I do when it’s especially tight or I want to fuck with people. So I did it the other night, and unfortunately, the guy seemed to find it cute, as he popped his jaw out of place moments later. I can’t help it if others are nuttier than I am, but I am off to a good start with this creeper prevention strategy.

I know what you’re thinking: Laura, how old are you? Twenty years younger than my actual age (that would make me around 5), but that’s not the point.

The truth is, I don’t like the negative mood I’m in after I call men out for bothering me, but I don’t want them to think it’s OK to look at me like a piece of meat they plan on ripping to shreds, so I make myself as hideous and silly as possible. Hey, I’m not on the subway to pick up guys, and I actually enjoy being ridiculously goofy. I grew up watching Jim Carrey and other slapstick comedians, so funny faces suit me. If these creepers get to creep on me, I get to be weird and ugly. Believe it or not, it’s quite therapeutic to make fugly expressions. I’m the queen of them, and once creepshows realize that, they’re like, “What the hell?” How’s that for a gamechanger?

It’s kind of a genius plan. Nobody’s feelings are hurt. No one runs away livid. No one tells anyone to go fuck their mother. No one receives a sexism lecture. I get to channel my inner elementary school student/wannabe comedian and creepers get a funny story to share with their other creeper friends. I’ve only done this three times since last night, but the results have all been amazing. I have one more thing to laugh about each day and don’t need to blow up on someone to reach that point.

Call me insane, disrespectful, whatever works best for you, but I like this method, and I’m sad I didn’t think of it earlier.

I can’t be the only one who loves commas this much

When it comes to writers, I’m not the best out there. I’ve earned most of my editorial/writing positions based on stamina and persistence, not talent (as joyless commenters at my college newspaper loved to remind me). I never stop practicing, but I’ll never be on par with gems such as Jonathan Franzen or David Foster Wallace. I don’t aspire to have careers like theirs, and that’s fine.

That said, I do become sad and even a little disappointed when people fail to use commas. I don’t go crazy with commas, but I do use them every time there’s a break in one of my lines. I find myself advising new writers all the time, “If you hear a pause, insert a comma.” Not everyone wants to honor the comma, and this brings out the worst in me. Don’t you want to give your readers the extra second or two to process your phrase? Don’t you want to split up your thoughts to give each of them the time they deserve?

I don’t mean to complain or criticize. Really, to each his own. There are plenty of writing rules I break on a regular basis, but for some reason, it physically pains me when writers overlook the value of a comma.

Do you have any writing pet peeves? Share with me in the comments section. I’d love to hear all about them, even if I rub you the wrong way with my own preferences I rarely capitalize anything on Twitter, and boy, does that bug some of my followers!

A centipede is on the loose in my bedroom

Remember when I was taunted by centipedes last fall? It’s happening again. A giant, long-legged centipede just stormed into my room like he owned the place and ran into my closet, surely making himself at home in one of my pairs of boots. Imagine slipping on your shoes before work only to step on a venomous, hideous bug. That’s not how I like to start my days, and I certainly don’t like to end them worrying about evil centipedes.

Lord knows I’m not getting any sleep tonight. Any advice on how to take on these multi-legged demons? How can I find, better yet, kill him when he moves so quickly? Knowing my luck, he’ll creep up on me just as I’m settling into bed, tip toe across my skin, and assault.

So, experts: How do I exterminate this dude and his hidden cronies? They roam in packs, so I know he isn’t the only one of his kind in this apartment.

This isn’t going to be a fun night for me. As the old adage goes, “[I]f you enjoy frightening others, you will be reborn as a centipede.”

I recognize that ‘love is louder,’ but mean-spirited jokes can be deafening

In early spring 2001, my mom and I went to our town’s community center so I could sign up for pop warner cheerleading camp. I’d been wanting to revisit my childhood love for dance in a slightly different way, and I enjoyed the spirited attitude expected of cheerleaders. As much as I would have liked to cheer for my middle school, I wasn’t sure I wanted to risk getting made fun of by my classmates, who seemed to think they had more than enough material for a lifetime to draw from, so I chose to join a team just outside of town, where no one knew anything about my less-than-favorable jr. high identity. My parents refused to let me switch schools, but this could be my chance to start fresh, to have a life independent of my hellscape of a school.

Naturally, I did bump into some people from SVMS that night. There were three sixth grade girls eyeing and laughing at me, and I remember being puzzled as to why they were acting that way. I was a year ahead of them and they weren’t part of the usual crowd that poked fun at me, so I was at a loss.

Once I got home and my parents were done congratulating me, I mentioned the gawking girls to my dad, who became visibly angry within moments. Not at the students, but at me.

