A Week of Mondays (7 page)

From the parking lot, I follow the sounds of laughter and screams and the smell of cooking meat. I can see the Ferris wheel in the distance, all lit up and spinning, and my stomach turns.

I once watched a documentary about traveling carnivals. Some poor girl in Nebraska apparently lost both of her arms riding the bumper cars. The bumper cars! And they stay on the
ground
.

No, stop.

No one is getting murdered or dismembered. Tonight will be perfect.

If there ever was a time to get over my fear of heights, this is it.

I think back to that couple I stalked when I was ten years old. This carnival transformed them. The lights, the music, the sugar, it turned them into Romeo and Juliet, Cleopatra and Mark Antony, Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy, Taylor Swift and … well, whoever she's with now.

Obviously I didn't know the couple's names or anything about them, so I made up my own names and gave them backstories.

He was the strong, silent type. A gentleman who liked to listen to her speak. He needed a simple yet dashing name. I chose Dr. Jason Halloway. I decided they'd met at an urgent care animal hospital in the middle of the night. He was the veterinarian on call at two a.m. when she—Annabelle Stevenson, avid animal lover and owner of six dogs—brought her eight-month-old golden retriever in after he accidentally swallowed a golf ball. Dr. Halloway, looking irresistibly cute in his white coat and rumpled hair, performed one emergency procedure on the dog, and another on Annabelle's heart.

They'd been inseparable ever since.

I've been imagining myself in Annabelle's shoes for six years now. I just never had the guy. Now I do.

Jason and Annabelle's night ended with a kiss atop the Ferris wheel. And I'm determined that mine will, too.

I take a deep breath and start walking. Tristan and I are supposed to meet in front of the ticket booth at 7:15. I check my phone and notice that he's texted me, saying he's going to be late. My shoulders droop slightly in disappointment. I text him back and tell him I'll be at the carnival games.

I find an empty seat at the horse race game and slide in, feeding a dollar bill into the slot.

A buzzer rings and a recorded voice calls out, “And they're off!” as a red ball rolls down the ramp in front of me. I watch my neighbor, trying to figure out how this game works. It appears all you have to do is roll the little ball up the ramp and try to get it into one of the holes marked with the numbers one, two, and three. If you sink the ball into the three hole, your horse moves three paces ahead.

Easy enough.

I chuck the ball up the ramp and watch in dismay as it bounces around the edges of each hole and then rolls back to me. I glance up at my horse—the green one with the number eight on his back. He doesn't budge.

I try a few more times, but I'm still unable to sink the ball into any of the holes. The other horses are soaring past me now, racing toward the finish, while my lame number eight is still at the starting line.

What is wrong with this game?

Does my horse have a broken leg?

I'm a junior varsity softball player for a state champion team. You would think I could roll a stupid ball into a stupid hole.

The ball comes back to me and I give it another try, this time light and easy, barely a flick of my wrist. The ball glides up the ramp and drops right into the number-one hole. I throw my hands in the air and let out a whoop. I did it!

The buzzer rings, startling me.

“And we have a winner!” the virtual announcer says. “The lucky number two!”

Wait, what?

Someone won already? Didn't we just start? I peer up at the horses. The one with the red number-two jersey is waiting patiently at the finish line, while my slow horse is still way back at the beginning, having moved only one pace thanks to my
one
sunken ball.

Wow. I really suck at this game.

I'm about to try my luck again when a shadow falls over me and I turn to see Tristan standing there. I jump from my stool and throw my arms around him. “Hi! You're here! Isn't this amazing?”

He shrugs and I carefully disentangle myself from him. When I pull back I see he's frowning and his whole body language is off.

“What's wrong?” I ask.

He jerks a thumb over his shoulder. “I just passed the stage.”

I glance in the direction he's pointing. There's a giant makeshift theater on the far side of the fairgrounds. It's empty and dark. “So?”

“So?” he repeats, agitated. “There's no one playing on it! I've been trying to get Whack-a-Mole a gig at this carnival for weeks and they kept telling me it was full.”

I can feel my perfect fantasy evening slipping away. I have to get Tristan out of his funk. He can't be like this all night. We have prizes to win and junk food to eat and Ferris wheels to ride.

“Maybe it was a last-minute cancellation,” I speculate.

“It was,” he grumbles.

Tristan is rarely in a bad mood. He's just not the type.

“So, there you go!” I say brightly.

But this only seems to have the opposite effect on him. His head drops and he stares at the ground. “I wish we knew about the cancellation. We could have performed tonight. We could have rocked this place. All these people would have heard our music. It's such a waste.”

Panic flares in my chest. He's getting more and more upset about this. I need to shut it down.

I rub his arm. “I have something that might cheer you up.”

He peers at me through his lashes and I nearly swoon. “What's that?”

I go through my mental list of the activities that made up Jason and Annabelle's enchanted evening. “How about the bumper cars?”

Jason and Annabelle waited in line for ten minutes for those bumper cars. Then they hopped in the same car and he drove while she called out directions and pointed out targets, squealing in delight and grasping his leg every time they collided with someone. By the end, they were both laughing so hard, they couldn't even get out of the car. A carnival attendant had to walk over and tell them to leave.

The bumper cars are sure to cheer up Tristan. It's rear-ending people on purpose. What better way to work out your aggression?

“I'll let you drive,” I add, sweetening the offer.

He presses his lips together, like he's contemplating the idea, but then he shakes his head. “Actually, I don't think I'm going to stay.”

My heart fills with lead and sinks into the pit of my stomach.

“What? But you just got here.” I don't mean to sound so whiny, but I do.

“I know,” he says and, for the first time, I notice that he won't meet my eye. “I think I should meet up with the band and strategize. We haven't had a gig in a few weeks and we need to do something about that.”