“Laura, I’m the first to come to your defense with bullies, but you have got to stop thinking everyone is out to get you,” he said, muting the TV. “People don’t have time to think about you as much as you think they do.”

“But this happens a lot, Dad,” I yelled, certain he just didn’t get the situation.

“Then fight back. Do something other than whine everyday. I don’t want to hear it.”

Call it tough love, a reality check, or downright cruel, my father was trying to help me. Though he was almost always right, he was wrong about that particular incident. As I learned the following day via AOL Instant Messenger, the group of girls had, in fact, been making fun of me at cheer registration. They ended up being the least of my problems, but what I learned from all this was that I wasn’t totally crazy or imagining things. I was being mocked, and even now I can always tell when someone is slighting me in even the most discreet of ways. I know because I spent my entire life training myself to drown out the laughter, overlook the eyerolling, ignore the smirks, and turn my head at all instances of mean-spirited gestures. Rather than master it, however, I became hypersensitive to it, and it haunts me on a regular basis.

A couple of months ago, I babysat for a precocious little boy with strong observational skills but issues processing his surroundings. Someone could mention Scooby Doo and he’d start talking about castles. To us, that would seem non-sequitur, but not to him, as Scooby Doo runs off to a castle in one of the books his parents bought for him. He has an interesting way of perceiving things, and I found myself telling his mother I saw a lot of myself in him.

“Someone will say something to me and I’ll take it the wrong way,” I confessed. “Usually I assume the worst. That whoever I’m talking to is trying to put me down.”

“You have a bad doorman in your head,” she said. “You let the wrong thoughts up.”

I’ve talked to a few professionals about this before, and one psychiatrist chalked it up to rejection sensitivity and my previous experiences with harassment. I don’t assume everyone wants to hurt me, but when I do feel targeted, I become defensive. This happened recently, and I tried explaining to the other party that I’m not merely trying to create problems, but suspicious because I can detect humor at another person’s expense from a mile away.

As to be expected, the person said it was all in my head, but had nothing to say when I pointed out that it’s really frustrating when someone laughs, makes faces, whispers, or rolls his/her eyes every time you speak. Whether there’s a connection or not, it’s hard to ignore and very distracting, if anything because there’s a joke going on that nobody wants to share with you. Exclusion is another form of bullying, in my opinion, at least in certain situations.

I’m even more aware of this now because of something that happened last spring. I used to go out a lot with my friend Sarah’s college buddies, and after a night at the bar, she pulled me aside and asked whether I’d noticed her pal “Jessica” making fun of me all evening.

“A little, but I wasn’t paying much attention,” I said.

“Well, she rolled her eyes every single time you spoke,” my friend said. “It really pissed me off. She doesn’t like you and that’s her way of bringing you down.”

“She doesn’t have to like me. She’s your friend, not mine.”

“But she shouldn’t laugh at everything you say.”

To be honest, I wasn’t offended. This girl wasn’t my friend, but when people I care about or know relatively well have ongoing jokes about me behind my back, or worse, quietly in my presence, it’s painful and confusing.

More often than not, I need to avoid taking things so personally, but as I realized in seventh grade, I’m not always wrong about situations of this nature. Not everything is about me, but when I am the subject of a joke on a regular basis, I just want to sit these folks down and ask why they feel the need to put somebody else down. To those of you who connect with others through mutual hatred of another person: Do you really want to spend so much energy belittling others when you could be working toward something positive in your own life? Come on now. Don’t spend your entire night at a bar talking and thinking about how much you despise a girl who happens to be having a really awesome time.

Can I fulfill the promise I made 16 years ago?

My mom found an old journal of mine a couple of months back and scanned a few pages onto the internet for kicks. Everything about the notebook is funny, but the “P.S.” line on this sheet of paper sticks out to me most:

“P.S. I will write interesting stories.” Can I do it, folks? Have I at least gotten close in the decade and a half since I documented my commitment? I sure hope so, otherwise there’s really no hope for me at all. This diary (or journal … apparently I was battling with what to call it) chronicles my 1997 relocation from Los Angeles to nor Cal, a major transition time for me and my family. Here’s what else I had to say about 9-year-old life:

Never underestimate the confidence of someone who is still in the single digits. Should we all go back to our elementary school personas every once in a while to gain some perspective? My work ethic would take a dip, but I’d be a lot more outspoken!

Cheers to our younger selves:

Courage Wolf is my new BFF

It’s a ‘Wingmen’ kind of day

Remember that time I wrote a book?

People ask me about it all the time, and more often than not, I don’t really want to talk about it. The fact is, I spent six years straight with this story, so by the time I finally chose to share it with the world, I was ready to put everything associated with it behind me, at least mentally. When you write a roman a clef based on the most difficult experience of your life, you want a little bit of separation when you can finally get it.

Anyway, May 12 feels like a good day to draw attention to the story, which I miss every once in a while. As most of you know, the main character Molly is 17-year-old me, and as great as it feels to no longer have to think about that period of my life anymore as I did while I was writing about it, sometimes I want to revisit the character, who Sami Gardner describes as “so earnestly eighteen as she tries to navigate those first torturous steps into adulthood. Donovan creates a sympathetic character in Molly who grounds the story. She feels like a real girl so you can’t help but root for her.” I get caught up in a lot of weirdness here in NYC, and while having a terminally ill parent in high school certainly isn’t normal, I’m nostalgic about my youth on occasion, as I only concerned myself with one thing at a time then, and that felt simple. There’s a great deal of innocence and naivete in “Molly” that is completely gone, so I reread certain passages of “The Wingmen” today, the 7-year anniversary of the death of the person I loved most in this world.

You can hear more about “The Wingmen” through my old podcast with Matt Lewis, who remains one of my biggest champions and cheerleaders for reasons I’ll never fully understand.

Here are some of the intro scenes in “The Wingmen,” if you’re so inclined to check it out:

Prologue

April 27, 2006

From the doorway, I could see his pill bottle. The transparent orange tube, which should have been empty, was half-full and sealed shut on my father’s nightstand. I sighed, knowing he’d refuse to take cancer medication from his 17-year-old daughter. The last time I’d told him to swallow his pills, he accused me of conspiring against him with “the others” (our family members) and throwing him under the bus, an ultimate betrayal.

Stepping into my parents’ room, I called his name several times. It wasn’t until I started singing Frank Sinatra’s “New York, New York” that he jolted back to consciousness and acknowledged my presence.

“I want to wake up in that city that never sleeps,” he crooned, waiting for me to cut in and chant the rest of the lyrics.

And find I’m king of the hill, top of the heap. I longed to belt out the entire song, an incomparable homage to the place where he spent his college years and 20s, a tourist hotspot I desperately wanted to explore, but medicine time didn’t lend itself to jovial renditions of tunes about the greatest city in the world.

“Dad, you need your pills,” I said, picking up the container.

For a while, he merely stared in my direction, his cataracts making my skin crawl. His washed-out gaze reminded me of our late cat Cuddles, who had passed away from kidney failure a year earlier, so I tried to focus on another part of his body. I had no interest in stealing even a glimpse of his legs, which had shrunk to the size of chicken limbs. His cheekbones looked ready to poke through his jaundiced skin, which was sprinkled with brown liver spots resembling bruises. There was nothing good to see, so I reluctantly went back to his filmy eyes, both of which had been identical to my own just a month earlier.

“No,” he said.

A loose cannon, I lacked the patience for any kind of defiance. Was I going to have to pry open the lips of my own dad, who was 40 years my senior? Was I even capable of exerting such force and aggression on the person I loved most in the world? I wasn’t sure, but I did know he was beginning to frighten me.

“Please just listen to me, okay?” I begged, my heart rate through the roof. “If you don’t take these, you’ll die.”

“Good. I’m too exhausted to do anything,” he said.

“You can wash them down with water. It’ll be over before you know it and you can go back to bed.”

“Why are you so hard on me nowadays, Molly?” he asked. “You used to be on my side. I was your favorite person in this whole family. When did that change? What did I do to you?”

He couldn’t see it, but there were no “sides” and I wasn’t ganging up on him. Before I could explain that I simply wanted him to watch me get married someday (but not escort me down the aisle, as I found the tradition archaic and creepy), detect unfit romantic suitors, ask my future kids to be his wingmen before taking them to Baskin-Robbins as he’d done with me my entire life, and coach me through adulthood—his eyes shut. It was unclear whether he had fallen asleep or was putting on an act to scare me away, but he didn’t answer when I started pleading with him to stay awake.

“Great,” I mumbled, shaking his shoulders back and forth. When he wouldn’t budge, my panting intensified and several possible explanations came to mind. What if I’d waited too long to give him his meds? What if my biggest fear—that he would pass away in front of me—had finally become a reality?