I nod sympathetically. “Of course. I'll come with you. I have some great ideas about—”

Tristan puts his hands on both of my shoulders, like he's trying to keep me from blowing away. Yet he still won't look at me. “No. You should stay here. I actually just came by to talk to you about something. I didn't want to do it over the phone.”

I try to swallow but my mouth is suddenly dry. “Okay.”

“Ellie,” he begins, his voice cracked and uncertain. He clears his throat. “I can't do this anymore.”

“What? The carnival?”

“No.” He bites his lip. “I mean,
us
.”

My breath instantly grows shallow. Someone has locked my lungs in a too-small cage and thrown away the key. I watch, stunned and transfixed, as Tristan presses his thumb against each of his fingernails, like he's checking to make sure they're all there. It's one of his little nervous tics. Something he does before he goes on stage. It used to be so endearing. Now it feels like a sign of the apocalypse.

He closes his eyes. “I'm confused, Ellie. I'm so confused. I don't know what to tell you. I wish I had all the answers, but I don't. I just know that it's not working. You and me. We're not working. Something is broken and I don't know how to fix it. I don't know if it
can
be fixed.”

I open my mouth to speak, to say all the things my heart wants to say.

What's broken?

We
can
fix it. I know we can.

I love you.

But my tongue is useless. Only air escapes.

And then tears.

Tears I try to hold back. Tears I don't want this entire carnival to see.

Tears that fall anyway.

“Oh, Ellie,” Tristan says. His voice is so soft. So full of compassion. It makes me cry harder.

I can feel his hand encircle mine. I can see the scenery around us changing as he leads me to a nearby bench and makes me sit. I can't seem to feel the ground beneath my feet. I can't seem to feel my feet
period
. Are they still attached to my ankles?

Tristan plops down next to me, keeping my hand tightly clasped in his. “I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. It breaks my heart to do this, because I really did care for you. I still do. I mean, I always will. We had something good. Really good. Something I've never had before. It just … I don't know … fell apart somehow. I wish it could have been different. I wish I didn't feel this way, but I do. And I have to stay true to how I feel.”

“B-b-but,” I stutter between quiet sobs. That's all I manage to get out, though. The rest of the words—whatever they are—remain trapped inside me.

Tristan lets go of my hand and it feels so final. Like I'll never touch him again. Like I'll never feel his warmth. Shiver at his touch. Fall powerless to his gaze. “It'll be okay,” he says to me. “You'll be okay.”

I want to scream at him that I won't. That I'll never be okay. That I'll never stop loving him. But the only thing that comes out is another sob.

And now people are taking notice. Passersby are stopping. Nosy eavesdroppers are whispering.

I can't be here. I can't have this breakdown here. In front of everyone.

I leap to my feet and take off into the crowd. I swear I hear Tristan's voice calling after me but I don't turn around. Why would I? What could he possibly want to tell me? How sorry he is again? How certain he is that I'll be fine? How broken up he is about this?

What good will any of that do?

There's a crowd of people gathered around the ring toss game, watching someone toss rings at glass bottles like it's a freaking spectator sport. Normally I would politely excuse myself, tap shoulders, and give gentle nudges. But not today. I shove people aside with my shoulders, swatting at my tears with the back of my hand.

I manage to muscle through the throng of onlookers when someone catches me by the arm. I turn around to see Owen, his eyebrows knit together as he takes in my disheveled state.

“Ells?” he asks, his face a giant question mark.

But I can't talk to him either. I shake him loose and continue into the sea of people.

I half expect Tristan to catch up to me, having suddenly changed his mind and wanting to take back everything he said. But he doesn't.

I push through the crowd alone.

I run for the parking lot alone.

I collapse into my car, press my cheek against the steering wheel, and cry alone.

 

I Say a Little Prayer

8:22 p.m.

Have you ever noticed how many worlds there are out there? Infinite. An infinite number of worlds. And they all function separately from each other. Like unrelated specks of dirt floating in the air. Sometimes two specks will collide, momentarily affecting each other, but most of the time they just keep on floating, completely unaware that any other specks exist.

You don't really stop to think about this phenomenon until
your
world—your tiny speck of dust that feels more like a planet than a particle—completely falls apart and no one else seems to notice. No one else seems to care. Because their worlds just keep on turning. Keep on zooming obliviously through space, while you're being sucked into a black hole.

That's exactly what's happening to me right now.

My world has disintegrated. My life is over. And yet the cars on the road don't swerve out of the way to let me pass. They go on driving.

Oblivious.

When I get home, the lights are off in the living room and kitchen, and I climb the stairs to hear my parents arguing behind their closed bedroom door.

Oblivious.

When I drag myself down the hallway, I pass Hadley's open door and hear the familiar dialogue from
The Breakfast Club
. Surprise, surprise. Why does she watch the same movies over and over again?

She, too, is oblivious.

Oblivious to my heartache. Oblivious to the end of everything.

Sure, I could tell Hadley. I could stand in the middle of this hallway and shout at the top of my lungs,
My life is over! My heart is crushed! My world will never be the same!

But what's the point? Of anything, really.

They won't understand. My parents will spout some nonsense about how it's only high school and I have my whole life ahead of me to fall in love again.

Blah blah blah.

And my sister will try to cheer me up by plagiarizing some line from a teen movie. As if every adolescent problem has already been solved by John Hughes.

I take another step toward my room, causing the floorboards to creak. Hadley looks up from the glow of her TV screen. “Hey!” she says brightly. She must not be able to see the smudge of tears and mascara on my face because I'm cast in shadow. “Wanna watch? I can start it over from the beginning.”

I shake my head and mumble, “No.”

Then I retreat to my bedroom and shut the door softly, before collapsing on my bed in a fit of quiet sobs and deafening grief.