Clutching my dad’s prescription bottle, I rushed to the kitchen to find my silver Samsung flip phone. Skimming my contact list, I wondered whether there was anyone I could call, other than my mother. She had meetings all day, and because I’d inherited her workaholic tendencies, I knew better than anyone did that she needed her professional life to escape from the bleakness of our home situation every once in a while. My 24-year-old brother Chase was accompanying his pregnant wife Amy to a doctor appointment. Somewhere in Newport Beach, his twin Chris was working tirelessly and running on no sleep. In Los Angeles, my rebellious 22-year-old sister Marissa was managing her new bohemian clothing store, which was taking longer to become a hit than she’d expected. For once, my siblings and parents couldn’t come to my rescue. It was all on me.

I need Jon, I thought, but resisted phoning my first love and ex-boyfriend for emergency advice. Chances were, he’d see an incoming call from me and hit the “Ignore” button. I didn’t have time for pettiness and lamented that he was among the few people I knew who could actually be of some help in that particular scenario. A seasoned camper with a love for all things outdoors, he could provide information on all sorts of remedies for sicknesses, wounds, and health conditions. But I didn’t dare reach out to him. He had been ignoring me for four months, long after he had learned of my dad’s diagnosis, and that wasn’t about to change. I may not have been an adult, but I knew one thing: fear and rejection are not a good combination.

After tossing my phone onto the blue couch, I charged back upstairs, naively hoping to return to a better situation than I’d left behind.

Chapter one

“She hoped to be wise and reasonable in time; but alas! Alas! She must confess to herself that she was not wise yet.” – Jane Austen, “Persuasion”

August 25, 2005

Scotts Valley, California

The first surprise that night was the humidity. There are many perks to my California hometown, among the best being its dryness, so I was perplexed by the suffocating heat sweeping across the Bay Area so late in the summer. I tried not to think about it as I waited outside my house for Jon, my boyfriend of seven months, to arrive.

It was actually our seven-month anniversary, which felt like an epic milestone, so I was a little surprised that he hadn’t said a word about it all day or responded to my late afternoon “happy seven-month anniversary” text message. Was it something I said? What did I do?, my 17-year-old self wondered, willing him to love me as much as I loved him, as usual.

Though we definitely had an unbalanced relationship, he’d always done nice things for me. During previous anniversaries, he’d showered me with roses, boxes of See’s chocolates, and dog-themed Hallmark cards that featured Pomeranians, as I had one of my own and loved her very much. With the exception of the flowers, I presented him with similar gifts and my famous chocolate chip cookies—the only thing I could bake. Given his flair for romantic gestures and ability to outdo himself pretty much every month, his tardiness and general unresponsiveness were out of character.

An hour earlier, Jon had asked whether he could come to the house. I’d said yes and ended our short exchange with “I love you,” my default response. Rather than reflexively say it back, he hung up the phone. Something wasn’t right.

When 9 o’clock rolled around and there was still no sign of Jon or his Prius, I began to pace my front porch, which was still damp from an unexpected afternoon downpour. The dark sky reminded me of my dad’s detailed explanation of the summer solstice sun cycle, which had been a major talking point in our household for as long as I could remember.

On June 21 of each year, my dad told us the story of summer solstice, and one of the things I never forgot was that nighttime begins a minute earlier every day after that. The early nightfall made me think about something else, too—that summer was ending.

Unlike most people about to start their final year of high school, I had no desire to be a senior. My boyfriend had just finished up at Scotts Valley High, making him my “high school sweetheart,” a title connoting a memorable chapter in life that inevitably ends, and often badly.

A driven young man with out-of-this-world ambition, my significant other had good reason to be excited for his future. Since birth, he’d wanted to attend Harvard and obtain a law degree. Before turning 18, Jon had acquired his pilot’s license, become a star wrestler and debate team champion, won chess championships, and become a junior wilderness guide. Each accomplishment, he said, would boost his chances of going to school in Massachusetts, his birthplace. He’d lived in Cambridge until Kindergarten, when he moved across the country with his father and stepmom. Though primarily raised in California, Jon felt pretty misplaced among laidback west coast residents, especially since he preferred Lacoste shirts and peacoats to the sandals and shorts look. That evening, I reflected on the first time he gushed about his Harvard dream, which governed his every move.

“I’ve wanted to be an Ivy Leaguer since I was this tall,” he’d said, lowering his hand down to his hips. “I remember saying it at age seven. I was sitting on the couch watching a movie when I promised myself I’d find my way back to Massachusetts. And I’ve wanted it for myself ever since.”

I was impressed by his drive, which drew me to him in the first place. After all, I dreamed of becoming a famous author, the “next J.K. Rowling,” so to speak. I doubted I could pull it off, as fantasy writing wasn’t my thing, but aimed high regardless. Jon appreciated that I wanted the world for myself. Even so, he’d recently used his own goals to distance himself from me, implying that our days together were numbered and that our relationship had always had an expiration date.

Luckily for him, his dreams were about to come true: he was just days away from leaving for Harvard. Though I’d hoped to maintain a long distance relationship, at least during his first few months in college, Jon wasn’t keen on this plan of action. He said what we had was never meant to last beyond his high school years. And because I was a year behind him, well, it sucked to be me.

I first noticed the headlights, but as the car drove past a few more homes, I recognized the curvy shape of Jon’s green Prius. Though I assumed he wasn’t paying attention to me, I smiled and waved as he parked in my driveway.

Jon put the engine to rest, but stayed in his seat a moment to end a phone call. Moments later, he stepped out of the vehicle without so much as a “hello.” I greeted him with a hug, curious as to why neither of us had said anything—and why he hadn’t shown up in his trademark North Face zip-up, boat shoes, or crimson scarf. It was super hot and all, but he never went anywhere without his preppy attire, not even in the summer.

Pushing past me, Jon climbed the steps of my porch. In our unusual silence, I heard my mom’s shrill, frantic voice coming from inside the house. She was worried about my severely ill brother Chase, who had gotten a bug on his trip to Brazil.

“Happy seven-month anniversary,” I said, forcing a grin.

“Yeah,” he replied with a swift move across the porch.

“I have an anniversary gift for you upstairs,” I said, alluding to the “Molly and Jon” photo album I’d spent several days putting together. “I’ll go get it.”

He sighed, briefly looking over his shoulder. “Want to sit outside for a few minutes?”

“Sure,” I replied, wounded.

Wrapping an arm around my bare neck, he walked me over to my mom’s bench. Once we were seated, Jon rested his head on my shoulder.

“So my brother, Chase contracted some kind of virus in Rio,” I said, hoping to ease the tension with normal conversation.

“That’s no good. It happens when you go to corrupt countries.”

I placed my hand on Jon’s leg, but he didn’t reach for me.

“I love you,” I whispered, hoping to kill the awkward vibes once and for all.

For the first time since I’d know him, Jon mirrored his stoic California motorcycle license mug shot. He didn’t smile or frown, but his blank expression was uninviting and indicative of terrible news. Sliding one hand out of his jean pocket, he rubbed the bottom of my chin. I never liked when people did that. I fought the urge to swat his hand away.

Jon leaned into my face, leading me to believe he was going to kiss my cheek. Instead, he went for my ear and began to speak in a hushed tone.

“We have to go our separate ways now.”

My heart sank. Grabbing his hand, I yanked him up from the bench with me.

“Now?” I asked. “You’re not leaving for Harvard for another two days.”

“It’s time,” he said, offering me a hug. Glancing over Jon’s shoulder, I spotted one of our neighbors shutting his car door. I wondered whether he’d overheard our exchange. Even if he hadn’t, the whole neighborhood would still learn of the breakup within 24 hours.

“Can I write to you?”

“That would be too painful for me,” he mumbled against my tangled, frizzy blond hair, which hadn’t yet adapted to the unexpected humidity.

“Yeah, right,” I whispered, fuming.

By the rehearsed nature of his line, I knew he’d repeated it to himself over and over again before showing up on my doorstep—perhaps even on the drive to my house, as many aspiring actors do before auditions.

“Look, I just want to be your friend,” I spat, equally guilty on the dishonesty front. “I don’t see why we can’t talk while you’re gone, if we keep it platonic.”

“That’s not the best way for you to move on.”

I swallowed. He glanced back at his Prius, which was still tingling from the 10-minute journey to my neighborhood.

“All right, see you later then,” I said, before Jon could tell me he had to get going.

He stared at me again, so I leaned in to kiss him goodbye. He returned the gesture for a few seconds, which I thought meant he hadn’t totally checked out of our relationship. That was the first of many wrong assumptions I’d make. Wanting our final encounter to last for memory’s sake, I intensified the kiss and pulled his hips up to my own. Once we’d moved beyond peck territory, Jon released my embrace.

“Enough. Goodbye, Molly.”

I entered the house shocked and unwilling to explain the details of the split to my overly curious mom and dad. Before either of them could corner me, I sprinted up our flight of stairs and ran into my unlit bedroom, shutting the door to the concerned shouts of my mother.

I slid to the floor with my back pressed against my bedroom door, weeping silently, hoping my parents would assume I was just moody from hosting the high school freshman orientation all day, and too drained to socialize. But sleep didn’t come easily that night, nor would it for most of my senior year.

Copyright © Laura Donovan 2013

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